that is fair, I was asleep while it happened, so I didn't get the chance to see it all with my own eyes. All I know is it killed the fuck out of that board. I wish I would have copied the error cgminer was giving me.
I have a few sinks that are the same color as the sink that fell off perhaps I should remove and take a look at the thermal tape.
Aside from being copper or aluminum color doesn't really matter for the loads put on them. I suppose they could have different tape on them though, perhaps dots vs a square. (Hope not.) The anodizing on aluminum sinks is just ascetics. If ya wanna get picky, flat black is best with measurably but still marginal better radiative dissipation.. Definitely check/re-tape the chipsinks and even better find something bigger to use. Definitely make sure there is good airflow channeled over them as well. What I mean is they were all copper, but they changed color due to the heat of the chips, http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=194516 looks like it;s the oxidation process taking place at diffrent levels of heat. I can snap some pics to show you what I mean if interested. If the copper is changing then serious trouble and probably dead chips. Max die temp is 100c and it takes more than that to make copper start changing color... 150c will start to give a bronze ish luster, around 200 serious color changes start. Good link btw. Yeah I have three cards with at least one serious color change including the card where the sink fell off. Each of those have cards have nearly every sink with with the bronzeish color. Two cards have retained their natural copper color, but they failed to ever initialize in the first place. If I can get those two cards up with the software details at least I'll have something to work with. Looks like maybe the issue could have been dealt with if we were given the proper soft specs to work with from the get go |
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that is fair, I was asleep while it happened, so I didn't get the chance to see it all with my own eyes. All I know is it killed the fuck out of that board. I wish I would have copied the error cgminer was giving me.
I have a few sinks that are the same color as the sink that fell off perhaps I should remove and take a look at the thermal tape.
Aside from being copper or aluminum color doesn't really matter for the loads put on them. I suppose they could have different tape on them though, perhaps dots vs a square. (Hope not.) The anodizing on aluminum sinks is just ascetics. If ya wanna get picky, flat black is best with measurably but still marginal better radiative dissipation.. Definitely check/re-tape the chipsinks and even better find something bigger to use. Definitely make sure there is good airflow channeled over them as well. What I mean is they were all copper, but they changed color due to the heat of the chips, http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=194516 looks like it;s the oxidation process taking place at diffrent levels of heat. I can snap some pics to show you what I mean if interested. |
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No one mention the fact that the thermal tape catches fire or they'll end up deleting it next time they are on.
Technically no it doesn't. Under high externally supplied heat source it decomposes with a lot of smoke but when heat source is removed it stops. Same with the circuit boards. Caps are more fun... They pop like a firecracker and spray their guts everywhere  The heat source of course was the A1 chip innards shorting out and being fed by the nice huge PSU's the chip getting up to at least 500C to do that. Whether the sink fell off first, leading to the meltdown who knows. Still not good no matter how ya look at it. that is fair, I was asleep while it happened, so I didn't get the chance to see it all with my own eyes. All I know is it killed the fuck out of that board. I wish I would have copied the error cgminer was giving me. I have a few sinks that are the same color as the sink that fell off perhaps I should remove and take a look at the thermal tape. |
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No one mention the fact that the thermal tape catches fire or they'll end up deleting it next time they are on.
Damn.. haven't heard about it but I'm glad to know it. Has anyone been hurt ? Nope. Just burned the chip out as the heatsink fell off. Less life threatening and more a disappointment in performance. This could well be an issue caused by their manufacture, I won't lay the blame directly on them. Just make sure not to put your miner on gas soaked rags or anything and you should be fine. |
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No one mention the fact that the thermal tape catches fire or they'll end up deleting it next time they are on.
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you can't sell more than 100% of you company
I've seen companies sell off even with debt (I'd consider that a exception to selling all of your company) unless of course you ment sell all of it have and have remaining equity.
If the can get the board issue turned around and the company sold I imagine they would clear house in terms of management and rebrand. They could just become BMT -Bitcoin Mining Technologies.
