Salvaging a Damaged S3

[NoahWL1]

Thanks to my horrible PSU that will keep me from straying away from name brands now, my S3 is toast.  The power supply ended up melting the connectors and fusing the wires in the PCI-e connector together, thus frying the motherboard.  It turns on and connects to the internet and is accessible, but never starts to mine and the fans run at full blast.  I've done a full reset by pressing the button on the board, nothing has changed.  I've already ordered some replacements but it would be nice to get this one back up and running.  I've looked for an S3 motherboard and I haven't been able to find one but I'll keep looking.  What I'm really wondering is if you can attach the blades (assuming they're not damaged) to an S3 controller that already has 2 blades attached.  So some sort of monster S3 with a total of 4 blades...  I know, crazy, but possible?  Maybe.  Has anyone ever heard of anything like this, or any place I could get an S3 motherboard controller?  Oh, I also have a laptop free, so if I could use a computer as a controller or something that would be cool too.  Thanks.

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[notlist3d]

Thanks to my horrible PSU that will keep me from straying away from name brands now, my S3 is toast.  The power supply ended up melting the connectors and fusing the wires in the PCI-e connector together, thus frying the motherboard.  It turns on and connects to the internet and is accessible, but never starts to mine and the fans run at full blast.  I've done a full reset by pressing the button on the board, nothing has changed.  I've already ordered some replacements but it would be nice to get this one back up and running.  I've looked for an S3 motherboard and I haven't been able to find one but I'll keep looking.  What I'm really wondering is if you can attach the blades (assuming they're not damaged) to an S3 controller that already has 2 blades attached.  So some sort of monster S3 with a total of 4 blades...  I know, crazy, but possible?  Maybe.  Has anyone ever heard of anything like this, or any place I could get an S3 motherboard controller?  Oh, I also have a laptop free, so if I could use a computer as a controller or something that would be cool too.  Thanks.

What brand of PSU and Model?   Also if you could take a picture of damage to PCB's on miner we will be able to tell a little more with pictures.

I do not believe any S3 controller will support 4 blades.    So I think that leaves it with fixing the old one.  Again depends on the damage.   Hopefully with pictures we can tell you more.

[NoahWL1]

Thanks to my horrible PSU that will keep me from straying away from name brands now, my S3 is toast.  The power supply ended up melting the connectors and fusing the wires in the PCI-e connector together, thus frying the motherboard.  It turns on and connects to the internet and is accessible, but never starts to mine and the fans run at full blast.  I've done a full reset by pressing the button on the board, nothing has changed.  I've already ordered some replacements but it would be nice to get this one back up and running.  I've looked for an S3 motherboard and I haven't been able to find one but I'll keep looking.  What I'm really wondering is if you can attach the blades (assuming they're not damaged) to an S3 controller that already has 2 blades attached.  So some sort of monster S3 with a total of 4 blades...  I know, crazy, but possible?  Maybe.  Has anyone ever heard of anything like this, or any place I could get an S3 motherboard controller?  Oh, I also have a laptop free, so if I could use a computer as a controller or something that would be cool too.  Thanks.

What brand of PSU and Model?   Also if you could take a picture of damage to PCB's on miner we will be able to tell a little more with pictures.

I do not believe any S3 controller will support 4 blades.    So I think that leaves it with fixing the old one.  Again depends on the damage.   Hopefully with pictures we can tell you more.

Sure thing, I'll post some tomorrow when I'm back home.  The brand was Sentey.  It was the Mbp750-hm, I believe.  650 watts.  To give an idea of what it looked like, everything seemed okay when I opened it except the connectors.  The two I had been using were completely brown, completely black in some areas.  The plastic had melted into dark blobs and hardened on the side.  I was able to get one of the PSU's connectors out, but the other had to be pried out with pliers and then the metal pins left behind did two.  Everything else looks to be perfect condition.  Nothing else appears burnt out, but as I said it doesn't mine and the fans are constantly on at full blast so something internal is broken for sure.

[NoahWL1]

I found a thread on fixing broken S3 boards.  I doubt it'll work, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow.  Here's the thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033689.0

I'll keep looking for replacement boards.  If they're not too much I might buy one.  I'll test the blades first with the new S3s' boards when they come.

[notlist3d]

I found a thread on fixing broken S3 boards.  I doubt it'll work, but I'll give them a shot tomorrow.  Here's the thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033689.0

I'll keep looking for replacement boards.  If they're not too much I might buy one.  I'll test the blades first with the new S3s' boards when they come.

On that it's the controller board.  The main thing I'm wanting to see in picture is what got effected by the burning.  If it is the hashing blades or plug, etc.

I'm going to guess it's problem something on the hashing blade them self (likely the pci-e connector).   But I am not sure till pictures seeing them.

[NoahWL1]

I found a thread on fixing broken S3 boards.  I doubt it'll work, but I'll give it a shot tomorrow.  Here's the thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033689.0

I'll keep looking for replacement boards.  If they're not too much I might buy one.  I'll test the blades first with the new S3s' boards when they come.

On that it's the controller board.  The main thing I'm wanting to see in picture is what got effected by the burning.  If it is the hashing blades or plug, etc.

I'm going to guess it's problem something on the hashing blade them self (likely the pci-e connector).   But I am not sure till pictures seeing them.

Oh shoot, sorry :/ Just realized that the connectors go to the blades.  Yes, that's what's burnt, the only thing as far as I can tell.

