So, the immediate effect is return halves for the same work.  Miners are turned off.  Blocks are found much less frequently but the day to day cost of power remains the same and not only is the payoff per block halved to 12.5btc but the payouts are less frequent.  Sounds like a disaster.  The next difficulty then will be an quick drop.  Some miners are powered up again.  Blocks are found more quickly than expected and difficulty goes up after a short duration?

Difficulty is almost always rising.  Profit has gone to a low level compared to last year.  Miners get more efficient.  To stay profitable one must have an efficient miner.  How many early ASIC miners have already been retired for lack of efficiency.

So, when payout per block halves, if profit has been cut to a more fine margin at the current rate of 25btc/block, what happens?  Will difficulty change allowing power for solving a block to be halved?  Or will we all need to either stop mining or mine at a loss?

I make my own connections to my Antminers from my power supplies.  Suddenly the PCIE-6 connectors prices have gone up.  My ebay order purchased on 2/21 tracking shows they aren't even in the system yet and the seller is making angry sounds like I'm at fault for questioning.  I think prices going up might mean somebody is buying them up like for a big farm.          duang-it.

I recall my first S3.  I made connectors from cut-down old power supply motherboard connectors.

What nm is the BM1384?

agentcash

I'd guess their allied farm has a major purchase on the books.  

If experience is any help, when KNC opened a farm, relative of KNC management, sales to the public were depreciated, high price and slow shipping.  I got a refund so I may be wrong about what they did in the long run but I think that's accurate.  

Once a manufacturer gets to mining the old questions of Why should I sell something that can make me money? and, Why should I sell products that are going to be competing with my own mining? come to the fore.

Those questions came up early on at Butterfly Labs.  As a result they delayed shipping until the miners were looking at break even rather than profit while offering to allow prepaid future faster miners and those were shipped very late at break even.  They fought the law and the law won as the song goes.  Buyers took them to court I think it was.

I understand with these fans an S5 will run quiet and cool.  Will the stock fans run equally cool albeit louder?

Yes I changed network cables, changed the high speed switch, put a line filter on the switch (helps keep my video recordings clean of noise), just swapped the controller cards and now after 6 minutes with the switched controller cards it's 71,908-HW3, 583-HW2.  This should really be in the S3 forum not the S5, sorry, have been following S5 preparing to buy when I can.  And now I see a firmware version difference.  The high discard rate firmware is 4.6.1 and the lower rate is running 4.6.0.

Reverting to 4.6.0 has fixed the high discards.

One has discards 100x higher than another.  103,395 versus 907 nine minutes after cgminer restart on both.

I'm first trying a clean up on its power line - switching a high speed switch wall wart to another line but I suspect the controller card.

After 5 minutes 57,666 discards versus 613.  I'll shut down and clean the controller card. 

After cleaning the controller board with brake cleaner and blowing off with compressed air, running 5 minutes after cgminer restarts, 67,324 vs. 783.  Will try swapping controller board after I finish putting together a line filter for the router.

Would high discard numbers relative to another indicate a network problem?

Recalling Detroit's Monday/Friday effect, I wonder how long after the long holiday and S5's go back into production we'll see Wednesday cars?

(Just opened a fortune cookie from last night's roast port lomein and pork fried rice.  It says: Be prepared to receive something special within the week.  A bit optimistic I think.)

I've seen that my cgminer Elapsed time needs to be reset if the miner is down for a period or else the downtime is averaged into the hashrate.  I usually have an ssh session open to each miner and run a short shell script with /etc/init.d/cgminer stop && sleep 2 && /etc/init.d/cgminer start which resets the Elapsed time to zero.  Is there a Run command accessible from the GUI such that I don't need to do the restart from an ssh session?

So, the wave inverter would be powered by 12VDC batteries?  Why not power the S5 from the batteries?  The S5 needs a common 12vdc bus I think they said.  So, batteries to the 12V bus connector board and the power supplies charging the batteries.

Oh, you probably fire up a gas engine generator.  You'd need quite a few 12vdc batteries to drive miners for 2-6 hours.

Be an interesting experiment - take a miner to a fully charged car battery and flip a series switch then watch how long it keeps hashing while taking stats on remaining voltage and hashrate until it dies.

Bitmain shows C1 available to purchase but won't ship until after the holidays.  The S5 is in a sold out status.  I see their top offering is hosted S5's on Hashfast.net but those are sold out as well.

I wonder what the Bitmain supported S5 farm means as far as quality of any S5's offered to the public in the future.

