ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread

[sbfree]

Fuck, the case screws won't come off... anyone else run into this?

yep had to drill mine out

I literally had to RIP the fucking case off.... was not cool, but I was able to push from below once it was open and now I rebent the case and rescrewed in (some) of the screws...

tek eet ezay tek eet ezay.....no need for ripping nor drilling. Patience and breathe. Remove all screws that cooperate. Then gently pry with blade screw driver, butter knife or similar tool under cover near unfriendly screw with slight pressure while turning screw out, and proceed to next one. Most if not all uncooperative screws should come out this way.  

Got my batch 2 S2 a few hours ago - this is exactly what I did.  Remove screws by hand, don't use a drill, to avoid stripping screw heads.  For the stubborn screws, do as per above and pry the case gently to provide pressure while unscrewing.  All my stubborn screws came out this way, and my case is undamaged.

Visual inspection of the inside showed everything was ok.  Each blade has a connector to the motherboard at the base, and is supported on each end by plastic sleeves (I think the sleeves are new for batch 2).  Much better design - prevents the blades from becoming unseated during transport.

When I turned it on it wouldn't hash (0 GH/s shown on LCD screen).  I took out every card, and closely inspected everything.  What I found was that the ethernet cable which connects the BBB to the external network port was loose at the network port end.  I re-seated the n/w cable, put all the blades back in, and fired it up.  Voila!  It started hashing!  I know other people have had 1 TH/s (and above) miners for a while, but this is my first unit, and I'm quietly amazed to look at this box and consider that it has 1 TH/s of hashing power inside.  When I first heard about bitcoin (April 2013), the entire network hashrate was only 80 TH/s.

My S2 has been mining for an hour and a half.  The hash rate shown on the LCD fluctuates between roughly 950 to 1100 GH/s.  At the pool so far I'm seeing 968 GH/s (and slowly rising), I expect this to settle in closer to 1 TH/s when it has been running longer.  At the wall it is draws 1039 Watts max (usually 1 or 2 W less than that).  Temperature is 53 C (not sure what the room temp is, but I feel a bit hot).  In the Miner Stats, for some reason chain 4 shows a temperature of 0 (no sensor / faulty sensor?).

I had it mining with the case off originally, putting the case on caused the fans to reduce speed.  I guess the wind-tunnel affect of having the case on improves cooling, so the fans don't need to work as hard.  

After I took the case off I could smell a light machine oil / grease odour.  I don't find it unpleasant, just noting it.  I think it happened because I pulled all the cards out.  With the case back on now I don't smell anything.

no it is actually machine oil you are smelling, probably left over from machining all those aluminim fins for heat sinks. I had one machine that had some oil on the blades, case and mainboard. Nothing alittle alchohol couldn't handle, and look in the twisted cables of the fans, oil likes to hide there. And yes, push down all boards, or better yet pull them all out and inspect every cable as I did find some loose and/or outright disconnected. Happily mining with 29 of 30 blades/hashboards and 1 spare PSU. Already RMA'd the blade, PSU is next.

[sbfree]

any clues why im getting 404 not found error?

can you ping the device?

ps. clear cache?

[faustus66]

After about 10 mins the whole unit powered off and has been unresponsive ever since.

I've unplugged all outputs from the PSU and it's still not coming back up, so it looks to be the PSU.

Any ideas on what to try to resurrect? I have multiple CX750M PSU's but nothing big enough to replace the 1000W Enermax.

Cheers

I followed some advice earlier in the thread and removed one blade, it's now been mining for a couple of hours so far.

These batch 2 units are a lot quieter than batch 1, with larger effective fan diameters and case holes, they also seem subjectively cooler.

[imar2014]

corrupt SD cards. 
twice now, i've gotten corruption on the SD card on one machine or another.  If there's a power cut, i cross my fingers and hope for the best.  chances are, at least one machine will need it's SD card removed and re-imaged.  Big thanks to the guy who posted a link in this thread to a copy of his SD card.  Although Bitmaintech has now posted updates to the firmware, they are in the format needed to update via the web gui - not directly image the SD card.

this problem is particularly concerning as there is no "shutdown" option in the GUI or button on the case.  just the power switch.  So each time you shut it off, you have a 50/50 change of buggering the software.... yikes.

