ANTMINER S7 is available at bitmaintech.com with 4.86TH/s, 0.25J/GH

[dmwardjr]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, QuintLeo.

I'm always open minded and it's good to hear opinions from different sides of arguments.  I have to go to bed now.  As it is 4:41am for me and I can barely keep my eyes open.  I'll respond a bit more later.  Have a good evening or day [Depending on where you are].

Cheers

PS - I would agree their ROI takes less time because of obtaining their rigs at cost.  However, we also have to look at what action this breeds.  If one manufacturer did this, another would do the same for market share.  Which thereby would increase the amount of time it would take for ROI even though the price they paid was at cost.

The only way I see a manufacturer possibly obtaining significant market share is by over whelming force.  Meaning, they would have to more than double the network hash rate all by themselves in one big swoop all of a sudden.  That would take a LOT of capital and a LOT of power (electricity).

It makes more sense for the big boys at the moment to just replace old gear with new [more efficient] gear to increase revenue by decreasing power costs.  Getting into a hash rate war for market share will only increase the amount of time it takes to ROI on their equipment, even though it was at cost.

[aurel57]

i 100% agree.. the s7 is too large for a home miner.. you have to get special outlets if you already dont have 30 amp or 220 outlets. takes 2 high end or one large expensive power supply.
you would be lucky if you break even on cost before the block halfs.. if you dont you might not ever.. its not like the price of btc will double overnight..


bitmain should have made smaller home miners, maybe one of the s7 hash boards. i would have replaced my s3s with one of those.

A normal 20amp 110v circuit will work fine to power one miner. You only need a 220v if you use a 220v PSU most are just using a couple 110v PSU's or a larger 110v PSU.

[varakunai]

Anyone else getting a low hash rate?  I'm using 3 hp server psus on 120v, 800w each.  All of my chips show 0, but my average hashrate is just over 3tb.

[VirosaGITS]

Anyone else getting a low hash rate?  I'm using 3 hp server psus on 120v, 800w each.  All of my chips show 0, but my average hashrate is just over 3tb.

Thats because, basing on the temp reported. One of your board is clearly not hashing. Your #1 should be at 60C~ according to the other 2 temps and its just sitting at 33C which is probably close to your ambient temp.

You're gonna have to make sure its properly connected and working. Mess around with it to determine whether its just not properly connected or if its dead and need RMA.

[aurel57]

Anyone else getting a low hash rate?  I'm using 3 hp server psus on 120v, 800w each.  All of my chips show 0, but my average hashrate is just over 3tb.

seems 2 mins of run time is hardly enough time to check hash rate.... also Bitmain said to make sure you power up the boards first then the controller.

[varakunai]

Thanks Viro, I'll dig into it now.  Should have noticed the temp dif..

[varakunai]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

[VirosaGITS]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

Cheers. Let me/us know if you encounter more problems.

Meanwhile i'm itching to get a S7 myself but its pretty hard to put up so much capital up front when the difficulty going to be going much higher over the next several months.

[aurel57]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

Thats good to know...I am waiting for mine to be shipped and plan on using two PSU's to power it.

[clgrissom3]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

This makes you wonder if it would be worth installing a cut-off switch on the power cable that connects to the controller.  This would be helpful if you are using a single large PSU...

[noobtrader]

this time i agree with you, now its 1 year before halving and i guess  difficulty after halving would be around 2x or even 3x of todays difficulty.  

We must ask ourselves, "Would it be beneficial for the big players to get in a hash rate war if the price of bitcoin remains the same or not MORE than double at the time of the block halving?"

The price of bitcoin would have to at least double to see twice the difficulty we see now.  For it to be 3x of todays difficulty, the price of bitcoin would have to be 3x what it is today for it to be beneficial to the big boys after the block halving.

There comes a point in time where it is no longer wise to invest funds into more hash rate if the rate of return does not justify such actions.  Doing so will push out the home miner for a while but certainly not during the winter months.  I know I would keep several of my rigs just for the winter months.  So, if a hardware manufacturer that mines for themselves makes a move in a hash rate war, it will not be in the winter.  It will be in the spring or early summer.  Even then, there is much risk.  They will have to acknowledge they will not have as much return during the hash rate war.  They will have to acknowledge they will not have as much return on their investment during the winter months either.

