Antminer S9 dead hash board repair needed

[Rumipl]

Hi All,

I have plenty of dead S9 550 MHz hash boards and I'm looking to have them fixed.
I tried contacting bitmain warranty but they are not responding for last 15 days. The boards are located in EU.
Or maybe I can find some reliable tutorial how to diagnose and repair dead hash boards.

Michal

[bigGG]

Hi,

I have a dead s9 board too. Tried to contact bitmain warranty too (automated reply then nothing else).

I am in the EU too.

What I would like is to be able to send the board to someone to get it repaired then get it back. Bitmain China want the whole miner sending back! It's still functioning on 2 boards and doing 9Mh/S. Why send it back? It will cost a fortune and mean the miner will be off line for 2 months.


Anyhow, just sharing your pain.

G.

[pondule]

I'm in UK and have two dead boards in my Antminer S9, I'm thinking about buying a hot-air surface-mount rework station at about £1,000 just to change the easily obtainable power components in the hope that it's not the circuitry under the security glue that's faulty. If you have several more bad S9 boards and I can break a couple of them perfecting the fix process then PM me.

Not quite sure we're talking about the same kit though as you say 550 MHz and mine are about 4 THash per board.

[adyb]

If you go down this route please let me know if you're going to offer repair service to others, I've got a dead s9 hash board....

[fanatic26]

Remember that the s9 board is a string design board. Any single failure point will cause it to stop working, most often this presents itself as a single bad chip. The problem with this is you cannot source brand new s9 chips to do the repairs properly.

[Dibblah]

... And you can't just "shorten the string" due to how the IO voltages are generated and split between the chips. Well, you can, but not without major surgery.

Easiest repair is Bitmain, unfortunately. Or sell them to someone willing to fiddle. I wouldn't be willing to risk not being able to fix a board with no spares on-hand, otherwise I would offer to have a look. If anyone would like to donate some definitely dead boards, however...

Cheers,

Allan.

[BitTeo]

How much expensive repair 1 board ? and how many time need ? .

[Dibblah]

He fixes now tens of power inverters (surface mount) from solar farms in EU, damaged by lightning.

He can buy all boards requiring repair or the whole miners, repair them in advance to offer prompt replacement on board 4 board basis.

Not sure if it makes sense to pay 100 euro or more for repair if the price of new miners falls every few months by half.

Sounds interesting. Just be aware that the chips are 0.4mm pitch MLFs with glued on heatsinks and no well done self-centering pads.

If the repairer only has experience in power devices hot air / IR reflow, I would suspect he is going to struggle to get the accuracy and paste requirements down for these chips.

Good luck though!

[inv3stor]

Hi Guys,

if anyone has a broken S9 or T9 hash board with BM1387 chip which doesn't work, I'm happy to buy.

cheers

[lulupap]

I am interesting to know since when do you use it ? It is not supposed to dead so quick...

[storeship]

I too am interested and based in the UK, why cant Bitmain just release Hashboards for sale so we can keep a spare lying around???

[lightfoot]

Well you could buy 3 spares, by getting a new miner :-)

As to fixing the boards, it's complicated. I've fixed S7's, Avalons, Titans, and a bunch of other technologies, the issues usually come down to either damaged support components or extrusions of solder under the hashing chips shorting the SCL lines. Both are usually fix-able, but require some serious expertise with rework stations, air tools, and pre-heaters. Which I kind of have.

If anyone would like to send me a few broken S9 boards I would be happy to look at them and see what's going on. I haven't done work on them in the past because Bitmain had a fairly good warranty process but if that's gone now.....

C

[lightfoot]

Sounds interesting. Just be aware that the chips are 0.4mm pitch MLFs with glued on heatsinks and no well done self-centering pads.

Most hashing MLF/QFN type chips have a pretty big center pad to wick heat and/or 2 pads in the center to provide +12 and ground. Soldering around the edges is difficult, but not too too bad. The key is a very good flux and proper board pre-heating.

I'll have to take a look at the S9's. The real nightmares are sub .4mm BGAs.....

[Coconuts]

Hello,

Did you manage to find anyone who can repair your boards?
Have they burned out with physical signs of burning on the boards or have they just stopped working ?

I was wondering where you are located.  Maybe I can drop by or at least have a friend come by to see the boards.

Thanks
AJ

Hi All,

I have plenty of dead S9 550 MHz hash boards and I'm looking to have them fixed.
I tried contacting bitmain warranty but they are not responding for last 15 days. The boards are located in EU.
Or maybe I can find some reliable tutorial how to diagnose and repair dead hash boards.

Michal

[cableiso]

I'd like to try my hand at fixing some dead hashboards.  I have a reflow station, hot air station, etc.  I've even reballed and replaced bga fpga devices so that part is not too bad for me.

Let me know what you guys have, and the symptom.  I can't make any promises but I can buy the board from you, and if I get it running, you could buy it back at a slightly higher price to pay me a fee.  That seems to protect everyone fairly.

How about $100 deposit per board?  I pay it, you send the board and I'll start working on it.  Send me a pm letting me know what you have and what it does.

