Bitmain "warranty"

[Subw]

Recently several of my S5s started to behave erratically: hashing boards disappeared and then appeared again with various frequency, sometimes they hangs completely, one of them have two dead chips now. They was out of warranty period already for 1+ months so I decided to try to repair them and asked the price for controller board and got this answer:

We don't have spare control board to sell now, S5 has been discontinued for a long time now, sorry

Nice business: sell crap quality product with 3 month warranty (which can't ROI in this period of time) and abandon support for it. Repeat.

[Searing]

Recently several of my S5s started to behave erratically: hashing boards disappeared and then appeared again with various frequency, sometimes they hangs completely, one of them have two dead chips now. They was out of warranty period already for 1+ months so I decided to try to repair them and asked the price for controller board and got this answer:

We don't have spare control board to sell now, S5 has been discontinued for a long time now, sorry

Nice business: sell crap quality product with 3 month warranty (which can't ROI in this period of time) and abandon support for it. Repeat.

do a search of the 'sidehack 8gb usb miner" he has a few 'mod' threads on such and other projects ..from what I can tell they MAY be looking at a way to upgrade
S5's etc to a more robust machine for a modest fee (pod miner?)

anyway just a thought may help

here is the link i think it is this one ..he has a few.....I think the ideas for such an upgrade plan start on page 99 or so

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=995675.0

if nothing else his sidehack 8gb (oc to 16gb) usb stick for 25 bucks is a hoot your ROI is a smile...I got one simply to follow his project on that thread alone

anyway hope it helps and I'm in the ball park on the S5 (I have zip for antminer so if I want in on this will likely have to find a used machine)

you can pm him also he may have an idea on the controller issue just on your symptoms?

hope this helps

[Subw]

I read that thread, nice idea to recycle old hardware, but I'm not interested in toy miners and this thread is about quality of bitmain's products and (luck of) warranty.

[philipma1957]

Bitmaintech has not been that good with warranty service.  Many threads on it.

Some people have run 2 s-5's off one controller.  Here is a link :

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1151460.0

I think some posts in the thread above talk about 2 s-5's on one controller.

[notlist3d]

Bitmaintech has not been that good with warranty service.  Many threads on it.

Some people have run 2 s-5's off one controller.  Here is a link :

They also have been getting more strict if anything.  Now of you do a fan mod or anything without permission it voids warranty.

I still remember the letter that came with my S5+ it was like do anything to your unit... lose warranty.

[sidehack]

Someone mentioned they void your warrantly on the S7 if you don't plug cables into all 3 jacks, which is funny because it's a 1200W machine that "requires" 10 cables to run but their 1600W PSU on gives you 8 (and that 18AWG). Double standard much?

About a year, year and a half ago Bitmain was taking enough flak from everyone that they actively worked on improving customer service and warranty fulfillment. It looks a lot like they either stopped caring or decided it wasn't a worthy investment.

[VirosaGITS]

Someone mentioned they void your warrantly on the S7 if you don't plug cables into all 3 jacks, which is funny because it's a 1200W machine that "requires" 10 cables to run but their 1600W PSU on gives you 8 (and that 18AWG). Double standard much?

About a year, year and a half ago Bitmain was taking enough flak from everyone that they actively worked on improving customer service and warranty fulfillment. It looks a lot like they either stopped caring or decided it wasn't a worthy investment.

I'm guessing they realized people will buy their stuff regardless because they are just starved that much. Bitmain's communication at the moment seem slow and poor and their customer service is horrible on RMA. And having to ship back is expensive and really not what one would expect of a warranty.

[marvykkio]

also I inform you that paying bitcoins have a duty to save us or dispatch, or declare a low price for customs.

[VirosaGITS]

also I inform you that paying bitcoins have a duty to save us or dispatch, or declare a low price for customs.

That would be nice, but Bitmain actually declare a fairly high value so this is not applicable to this situation or Bitmain in general. You can only do that when you do it user to user, not company delivering to end users.

[marvykkio]

must begin to change policy, I can not buy s7 I do not want to pay customs duty of 350 €

[Meech]

Again don't expect them to carry spare parts and if they can repair it they will use parts off of another.  Poor to say the least.  Yoshi finally helped me out of costly loop of repairs but don't count on Bitmain to repair non current miners.

[sidehack]

Complaints about import duties should be taken up with your national government rather than the manufacturer of the goods. It's not a business' job to lie on legal documentation. Governments need funding to run, and every dollar they spend has to come from somewhere - if it's not import taxes, it's sales taxes or income taxes or somewhere else. The US government was pretty much entirely funded by import taxes for the first century or so.