If anyone has a step-by-step on how to image the SD card using Win32 Disk Imager and the downloadable "initramfs.bin.SD-20140410.tar" from Bitmaintech's new support page, it would be VERY helpful.  I'm using an image file someone posted much earlier in this thread, but it's the old firmware version. 

You're welcome (from earlier) and I've updated the file to be an image of the latest firmware, IP of 192.168.1.99

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16075357/bitmain.img.zip

Link is the same, so using the other posted link will grab the new firmware. It has my mining info in it, so be a gent and let it mine for a bit! lol

Sorry, but newb question, i have gone out and purchased a class 10 spare, but i havent the slightest clue on how to image that SD card and have it ready in case the one from Bitmain croaks. Can  anyone give me the procedure ? 111 Thanks so much for making a new image !

[bitmanaus]

Fuck, the case screws won't come off... anyone else run into this?

yep had to drill mine out

I literally had to RIP the fucking case off.... was not cool, but I was able to push from below once it was open and now I rebent the case and rescrewed in (some) of the screws...

tek eet ezay tek eet ezay.....no need for ripping nor drilling. Patience and breathe. Remove all screws that cooperate. Then gently pry with blade screw driver, butter knife or similar tool under cover near unfriendly screw with slight pressure while turning screw out, and proceed to next one. Most if not all uncooperative screws should come out this way.  

Got my batch 2 S2 a few hours ago - this is exactly what I did.  Remove screws by hand, don't use a drill, to avoid stripping screw heads.  For the stubborn screws, do as per above and pry the case gently to provide pressure while unscrewing.  All my stubborn screws came out this way, and my case is undamaged.

Visual inspection of the inside showed everything was ok.  Each blade has a connector to the motherboard at the base, and is supported on each end by plastic sleeves (I think the sleeves are new for batch 2).  Much better design - prevents the blades from becoming unseated during transport.

When I turned it on it wouldn't hash (0 GH/s shown on LCD screen).  I took out every card, and closely inspected everything.  What I found was that the ethernet cable which connects the BBB to the external network port was loose at the network port end.  I re-seated the n/w cable, put all the blades back in, and fired it up.  Voila!  It started hashing!  I know other people have had 1 TH/s (and above) miners for a while, but this is my first unit, and I'm quietly amazed to look at this box and consider that it has 1 TH/s of hashing power inside.  When I first heard about bitcoin (April 2013), the entire network hashrate was only 80 TH/s.

My S2 has been mining for an hour and a half.  The hash rate shown on the LCD fluctuates between roughly 950 to 1100 GH/s.  At the pool so far I'm seeing 968 GH/s (and slowly rising), I expect this to settle in closer to 1 TH/s when it has been running longer.  At the wall it is draws 1039 Watts max (usually 1 or 2 W less than that).  Temperature is 53 C (not sure what the room temp is, but I feel a bit hot).  In the Miner Stats, for some reason chain 4 shows a temperature of 0 (no sensor / faulty sensor?).

I had it mining with the case off originally, putting the case on caused the fans to reduce speed.  I guess the wind-tunnel affect of having the case on improves cooling, so the fans don't need to work as hard.  

After I took the case off I could smell a light machine oil / grease odour.  I don't find it unpleasant, just noting it.  I think it happened because I pulled all the cards out.  With the case back on now I don't smell anything.

those plastic things did nothing for me, 60% of them were broken completely when mine arrived and all the cards were loose and some had even bent the pci slots, 50% of the pci slots needed bending back. did all this and then found one of the fans is missing a piece of a blade, broken in transport like almost everything else.

replaced fan with a spare (well one i had to pull out of my everyday computer), then had firmware problems, finally managed to get logged in and changed pool settings, starts and mines for a while but after less than an hour blade 1 got really hot, like oven hot, strange how this was on the side of the case that didn't have a broken fan, hashed at around 1000 for a bit but majorly unstable, at the moment the unit is only running with half the blades in and gets about 500, this is not what i paid for.

