Antminer S5 + 3D printed mods

[BitMainBuyer]

Thanks very much for your response - I thought for a while you were managing to keep your 400Mhz miners under 60°C in a warm ambient environment!  

Running @ 350Mhz in a warm environment I'm getting temperatures of about 68/72°C. HW errors = 0.0012% which I think is pretty acceptable judging from your response. I would like to overclock to 380/390 however my only concern is whether or not running the miner at these temperatures, and higher, will affect the miner's lifetime..  

Keeping HW errors low is a good sign that it's running well, but surely 70+°C couldn't be too good for it...I'm not sure..

Edit - I will send you a small tip when I get home, really appreciate the models!  

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[toptek]

Thanks very much for your response - I thought for a while you were managing to keep your 400Mhz miners under 60°C in a warm ambient environment!  

Running @ 350Mhz in a warm environment I'm getting temperatures of about 68/72°C. HW errors = 0.0012% which I think is pretty acceptable judging from your response. I would like to overclock to 380/390 however my only concern is whether or not running the miner at these temperatures, and higher, will affect the miner's lifetime..  

Keeping HW errors low is a good sign that it's running well, but surely 70+°C couldn't be too good for it...I'm not sure..

Edit - I will send you a small tip when I get home, really appreciate the models!  

anytime you do anything to anything beyond defaults you will affect the miner's lifetime .

why are your temps so high at 350 you should be more like 55 to 65 if that at default settings even with this mode on it unless your adding on the 20 + degrees.

Just a thought i have no idea how hot it is were you keep your S5 mining .


I bought a set it worked ok for me i guess, i ended up taking it off , my fans increased in speed, temps went up , the idea is very cool but unless it fits just right it might not work right that's the hard part having one made that fits right. I don't have a 3D printer yet but plan to get one of the cheaper ones for home use soon .

[Vorta]

Thanks very much for your response - I thought for a while you were managing to keep your 400Mhz miners under 60°C in a warm ambient environment!  

It was the hottest day so far, when I took this screenshot. Because of the mods you'll get smaller temperature differences between the chips on the intake side and exhaust side, and you also get better cooling performance as you get more air through the heatsink, thus extending the lifetime of the miner and especially the chips at the back side. If you want to play extra safe because of the warranty, just install the mods and keep the miner at 350MHz. It will be optimal for your miner.

I'm pushing mine very hard. So far without dead chips or other issues. I've found that some miners can go to higher frequency than others, before their hash rate starts falling.

Currently my 400MHz miner is at 58/62°C because it's ~25°C in the room.

[VirosaGITS]

Hello Vorta and others.

I am wondering, do you recommend the mini heatsink on the exterior side? Do they actually increase thermal dissipation (by themselves)? I might want to add some if there is a difference on temps and properly balance the temp on the outer chips.

Are these too big? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/100pcs-Aluminum-8-8x8-8x5MM-Heat-Sink-for-StepStick-A4988-Chip-IC-LED-Power-IC-/171857107604?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item28037b5a94

Any recommendation on thermal glue?

[BitMainBuyer]

Hello Vorta and others.

I am wondering, do you recommend the mini heatsink on the exterior side? Do they actually increase thermal dissipation (by themselves)? I might want to add some if there is a difference on temps and properly balance the temp on the outer chips.

Are these too big? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/100pcs-Aluminum-8-8x8-8x5MM-Heat-Sink-for-StepStick-A4988-Chip-IC-LED-Power-IC-/171857107604?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item28037b5a94

Any recommendation on thermal glue?

I've been informed directly by Bitmain that the external heatsinks have basically little or no effect on cooling, which is why the only shipped a few miners with these mini heatsinks.

Probably a waste of time/money IMO.

[VirosaGITS]

Hello Vorta and others.

I am wondering, do you recommend the mini heatsink on the exterior side? Do they actually increase thermal dissipation (by themselves)? I might want to add some if there is a difference on temps and properly balance the temp on the outer chips.