Complaints about bad customer service and ignoring warranty claims, yeah that's definitely their responsibility and they've been dropping the ball pretty heavily all this year.

[marvykkio]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1200065.0

rate to the survey to increase the warranty period

[marvykkio]

Complaints about import duties should be taken up with your national government rather than the manufacturer of the goods. It's not a business' job to lie on legal documentation. Governments need funding to run, and every dollar they spend has to come from somewhere - if it's not import taxes, it's sales taxes or income taxes or somewhere else. The US government was pretty much entirely funded by import taxes for the first century or so.

Complaints about bad customer service and ignoring warranty claims, yeah that's definitely their responsibility and they've been dropping the ball pretty heavily all this year.

if I pay in BTC, they can declare that the product is priced at $ 350,

no one knows that I paid in BTC.

Customs sees the price declared by bitmain.

[sidehack]

That's great, until customs looks on Bitmain's website and sees the price is $1600 or $1600 worth of BTC. Doesn't matter what currency you paid with, the price is the price.

In a selfish way I'm glad I don't have to pay much in import taxes on mining gear from China, but at the same time I wish we actually had higher duties on Chinese imports in general. The point of import duties is to benefit local economy - import taxes incentivise domestic production and you don't end up sending all your money to another country in exchange for whatever junk you're trying to buy. In the case of specialized equipment like bitcoin miners, where currently there's only a few manufacturers in the world, it hurts, but in the case of almost literally everything else that could be manufactured locally, it's foolish. At least from where I'm sitting. Not everywhere has the raw material and engineering resources that the US has - but then again, not everywhere has a culture simultaneously dominated by greed and laziness like the US either.

But this is a warranty complaint thread. Different thing to be annoyed about.

[Tupsu]

Someone mentioned they void your warrantly on the S7 if you don't plug cables into all 3 jacks, which is funny because it's a 1200W machine that "requires" 10 cables to run but their 1600W PSU on gives you 8 (and that 18AWG). Double standard much?

About a year, year and a half ago Bitmain was taking enough flak from everyone that they actively worked on improving customer service and warranty fulfillment. It looks a lot like they either stopped caring or decided it wasn't a worthy investment.

Bitmain APW3-12-1600-B2  PSU is with 12x PCI-E cables.
Old version Antminer S4 built-in 1400W PSU was with 9 PCI-E cables.

[sidehack]

Ah right, my mistake. It's listed as six pairs of 6-pin ends; is each end on its own cable or are they shared?

[notlist3d]

That's great, until customs looks on Bitmain's website and sees the price is $1600 or $1600 worth of BTC. Doesn't matter what currency you paid with, the price is the price.

In a selfish way I'm glad I don't have to pay much in import taxes on mining gear from China, but at the same time I wish we actually had higher duties on Chinese imports in general. The point of import duties is to benefit local economy - import taxes incentivise domestic production and you don't end up sending all your money to another country in exchange for whatever junk you're trying to buy. In the case of specialized equipment like bitcoin miners, where currently there's only a few manufacturers in the world, it hurts, but in the case of almost literally everything else that could be manufactured locally, it's foolish. At least from where I'm sitting. Not everywhere has the raw material and engineering resources that the US has - but then again, not everywhere has a culture simultaneously dominated by greed and laziness like the US either.

But this is a warranty complaint thread. Different thing to be annoyed about.

This is like the 2nd or 3rd warranty thread.  It's getting rediclous.  Bitmain does not do things for free so anyone wanting a year warranty... it would be tacked on every single sale.

The other popular thing is about the declared value.  If bitmain is known to a country as shipping incorrect amount's there will be some sort of trouble for them.  It would be illegal in some countries and crazy for a legit business to avoid vat/taxes.   This is really where the customer comes in.  Some need to say it sucks but their country is not made for mining, and find a data center to host.

Also keep in mind the long break bitmain had.  I bet they have TONS of emails to anwser.   Chances are some sent multiple emails, so imagine sorting that out.  They have a big obstical right now on getting caught up.

[sloopy]

They would not have a need to get caught up had they communicated with us prior to going on vacation.
It would shock me to see companies I do business with to go on vacation knowing they had a major issue and would not be shipping product on time. There are very few industries where this would resemble anything close to acceptable, and when you are talking about a box which literally makes currency it certainly is not acceptable.