Draws more current than most USB ports provide so one needs something dependable like a D-Link 4 port USB hub.

I run my miners off adjustable power supplies.  Right now I'm for the first time taking a Kill-A-Watt and measuring the stats at the wall for my two S3's, two S3+'s and single C1.  

The Kill-A-Watt had been on the C1 for 1097 hours, used 921KW.

The two S3's need some explaining.  I bought those on Amazon before I realized the advantage of buying directly.  The first from CryptoCrane in the mid-west was excellent.  The second from Pines Computer in Florida was a dog in a box that had been opened on the bottom and resealed, having two crappy hashboards.   I should have returned the S3 to Pines Computer and taken my Amazon refund but instead I opened it up and re-applied heat sink compound.  Still ran lousy but now I had worked on it.  I ended up taking one board out and putting it in the good miner from CryptoCrane and now both run about the same, each having a board that's not so good, one coming up with an x and the other coming up with a - , both running in the high 420's but constantly dropping and getting restarted from a short program.

As I said I'm in the process of measuring stats of the 5 miners.  I put the Kill-A-Watt in the S3 from Pines because I had to reboot it due to a 0000000- 00000000 chain.  After an hour it was running at 389 watts, 4.84 amps.  I should note that includes a small 120vac fan I picked up at Walmart and point in to the intake fan.  I have one of those on each S3 and they both have a single bad board now.

I check the S3 from CryptCrane (now having one of the bad boards from Pines in Florida) and see 399 watts at the wall and 4.72 amps but it hasn't been running an hour since putting in my one Kill-A-Watt.

After I get stats on all my miners, stats for at least an hour's duration, I'll see what the lowest level I can reliably set my variable supplies to and try running the Pines for an hour on the Kill-A-Watt.  I can probably get 10.5vdc for a test.  

I'll get back to you on if the lower supply voltage shows a significant change in at the wall wattage.

I have considered measuring the dc current in but I would use a 25 watt 1% .1 ohm resistor and if I'm getting 85% efficiency from my supplies then the 4.84 watts@120vac, PF .66 or 31.68 amps @12vdc, I squared R will be 100 watts so no go with the .1 ohm 25 watt resistor.  I was thinking of buying shunts from China but then why.  I'm scraping to keep these running with economic effectiveness.

I'd like to see somebody in China offer 50 amp and 100 amp shunts having small parasitic digital readouts.  With those my balancing power supplies would be a snap.

soy

The second S3+ is running its hour so meanwhile I dropped the voltage on the S3 from Pines down to 10.23vdc, min I could get for now but will be able to get down to low 9v's with a resistor change.  More and I'd worry about the supplies.  There's no Kill-A-Watt on it but it seems to be running, albeit at a lower hashrate.  ...later - up 27 minutes and the hashrate has picked up to 440GH/s avg. but it usually runs almost normal for an hour or two then drops and right now it's cooling.  So, I'm going to shut it down and see if I can get it running at about 9.5vdc with the Kill-A-Watt.  

...nuts, could only get it down to 9.9vdc given my available options without breaking out a soldering iron.  Wake up is 401 watts compared to wakeup at 12vdc and 389 watts.  First blush says no power savings from reducing the voltage into the miner.  One would expect something given the fans run slower.  But fans are pulse width controlled and if the pulses are wider but at a lower voltage this might mean higher current?  DC motors run more efficiently at a higher voltage don't they given a better back emf?

I think my next step is to drop the voltage in on one of the S3+'s and look for a power savings.  Then put the good board back in the first S3, the good one from CryptoCrane and get the two sucky boards back in the second S3 from Pines Computer in Florida selling on Amazon.  I'll look to see if there had been any mods to the voltage regulators, and check the ASICs are correct.  I'll measure resistor values at the voltage regulators but my guess is China realized Pines is a slock shop and sent them a crappy product.

Just went back and corrected the wakeup voltage of the S3 at 12 volts to 389watts and after an hour it was drawing 390 watts.  So, the wakeup at 401 watts @ 9.9vdc looks like a 3% power increase.

Interesting - the 9.9vdc is causing one of the boards to give me a fan speed of 15300 while the other fan is 1560.  First time I've had a fan speed an order of magnitude high.

The 12v 1hr stats were 390watts, 4.84amps, 120.6VAC, .66PF, 583VA $238/year
The 9.9v 1hr stats were 400watts, 5.00amps, 118.9VAC, .67PF, 594VA $256/year

I'll let it run like this overnight and see if the stats settle.  Wall voltage changes with neighbors returning home after work and dinner getting cooked.  A 7.5% cost increase per year.  Interesting to see if it effects the hashrate drop.  Really wish I hadn't put one of the bad boards in the good miner right now.