Then they could have a sweet (onion sauce) cross promotion with Subway. Or maybe as hot as the miners get they could have a subway promotion where you order a BMT with the creamy sriracha sauce and you are entered to win a miner.
But seriously if they do get it turned around, step one is to get properly working miners shipped before another order is ever taken. That includes miners to everyone who is currently sitting at home with their paper weight. And what ships should be what was advertised, case psu and all unless requested otherwise.
What they do have going for them is they don't appear to have the high profile with the media like BFL, Hash Fast and the like even though they do share a reputation. That could make them a decent candidate to take on a partner to raise capital.
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I am unfamiliar with the "grey market", could you elaborate?
Unauthorized vendors/brokers selling components of unknown origin (not directly obtained from the maker and no paper trail). Think e-bay. The parts might be good and are cheaper because they are legit factory over runs (rare) or someones surplus inventory. But - they might not be and unless one checks every single piece used against spec there is NO assurance that it will be right. Counterfeit electronic components is a very serious problem in all industries. If one is lucky they are just out-of-spec factory-rejects that failed testing and were improperly disposed of so someone dumpster dived for them to resell. There have even been cases of chips with no actual die in them! Most common is components which are an older version that have been relabeled to be a new one. Now to be fair and although they ruined the business we need to not make them look like complete outlaws.They did order from Digi and mouser, but some of the hard to place parts were ordered from "a guy I knew that had them in stock". These were for the harder to find NXP parts and LTC's. But yes,when asked for invoices/proof of purchase we were met with weeks of delays followed by a stack of papers comparable to something you'd find in one of the Junior lawyers offices in our law firm. And "sure you can make copies, but we're closing now,maybe some time next".. bs bs.. Obvious Alert : this will be taken down But how is it that you can see how you were treated and then treat your customers the exact same way. Now don't get me wrong, you guys got screwed 6 ways from sunday there is no debating that fact. And just as it looked like you turned tail and ran for the hills you re emerged with a new found respect for the community. I'm sure there was legit reasoning behind your silence, probably due to legal issue you were working out with third parties. I can accept that. What I can't accept is a "It's not that the boards don't work..." answer because the fact of the matter is the boards don't work on a technical level that you can reasonably expect your average consumer to understand nor have the knowledge to fix. If I get a faulty TV the company can't reasonably expect me to wait 4 months while they find out what was wrong in their manufacturing process or have me take the TV apart to make find the problem my self. You say it's about making bitcoin stronger not 3 month ROIs. Well you know what? It was about 3 month ROIs to your earliest orders who could have reasonably expected that if the product was indeed delivered when they were told it would be. I came to your page way later than that date. I didn't expect a 3 month ROI. I did want an Positive ROI like anyone else who is buying from you. But I didn't sink my money in to coins, I sank it into a miner. Because it's not just you or zefir that cares about what bitcoin stands for or will potentially be. It's also the adopter of the technology, not just the creators, that drive growth and acceptance. A pile of (currently) useless boards doesn't strengthen bitcoin, but getting people up on the network does. I'm going to apply the fixes you've mentioned here in this thread in the hopes of getting something working up on the next work. But I'm not going to let the equipment burn in my apartment and potentially kill someone because it slipped through the hands of your quality assurance people. |
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Mmm. Guess we gave them somethings to chew on for a while  I requested some driver info so I can get these things working. That is my hold up at the moment. I might be able to get it working without the driver info, I am still working at it. Why do you need a new driver when a couple of folks supposedly don't have a problem running the system? Because some of us do... That is like windows saying, why patch windows, it works for a few... xD That assumes that the hardware is different, don't we have the same hardware? The idea here is to make sure the driver picks up and tunes things properly. It was enough for bitmine to do the same and release a version of their firmware as well. However there are components that require detection. Like the backplane is not being picked up in my current iteration. I should be getting similar results running cgminer -DT on the firmware I am building