Bitmain Announces the Antminer R4 and APW5 Power Supply, Designed for Silence

[Artemis3]

I have to wonder why none of the competition has cloned this design. There are many places where you want to have these silent miners...

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[leowonderful]

I have to wonder why none of the competition has cloned this design. There are many places where you want to have these silent miners...

There's simply not enough demand for quiet miners. Most large buyers of mining supplies operate farms where noise is not an issue, and having a silent miner is a rather niche product when you can just sell larger volumes louder ones.

I still find it interesting Bitmain has put 'Coming Soon' on their R4 product page but they haven't come out with any news about it yet. Same for the clock-router LTC miner that they have, the page for that showed up 2-3 weeks ago but there's been no news about it whatsoever besides the product page.

[TheYankeesWin!]

I have to wonder why none of the competition has cloned this design. There are many places where you want to have these silent miners...

There's simply not enough demand for quiet miners. Most large buyers of mining supplies operate farms where noise is not an issue, and having a silent miner is a rather niche product when you can just sell larger volumes louder ones.

I still find it interesting Bitmain has put 'Coming Soon' on their R4 product page but they haven't come out with any news about it yet. Same for the clock-router LTC miner that they have, the page for that showed up 2-3 weeks ago but there's been no news about it whatsoever besides the product page.

Router Ltc miner looks pretty sweet.

[fanatic26]

Router Ltc miner looks pretty sweet.

I dunno what you consider sweet but a $20 router with a single hash chip in it that will never even reach ROI is not my cup of tea

[zachj00]

Does anybody know when the next batch of the R4s are coming out? It's been "coming soon" for what seems to be forever now.

[Mo20]

Does anybody know when the next batch of the R4s are coming out? It's been "coming soon" for what seems to be forever now.

Probably never. They might have some inventory left but I doubt that they still manufacture these R4s.

[ccgllc]

I have to wonder why none of the competition has cloned this design. There are many places where you want to have these silent miners...

There's simply not enough demand for quiet miners. Most large buyers of mining supplies operate farms where noise is not an issue, and having a silent miner is a rather niche product when you can just sell larger volumes louder ones.

I still find it interesting Bitmain has put 'Coming Soon' on their R4 product page but they haven't come out with any news about it yet. Same for the clock-router LTC miner that they have, the page for that showed up 2-3 weeks ago but there's been no news about it whatsoever besides the product page.

They may have been quiet, but they were not cost effective.  S9s provided a lot more hashing for your dollar than the R4s did.

[Artemis3]

It is the same as running an older batch S9 with two boards (8THs), except silent. And they pull 2/3s the power of the older S9s as well.

Its design is probably unnecessary in a warehouse, but perfect for the living room.
The T9 is close, but it still uses dual fans. I wonder if the Avalons are quiet enough, but somehow doubt it. Someone told me 65db, which is 10db above the R4.

The fan on the R4 should be run at 100% by disconnecting the control wire, they are very quiet even at the max 3200rpm (i saw another (slower?) batch running max at 3000rpm).

Compare it with the useless A3 and tell me they were worth more spending resources than this. An Scrypt model using this same design would have probably been great as well.

I guess in the end you have to get a T9/S9 and put it inside a cooler box with holes and thermal insulated ducts...

[leowonderful]

It is the same as running an older batch S9 with two boards (8THs), except silent. And they pull 2/3s the power of the older S9s as well.

Its design is probably unnecessary in a warehouse, but perfect for the living room.
The T9 is close, but it still uses dual fans. I wonder if the Avalons are quiet enough, but somehow doubt it. Someone told me 65db, which is 10db above the R4.

The fan on the R4 should be run at 100% by disconnecting the control wire, they are very quiet even at the max 3200rpm (i saw another (slower?) batch running max at 3000rpm).

Compare it with the useless A3 and tell me they were worth more spending resources than this. An Scrypt model using this same design would have probably been great as well.

I guess in the end you have to get a T9/S9 and put it inside a cooler box with holes and thermal insulated ducts...

Avalons aren’t going to be quiet enough for the living room like you said; they’re still industrial grade machines just like the S9s, though they are indeed somewhat quieter than the S9s. Every decibel counts in home mining, though, so if you aren’t going for the living room approach, the Avalon or S9 is fine for the garage or basement as long as there is adequate airflow coming in and heat extraction out.

There’s no need for the R4 in a warehouse considering you get way better bang for your buck with alternatives like the S9, T9, A8xx, etc.

[fanatic26]

The R4 was a failed experiment and further proves there is not a strong enough market for home miners to keep them in production.

To make a decent profit in the space now you need to run more miners than a normal home electrical system is setup to handle. The only reason to run an R4 is so you can pat yourself on the back and brag to your friends you mine bitcoin.

I mean an r4 makes like what $50 a month at residential power prices?

[throwaway2]

It is the same as running an older batch S9 with two boards (8THs), except silent. And they pull 2/3s the power of the older S9s as well.