Are these too big? http://www.ebay.ca/itm/100pcs-Aluminum-8-8x8-8x5MM-Heat-Sink-for-StepStick-A4988-Chip-IC-LED-Power-IC-/171857107604?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item28037b5a94

Any recommendation on thermal glue?

I've been informed directly by Bitmain that the external heatsinks have basically little or no effect on cooling, which is why the only shipped a few miners with these mini heatsinks.

Probably a waste of time/money IMO.

Hah i see. Thanks for your reply.

Maybe OP has something to say about that, i think he had a heatsink'd unit and a non heatsink'd unit side by side. I'm always worried something not appearing on temp sensor overheating.

[Vorta]

Sorry for late response. The effect really is minimal. However, there is some. I'd prefer to have my miner with mini heatsinks rather than without. But that's just me.

Anyway, I'm going to sell both of my miners now. Including the 3D printed mods.


I've also managed to make them work very quiet while still being quite cool. The recipe is: 2 Corsair SP120L (not without L) fans, exhaust side fan duct and top & bottom enclosure of miner's heatsing. The front fan is screwed directly onto the miner while the pull fan pulls the air through the fan duct. The pull fan does all the cooling (it can work without) and the push fan gets some heat off the external heatsinks. With stock frequency I can have both fans working at 70%, which is very quiet, and miners would have HW errors as low as what they usually get with stock fan and stock frequency. With fans at 100% I can overclock the miners up to 393.75MHz for a stable 24/7 run. I'll post some photos of that setup/build soon.

[VirosaGITS]

Sorry for late response. The effect really is minimal. However, there is some. I'd prefer to have my miner with mini heatsinks rather than without. But that's just me.

Anyway, I'm going to sell both of my miners now. Including the 3D printed mods.


I've also managed to make them work very quiet while still being quite cool. The recipe is: 2 Corsair SP120L (not without L) fans, exhaust side fan duct and top & bottom enclosure of miner's heatsing. The front fan is screwed directly onto the miner while the pull fan pulls the air through the fan duct. The pull fan does all the cooling (it can work without) and the push fan gets some heat off the external heatsinks. With stock frequency I can have both fans working at 70%, which is very quiet, and miners would have HW errors as low as what they usually get with stock fan and stock frequency. With fans at 100% I can overclock the miners up to 393.75MHz for a stable 24/7 run. I'll post some photos of that setup/build soon.

Ah, thank you for letting me know, even though late. I have a small pack of 100 mini heatsink, but i did not place them on the S5 since the chip's top are on the other side of the board. Do you put the heatsink on the copper plates?

Also i'm guessing you will have no problem selling the S5 at crazy price right now, but if you end up being interested in shipping to Canada, drop me a quote for one/both.

[Vorta]

Yes, they should go onto the copper plates. These heat up as much as the chips do. I used Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive. Much better heat conduction than thermal adhesive tape, and won't unstick at higher temps.

I was looking into selling them in Europe. I wasn't selling abroad before so I don't know how would the shipping go. The last thing I would want to see happen is miner arriving broken to the destination.

[MarkAz]

Ah, thank you for letting me know, even though late. I have a small pack of 100 mini heatsink, but i did not place them on the S5 since the chip's top are on the other side of the board. Do you put the heatsink on the copper plates?

Also i'm guessing you will have no problem selling the S5 at crazy price right now, but if you end up being interested in shipping to Canada, drop me a quote for one/both.

I'll throw in my late 2c also - I actually tried a couple of mini heatsinks, and the small sliver ones like this had almost no effect:

http://amzn.to/1kGJrYk

I tried these also:

http://amzn.to/1NZLIHZ

Specifically the blue ones, and these DO make a difference - the problem being that they don't make a huge difference.  If I remember correctly, adding them on all the copper plates amounted to about a 1c temperature drop - but that was a huge amount of work.  I also did everything with high quality thermal adhesive instead of stickers, so I don't know how much that would affect thermal conductivity.