out as I do on the regular firmware. But as I am not I need to figure out what changed in the driver. AMT would have this answer. It would save alot more time than having to reverse engineer the driver. I may go that route anyway. Bitmine bought up the markets components from the same vendors, resulting in thousands of the sets of the same components on each board. It was the proper way to do it. Our MFG/SMD fac bought from different vendors, third parties, and brokers and "where ever we could find them". Claiming it didn't matter. Resulting in different comps from different mfg's on different boards, making some work and some not. "But all the parts are exactly the same value". Actually no, after a few weeks of analysis we've found several parts from several different lots with substantially different values resulting in anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 mmf differences. All of this is our fault, we chose the mfg, we're not blaming anyone, just trying to give those of you working on diagnostics and idea as to why the components and comp mfg's/types/sizes seem to differ somewhat. Our rep is ruined sure, but at least the mfg added the extra 4%-8% on his parts resale margin. That is a shame. They really should know better than that. I hate seeing people taking advantage of other just to make a quick buck. |
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Is it possible to implement looking for a simple 'I'm alive' signal from the cards for a few seconds to give them a chance to wake up before starting the device present scan? Kinda a reverse PWR_OK function. Or quick & dirty, just delay the scan for a few seconds after power up? Delay the start of cgminer a few sec to let other background devices come alive first? Actually, raises the question of how the power-up Vdd voltage is set. Hopefully it is hard wired to start at a safe voltage until told otherwise - right?... What happens if +12v is applied without backplane communications? A while ago on BFL's blog it was said the Monarchs start up at Turbo voltages until coms are established. Power input is around 1.5x normal during that time... Dunna know if they addressed that or if the chips just needs a kick in the butt to start up. Sound familiar (kick) from the A1 dev thread ISA?  Voltage does sky rocket. If i remember rightly if you leave out the gpio cable by accident voltages go to 0.92 ish. But as its not mining its ok but you must switch off and put gpio cable back in otherwise i fear it may blow a chip or two from prolonged exposure. What amt have said previously is what we had done to revive our boards and had the vddc as high as 5.0 voltages crept to 0.87-0.88 max and mined well but tuned back down again to save blowing anything hence why one card seems to under run I'm not sure how that helps us with hardware that has already blown. It's been well documented, and then used for diagnostics by the guys here to try and figure out whats up. I mean I know this message will be gone in a second excuse they apparently want to delete anything I post regardless of temperament. It sucks when you are cordial in your dealings but are essentially blown off. That is what is resulting in bad reputation. The parts issue are completely understandable once communicated. |
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It seems like what ever wasn't fucked up by the manufacturer was fucked up by whoever was fixing their case issues or their assembly staff in general.
Do you even see a solution that could be easily fixed given their situation? Or are the current run of boards a complete loss. I'm betting IMET has put a lien on AMT property if they are claiming non-payment which would further complicate matters. Though they must have some cash reserves if they are funding a run of the tecnobit boards.
I'm just looking not to get fucked because of their mismanagement of the company.
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As far as I'm concerned they have delivered one unit. Anything that doesn't work as advertised, or is faulty (no mare where in the process the fault lies) is not a delivered product, just junk I was sent.
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Well, Woke to find the miners mining at 480, instead of the 580 where they were last night.
Turned it off, to see if that helped... It did. The middle card which was hashing at 98GHs, causing the 480, went back to hashing at 190GHs...
Came in this afternoon, it was back to 480GHs... Rebooted it, and now the middle module does not report being detected. Not to mention the chip seems to think the first module is in slot 2 and the third module seems to be in slot 4, and it does not check the fifth slot. (Checked from slot 1-4)
The cards are in physical slot 1-2-3. (2 is not responding.)
Other oddity... it came online several boots, with the same IP address. Could have been just crappy random luck. However, I suspect it is more than that. As I assume once an IP is obtained, it would try to keep it after rebooting. Thus why the page stays up and keeps refreshing.
However, PuTTYing into the miner and killing the detected cars, did nothing to make the non-replying card reply.
