Announcement: Bitmain launches AntMiner solution, 0.68 J/GH on chip

[rallasnackbar]

When will bitmaintech.com be up and running, and selling?

[reactor]

So we've got folks on board for running EU, AU, and US group buys to ease shipping on Bitmain - all we need is a U1.

Heeeeeeey Bitmain, any updates on the status of the hardware?  Figure out those problems yet?

[clenell]

what is there website?

[giletto]

Don't have any website for Bitmain. The Shop at taobao got closed too...

[goxed]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bitmain/602849346422962

[klondike_bar]

MY BITMAIN RMA EXPERIENCE

About a week ago, I received my first antminer unit from the first-round auction for a reasonable 4.75BTC. it ran well at 180GHash but had an extremely loud fan that reported its speed in the range of 4700-5500. I mentioned this in the forum, and bitmain quickly [and nicely] advised me to buy a replacement PWM fan that they would cover the costs of, as the noise and high speed appeared to be some sort of individual error. I installed a replacement fan with slightly lower CFM and virtually silent, and was quite happy. however, somewhere in this span of time the second board became unresponsive and would not show up or hash.

I tested the board as best i could - using a multimeter checked almost every accessible capacitor or point of voltage, and the issue appears to be within, or related to, the TI TPS53355 DC/DC buck converter, as the first one on the board was not producing any 1.10V output, whereas the other 3 were doing it successfully. Unfortunately, without the first chip working, the entire chain will not operate, and I requested an RMA/replacement as finding a local engineer to determine the issue and if necessary order the $>10 regulator would likely cost more and take nearly as much time as to be shipped a replacement.

BITMAIN shipped a replacement board alongside my second unit (from the group buy) and it arrived on thursday. It did not come attached to a heatsink (I was told it should, and am very happy i had not yet shipped back my bad board+heatsink!), but replacing it was straight-forward with the removal of ~16 screws. On removal, i noticed a slight issue with the application of thermal paste:

here is the backside of the dead board i removed, you can see that the paste was not under sufficient pressure in some areas.


Once the new board was put in place (I reused the thermal paste, but may need to buy a new tube and redo it as the temps are 2-4 degrees higher than the primary board), the unit booted up and returned to hashing perfectly.

The second unit installed like a breeze, with only one small exception - It came with the ip address 192.168.2.049. This may have been an obvious misprint to someone more involved with networks, but in my case it took almost 10 minutes of confusion before i realised it is actually 192.168.2.49 without the extra zero.

Now, both units are running well at 200GHash each (thanks goxed!) and i have installed secondary fans for both to impove airflow, and also put some thick paper over the top where possible to ensure the air flows across the entire length of heatsink. I still have yet to submit receipts to bitmain for promised compensation of the RMA shipping but have  no concerns about them renegging. BITMAIN has done an awesome job of producing a stable miner with a strong frame and it has the least hashrate varience of any of my hardware. Add a dedicated user profile and email contact, and I have absolutely no regrets over my purchase!


PS: the new boards are a little different, namely [better] screw terminals and [inexplicably] unused pads for 4 largish capacitors. heres a picture for those interested:

[sushi]

Great to hear that!  I saw quality in them but know I'm glad other members saw that and experienced it!

[klondike_bar]

PPS: looking at my stats so far, it appears the newer unit has a much lower number of stales/24hrs but slightly more low difficulty shares. I havent been monitoring stats very long yet to see if its random or a trend yet, but has anyone else noticed something like this?

Version 1 Unit:                  Version 2 Unit:
13m 8s                               12m 54s
192                                    203
200                                     210
0                                        0
27                                      27
265                                     311
12                                       0
767                                     143
20                                       24
49                                       52
0                                          0
44,333                                 47,171
2,798                                  2,940
33,920                                 39,808
1,536                                   0
0                                         0
417,709                                36, 023

any idea whats causing the difference? I can repost the stats in a few hours once they are larger numbers, but the version1 unit still produces a higher number of HW and rejected

[Hechay]

How can I know which board is version 1 and which is version 2?

[klondike_bar]

How can I know which board is version 1 and which is version 2?

I will take a look later, i dont know if theres any different version marked on the PCB, but in my case the units from the first auction had the green power terminal while the unit from sushi's groupbuy had the red/black terminal and unoccupied capacitor pads - see the post above

[goxed]

How can I know which board is version 1 and which is version 2?

Build date's printed on PCB.

v1) For miners with build date 2013/11/4
v2) For miners with build date 2013/11/18

[bobsag3]

I have emailed and PMed bitmain about running a US based GB, Im even in HK till tuesday and could meet them in person.