Let's say they do increase the difficulty so high it pushes out other miners.  They did this while also diminishing their own returns for a little while.  What do you think the other miners [who were pushed out] would do if the price of bitcoin rises to a level high enough to offset the difficulty increase?  They will get back in!!!!!!!  Thereby diminishing the big boys returns once again.  Which would make them wonder if the investment they made for increasing their hash rate was really worth it.  They would have to continue investing more money into more rigs to increase their hash rate even more to push out the little guys.  Also, the big boys have each other to worry about as well to make them wonder if it was really worth the investment to increase their hash rate.

So, the big boys have a LOT to think about if they wish to increase their hash rate exponentially.  It could very well back fire on them.  However, it may be a risk they are willing to take if they have enough capital sitting by for the long rainy days that will occur from such action.  Their return on investment would take much longer from such action.  If they add more hash rate after an increase in bitcoin price to push out miners who got back in the game, it would only mean more capital spent and more equipment to be concerned about making ROI.

There is definitely much to take into consideration by the big boys if they wish to get into a hash rate war.

but miner will want to upgrade their rig or they will losing money on electricity. the result of  existing miner upgrade alone will likely double the difficulty, yes some miner will quit but new big miner will enter this betting game too.  and if bitcoin price peaked near the halving, im sure that alot of existing miner will spend their coin to upgrade their mining rig.

btw its not about competing with other miner, its simply how to get more bitcoin from your initial bitcoin investmen. ie: if i spend 3 btc, can i get 6 btc in less than 1 year by upgrading my rig ?

[ATCkit]

Serious question. Why are people buying these. I just did a quick break even calculation and assuming zero electricity costs, not including the PSU cost, and zero difficulty increases you break even in about 190 days. Obviously those are very favorable assumptions, probably very unrealistic.

Not criticizing the product, just really curious about it, since I mined for a very long time (before finally giving it up last year), and I've bought Ant Miners before, but I now find myself scratching my head. The numbers these days just don't seem to make sense to me.

i 100% agree.. the s7 is too large for a home miner.. you have to get special outlets if you already dont have 30 amp or 220 outlets. takes 2 high end or one large expensive power supply.
you would be lucky if you break even on cost before the block halfs.. if you dont you might not ever.. its not like the price of btc will double overnight..


bitmain should have made smaller home miners, maybe one of the s7 hash boards. i would have replaced my s3s with one of those.

I'm running my S7 on 2 circuits- 15 Amp each. I'm using 2 separate PSUs- Corsair 860i and a Corsair 750Cx dolly chained using an ADD2PSU  (http://www.add2psu.com/).

I'm getting good hash rates. I have free electricity. So I'm expecting to break even at least 1 month before the halving.

[torepia]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

This makes you wonder if it would be worth installing a cut-off switch on the power cable that connects to the controller.  This would be helpful if you are using a single large PSU...

Why would that matter? My guess is that the 1 PSU alone didn't have enough power?

Regarding adding multiple PSU's etc, I can recommend add2psu adapters. http://www.add2psu.com/
You could get these to power the hashing boards first, and controllers later.

I used them on my GPU rigs back in the day.

Edit:

DO NOT use these on multiple circuits!

Are you sure about that ATCkit? I guess you are if you're doing it! ^^

[thedreamer]

Mine still haven't shipped. 

On another note, woudl be nice if BITMAIN would actually check their support tickets!! 

[VirosaGITS]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

This makes you wonder if it would be worth installing a cut-off switch on the power cable that connects to the controller.  This would be helpful if you are using a single large PSU...

Why would that matter? My guess is that the 1 PSU alone didn't have enough power?

Regarding adding multiple PSU's etc, I can recommend add2psu adapters. http://www.add2psu.com/
You could get these to power the hashing boards first, and controllers later.

I used them on my GPU rigs back in the day.

Edit:

DO NOT use these on multiple circuits!

Are you sure about that ATCkit? I guess you are if you're doing it! ^^

Its not really necessary. If you're using 2 PSU, you just flip its power switch in the back. If not there's those flip switch sure, but its added hardware that's ultimately superfluous.

You just power the PSU that is NOT connected to the controller first, then flip the one that is connected to the board last. It doesn't matter if its also connected to boards.

Its just that the boards don't actually power up and start running even though they are connected to a power line until the controller "wake" them up.

[Ironworm]

Serious question. Why are people buying these. I just did a quick break even calculation and assuming zero electricity costs, not including the PSU cost, and zero difficulty increases you break even in about 190 days. Obviously those are very favorable assumptions, probably very unrealistic.

