Antminer S3 Faulty Chips?

[BitJunkie223]

So this has happened before... I had another S3 that when I clocked it up to 250, half of a board dropped off... I tried resetting it through software, turning off the power and turning it back on, and I even took off the heatsink and applied new paste. None of which helped... I have since left it clocked at 243.75.

The next option available in the interface below 250. And on all my other miners, that's seemed to work fine. So I get these new miners in, and all of a sudden, I clock it to 243.75. Boom, a couple chips are showing as "-".

I soft reset the miner a couple times with no results. I then turned off the power, and turned it back on. It was fine. That was last night. This morning, I seem to have an "x" at the end of my bottom blade in the interface. But the hashrate is surprisingly low, at like 398 gh/s or so, as opposed to the 430 or so I was getting. This unit seems to perform worse than average, but not too big a deal. Would simply clocking it up to 250 for like 5 minutes, cause me to lose chips? And why has losing a single chip dropped my hashrate so much?

Is there any way to "resurrect" it? It seems a lot of people clock at 250mhz with no problems. So why is it that these two miners have more or less partially broken when clocked to the maximum provided by the provided by the given interface? Can anyone help me out here?

[sidehack]

It's possible that board has slow-corner chips that aren't able to handle the higher hashrate at the stock voltage setpoint. Check your hardware error rate when the hashrate is running so much lower.

My S3 also doesn't like 250MHz. The highest stable frequency it'll run at is 237.5MHz.

[BitJunkie223]

Hmm... My average is now at almost 403, and my HW errors are at 1.37%.. I'm running at 225mhz.  I heard a while back that some units run better at the 218.75, so maybe I'll try that... Still, is there any hope for that chip that still has an "x"? Or is it totally gone?

[philipma1957]

Hmm... My average is now at almost 403, and my HW errors are at 1.37%.. I'm running at 225mhz.  I heard a while back that some units run better at the 218.75, so maybe I'll try that... Still, is there any hope for that chip that still has an "x"? Or is it totally gone?

it should work at 206 ,212 or 218

the early batch 1's  were not able to do over 218.

I have 2 of them mining as I type since july of 2014  they have been set at 212 and have been flawless for more then a year. a steady 425 hash rate day in and day out.

[BitJunkie223]

Thanks for your input, guys. I clocked it down to 218.75MHZ and I'm running at over 420GH/s, even with a missing chip. And as far as that chip goes, this might be good news. It's went from an "x" to a "-", so I'm hoping that turning the power off again will bring it back. Either way, this is way better than running at under 400, so I'm not gonna mess with it much more if I get that last chip working.

Have any of you ever been able to bring a whole board back, as per my other unit?

And in regards to that, would anyone happen to have a replacement S3 (S1 Upgrade Kit) board?

[sidehack]

Bringing a board back depends heavily on what the issue is. If the first bank's VRM failed those chips would turn off, and they'd no longer relay comms to chips further down the line so even if the rest of the board had power they wouldn't hash. I don't know what the odds of that happening are but it could be a simple fix. Without seeing it I wouldn't know what to really suggest.

[VirosaGITS]

Bringing a board back depends heavily on what the issue is. If the first bank's VRM failed those chips would turn off, and they'd no longer relay comms to chips further down the line so even if the rest of the board had power they wouldn't hash. I don't know what the odds of that happening are but it could be a simple fix. Without seeing it I wouldn't know what to really suggest.

I don't suppose there's a  uide or source or post somewhere that point out a few easy thing to check to know if the board is salvageable? I have a dead S5 board, fixing it or salvaging something from it would be of interest.

Maybe someone is in business to buying dead boards in fixing them too?

[sidehack]

I don't really have a budget for buying dead hardware and reviving it, but I could take a look at some if you wanted to send it. If I can't get it working you'd only be out the cost of mailing. I've been out of the formal repairs loop for a generation or two but that's mostly because nobody's asked.

[VirosaGITS]

I don't really have a budget for buying dead hardware and reviving it, but I could take a look at some if you wanted to send it. If I can't get it working you'd only be out the cost of mailing. I've been out of the formal repairs loop for a generation or two but that's mostly because nobody's asked.

If i was in the US, having someone else take a look, in the US, would probably be worth a try. But if i find a replacement PCB to socket in instead of that one, maybe i'll strip it down and offer it for sale and if i can't just send it to you.

Its just typically more efficient to save your time and buy a new one, sadly. I'd probably have to find someone that want to make a project out of it more than a profit, since typically it would cost more in time than just save your time and fix the issue the typical consumer's way. (Throw it away and get a new one)

[sidehack]

I tend to charge "what you think it's worth". Couple months ago I did some work on an S2 for a guy in exchange for his promise to buy four Compacs when they came out - which he was probably going to do anyway. I worked a year at a computer shop that charged $50 an hour for customer repairs, and I saw $8 of that. Without management overhead and a main-street storefront, $8's plenty.

But yeah, if you're outside the US there's probably not much I can do since shipping would be quite cost-prohibitive especially with no repair guarantee.

Typical consumers are stupid, and the "throw it away and get a new one" mentality was a deliberate cultural shift instigated by manufacturers who needed to secure continued profits from continued sales, and then used it as an excuse to manufacture lower-quality goods with a short functional lifetime. I think we deserve better.

