Pandaminer B3+ Review - Why you should never buy a Pandaminer B3+ / B1

[pleasures]

Just received my pandaminers. Your word holds a ton of weight given what you do for the community, so I'm not even going to attempt using the PSU's they included with the machines. Would you recommend the PSU solution that @kjs recommended right above?

The oem psu is bad.

what's wrong with the OEM psu?

it has 5 pcie cables that come from the unit.  they split into 7 cables.

and the unit has 8 gpus.

try and run  8 gpus with 5 cables = overload and melt downs.

no one should use the psu for the panda miner it should be used on a low load item  800 watts max that would be 160 watts for each of the 5 cables that may be okay

[pleasures]

is there a 110v alternative? in north america...

How is ethOS working out for you?

anyone get their panda problems solver by using eliosvp's solutions?

eliovp is the only hope for those freaking panda miners lol, he has customer support, panda should hire him.
https://youtu.be/s4_6WdIRSE0

I haven't made an update video on my latest stuff but basically that one ended up working properly on a proper PSU w/ PandamOS

Nice, I feel you're pain.  Bought 20 of them and have had a few issues with flaky GPU's and their pirate Chinese Windows 10.  Replaced Windows 10 with EthOS which fixed the OS issue.

Next up is to replace the PSU's with 2400W Parallel Miner kits that I bought (http://www.parallelminer.com/product/2400-watt-power-supply-kit-for-gpu-mining-94-efficiency-200-240v-ethereum-eth-zec-dash/).  Each 2400W PSU has a 16 x 8-pin PCIe power outlet breakout board meaning you'll be able to power 2 x Pandaminers off each one once you under-volt and optimise the GPU BIOS and core clock-speed.

[chiwalfrm]

The oem psu is bad.

what's wrong with the OEM psu?

it has 5 pcie cables that come from the unit.  they split into 7 cables.

and the unit has 8 gpus.

try and run  8 gpus with 5 cables = overload and melt downs.

no one should use the psu for the panda miner it should be used on a low load item  800 watts max that would be 160 watts for each of the 5 cables that may be okay

The PSU they sent with batch 4 are different than the early ones.  They now have 9 separate legs from the PSU, and ten 6-pin connectors.  So only 1 leg has a Y-split, and you don't even need to use it since the Panda only needs 7 connections.

[bentcrypto]

This Windows update break driver thing happened to me too.  I talked to their tech support.  Found the solution:
Just go to Device Manager, manually "update drivers" that is placed in the C:\01\01 folder.  Then run the patcher.exe in the same folder.  Then disable all windows update (Google this).  And it'll work.

Also, smOS does work yes (I used the RX image on USB), just that it's not very stable, it reboots every hour or so.  So I'm back to Windows.

Also, if you use the new version of Claymore 9.x, you need to set -dcri 6 to get ~230MH/s, otherwise, it defaults to -dcri 30, and you get only 215  MH/s.

But all in all, I agree with you, it's not a good product.  I bought a few of them, I still have issues at this moment.  Like 1 card is stuck at 8MH/s, and 1 fan is not spinning, and 1 miner only sees 4 out of 8 cards after a week of running fine with 8, probably broken motherboard. 

I'm working with their tech support, so far they've been responsive and running tests, but I don't know how easy it would be to replace the faulty motherboard (in my opinion).

You were right about Smos. I've had it running on my Pandas for a week and no issues except for the occasional restart. Is it the rig restarting or the mining software? These are remote machines so I'm not sure.

Also thanks for the tip about dcri....will try that on a later version of claymore. Currently I am using 8.1 with stock clocks and they hum along at 222mh.

[fuzion1]

This Windows update break driver thing happened to me too.  I talked to their tech support.  Found the solution:
Just go to Device Manager, manually "update drivers" that is placed in the C:\01\01 folder.  Then run the patcher.exe in the same folder.  Then disable all windows update (Google this).  And it'll work.

Also, smOS does work yes (I used the RX image on USB), just that it's not very stable, it reboots every hour or so.  So I'm back to Windows.