Not criticizing the product, just really curious about it, since I mined for a very long time (before finally giving it up last year), and I've bought Ant Miners before, but I now find myself scratching my head. The numbers these days just don't seem to make sense to me.

i 100% agree.. the s7 is too large for a home miner.. you have to get special outlets if you already dont have 30 amp or 220 outlets. takes 2 high end or one large expensive power supply.
you would be lucky if you break even on cost before the block halfs.. if you dont you might not ever.. its not like the price of btc will double overnight..


bitmain should have made smaller home miners, maybe one of the s7 hash boards. i would have replaced my s3s with those.

Built in my recreation room downstairs just for home mining:

https://i.imgur.com/HiyhZ6j.jpg

ALL of this gear is gone now awaiting S7's:  [That is black spray paint on the wall inside the mining closet.  It was as good of a place as any at the time to do some painting].  Five (5) 240V/30A circuits provide power for the Five (5) 240V/30A PDU's.  Two of the PDU's are mounted to the ceiling joists out of the picture.  Don't mind the orange 10/2 wire hanging down.  That's another 240V/30A line I was running that was not completed yet at the time of the photograph.  I had more hardware (S5's) that were put into use on the left side that were not set up yet at the time of the photo.

As you can see... I already have the 220V to 240V outlets with PDU's and I have several Corsair Platinum 860 watt PSU's.  What you don't see in this photo are the 19 IBM 2880W PSU's.  Four of the IBM 2880W PSU's were being used for the 15 SP20's.  The rest are out of the picture.  So, I'm not spending any extra money on outlets, wiring for outlets, PDU's, PSU's, ethernet cords or PCI-e cords.  I already have the peripherals.  I only need the rigs.

The 14,400 CFM exhaust fan is plenty for my present needs of getting the heat out.

https://i.imgur.com/t7UoZWO.jpg

This photo was taken during the initial setup of the hardware.  I'm adding it only to show the size of the mining closet inside:

https://i.imgur.com/mANMnOS.jpg

Geez what is your power situation in that room? My S4 runs a 15amp circuit just by itself

[ATCkit]

I had 1 PSU powering the boards and the controller.  I put another psu on the controller and booted up the boards first, and now it is running at full speed.  Thanks for the advise you two..

This makes you wonder if it would be worth installing a cut-off switch on the power cable that connects to the controller.  This would be helpful if you are using a single large PSU...

Why would that matter? My guess is that the 1 PSU alone didn't have enough power?

Regarding adding multiple PSU's etc, I can recommend add2psu adapters. http://www.add2psu.com/
You could get these to power the hashing boards first, and controllers later.

I used them on my GPU rigs back in the day.

Edit:

DO NOT use these on multiple circuits!

Are you sure about that ATCkit? I guess you are if you're doing it! ^^

The info slip that came with miner mentions using 2 sockets (ie: 2 circuits ). I'm using the add2psu because the 860 is powering 2 hashing boards and may be slightly low for them. So it draws extra power (~30 watss I'm guessing)  from the 750. I think you know what I mean as you've had experience with the add2psu. It's the only one that i feel is safe for dolly chaining 2 PSUs. There are others but they look kinda "light" to me.

EDIT: I actually tried using 3 EVGA 600B PSUs first- ie: one on each board and each PSU on its own circuit. I didn't dolly chain the 3 as i felt that wasn't needed since each one was dedicated to one board. Despite having 1800 watts, they could not run the rig above 2500 THS.

[Biodom]

It looks like you guys like to check different PSU combos while the good old EVGA 1300 with two PCie splitters (put on two single red cables) is perfectly up for the job.

[VirosaGITS]

It looks like you guys like to check different PSU combos while the good old EVGA 1300 with two PCie splitters (put on two single red cables) is perfectly up for the job.

People like to cheap out on PSU for some reason. Personally i'm going pure EVGA. I started with EVGA, then got some server PSUs with high efficiency and a cheaper Gold PSU but its kind of an hassle and the price wasnt much lower than some good old EVGA G2.

They even run great at 100% load, so for a antminer S7, i would definitively go for a EVGA G2 1300. The 10years warranty doesn't hurt either.

[ATCkit]

It looks like you guys like to check different PSU combos while the good old EVGA 1300 with two PCie splitters (put on two single red cables) is perfectly up for the job.

+1.

 In my case i was lucky that I didn't have to buy another PSU. I'm using what i had leftover (ie: after selling some S3s in June).  So I swapped the 750 and 860 from my 2 S5s to the S7 and put 4  600 watt PSUs onto my S5s- one PSU per board. All are happy.

One can never have enough PSUs- LOL.