[VirosaGITS]

I tend to charge "what you think it's worth". Couple months ago I did some work on an S2 for a guy in exchange for his promise to buy four Compacs when they came out - which he was probably going to do anyway. I worked a year at a computer shop that charged $50 an hour for customer repairs, and I saw $8 of that. Without management overhead and a main-street storefront, $8's plenty.

But yeah, if you're outside the US there's probably not much I can do since shipping would be quite cost-prohibitive especially with no repair guarantee.

Typical consumers are stupid, and the "throw it away and get a new one" mentality was a deliberate cultural shift instigated by manufacturers who needed to secure continued profits from continued sales, and then used it as an excuse to manufacture lower-quality goods with a short functional lifetime. I think we deserve better.

I think so too, but in this situation, i'm not expecting shipping to be under 20-25$, forth and then again back. And also labor/repair cost.
With delays and no garantee.

I might be better off just finding someone who which to buy it for cheap and ship it at their cost. Then put that money toward finding someone else in a similar situation where they wish to sell me their one working blade. Hence... get rid of it and get a new one, which is sad considering how much waste we produce. But anyways.

I doubt the chips on the board are dead so maybe someone out there is looking to extract S5's chips.

This is outside my expertise by far, but i can easily conceptualize someone doing so for a project or maybe even for profit if they just need to lay those chips on a working PCB.

[aurel57]

Hmm... My average is now at almost 403, and my HW errors are at 1.37%.. I'm running at 225mhz.  I heard a while back that some units run better at the 218.75, so maybe I'll try that... Still, is there any hope for that chip that still has an "x"? Or is it totally gone?

it should work at 206 ,212 or 218

the early batch 1's  were not able to do over 218.

I have 2 of them mining as I type since july of 2014  they have been set at 212 and have been flawless for more then a year. a steady 425 hash rate day in and day out.

I still have a batch 1 in the basement running and it will not work right over the 218.75 setting and avg. 409 GH/S. This is the reason I never sold it on EBay as It was a dog compared to all the other S3 I sold and did not want a unhappy customer. (It has one x asic)

[VirosaGITS]

Hmm... My average is now at almost 403, and my HW errors are at 1.37%.. I'm running at 225mhz.  I heard a while back that some units run better at the 218.75, so maybe I'll try that... Still, is there any hope for that chip that still has an "x"? Or is it totally gone?

it should work at 206 ,212 or 218

the early batch 1's  were not able to do over 218.

I have 2 of them mining as I type since july of 2014  they have been set at 212 and have been flawless for more then a year. a steady 425 hash rate day in and day out.

I still have a batch 1 in the basement running and it will not work right over the 218.75 setting and avg. 409 GH/S. This is the reason I never sold it on EBay as It was a dog compared to all the other S3 I sold and did not want a unhappy customer. (It has one x asic)

Meh, its still good, i would of taken it if i saw a good deal for it so i'm sure others would have too if posted on the marketplace here. Its probably still worth 50-60$ right now, so all in all, as long as it hash at the right J/GH, i still think its not a bad unit.

[BitJunkie223]

In regards to what units are worth, things have not been great, even with the new S7... Yeah, it's really power efficient, but even with that, it's not worth the well over $2000 people are charging... Even at $1800, it's not something that can be used for a profit at this time.

The state of things sucks now. Knowing that, $50-60 is a hell of a deal. For me personally, since I'm mining just for speculating, short-term profit isn't an issue since I'm in it for the long haul, but... Mining for profit is dead for the forseeable future unfortunately. I remember when S1's first came out, and they were going for close to $2000 I believe. But hell, you got what you paid for. Or at least at the time you did. 200GH/s was incredible.

[sidehack]

Yeah I got in on Sushi's second round of S1 sales, delivered a couple days before Christmas 2013. Now I balk at paying $400 for a miner, which is funny when I think about how much I sunk into Blades and Cubes and S1 back in the day. I bought an S2 Kit 16 months ago for what the S7 is selling for now and didn't think it was stupid. Course at the time I didn't expect to see coin hovering around $200 anytime soon either...

S3 are good machines. I'd forgotten about that bug with the firmware version killing the reset. Hopefully the problem on this guy's doesn't require hardware hacks or warranty work.

Edit - dangit I'm getting my threads mixed up. Firmware issue was the other thing, this was hardware issue. Anyways, yeah S3 are still solid units even down one chip. The only way they'd be better is with adjustable core voltage - which would probably actually solve the problem entirely.

[Gren]

I had a similar problem with a s3, I have an old pyramid adjustable power supply that i used for powering car audio stuff. I wired up the s3 to it and I was going to crank it all the way up and see if i could let the smoke out of the s3 for amusement and to end my frustration with it. I gradually increased the voltage to 13.1 and the - and x's disappeared, and all is well. it was hashing along for months with almost no hardware errors before i unplugged it.

I'm not sure what exactly happened but the bump in voltage seems to compensate for a flaw. I was very surprised. is this common? is this a bad idea?
I'm looking for a cheap server psu that i can replicate this on. Would someone be so kind as point me in the right direction or debunk my idea?

Thanks