How does one go about an RMA? I want a replacement

[philipma1957]

so we are still not that ready for prime time on these?

[dalenorman2005]

Setup Support for AntMiner S2
----------------------------------


As the owner of 3 batch 1 S2's, i've had a couple of weeks to work through some of the issues involved in getting these setup and running.  Virtually everything I know about the S2 i've either learned from others here in this thread or i've described it myself in this thread.  I'm not BitMainTech nor do i work for them - I'm just an IT guy.

If you are struggling to get your S2 working and want a helping hand, I may be able to help.

I can share your screen with join.me and video conference with Skype.

0.1 BTC per hour, but only if I'm able to help.


Email me to setup a time.  I'm in Toronto, Ontario (eastern standard timezone)
dale@dalenorman.com
-Dale

[raskul]

Setup Support for AntMiner S2
----------------------------------


As the owner of 3 batch 1 S2's, i've had a couple of weeks to work through some of the issues involved in getting these setup and running.  Virtually everything I know about the S2 i've either learned from others here in this thread or i've described it myself in this thread.  I'm not BitMainTech nor do i work for them - I'm just an IT guy.

If you are struggling to get your S2 working and want a helping hand, I may be able to help.

I can share your screen with join.me and video conference with Skype.

0.1 BTC per hour, but only if I'm able to help.


Email me to setup a time.  I'm in Toronto, Ontario (eastern standard timezone)
dale@dalenorman.com
-Dale

u want 50USD per hour to pass on help you received for free from our very community....

i am allergic to my scroll button and therefore cannot check previous posts on this thread.
take my money.

[jelin1984]

Batch 2 have gold psu
And not platinum psu

[dalenorman2005]

u want 50USD per hour to pass on help you received for free from our very community....

No.

If you read through this thread, you'll find i've asked many questions to which there have been many generous answers, and i've shared my experiences so far.   i want $50/hr to provide one-on-one support.  If i'm unable to make any progress, i won't charge you.  
I am a professional IT support consultant.  This is what I do and i am rather good at it.  If you've made it to page 70 of this thread and still have problems, I may be able to help.

You find this unreasonable?

[seriouscoin]

Setup Support for AntMiner S2
----------------------------------


As the owner of 3 batch 1 S2's, i've had a couple of weeks to work through some of the issues involved in getting these setup and running.  Virtually everything I know about the S2 i've either learned from others here in this thread or i've described it myself in this thread.  I'm not BitMainTech nor do i work for them - I'm just an IT guy.

If you are struggling to get your S2 working and want a helping hand, I may be able to help.

I can share your screen with join.me and video conference with Skype.

0.1 BTC per hour, but only if I'm able to help.


Email me to setup a time.  I'm in Toronto, Ontario (eastern standard timezone)
dale@dalenorman.com
-Dale

u want 50USD per hour to pass on help you received for free from our very community....

Hey sucker, pay up or forget mining if its too hard for you.

[seriouscoin]

Setup Support for AntMiner S2
----------------------------------


As the owner of 3 batch 1 S2's, i've had a couple of weeks to work through some of the issues involved in getting these setup and running.  Virtually everything I know about the S2 i've either learned from others here in this thread or i've described it myself in this thread.  I'm not BitMainTech nor do i work for them - I'm just an IT guy.

If you are struggling to get your S2 working and want a helping hand, I may be able to help.

I can share your screen with join.me and video conference with Skype.

0.1 BTC per hour, but only if I'm able to help.


Email me to setup a time.  I'm in Toronto, Ontario (eastern standard timezone)
dale@dalenorman.com
-Dale

u want 50USD per hour to pass on help you received for free from our very community....

Hey sucker, pay up or forget mining if its too hard for you.