If they had communicated there would not be as many posts or threads.

It has, is, and will remain to be normal business practice to issue coupons for huge mistakes which unfortunately only causes the cycle to repeat. I hope no one is fooled by this coupon concept. This company certainly is not giving up the amount of currency they are letting you believe you are saving. Coupons do not work that way in any business, much less with this company who anyone that is being honest knows they are making more than a good profit.

The fact they have their S7s online in hashnest is not a surprise, but it is another slap in the face to everyone who ordered batch One. It is as good as saying out loud through an announcement they have been hashing right along with a full load of S7 miners. Probably, even many of the ones which should have shipped.

It is and has been an unwritten understanding in the community that when you order batch one, especially when it is a real pre-order as this has obviously turned out to be, that you would receive some form of benefits. Be them early adopter benefits of having the product in hand and being able to hash with it for a respectable amount of time before the other batch orders ship. Or, say an additional product with real value, not a coupon, or if there is a mistake, a real refund. They could offer people X amount per day of hashnest equivalent.

There are so many options for them to make and keep customers happy which cost them so little, but as many have stated and many more know it is obvious they no longer care if they did last year with the customer service campaign.

I understand issues all too well. I understand missing a ship date. It happens to the best companies. You definitely do not want to ship poor product, and I would rather my order be late than function poorly. However what goes with this is communication. Companies who are successful and build relationships with their customers actually care those customers succeed. You grow together and provide information people may use in executing their own business plans.

Imagine you are a miner who is barely scraping by every month and just took a loan to pay for a huge S7 order and now you are way behind on hashing to pay that first loan payment. You are having a bad day, many days in a row.
Obviously taking out a loan for miners is a bad idea at this point, but it wasn't such a bad idea so long ago. Now if you do so I do not think you have good decision making skills because there is no one you can trust to deliver on time. Maybe if you are mining at the Spondoolies 110TH and you are buying enough of them, but if, if, and if. You certainly cannot make plans based on the information provided by bitmain.

It is sad to see so many fellow miners in this shape. So many of us sent our BTC in good faith we would have our miner in hand by now functioning at 48xx. I do not think most of us are confident when we will see a miner shipment, and an even lower number of people are confident they will receive something hashing at the 48xx.

The way a real company does business would have been to announce there was issue X weeks ago and outline the plan they were executing to address the issue. You do not go on vacation, even a national one, you ask for volunteers from any department needed and you pay them double-time. You have food brought in, and you work your ass off to make things right for your customers.
Your customers recognize what you do for them, they appreciate it, and everyone continues working together towards an even more successful relationship.

You can go back and allow people to take staggered time off, allow extra concessions, and if anyone doubts bitmain would still make a very nice profit they have not ran the numbers and do not understand the margins bitmain is already working under. They are huge.

I, like so many, can only shrug and express my disappointment. I could try again to look forward to a time when bitmain does not handle business this way but I am more of a realist than idealist in this regard now. Don't get me wrong, I still hope we will see fair product for fair price in fair time, but after the majority of my personal experiences being at the level they were, now I go through this with the S7 along with so many others it may be time for me to evaluate my own position in the mining scene.

If I believe the two candidates running for President in the US elections are both evil and as a society we have been taught, pressed, told that we should select the lesser of two evils. I stopped doing such years ago.
I now think the same thought process is the direction I need to go with regards to mining. I only have one real choice and as much as I think there is revolutionary technology at stake, it will continue to be manipulated to the point it is in the same shape as the fiat currency is today. Maybe if people had stopped voting for the lesser of two evils 50 years ago things would not have been allowed to simmer along, and maybe if people sincerely stopped supporting bad service it would change as well. As much as I enjoy it, it does begin to wane and cause considerable discomfort when we cannot even garner a proper Public Relations person to make current announcements.

I haven't given up yet on either my country or bitcoin mining, but I do not plan to allow myself to feel as though I have no choice except to accept whatever I am told or given. I am not a doormat, and neither are any of the other people out there who paid over a month ago and still wait on proper communication. Make sure you are heard. Make sure you tell them directly and publicly how you feel you are being treated. I think everyone who has money on an S7 order should make at least one post in the S7 thread stating their experience good or bad. It would be good for everyone to hear you if you are having a great experience, and I have seen a couple. I sure hope there are more of you, but I fear there are more of the other, who are also, being looked upon as door mats.

[torepia]

Thank you for writing that sloopy, I totally agree.