Antminer R4 - dead hash board? Shitty design, read before you send it back

[captinkid]

bmminer crashes when the bad r4 board is connected, it segfaults somewhere during the board testing process and just sits there.

It fails immediately after this step:
Chain[J7] chip[12] get middle temp offset=-3 typeID=55

Was hoping I could get the 45 good chips to run, maybe if I knew the memory addresses it was failing on I could avoid them, but it's difficult to tell. I'm surprised they didn't engineer it to use whatever good chips are available, instead of failing the entire chain. But I suppose Bitmain isn't known for robust designs.

Oh well, sometimes you wish for the good old days with single asic USB chips, easy enough to diagnose anyway.

It's at least reading more than the dead S9 board was, so hopefully it'll be a quick fix when I send it it.

 

[philipma1957]

I did a lot of math to figure out what to do in my case.  I have ¾ boards working.  I am doing 11.5 of 16th

Since 1 machine has a very noisy fan that will fail  I would need to send that in
Since the other machine has   1 dead board I would need to send that in.

So 2 units would be stupid expensive to ship to China.   Close to 300 plus lost hash  thats a no go.
Sending to bitmainwarranty  would be 70 to ship say 200 for repairs  say 270 plus lost hash.

They won't let me put the bad fan in the unit with the dead board which would save a lot.  I am pretty certain I should just mine until the gear dies more.  11.5 th will earn about .22 coins over the next 30 days.  or 200 usd.   so  add the 270 + 200 I am out 470  and I then would be up to 17th a month from today.
Since I am at 70% capacity at the moment losing 470 usd to go to 100% does not make much sense.
These are R4's  in safe mining places dry and  no dust not hot  with auto tuning. Letting me ship to bitmainwarranty won't be an option at the moment.

So I ordered an avalon 721 today. I paid 776  vs the 470 the repairs would cost.
I will get the unit in a week it will do 6.3th so 3 weeks would be about 100 so cost is 665 compared to 470

I get 6.3 th vs 4.5 th close to a push.   Don't forget the r4's could break more.

power cost is not a factor for me with the solar array

I am done with bitmain for a while.

[captinkid]

That's the question, is it more cost effective to keep sending parts in for repair, or to spend that money buying better equipment with real support from elsewhere?

Can do a GPU rig that's 1/2 the raw income of Bitmain hardware, but it'll easy to fix and replace parts as needed, with a full 1 year warranty.

Maybe an Avalon rig too, not quite as good on paper as Bitmain, but if they have a lower failure rate it won't take much to make it worth it.

Bitmain has an initial productivity advantage, but it eats that away with failures and constant issues. Plus their warranty is essentially worthless, so there isn't much to recommend them.

One thing you might try is send the bad fan in with the other unit, and ask for a PAY repair on that part, or have them ship you a replacement fan. Anything other than shipping back an entire extra unit for a bad fan would be a big benefit.

[philipma1957]

That's the question, is it more cost effective to keep sending parts in for repair, or to spend that money buying better equipment with real support from elsewhere?

Can do a GPU rig that's 1/2 the raw income of Bitmain hardware, but it'll easy to fix and replace parts as needed, with a full 1 year warranty.

Maybe an Avalon rig too, not quite as good on paper as Bitmain, but if they have a lower failure rate it won't take much to make it worth it.

Bitmain has an initial productivity advantage, but it eats that away with failures and constant issues. Plus their warranty is essentially worthless, so there isn't much to recommend them.

One thing you might try is send the bad fan in with the other unit, and ask for a PAY repair on that part, or have them ship you a replacement fan. Anything other than shipping back an entire extra unit for a bad fan would be a big benefit.

this is the long barrel fan not a delta .  and it is working but sounds like shit

I know of no one selling the 20 inch tube fan

https://shop.bitmain.com/market.htm?name=antminer_r4_silent_bitcoin_miner_for_home
A Groundbreaking Custom-design Fan
The R4 will change the meaning of a fan for all bitcoin miners

Fans have long been the single biggest source of noise in any bitcoin miner. The R4’s design team found a simple but unique solution to this problem: to do away with the traditional noisy fan!
Inspired by the “fan” of a silent split air conditioner, we designed a fan that can make less than half the noise of the standard miner fan. What’s more is that its speed is automatically controlled to ensure it never creates more noise than is absolutely necessary.

http://image.bitmain.com/R4/overview/img-overview-fan2.png

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Phil, what you want to search for is "tangential blower suppliers". That will pull up a ton of links, now as to finding one that runs off of 12vdc and has the needed PWM control... that will probably be the hard part.

[vapourminer]

maybe there is a supplier/part number on the r4 fan to cross reference?