[ktzhan]

PPS: looking at my stats so far, it appears the newer unit has a much lower number of stales/24hrs but slightly more low difficulty shares. I havent been monitoring stats very long yet to see if its random or a trend yet, but has anyone else noticed something like this?

any idea whats causing the difference? I can repost the stats in a few hours once they are larger numbers, but the version1 unit still produces a higher number of HW and rejected

Yes, the newer unit has a much lower number of stales. But HW of these two version are same.
If you care about the stale number of the old version, please try to update the firmware.
Download: https://github.com/AntMiner/AntGen1/tree/master/firmware

[goxed]

PPS: looking at my stats so far, it appears the newer unit has a much lower number of stales/24hrs but slightly more low difficulty shares. I havent been monitoring stats very long yet to see if its random or a trend yet, but has anyone else noticed something like this?

any idea whats causing the difference? I can repost the stats in a few hours once they are larger numbers, but the version1 unit still produces a higher number of HW and rejected

Yes, the newer unit has a much lower number of stales. But HW of these two version are same.
If you care about the stale number of the old version, please try to update the firmware.
Download: https://github.com/AntMiner/AntGen1/tree/master/firmware

Thanks successfully updated the firmware of my rev1 units.

[mtbitcoin]

PPS: looking at my stats so far, it appears the newer unit has a much lower number of stales/24hrs but slightly more low difficulty shares. I havent been monitoring stats very long yet to see if its random or a trend yet, but has anyone else noticed something like this?

any idea whats causing the difference? I can repost the stats in a few hours once they are larger numbers, but the version1 unit still produces a higher number of HW and rejected

Yes, the newer unit has a much lower number of stales. But HW of these two version are same.
If you care about the stale number of the old version, please try to update the firmware.
Download: https://github.com/AntMiner/AntGen1/tree/master/firmware

Thanks successfully updated the firmware of my rev1 units.

Did that help?

It would be nice to get an official updated firmware from Bitmain that addresses these high HW error issues. I am sure we can be getting much more out of these units.

Cheers

[klondike_bar]

I will try the update. as of 14.5hrs operation for both units (Unit 1 has a v1 board and the v2 replacement board, unit 2 is v2) shows:

stat                 unit 1                     unit 2
GH/s avg           199                        204
rejected            218                         13
HW                   68,500                     10,800
DiffR                 28,000                     1,700

the rest of the stats were similar enough to be omitted. It seems fairly clear from the results at 14.5hrs of operation that there is roughly a 5GH/s difference in the units, probably a result of the different firmware. Temps on unit 2 are 49/50 while unit 1 is 51/54 - I will update the firmware shortly and may try pushing unit 2 to 425MHz

[ktzhan]

So we've got folks on board for running EU, AU, and US group buys to ease shipping on Bitmain - all we need is a U1.

Heeeeeeey Bitmain, any updates on the status of the hardware?  Figure out those problems yet?

We have produced a small batch of U1, and it can work now.
However the yield is not so good, and we are solving this problem.
Please wait several days again.
Thanks very much.

[alfabitcoin]

Need help with detirmine how my miner preform - eg hw errors etc. Its 1st version and with upgraded firmware (Nov.29.) I have idea but want to be sure.

Further, have small remark regarding board design, wonder why bitmain placed volt regulator so near 2 big capcitators? Its in direct line of fan what can help with cooling them (shout down temp is 80c). Still, not sure though....
Thanks

[klondike_bar]

Need help with detirmine how my miner preform - eg hw errors etc. Its 1st version and with upgraded firmware (Nov.29.) I have idea but want to be sure.

Further, have small remark regarding board design, wonder why bitmain placed volt regulator so near 2 big capcitators? Its in direct line of fan what can help with cooling them (shout down temp is 80c). Still, not sure though....
Thanks

first, follow the instructions for increasing to 400Mhz (200GHash) since your temps are surprisingly low

your error rates look okay, about the same as my newer unit is performing

[alfabitcoin]

Thanks klondike, I wanted to go to the 400mhz but bought 500w corsair cx series. Need higher wattage PDU.
Temps are low, they go even lower then this ~37C. I bought silent 12cm fan and attached to opposite side to soak hot air out. Also, do not connect it to the miner, fan came with adapter (molex to 3 pin) and I supply it direct from PDU. No need of pwm and running at full speed its almost silent. Also covered top of tunel but just half - its covered from original fan to the half of the miner.