Another experience here regarding S9 repairs.
Out of five S9 units I have been through five hash board repairs and one IO / control board replacement.
I used bitmainwarranty for various reasons, but mainly because of the time involved. My longest repair took two weeks.
The pricing was $175 +$25 shipping three times, $132 including $25 shipping once, and $150 plus $25 shipping once.
I purchased the IO and control boards and did the replacement myself on that issue.
Odd thing is two of the S9 units I have purchased were from a great forum member who can mention his name if he wants and four of the hash board repairs were from those two units. All have been ran in the exact same environment and I know this forum member takes great care of his equipment. He provides a great deal of advice and reviews here. Simply luck of the draw for me.
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What I am getting at here is the 14/16 nm process. I expect to see Bitmain release new models, make improvements in various areas, etc, but I do not expect to see another die shrink anytime soon. If more effort is put into tweaking S9 performance we may be able to squeeze much longer life.
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The S9 failure rate is completely unacceptable and I have not purchased another one. I am selling and will continue to sell everything except the S9s, my PSUs, some spare parts and cables. I plan to keep mining and am looking for an opportunity to purchase a bulk order. I have been attempting to find something worth putting a significant amount of cash in for almost a year now. I wanted to purchase x00 S9s when they were released and thank everything good I was ignored by Bitmain. If I had ended up with the same failure rate % you all would be sick of reading my complaining by now. When I tried to discuss the purchase via e-mail, no answer. The Avalons price per TH was too much but it is time I should revisit that price.
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Basically Bitmain have turned so many of their customer relationships into a vengeful type of "I buy from you because I do not have another choice." It has been and still is a long time coming but I can actually see the landscape changing. We will eventually have other choices. I was "first in line" to buy the S7 and S9. Unless I have another choice I will probably still purchase whatever next gen is released, but, I do it because it is what is available. Now, I do want to say my experience with bitmainwarranty in Colorado has been good. I have previously stated I firmly believe there are people working through that site who get it, but are controlled by policies put in place by the CEO in China and he cares about his existing largest accounts who are repeat customers.
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At least we are able to have the S9 hash boards "repaired." If I had known sidehack was repairing these I would have been discussing it with him. It isn't that bitmainwarranty in Colorado have sent me back unrepaired boards but for the price and the lack of details not to mention what sidehack does for this community I believe more of us should find ways to support his endeavours.
Good Luck to all of the home miners. Just since my short time of mining since 2014 so many people have departed. Hopefully many are still involved in various ways. The price of coin is nice and I hope it at least holds around $850 but I fear another drop as I recall the $190s and spent way too many coins around that price range. If I'd only held everything I made in 2015 rather than going all in on S7s I would be at a much higher P/L ratio.
I sold most of my s9s off including 2 to sloopy. And I think sloopy's 2 miners had a pair of replacement boards from bitmainwarranty.
The gear was never overclocked and temps were not allowed over 100c
I have 2 and ⅓ miners left
Buysolar has 2 miners 1 new and 1 old
They still work.
If you add the 4 dead boards from the 2 I sold to sloopy this brings my gear fail rate from 7 of 28 to 11 of 28.
Last I spoke with sloopy he had 1 dead board from the gear I sold him. So I guess 3 more failed.
I sold him a full s9 and a ⅔ s9 for 2k so add back say 700 in repairs and he spent 2700 for 20th
the sad part is 2700 for 20th is cheaper then getting 3 new avalons which will give you say 19th
at 3 x 888 = 2664 plus a controller for 60 = 2724 and of course shipping say 150 so net is 2874 and the gear does .16 watts per gh, Bitmain is the king of asic 256 and truly owns "btc".
I am fine with that in every way but one China can decide to go after that company and poof they are gone.
What happens to BTC if bitmain gets shut down?
Back to gear breaking. It is obvious the s9 is designed to be unreliable. why is that?
the only way to beat a free or cheap power guy is sell him shit gear. Most of us mining know we need cheap power and have managed to find it. So if we buy gear we are certain to make money. So bitmain keeps an edge against by sekking shit gear with a shit warranty.
we still buy because in sloopys case 2000 for 20th became 2700 for 20th and that still crushes avalon 721.
an aside to sloopy I can not get those 2 fans to work not sure why but they are delta and I had some other deltas like them with cockeyed wiring will still play with them some more.
I missed saying merry christmas to you but Happy New year ( I am early for that
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