[philipma1957]

Phil, what you want to search for is "tangential blower suppliers". That will pull up a ton of links, now as to finding one that runs off of 12vdc and has the needed PWM control... that will probably be the hard part.

thanks will start to look.

this is correct length  volts wrong

http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/hvac/blowers/crossflow/fasco-crossflow-blower-115-volts-2780-rpm


these are dc and may work I will need to read this page carefully
http://catalog.pelonistechnologies.com/category/dc-cross-flow-fans

this is close.

http://catalog.pelonistechnologies.com/item/dc-cross-flow-fans/dc-cross-flow-fan-jed-040a-series/jed-04035a12q

I may be able to trick the controller  using this above and this below


https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835132031


this is pwm and maybe will fool controller

[Finksy]

...
So I ordered an avalon 721 today. I paid 776  vs the 470 the repairs would cost.
I will get the unit in a week it will do 6.3th so 3 weeks would be about 100 so cost is 665 compared to 470

I get 6.3 th vs 4.5 th close to a push.   Don't forget the r4's could break more.

power cost is not a factor for me with the solar array

  I am done with bitmain for a while.

Damn Phil, I never would've considered doing that vs a warranty repair, but that makes a lot of sense.  I am with you in re: to Bitmain, they have no respect for their customers.  If you're not buying 100+ units at a time, it's just not worth the risk of failed equipment.  I'm starting to feel like legitimate Group Buys hosted at DC's by purchasing shares (and paying out mining reward according to shares regardless of who's unit actually breaks down) might start making sense again, like an insurance policy against being the unlucky one with a failed unit taking out a huge chunk of your revenue stream.

Will Bitmain not accept the dead hashboard back to China for repair by itself? Last time I tried warrantying an S7 they specifically mentioned NOT to send the whole miner, only to send the dead boards and grossly under-declare value for them.  Doesn't really help you with the fan, but if I was you I would just source a furnace fan and duct it in instead of the type that ships with the R4. If it's covered under warranty it would be a shame not to try to get your value out of it.

[elokk]

**ATTENTION ALL POTENTIAL BITMAIN WARRANTY CUSTOMERS**

Today I went to my local UPS store to ship out my Batch 4 R4 that needs repair and picked up my Batch 2 R4 that was shipped back on Friday (I have been out of town).

When I opened the box, I was shocked to see they shipped the miner back to me without the foam packing that goes on each end of the miner which was on there when I shipped to Denver. This means the R4 was not tightly packed and sliding around inside the box. In addition, I found one heat sink that had fallen off and one of the protective plastic sleeves for the hash board slots missing.

Seriously??? Crap product from China, slow repair service from Denver, and $225 later I still have a damaged miner. I do not even want to power it up out of fear of causing more damage.

[blockops]

Damn Phil, I never would've considered doing that vs a warranty repair, but that makes a lot of sense.  I am with you in re: to Bitmain, they have no respect for their customers.  If you're not buying 100+ units at a time, it's just not worth the risk of failed equipment.  I'm starting to feel like legitimate Group Buys hosted at DC's by purchasing shares (and paying out mining reward according to shares regardless of who's unit actually breaks down) might start making sense again, like an insurance policy against being the unlucky one with a failed unit taking out a huge chunk of your revenue stream.

Will Bitmain not accept the dead hashboard back to China for repair by itself? Last time I tried warrantying an S7 they specifically mentioned NOT to send the whole miner, only to send the dead boards and grossly under-declare value for them.  Doesn't really help you with the fan, but if I was you I would just source a furnace fan and duct it in instead of the type that ships with the R4. If it's covered under warranty it would be a shame not to try to get your value out of it.

On the autofrequency miners they require shipping entire units back. I shipped back some S9 and R4 boards, and they held the repair until I shipped the complete cases. Then they put the systems back together for repair.

It gets expensive sending multiple units back. I'm going to start checking for bad capacitors, at least, before sending boards back in the future.

[VRobb]

**ATTENTION ALL POTENTIAL BITMAIN WARRANTY CUSTOMERS**

Today I went to my local UPS store to ship out my Batch 4 R4 that needs repair and picked up my Batch 2 R4 that was shipped back on Friday (I have been oput of town).

When I opened the box, I was shocked to see they shipped the miner back to me without the foam packing that goes on each end of the miner which was on there when I shipped to Denver. This means the R4 was not tightly packed and sliding around inside the box. In addition, I found one heat sink that had fallen off and one of the protective plastic sleeves for the hash board slots missing.

Seriously??? Crap product from China, slow repair service from Denver, and $225 later I still have a damaged miner. I do not even want to power it up out of fear of causing more damage.

Oh man, don't know what to say about that...    Mine's still chugging away at 1/2 speed in a DC until they send out a bunch of their S9's that need repair, my R4 will then go along for the ride. 