Hey attitude, didnt you already get told to mind your own business if you have nothing of worth to contribute?

if there is a hardware/SD issue does that mean mining is too hard??

get back under ur bridge if using ur brain for anything other than being a douche is too hard for you.

Meanwhile, you can use your S2 as a door stopper ..... 

[1l1l11ll1l]

After about 10 mins the whole unit powered off and has been unresponsive ever since.

I've unplugged all outputs from the PSU and it's still not coming back up, so it looks to be the PSU.

Any ideas on what to try to resurrect? I have multiple CX750M PSU's but nothing big enough to replace the 1000W Enermax.

Cheers

I followed some advice earlier in the thread and removed one blade, it's now been mining for a couple of hours so far.

These batch 2 units are a lot quieter than batch 1, with larger effective fan diameters and case holes, they also seem subjectively cooler.

Taking out 1 blade makes you pull 10% less power, thus if your power supply is struggling at full load, removing 1 card could give it the margin it needs. When the enermax PSU goes into overload, to power it back on you'll need to have it plugged in and on and remove the jumper, count to 5 and put them jumper back in. This requires the case to be removed...again lol

[1l1l11ll1l]

Setup Support for AntMiner S2
----------------------------------


As the owner of 3 batch 1 S2's, i've had a couple of weeks to work through some of the issues involved in getting these setup and running.  Virtually everything I know about the S2 i've either learned from others here in this thread or i've described it myself in this thread.  I'm not BitMainTech nor do i work for them - I'm just an IT guy.

If you are struggling to get your S2 working and want a helping hand, I may be able to help.

I can share your screen with join.me and video conference with Skype.

0.1 BTC per hour, but only if I'm able to help.


Email me to setup a time.  I'm in Toronto, Ontario (eastern standard timezone)
dale@dalenorman.com
-Dale

u want 50USD per hour to pass on help you received for free from our very community....

Hey sucker, pay up or forget mining if its too hard for you.

Hey attitude, didnt you already get told to mind your own business if you have nothing of worth to contribute?

if there is a hardware/SD issue does that mean mining is too hard??

get back under ur bridge if using ur brain for anything other than being a douche is too hard for you.

Meanwhile, you can use your S2 as a door stopper ..... 

Guys, we're the Bitmain community here on the forums, not the BFL, KNC or HashLast. Let's keep it civil, let's avoid name calling and negativity. I'm here trying to catch up and getting ready to respond and I see negative comments, it's distracting and just puts a bummer on things. Keep it cool? Answering questions next :-)

[dalenorman2005]

shame you're not closer i could use it as a mouth/finger stopper.

anyone have any idea why the 2Gb SDcard has only 66.5Mb of space on it?

anyone who isnt a 'seriousclown'?

Yes.  $50 and i'll tell you.









no, i'm not that douchy.  The SD get partitioned into 3 pieces.  boot, boot backup and unused.  first two are about 70mb.  third is whatever is left on the card.
i've used 2gb, 8gb and 32gb successfully.

[1l1l11ll1l]

can ping, clear cache doesnt help

if SD card is corrupted what is the symptom/s?

does anyone have a pic of their control board?

Pics of the controller were posted earlier by me, you'll have to dig in my post history to see 'em. If the SD card is corrupt the unit won't boot, and you won't see the bright blue LEDs on the BeagleBone Black card.

[1l1l11ll1l]

corrupt SD cards.  
twice now, i've gotten corruption on the SD card on one machine or another.  If there's a power cut, i cross my fingers and hope for the best.  chances are, at least one machine will need it's SD card removed and re-imaged.  Big thanks to the guy who posted a link in this thread to a copy of his SD card.  Although Bitmaintech has now posted updates to the firmware, they are in the format needed to update via the web gui - not directly image the SD card.

this problem is particularly concerning as there is no "shutdown" option in the GUI or button on the case.  just the power switch.  So each time you shut it off, you have a 50/50 change of buggering the software.... yikes.