In the end, doing things like the acrylic case and fan spacers had a far greater effect on overall temps than the mini heatsinks, and was far less time consuming.

[Vorta]

I used exactly the same like your blue ones, just in black. Those were the largest mini-heatsinks I could fit on the chips. The ones that Bitmain used, however, are much better because they perfectly fit the copper area, and are even larger. My "green" miner, which features these heatsinks, is about 4-5 °C colder than the "black" one, which features black mini-heatsinks (photos in first post). Unfortunately, I haven't found the heatsinks Bitmain used for sale anywhere.

[citronick]

Hi Vorta - have you tried using your mods on S7 yet ? 

[Vorta]

Hi Vorta - have you tried using your mods on S7 yet ? 

Hi citronick! Haven't got S7 yet. When I've seen how they made heatsinks for it I was repelled from buying it. Chips at the back of the miner will always be very hot and will depend only on air, instead of termal conduction of a large heatsink. Meaning that they will overheat easily and thermal adhesives tend to lose their grip on higher temps. Which can end in heatsink unsticking from the chip.

If I ever get S7, that will mean I'll try to get all heatsinks off and get my own heatsink design extruded.

[pekatete]

....
Chips at the back of the miner will always be very hot and will depend only on air, instead of termal conduction of a large heatsink. Meaning that they will overheat easily and thermal adhesives tend to lose their grip on higher temps. Which can end in heatsink unsticking from the chip.
....

May be a good reason to try a new configuration with the S7 ... as in having the fans strapped at the top / bottom top rather than front / rear (that'll require the unit being stripped though as top and bottom are sealed). That way, I suppose, even the fan specs can be downgraded as the distance to exhaust has been more than halved. (just a thought!)

[citronick]

....
Chips at the back of the miner will always be very hot and will depend only on air, instead of termal conduction of a large heatsink. Meaning that they will overheat easily and thermal adhesives tend to lose their grip on higher temps. Which can end in heatsink unsticking from the chip.
....

May be a good reason to try a new configuration with the S7 ... as in having the fans strapped at the top / bottom top rather than front / rear (that'll require the unit being stripped though as top and bottom are sealed). That way, I suppose, even the fan specs can be downgraded as the distance to exhaust has been more than halved. (just a thought!)

The S7s are really loud and noisy - but currently is my best miner so far very steady 4.8TH to 5TH @ 58-62c average, fan speed 60%
I have seen in other post, people putting duct tubes, insulation, some crazy stuff to reduce noise and heat.
It will be great to 3D print a "noise and heat reduction" kit for S7s, given that we have a lot of experience and lessons learnt from the S5 mods.
This project will also give me the "energy" to start installing my I3 printer currently still in the box, manual says 5-6 hours installation time required... sigh.

[Vorta]

....
Chips at the back of the miner will always be very hot and will depend only on air, instead of termal conduction of a large heatsink. Meaning that they will overheat easily and thermal adhesives tend to lose their grip on higher temps. Which can end in heatsink unsticking from the chip.
....

May be a good reason to try a new configuration with the S7 ... as in having the fans strapped at the top / bottom top rather than front / rear (that'll require the unit being stripped though as top and bottom are sealed). That way, I suppose, even the fan specs can be downgraded as the distance to exhaust has been more than halved. (just a thought!)

This, in fact, would be a much better solution. If miner was built to have 4 or 6 slower fans, blowing from the bottom-up, it would be very quiet and air's shorter travel distance would make sure that chips "in the back" (actually on the top in this case) would not be much hotter compared to the chips next to the intake.

However, such miners wouldn't work for most common setups, those being shelves or racks. Should I get an S7, I'll most definitely move towards modding it in such way. But the first thing I'd check is if it is possible to get those heatsinks off. Bitmain seems to really struggle with heat dissipation. I had a heatsink design which would cool 4 blades with a single fan, but couldn't get it extruded so I went with 3D printing.

