antminer S3 help!

[fortsimba16]

I have an s3+ which has been mining for a couple of months now but yesterday it started to give me problems. I tried to restart it, but then it would start as always with the fans running at the lowest speed and not mining. After digging into this a little more i tried to do an ip scan to find where my miner was now but saw that the miner was offline, this is baffling because i can actually see the light on the miner as well as on the modem blinking. So i moved on to a hard reset, no luck. I then tried a new PSU but still same thing, then i tried another troubleshoot where i removed wires from each of the ports one by one and here are my results: on the right rail, the fans run at low speed with no LEDs blinking on the left rail the fans run insanely fast (like ive never seen them run like that before) and on one on each or 3 on each i saw the same thing, all LEDs on, fan at the lowest speed. Then today i noticed another thing where after another hard reset i saw that the red LEDs blinked for the initial setup and then momentarily the green one goes on very faintly after which both the green and the red go off and only the network LEDs run, still see it as offline on an IP scan and light on on the modem. Anybody know why this could be happening or if i could fix this? Help is appreciated.

[hodedowe]

By hard reset you mean you mashed the reset button for 3-10 seconds (i forget what it is), waited 10 seconds, repeated, then rebooted? If you don't have the instructions for a hard reset I'll dig them up for you.

If you did that then your miner should be on a different IP, like 192.168.1.99 or somesuch.   

[fortsimba16]

nope, same ip, still offline... Even tried reset of my router, still shows same on windows. I later tried this on linux and it is apparently showing the last IP this host connected to

[hodedowe]

nope, same ip, still offline... Even tried reset of my router, still shows same on windows. I later tried this on linux and it is apparently showing the last IP this host connected to

Nope you didn't hard reset or nope you didn't find it at the 192 address? Details of what you're doing really help.

[fortsimba16]

sorry im just a little tired and frustrated, i did 3 things. first was simply hitting the reset button and restarting the miner, secondly doing the hard reset from instructions here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=697474.0 and finally a hard reset of my modem and router, after all of this. i still see the miner as shown in the attached picture  http://imgur.com/yFNXDA4  same as before. After no success i retested wiring. 1 connector, 2 connectors, etc.and same results as before. 1st side fan spins at full speed (no LED), 2nd sides fan spins at low speed (no LED), both sides fan spins at low speed (with network LEDs and power LEDs staying on for the beginning and finally sort of fading out).

[hodedowe]

Do you know what firmware you were running? There's one set that bricks when you press the reset button.

It might be stored in DHCP too so don't rely on that unless you can ping it. I'd try another hard reset with the required wait times, then search for it on three addresses: 192.168.100.99, 192.168.1.99, and 192.168.2.99.


Remember that you'll need to change your computer's address to match the right subnet to connect to the different addresses.

[fortsimba16]

tried all three, no success.... Could this be PSU related? maybe i should buy a 1000 watt??

[hodedowe]

tried all three, no success.... Could this be PSU related? maybe i should buy a 1000 watt??

Only if you're running 3 S3's on the same PSU. 

You can run two off of an 850 PSU. If you did another hard reset, changed your computer's IP address/subnet three times, then tried all three IPs I listed and can't ping the address in the DHCP table then my guess is you bricked it. You can contact Bitmain and get a new control board or get yours looked at for $25 if I remember right.


Another thought, it's not over 50c in your mining room, is it?

[fortsimba16]

Another thought, it's not over 50c in your mining room, is it?

No, just turned the AC on, the temperature is officially under 22 degrees Celsius.

You can contact Bitmain and get a new control board or get yours looked at for $25 if I remember right.

No way im spending more money on this thing, already bought 2 PSU's for it and had to pay $140 to get it through customs, I'd rather buy another one now...

[hodedowe]

If you do, I'd put it up on Ebay as "parts not working".

[fortsimba16]

If you do, I'd put it up on Ebay as "parts not working".

Won't have to!! fixed it after 3 cups of coffee and 16 hours  . For all users who have similar problems, here is what i tried:

1) open it up and clean with a dust buster, apply new thermal paste and reattach the heatsink.
2) connect with 2 different PSUs on 2 different sides and you'll see the wires get like super hot! after this increase wires from 1 port to all 4 and you'll see the green LED become more and more bright with each connection.
3) visual inspection of controller to see whether some solder has shorted (not mine thankfully, that would have taken another hour to fix!).
4) another power socket.
5)another network cable.
6) all steps mentioned earlier in the thread.
7) sub 20C environment.
new PSU (doesn't have to be larger, just another one to ensure that this one doesn't have any problem).
9) lots and lots of patience, and especially no throwing it on the ground after you get frustrated (took me another hour to fix that one ).

[fortsimba16]

1) open it up and clean with a dust buster, apply new thermal paste and reattach the heatsink.
2) connect with 2 different PSUs on 2 different sides and you'll see the wires get like super hot! after this increase wires from 1 port to all 4 and you'll see the green LED become more and more bright with each connection.
3) visual inspection of controller to see whether some solder has shorted (not mine thankfully, that would have taken another hour to fix!).
4) another power socket.
5)another network cable.
6) all steps mentioned earlier in the thread.
7) sub 20C environment.
new PSU (doesn't have to be larger, just another one to ensure that this one doesn't have any problem).
9) lots and lots of patience, and especially no throwing it on the ground after you get frustrated (took me another hour to fix that one ).

My reasons for this steps and why i tried them are that most of them are simple debugging steps. Testing to see what exactly is screwed up in the rig. The 2 different PSU was simply because i wanted to ensure that there wasnt a bridge in the wiring causing lesser current to flow in a wire. But this ended up being the final step so i thought about it as little more, I think that this allowed the whole system to heat up causing and errors in memory and such to physically reset or maybe it caused a surge of power that caused a automatic reset in case my manual ones weren't working and finally it could have been because of a PSU diode casuing some problems and this fixed it. Either way it worked for me and hope it does for you too.


PS. @hodedowe i sent you my first days mining earnings and ill send you a couple more weeks after its actually a little more stable.. Thanks for your help!!

[hodedowe]

You had it hooked up to 2 PSUs AT THE SAME TIME??!?!?


 


That's no-no numero uno! Glad you got it figured out though. Mine on, my friend!



EDIT: Thank you FortSimba! I'm not sure I helped, but I appreciate the donation.