Also, if you use the new version of Claymore 9.x, you need to set -dcri 6 to get ~230MH/s, otherwise, it defaults to -dcri 30, and you get only 215  MH/s.

But all in all, I agree with you, it's not a good product.  I bought a few of them, I still have issues at this moment.  Like 1 card is stuck at 8MH/s, and 1 fan is not spinning, and 1 miner only sees 4 out of 8 cards after a week of running fine with 8, probably broken motherboard. 

I'm working with their tech support, so far they've been responsive and running tests, but I don't know how easy it would be to replace the faulty motherboard (in my opinion).

You were right about Smos. I've had it running on my Pandas for a week and no issues except for the occasional restart. Is it the rig restarting or the mining software? These are remote machines so I'm not sure.

Also thanks for the tip about dcri....will try that on a later version of claymore. Currently I am using 8.1 with stock clocks and they hum along at 222mh.

I am going to give SMOS a try. I have it flashed on an msata. Do you just plug it and and it will work for pandaminers?

[bentcrypto]

Yes. Just edit the .txt file on a windows machine with your email. Once it boots it will send you a link to the control panel of smOS and from there you can put in your wallet address etc.

[VoskCoin]

is there a 110v alternative? in north america...

How is ethOS working out for you?

anyone get their panda problems solver by using eliosvp's solutions?

eliovp is the only hope for those freaking panda miners lol, he has customer support, panda should hire him.
https://youtu.be/s4_6WdIRSE0

I haven't made an update video on my latest stuff but basically that one ended up working properly on a proper PSU w/ PandamOS

Nice, I feel you're pain.  Bought 20 of them and have had a few issues with flaky GPU's and their pirate Chinese Windows 10.  Replaced Windows 10 with EthOS which fixed the OS issue.

Next up is to replace the PSU's with 2400W Parallel Miner kits that I bought (http://www.parallelminer.com/product/2400-watt-power-supply-kit-for-gpu-mining-94-efficiency-200-240v-ethereum-eth-zec-dash/).  Each 2400W PSU has a 16 x 8-pin PCIe power outlet breakout board meaning you'll be able to power 2 x Pandaminers off each one once you under-volt and optimise the GPU BIOS and core clock-speed.

Wire 250v ends up as 240v, PSU adjusts but definitely upgrade your PSU from panda oem POS

[VoskCoin]

Hey guys I put together a review video on my Pandaminer B3+
https://youtu.be/sefJNg8Bv5I

I saw some promising reviews and specs on the pandaminer gpu eth zec xmr mining rig, so I began my quest to attain one. .  They were flying through their pre-orders in seconds / minutes selling 1000+ panda miners . .  it was tough to acquire. I reached out to the Virginia Pandaminer Distributor and he was able to get me a panda miner however at the BTC price he wanted, I ended up paying about $3000 dollars for a Pandaminer B3+ at the end of May.

Long story short some of these pandaminers are catching fire, going up in flames is ridiculous because their production was rushed and just cheap. You can read more about the latest panda miner fire here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1946017.0

My pandaminer worked for about a week before at this point my understanding is that windows updated and now does not recognize the GPU

SMOS did not work for me and tytanick states he does not support pandaminers

pandamOS by eliovp is promising however his current version did not work for me, he will begin working on a fix this weekend

List goes on, watch the videos for full details, I do not recommend this miner.





I'll update later as I'm determined to make this thing work, any input on getting it running correctly would be more than welcome.

Update
Here is my second pandaminer . . I am also experiencing issues with this b3+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_UTgt9fbxg

thanks for the review dude. I was looking at a pandaminer, because I wanted something "turn-key" and didn't want to futz with building/configuring a mining rig, but since they were sold out and wouldn't get here probably in another month, I got my 5x 1080 ti cards in, but then when I went to turn on my old motherboard/CPU I had from doing some Litecoin mining (back in early 2014 I believe) the bios wouldn't post....so I just spent another 300 bucks on motherboard, CPU, and ram.

Absolutely brother! I think you definitely made the right choice good luck on your mining! How's your rig turned out now?

[GigaPhil]

Has anyone had to replace a fan in the Pandaminer yet? I'm trying to find replacement parts but am not having any luck.