One of the best directions with cooling solutions I saw is the Block Erupter Prisma's design. With a major pitfall, though - large hole in the middle of heatsinks, allowing the air to avoid going through the fins.

[nepaluz]

....
Chips at the back of the miner will always be very hot and will depend only on air, instead of termal conduction of a large heatsink. Meaning that they will overheat easily and thermal adhesives tend to lose their grip on higher temps. Which can end in heatsink unsticking from the chip.
....

May be a good reason to try a new configuration with the S7 ... as in having the fans strapped at the top / bottom top rather than front / rear (that'll require the unit being stripped though as top and bottom are sealed). That way, I suppose, even the fan specs can be downgraded as the distance to exhaust has been more than halved. (just a thought!)

This, in fact, would be a much better solution. If miner was built to have 4 or 6 slower fans, blowing from the bottom-up, it would be very quiet and air's shorter travel distance would make sure that chips "in the back" (actually on the top in this case) would not be much hotter compared to the chips next to the intake.

However, such miners wouldn't work for most common setups, those being shelves or racks. Should I get an S7, I'll most definitely move towards modding it in such way. But the first thing I'd check is if it is possible to get those heatsinks off. Bitmain seems to really struggle with heat dissipation. I had a heatsink design which would cool 4 blades with a single fan, but couldn't get it extruded so I went with 3D printing.

One of the best directions with cooling solutions I saw is the Block Erupter Prisma's design. With a major pitfall, though - large hole in the middle of heatsinks, allowing the air to avoid going through the fins.

I think the re-orientation of the fans can work if you stand the miner on the current orientation's front or back, such that the current top / bottom where the new orienation fan(s) are now strapped become(s) the new front / back.
You can get as many sub $2 120mm 0.35Amp 2000rpm fans in both push / pull configuration as you want (8 or 10 no matter) and have the temps under control plus a whisper for noise!
Realistically though, there are so many practicalities to make adaptation prohibitively expensve for a $2000 toy lottery ticket. First, the power connectors would be in the way as they are atop, and the control board would also have to be moved, which would require getting longer data cables etc.. Bitmain themselves ought to look at the benefits (or lack of) of that design and produce a next gen miner quietly suited for home mining.

[Vorta]

Bitmain themselves ought to look at the benefits (or lack of) of that design and produce a next gen miner quietly suited for home mining.

I think I should make a video of the miner I'm planning to put for sale soon. Even with stock software configuration (350MHz, auto fans), the fans don't need to rev up to 100%. Runs so quiet you can have it next to your bed. Even when set to 400MHz fans don't go all the way to 100%. They go to about 85% and stay there. With 350MHz, fans can be manually set to as low as 60%. The fans are these so they are very quiet at 60%:

http://s8.postimg.org/6kqdws6f9/h60_fan_1.png

So if Bitmain wants to make a quiet 600W miner for home mining, that design would be perfect.

Actually, here's a few quick shots:

Front:
http://s16.postimg.org/629bfu3d1/DSC_0882.jpg

Back:
http://s16.postimg.org/tj16eloxx/DSC_0883.jpg

Top:
http://s16.postimg.org/ngtjo40hx/DSC_0885.jpg

Mini heatsinks, installed by Bitmain. Very small series of miners was made with these and that is what helps this miner to run very cool. It doesn't help a lot, naturally, but it makes a noticable difference.
http://s1.postimg.org/4caxasvwf/DSC_0886.jpg

[pekatete]

That's a great mod right there!
Those corsair fans should be as quiet as a whisper, and with a re-oriented S7 they could possibly do a wonderful job. I wonder though, what temps do you get with the S5? Also, what is the amperage rating on those corsairs?

[OstlerDev]

It seems that all the links are currently dead, does anybody have pictures backed up or anything? I am looking to swap out the fans on my S7 and was going to use this as a semi guide. I have gotten it very quiet so far using only 33% fan.