[lightfoot]

Likewise I have been doing a fair bit of work with S7's and now have my rig set up for S9's. If you want to send a board in for review, either post here or pm me for details.

Quick thoughts:
1) If it shorts out/shuts down a power supply I can probably fix it.
2) Make sure the board is warm and not cold before trying to start
3) If the power plugs are burned I can fix that as well.

C

[d57heinz]

Likewise I have been doing a fair bit of work with S7's and now have my rig set up for S9's. If you want to send a board in for review, either post here or pm me for details.

Quick thoughts:
1) If it shorts out/shuts down a power supply I can probably fix it.
2) Make sure the board is warm and not cold before trying to start
3) If the power plugs are burned I can fix that as well.

C

Where are  you located?

i have 550 mhz batch.  One by one hash boards went down.  First was middle then slowly the last two  I then purchased a new controller to find that wasnt the issue.  Seems the led never comes on the hash board.  I check log its trying to push the voltage but nothing happens..  I check with multimeter and it jumps from 9.5 volts to 0 several times then it will stop.  So it seems its trying to supply voltage to start up.  I have 0 knowledge in this area.  But im willing to take a risk and send it to you in the hopes you can do this repair for others aswell.  I will send whole s9 to you.  But in the event nothing can be done i will need this back.  AS you may not be aware they are selling next to a 1000$ usd on ebay for broken non hashing units.  Regardless i want it back one way or another.  If you cant do it maybe someone else will come along later. 

If you do think you can repair i would like to know upfront cost to do so before proceeding.

Thanks for considering.

BR
Doug

[cableiso]

I have a reflow station as well and the degree in electronics from Purdue to understand what happening. As I'm more interested in building my reputation, I will check them out for free until  1/1/18( not including shipping, limit five per customer). If I can find the problem and repair it that's free too( have the parts, free to send two get one 100% working. I will even start posting my repairs to YouTube(like my hero ipad rehab, lol). As a newbie I am only allowed to PMs, please text me at 219.525.7771

I have heard about this chain of people speaking of and I just don't see how it can exist functionally .If the chain is as one described like a ladder then one going out will not affect the voltage of any others, as the voltage drop in a parallel circuit is equal regardless of the number of elements if it is in fact a like a steel chain then the first time one goes out they should all instantly stop working. So I'm very look interested to look into this.
Thanks,
J

They're series.

You should research a bit more before attempting to repair these.

[cableiso]

Likewise I have been doing a fair bit of work with S7's and now have my rig set up for S9's. If you want to send a board in for review, either post here or pm me for details.

Quick thoughts:
1) If it shorts out/shuts down a power supply I can probably fix it.
2) Make sure the board is warm and not cold before trying to start
3) If the power plugs are burned I can fix that as well.

C

Where are  you located?

i have 550 mhz batch.  One by one hash boards went down.  First was middle then slowly the last two  I then purchased a new controller to find that wasnt the issue.  Seems the led never comes on the hash board.  I check log its trying to push the voltage but nothing happens..  I check with multimeter and it jumps from 9.5 volts to 0 several times then it will stop.  So it seems its trying to supply voltage to start up.  I have 0 knowledge in this area.  But im willing to take a risk and send it to you in the hopes you can do this repair for others aswell.  I will send whole s9 to you.  But in the event nothing can be done i will need this back.  AS you may not be aware they are selling next to a 1000$ usd on ebay for broken non hashing units.  Regardless i want it back one way or another.  If you cant do it maybe someone else will come along later.  

If you do think you can repair i would like to know upfront cost to do so before proceeding.

Thanks for considering.

BR
Doug

Can't you get a board repaired/replaced by bitmainwarranty for $250.  I think the eBay prices are a little inflated these days.

[MinerMEDIC]

I have a reflow station as well and the degree in electronics from Purdue to understand what happening. As I'm more interested in building my reputation, I will check them out for free until  1/1/18( not including shipping, limit five per customer). If I can find the problem and repair it that's free too( have the parts, free to send two get one 100% working. I will even start posting my repairs to YouTube(like my hero ipad rehab, lol). As a newbie I am only allowed to PMs, please text me at 219.525.7771

I have heard about this chain of people speaking of and I just don't see how it can exist functionally .If the chain is as one described like a ladder then one going out will not affect the voltage of any others, as the voltage drop in a parallel circuit is equal regardless of the number of elements if it is in fact a like a steel chain then the first time one goes out they should all instantly stop working. So I'm very look interested to look into this.
Thanks,
J

They're series.

You should research a bit more before attempting to repair these.

I suppose if they are series(as logic ICs should NEVER be) and they are shorting to ground you're going to get a lot of burnt connectors and I am seeing a lot of those here and on eBay. But slowly going out one by one that has to be completely unrelated to power delivery, unless it's the power supply is sending noisy power then there is no causal relationship between the first going out and any others, they are just all the symptom of the one continuous PWS malfunction. One other option , and that one is causal , when the first chip goes out it doesn't truly die it just goes insane, sending spurious signals throughout the whole power bus killing the others one by one (haha, I should call this the zombie theory ). Since you think I should do some more research maybe you could point me to the data sheets or maybe the schematics, lol thats funny.