Sorry you're getting the big green weenie on all this. Must be nice being a monopoly.

[philipma1957]

Damn Phil, I never would've considered doing that vs a warranty repair, but that makes a lot of sense.  I am with you in re: to Bitmain, they have no respect for their customers.  If you're not buying 100+ units at a time, it's just not worth the risk of failed equipment.  I'm starting to feel like legitimate Group Buys hosted at DC's by purchasing shares (and paying out mining reward according to shares regardless of who's unit actually breaks down) might start making sense again, like an insurance policy against being the unlucky one with a failed unit taking out a huge chunk of your revenue stream.

Will Bitmain not accept the dead hashboard back to China for repair by itself? Last time I tried warrantying an S7 they specifically mentioned NOT to send the whole miner, only to send the dead boards and grossly under-declare value for them.  Doesn't really help you with the fan, but if I was you I would just source a furnace fan and duct it in instead of the type that ships with the R4. If it's covered under warranty it would be a shame not to try to get your value out of it.

yeah With 3 of 4 boards running   I WILL run them til they croak.

If you have 10 or more units that interchange parts they start to become better.
I just wish I could buy spare parts.

I did order 2 extra  s9 controllers I now use on of them to run a single s9 board. and I have 1 spare s9 controller
along with 2 spare fans for the s9.
i would have purchased more r4s but they did not sell spare parts.

the avalon 721s are really good they just run.

[tbonetony]

**ATTENTION ALL POTENTIAL BITMAIN WARRANTY CUSTOMERS**

Today I went to my local UPS store to ship out my Batch 4 R4 that needs repair and picked up my Batch 2 R4 that was shipped back on Friday (I have been out of town).

When I opened the box, I was shocked to see they shipped the miner back to me without the foam packing that goes on each end of the miner which was on there when I shipped to Denver. This means the R4 was not tightly packed and sliding around inside the box. In addition, I found one heat sink that had fallen off and one of the protective plastic sleeves for the hash board slots missing.

Seriously??? Crap product from China, slow repair service from Denver, and $225 later I still have a damaged miner. I do not even want to power it up out of fear of causing more damage.

If this is true then I don't think this is anywhere acceptable.

I seem to have a better luck this time with my R4B6 that failed one board after 20 hours of running. Bitmain offered me free round trip shipping (Canada <-> Hong Kong) for warranty service. I will see how it goes in the end. I am still hopeful that there are good people working in Bitmain but the quality of customer service does seem inconsistent from time to time.

[elokk]

If this is true then I don't think this is anywhere acceptable.

I seem to have a better luck this time with my R4B6 that failed one board after 20 hours of running. Bitmain offered me free round trip shipping (Canada <-> Hong Kong) for warranty service. I will see how it goes in the end. I am still hopeful that there are good people working in Bitmain but the quality of customer service does seem inconsistent from time to time.

Bitmain Warranty (Denver) IS NOT Bitmain (Hong Kong). I have not used Bitmain Hong Kong for repairs but wish that I did after experiencing this. I should have inspected the returned R4 while at the UPS store before sending off another R4 to Denver for repair. Live and learn

I emailed Bitmain Warranty in regards to this situation and waiting to hear back.

[philipma1957]

Bitmain Warranty (Denver) IS NOT Bitmain (Hong Kong). I have not used Bitmain Hong Kong for repairs but wish that I did after experiencing this. I should have inspected the returned R4 while at the UPS store before sending off another R4 to Denver for repair. Live and learn

I emailed Bitmain Warranty in regards to this situation and waiting to hear back.

That truly is fine example of fuck you on someones part in Denver.  I have to say I am done with them.

I will mine the 1 and ½ r4's  = 11th
I will mine the 2 and ⅓ s9s   = 29th

I will grow the avalon 721s  13th soon to be 19.5 th

[jamesb777]

The asic chain being broken and chips going missing seems to be a very common issue with this last batch of R4s.

For me, I refuse to bring my R4 back home to china, so I opened it up to take a look.  Does anyone know which part is failing when these chips go missing?

Is it the chip going bad or the resistors / capacitors around the chip?  To me, it looks like the thermal glue they use on the chips is extremely messy as it melts into the chip's pins looking like it's very probable to cause a shortcircuit if it manages to lift the pins out of place.

[jamesb777]

Just lovely.. got another R4 board now reporting 1 asic. ;(

[HerbPean]

Phil,

What a pain in the ...

[philipma1957]

Phil,

What a pain in the ...

Well I had hoped they improved from my s-7 issues  they did for a bit now they are giving bad service and more.

By more

Take a look
 
BTC is 917 if you buy an s9 from them but on another part of the website btc is 956

this is a ripoff  of about 60 usd per s9  plus it will not ship until March 1st

[HerbPean]

1 month pre-order, what a shame ...