[alh]

Depending on how handy you are with a soldering iron, you might be able to replace the PCIe power connectors. I think they can be difficult source. I did see one posting about a guy who just gave up on the PCIe connector and directly wired his PSU. He was way past warranty, and just wanted it to work. There is nothing "magic" about a PCIe connector, it's just a readily available connector on ATX class power supplies. You can improvise other things if you don't care about resale value and are willing to take care.

[NoahWL1]

Depending on how handy you are with a soldering iron, you might be able to replace the PCIe power connectors. I think they can be difficult source. I did see one posting about a guy who just gave up on the PCIe connector and directly wired his PSU. He was way past warranty, and just wanted it to work. There is nothing "magic" about a PCIe connector, it's just a readily available connector on ATX class power supplies. You can improvise other things if you don't care about resale value and are willing to take care.

Yeah, replacing the ports would be no problem and not even necessary since the other two are fine.  I just don't know what's wrong with the internals.

[NoahWL1]

Here's an album on Imgur of pictures I took of the miner.  If you need any more I'll upload some.

http://imgur.com/a/goJjZ

[NoahWL1]

Some more info:  I've tried resetting the miner by holding the power button down for a minute, letting it sit for a couple minutes, and then restarting the PSU.  I've also done the same but just pressing the button instead of holding it down.  A red light on the controller board turns on when the PSU is turned on.  The yellow light on the Ethernet port is a solid yellow, the green one flashes periodically as if it's connected to the network.  I cannot find it anywhere on my network.  I have tried unplugging one blade and leaving the other plugged in.

Update:  I set my computer's Ethernet port IP to 192.168.1.254 and connect the miner to it.  I can log in with the default IP of 192.168.1.99.  I'll configure it the 192.168.0.1 gateway of my network and plug it into my router and see if it does anything.

Update 2:  I can now access the miner through my network at its address of 192.168.0.99.  I'll test further, but from what I've done so far it refuses to mine even when an alive pool is entered into it.

Update 3:  No blade information is shown in the miner status tab.  There is just the "This section has no values yet" message under the Antminer tab, where there is usually the temperature, the chip status of each blade, etc.   It's as if neither of the blades are connected, but then again it could just as well be the controller board not detecting them.  The red and green lights on the front of the miner are still off and do not come on.

[notlist3d]

Some more info:  I've tried resetting the miner by holding the power button down for a minute, letting it sit for a couple minutes, and then restarting the PSU.  I've also done the same but just pressing the button instead of holding it down.  A red light on the controller board turns on when the PSU is turned on.  The yellow light on the Ethernet port is a solid yellow, the green one flashes periodically as if it's connected to the network.  I cannot find it anywhere on my network.  I have tried unplugging one blade and leaving the other plugged in.

Update:  I set my computer's Ethernet port IP to 192.168.1.254 and connect the miner to it.  I can log in with the default IP of 192.168.1.99.  I'll configure it the 192.168.0.1 gateway of my network and plug it into my router and see if it does anything.

Update 2:  I can now access the miner through my network at its address of 192.168.0.99.  I'll test further, but from what I've done so far it refuses to mine even when an alive pool is entered into it.

Update 3:  No blade information is shown in the miner status tab.  There is just the "This section has no values yet" message under the Antminer tab, where there is usually the temperature, the chip status of each blade, etc.   It's as if neither of the blades are connected, but then again it could just as well be the controller board not detecting them.  The red and green lights on the front of the miner are still off and do not come on.

On the PCIe connectors its hard to tell full extent of damage from picture.  But if pins are touching or a few other things it's hard to say what it would cause. (can't tell if touching or not in picture).

On networking you might try DHCP if you are not having luck setting it yourself.  DHCP it will connect and configure to work with your network.

[NoahWL1]

Some more info:  I've tried resetting the miner by holding the power button down for a minute, letting it sit for a couple minutes, and then restarting the PSU.  I've also done the same but just pressing the button instead of holding it down.  A red light on the controller board turns on when the PSU is turned on.  The yellow light on the Ethernet port is a solid yellow, the green one flashes periodically as if it's connected to the network.  I cannot find it anywhere on my network.  I have tried unplugging one blade and leaving the other plugged in.

Update:  I set my computer's Ethernet port IP to 192.168.1.254 and connect the miner to it.  I can log in with the default IP of 192.168.1.99.  I'll configure it the 192.168.0.1 gateway of my network and plug it into my router and see if it does anything.

Update 2:  I can now access the miner through my network at its address of 192.168.0.99.  I'll test further, but from what I've done so far it refuses to mine even when an alive pool is entered into it.

Update 3:  No blade information is shown in the miner status tab.  There is just the "This section has no values yet" message under the Antminer tab, where there is usually the temperature, the chip status of each blade, etc.   It's as if neither of the blades are connected, but then again it could just as well be the controller board not detecting them.  The red and green lights on the front of the miner are still off and do not come on.

On the PCIe connectors its hard to tell full extent of damage from picture.  But if pins are touching or a few other things it's hard to say what it would cause. (can't tell if touching or not in picture).

On networking you might try DHCP if you are not having luck setting it yourself.  DHCP it will connect and configure to work with your network.

From what I can tell the connectors aren't touching each other but I decided to just clip the cables on them anyways.  Only problem is I accidentally clipped the wrong one on one side but it'll only take me a couple minutes to solder some wire back on.  I'll have to do that tomorrow though, it's pretty late where I am.  I'm able to connect to my miner just fine and it can ping third party websites so the internet connection isn't a problem.

[spazzdla]

Ouch... that sucks.


Interesting it burnt at the connection.. I'd be curious to how well they were connected..