Older S9 Controller Appears to be Failing. Thoughts? Thanks.

[wmabern]

Hey folks,

I've got an older S9 - might have been the first one I got. It has been running like a champ for a long time. Always running cool and with very few HW errors.

Anyway, I noticed today it suddenly popped up in Awesome Miner as being disconnected. So I unplugged and re-plugged the power. It came up again all boards hashing normally with good speed, temp and all-around good numbers on all boards.

But after 15-20 minutes it stopped hashing again. Power cycle brought it back again but after 15 minutes or so, it stopped hashing again.

Since the boards seem to be running OK, I'm guessing the controller is dying.

I have other S9's I could swap out the controller with and test. But I REALLY hate to have another miner off line now as the coin price continues to rise. But to pinpoint the problem, I guess I will do that tomorrow.

Any thoughts from the hardware pros appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: I'm not looking for a solution or fix if it is the controller. All I'm asking is if the symptoms match a failing controller. Thanks. :-)

EDIT2: I just powered up the misbehaving S9 to see if a good nights rest would help it out. LOL
No such luck. Stopped hashing completely in about 5 minutes. Grrrr. :-(

Time to swap out some hardware after a little more coffee.

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[wmabern]

Since no one has chimed in, I might as well post an update for anyone having similar problems. Maybe my information will be of help to others.

So, I took the faulty miner apart and pulled the controller boards - both the green and black board that fit together.

Looking at the black board, I noticed it had what appeared to be melted plastic on the back side. I would post a picture but too much trouble.

So I pulled another S9 that only has two boards hashing and I swapped out the controller - both green and black board - and put them into the original miner with three good boards.

Fired it up and it's now been hashing for 40+ minutes. It would have shut down in that time frame before.

I guess I need to get another black board to put back into the two-board miner.

Does anyone know if Bitmain Warranty or Bitmain themselves will sell a black controller board for a 600Mhz miner, 12.93TH? Of course it's a non-autotune.

For now, just happy I was able to get a complete three-board miner back on-line and hashing.

Also, if anyone reading this has a black S9 controller card they would like to sell, drop me a PM and we may be able to work something out.

Thanks for reading. :-)

[fusion0389]

Since no one has chimed in, I might as well post an update for anyone having similar problems. Maybe my information will be of help to others.

So, I took the faulty miner apart and pulled the controller boards - both the green and black board that fit together.

Looking at the black board, I noticed it had what appeared to be melted plastic on the back side. I would post a picture but too much trouble.

So I pulled another S9 that only has two boards hashing and I swapped out the controller - both green and black board - and put them into the original miner with three good boards.

Fired it up and it's now been hashing for 40+ minutes. It would have shut down in that time frame before.

I guess I need to get another black board to put back into the two-board miner.

Does anyone know if Bitmain Warranty or Bitmain themselves will sell a black controller board for a 600Mhz miner, 12.93TH? Of course it's a non-autotune.

For now, just happy I was able to get a complete three-board miner back on-line and hashing.

Also, if anyone reading this has a black S9 controller card they would like to sell, drop me a PM and we may be able to work something out.

Thanks for reading. :-)

BITMAIN WARRANTY should be able to help you out. They've successfully resolved issues I had with two different S9's.

On a side note, I am surprised you had an issue with the controller. The only time anything like that happened to me was about a month ago and the issue ended up being a defective Ethernet cable that I stepped on or didn't crimp right. Glad you fixed the issue though

[wmabern]

BITMAIN WARRANTY should be able to help you out. They've successfully resolved issues I had with two different S9's.

On a side note, I am surprised you had an issue with the controller. The only time anything like that happened to me was about a month ago and the issue ended up being a defective Ethernet cable that I stepped on or didn't crimp right. Glad you fixed the issue though

This is the 2nd controller card I have ever had die. No outward signs on the last one but this one definitely had some melted plastic on the back of the black board unlike the black board I replaced it with.

I checked Bitmain and they have this one in stock. https://shop.bitmain.com/productDetail.htm?pid=000201611160734291469K134u1i0621

I'm not sure if it's a newer model or that it will be compatible with my older S9. They do make single piece controllers without the black board that will work on older models. Just not sure if this is one of them. I posted the question to Bitmain support and waiting for an answer. I'll spend 60$ if it will work.