So, now I am hashing away at a sad 380GHs until I can remove this "non-replying" middle card, and add-in my last "possibly good card" which I have not tested yet.
It is not the cards that die, it is the controller that replies to the backplane/ras-pi that is failing. The card was running fine just as all the others were, before they stopped communicating. Rebooting is the possible source of the issue. It is either ignoring the communications, or skipping channels, or the communicating chip that reports back is failing.
Time to break out the thermal imager, to make sure this one isn't burning up behind the failed communications. It is drawing power and doing something. Just not talking to the Ras-Pi or doing actual mining.
Seems similar to one of my cards. It would pull power, especially to one chip that was starting to overheat while the other sinks on that card were warm but cooler. This was a non-hashing board that was still drawing power. Two other boards wouldn't detect but didn't heat up at all. They were properly plug in for power they just didn't seem to be drawing any (or any significant amount) I really should invest in a multimeter. |
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I've never been able to get my miner hashing using the web interface. CG Miner never initialized when I would turn on the pi. I know because every time I'd go through the steps to kill cgminer it said no process was killed. So I'd cgminer -DT get a look at what was working and enter my pool info from there. Then I'd set my minimum difficulty via the web interface in the pool I was using.
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From what I see just based on the small heatsinks of mine that have discolored is that it isn't just a issue with the chip in the 5 position.
On one of the boards that never hashed I have a completely discolored heatsink in the number three position. On other board of mine that was hashing I also have that discoloration in the chip #3 position.
issues that they have claimed to have faced ( which I do think is true, personally.)
So depending on the line it was worked on there could be at least from what was posted here a 2/5 failure rate if the boards were left running, your rig my vary depending on how many cards you got off a defective line. That is assuming only two lines had issues. Now that still doesn't speak to the issue of the other cards not being detected at all.
I did e-mail josh tonight and will be giving him a call tomorrow or the day after. We'll see if he can talk. If he says he can't I'll respect that and send any further communication to his lawyer.
I do believe that I'm going to send my equipment that needs to be RMAed to Josh care of his lawfirm and send it directly to their address with printed pictures I took of the damage. As I got a unit with manufacturing issues then I am due a new working unit and would be happy to talk to josh or his lawyers on how they would like to go about that.
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Does anyone else get the funny feeling that this Mr. Swim is actually one of the AMT crew, trying to put some side-spin on this, while not coming out directly as being associated with AMT. gag order prevents any further explanation/communication from AMT on this forum, and this Swim guy is just plain puzzling. is it Jim or Josh, trying to make excuses and/or leak info, to buy time? Alyssa turn on them? the packaging guy got fed up with is $10/hr job and turned whistle blower?
doesn't make any sense at all.
also, this one is for Phinn, notice the order #333. 33 being the magic masonic number. maybe its not a coincidence that it is a previously silent customer, with order #333, finally speaking out.
odd, very odd indeed.
Maybe Josh and Jim have turned on each other, that would be funny. |
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I hope we just get refunds and some.
I'd guess not likely. If it goes to trial maybe, but then it depends on how much they can get out of them. That could include liquidating all assets as well as those of the AMTs principal owners if charges of fraud and found to be legit. Then the lawyers get their cut, which will be hefty because they are working on contingency. Then it will be divided between everyone in the class who signs up and says they agree to the settlement or awarded damages. You do have the ability to sue them independently if you don't agree with any settlement or award reached from the class action. |
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So if Craig wins the class action lawsuit, what happens?
We all get a piece. |
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Well it appears that "clients_of_amt" sure hear a lot sitting in the waiting room. But since they shipped out miners they knew didn't work or could put their customers in danger combined with the fact that were vocal about not cooperating with those customers who sent in complaints I wonder if I should have them brought up on charges of attempted homicide.
Either way I'll have to send the picture of my burnt up chip to the attorneys handling the class action.
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New AMT theme song Sounds of Silence.
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I'm sure their lawyers have closed up shop for the day, my guess is we'll get some info early tomorrow... or never.
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