Of course I'm taking my supplies out of their comfort zone.  The miner efficiency may have improved while the supplies' efficiency dropped.  Can't really tell without high current shunts.
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Now having shut down the first S3 from CryptoCrane in the mid-west and the second S3 from Pines Computer in Florida (open box at bottom and resealed, two slow hashing boards), and having put back to original configuration of 2 good boards in the unit from the mid-west, I've fired up the good S3 while set at 12.0vdc for a 1 hour run.  I'll take readings then raise the voltage to 12.6vdc and give it another hour.  Meanwhile I'll carefully clean and rebuild the S3 from Florida with its original slow boards.  I plan to take some time and measure that resistor dictating voltage on the 8 regulators.  Kind of does reflect life.  So many aged retirees in Florida ripe for the picking by scam artists and street people living rough in the warm weather, crime is high.  They elect politicians that claim to represent law and order.  Such a high rate of criminals on TV tracked down have some history in Florida.  The BFL honcho got convicted of postal mail fraud in Florida.  The criminals range from street people all the way up.  Texas likewise.  If a Florida politician gets elected to a national office in 2016 expect the middle class economy to be impaired similar to my mining with the crappy S3 from Florida.

The good S3 is running and reading taken without the external 120VAC fan.  When the slow S3 is up I'll put both fans on it but its reading aren't useful.
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Before putting #2 (from Florida) back together, I checked some resistors for consistency.  R14 as measured from the gold pad to the junction of R14 and the capacitor was consistent on one board and generally 2% lower than the other hashing board and the higher measuring board had a greater variation among the 8 resistors.  So, for the highest measuring resistors I took a #2 pencil and brought the highest down to a consistent average that being 2% higher than the other board.  Time will tell if one of the two boards improves.  

---------------

Decided to take a 3rd reading of the good S3 but at 9.7vdc.  Interesting result at wakeup - both fans read an order of magnitude high.  Two good hashing boards.

--------------------

So, for my setup, with 12vdc datum, these are the results:

12.0vdc  datum
12.7vdc  cost 104%
9.7vdc    cost 107%

Clearly I should run at 12vdc and look elsewhere for efficiency.


soy

Fan speeds now within correct ballpark range - this at 12vdc.  So, fan speed an order of magnitude high - it's the power supply.

Would the Germans ever consider allying with Russians after WWII?  Germans were at the forefront of the US and Soviet space programs.  The Soviets went into Vienna having the first satellite ahead of the US.  This allowed JFK to pop a quick question of a joint trip the the moon.  NK quickly replied NO.  JFK dropped it.  Before that day's conference was over NK was already trying to backtrack on that answer.  JFK wouldn't ask again.  I suspect the Soviets were upset not only at the US at the Germans as well.  And consider the experience of the East Germans.  No.  I don't think a linkup of German and Russians is in the cards.  

Well consider the effect if Greece were to leave the EU.  Countries may view an EU breakup as a means of tightening their borders and so leave the EU as well.  If the European Union gets on the ropes then any pan-South American union is much more unlikely.

You say the Greeks are courting a Russian bailout?  My guess is the Bear is in no position to bail out anybody.  When times get tough go to war - it's a simple solution to unemployment especially in the defense economy sector.

Maybe someday after petroleum is all pumped and burned, the EU will become a de facto satellite of Russia or freeze.  Not going to see a trans-Atlantic natural gas pipeline anytime soon.

I'd say it's the EU searching for their Neville Chamberlain not the US.
   

Maybe if we look at it in a different, more limited, context of what determines if Greece stays in the EU.  Many years ago I worked with an old Greek gentleman on a production floor.  Craggy features, old clothes, didn't walk well, and in the evenings he played violin with a chamber orchestra.  One day communists were mentioned in passing and he got heatedly angry, almost angry enough to spit, just with the mention of communists.  Right now the EU and the US are somewhat apart on treatment of the Ukrainian invasion.  Perhaps the Greeks feel the EU is soft on the Russians, albeit Russia no longer Communist.

Maybe Mr. Greenspan anticipated the EU getting soft with Russia for its natural gas and eventual dependance on it and the Greeks saying screw that.

A history professor one time explained that when Germany and Russia fell out, Germany's war was doomed in that Germany simply could not wage war on the scale planned without Russian petroleum.  As it was it ran its tanks on synfuel from coal.  Perhaps the same is true for the EU, albeit not war but survival.