Its design is probably unnecessary in a warehouse, but perfect for the living room.
The T9 is close, but it still uses dual fans. I wonder if the Avalons are quiet enough, but somehow doubt it. Someone told me 65db, which is 10db above the R4.

The fan on the R4 should be run at 100% by disconnecting the control wire, they are very quiet even at the max 3200rpm (i saw another (slower?) batch running max at 3000rpm).

Compare it with the useless A3 and tell me they were worth more spending resources than this. An Scrypt model using this same design would have probably been great as well.

I guess in the end you have to get a T9/S9 and put it inside a cooler box with holes and thermal insulated ducts...

I ran an Avalon 741 in my studio apartment for about 3 months and it heated my space pretty well for the winter months. The 841s are definitely louder.

Underclocking my 741 to -2 voltage and setting a low minimum fanspeed dropped the sound quite a bit (think ~50db @ 1 ft away, I will see if I can find a video). The fans are obviously very sensitive to temps and so I kept my unit near a cold brick wall with a window I could open at any time if it was getting too warm. Electricity cost was about the same as what I would have paid for heat.

[elokk]

Does anybody know when the next batch of the R4s are coming out? It's been "coming soon" for what seems to be forever now.

I have 3 that I'm interested in selling or trading

[alikait]

Does anybody know when the next batch of the R4s are coming out? It's been "coming soon" for what seems to be forever now.

I have 3 that I'm interested in selling or trading

how much do you want for them? i'm interested PM me please.

[Pyrojason]

Btw, I recently bought two faulty R4s in Ebay to see if I can fix them and after I noticed I'm not able to fix them with my equipment, I sent them to paid repair service (out-of-warranty repair service).

I have sent one R4 to Bitmain in Hong Kong and I have sent the another one R4  to MyRig in Denver, CO, USA.
In a e-mail discussion Bitmain said to me that "We have not produced or supported the R4 in a long time. If you need repair please try our out of repair agent in the US. They carry parts for older machines and may be able to repair. Please check with them."

I didn't know this prior sending one R4 unit to Bitmain in Hong Kong.

But I should have remembered that there was this whole replacement process with T9s and S9s for guys with a faulty R4 unit..

Let's see how this turns out.  

Any news on these two tests? Curious as to the progress or outcomes.
Any idea how much the CO repair center charges to repair/replace a single r4 board?

[Pyrojason]

I had 1x R4B1 that have very cheap PCI power connectors.
They overheated at stock speed, ruined my P/S cables. ( EVGA G2 1300W )
My second unit didn't have that issue.

Monitor your cables temperature, nothing should heat.
Bitmain lowered connector quality for some R4 batch, probably explaining lot's of defects.

It need a lot's of heat to desoldering, soldering iron alone won't be enough.
Pre-heating bed or hot air is mandatory to execute the job properly.

Or you can send the boards to me for repair. I've been doing this on Avalons, Titans, and S7's for awhile now, and I've seen some poor attempts to do it which don't end well.

If you want me to fix bad connectors, drop me a PM and pack the boards in bubble wrap.

And since I believe information should be free and the skill of work be paid for, here are some tips on how to do it:

You have to get a pre-heater. Aoyue 853+ or better at minimum. Don't use a super big soldering iron, you will just burn the vias before you remove the part.

Cut the back three prongs on the connector before you start. That way you are removing them one at a time, not six at once.

And the super magic secret: Tin the leads with lead/rosin solder. This will lower the melting point of the crap ROHS solder a *lot* and make removal easier.

Use very good flux. Flux cleans connections and transfers heat.

Once off..../////

How do you pre-heat this area without letting the SMD components float off? The pcie joints seem really difficult  to melt!

[HagssFIN]

Well I found out that,

Bitmain can not repair R4 miners. They say they don't have spare parts anymore.
Which sucks, in my opinion.

The only place to repair these is MyRig.
And they can only repair it if it doesn't have too much of a pcb board damages.

So out of these two R4 units, I was only able to get one R4 unit repaired successfully. 

[Pyrojason]

Well I found out that,

Bitmain can not repair R4 miners. They say they don't have spare parts anymore.
Which sucks, in my opinion.

The only place to repair these is MyRig.

Gotcha - I saw that response from Bitmain - did they return it to you?

Has MyRig responded with any updates on the other board you shipped out?

[HagssFIN]

I updated my post, please have another look.

Both two R4 units ended up being sent to MyRig,
and they were able to fix only one R4..

[Pyrojason]

I updated my post, please have another look.

Both two R4 units ended up being sent to MyRig,
and they were able to fix only one R4..

Got it, thanks. The R4 is so unique - it’s a shame there are so many issues.

[elokk]

I owned a bunch of these over the past year and half, MyRig was able to successfully repair all of them that lost boards plus I did not have to ship the entire rig.

Currently trying to get a hashboard repaired there now but customer service is not replying promptly. Their customer service is hit or miss, must be all the smog in Denver