If anyone has a step-by-step on how to image the SD card using Win32 Disk Imager and the downloadable "initramfs.bin.SD-20140410.tar" from Bitmaintech's new support page, it would be VERY helpful.  I'm using an image file someone posted much earlier in this thread, but it's the old firmware version.  

You're welcome (from earlier) and I've updated the file to be an image of the latest firmware, IP of 192.168.1.99

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16075357/bitmain.img.zip

Link is the same, so using the other posted link will grab the new firmware. It has my mining info in it, so be a gent and let it mine for a bit! lol

UPDATE: Here's the latest image with the most recent firmware from June. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16075357/S2firmware.img.zip  It's over 4GB so it won't fit on the stock card.

Sorry, but newb question, i have gone out and purchased a class 10 spare, but i havent the slightest clue on how to image that SD card and have it ready in case the one from Bitmain croaks. Can  anyone give me the procedure ? 111 Thanks so much for making a new image !

You'll want to download win32diskimager. Unzip the image file, then select it in diskimager, then choose your SD card (you'll want to get a micro SD usb card reader) then click "write device" it then writes the whole image to the microsd card and there ya go, drop it back in the S2

[1l1l11ll1l]

i emailed bitmain but his advice was to reseat everything and try again...

i have done this a dozen times.

is the BBB supposed to have a solid red led lit on it?

404 not found even after hard reset means something is wrong for sure

startin the rig without the sd card makes it spin loud continuously and the lcd screen never 'arrives' despite being lit.

20 secs after inserting the sd card it settles to 'idle' and lcd displays;

antminer s2
192.168.1.99
0GH/s
Max 0C

cannot access gui, cannot access via Putty...

root root

root admin do nothing

if im going to reflash the sdcard do i just swap 1l1l1l1l1l1s 1.83Gb bitmain Disc Image File with the u-boot 370Kb Disc Image File??

why are they so different in size?


urgh... 9 hrs so far !!

The disk image I made is of the entire microSD card, thus the entire 2GB card, including free space. You'll want to download win32diskimager and flash the entire image to the microSD card.

[1l1l11ll1l]

Format the card and image it, try to boot, if it won't boot take a few asic cards out so you can read teh BBB and eject the sd card while the unit is on, then put it back in, you'll see the ethernet lights cycle, I've had that make mine turn on before.


In other news, I did have a bad BBB that wouldn't write to the SD card. I replaced it with a factory BBB, that's what my machine is using now

Ahhhh, now THAT was some f'ing good advice!  thanks mate - you're the best.  followed these steps and got each one working with 8 boards.  Sweated like a blackjack player holding 17 for a while, wondering if i should stick with what works or risk it and try adding the other two boards.

I chose to try something new - i ejected the SD card while it was running.  Left it like this for about 5 minutes.  it kept mining!  i then powered it off, added the two boards, popped the card back in and turned it on.  magically, it booted it up just fine!

So, until i figure out something better, this is my step-by-step to deal with the corrupt SD card problem:

shut off
remove 2 asic boards and sd card
reimage sd card via laptop
boot up with 2 cards missing, pop card in and out until it boots (you can tell when the blue lights on the BBB card near the ethernet card light up)
when it's running, pop out SD card, power off, then add 2 boards, pop card back in and hope for the best.

From what I can tell, the SD card is only used to load up the OS, once it's there it runs from memory. so removing the microSD card before powering off is definitely a way to keep it from getting corrupted (again and again and again)

[1l1l11ll1l]

Antminer S2 turned up today, it was in horrible condition, cards loose everywhere, thermal paste everywhere, pci slots all bent to shit, after an hour and a half or so of fiddling (2 screws were stripped and needed to be drilled out) i managed to get it back together, then i had a problem with the screen, played around some more and got that working.

PROBLEM!

Its turning on and mining (all cards are flashing, hash rate on screen etc) but it will not allow me to access the settings and displays a "404 not found" error and on top of that it will not login via ssh with putty and tells me that the password i am using username: root password: root is not working, so i cannot even change pools.

Bitmain shipped me a unit that is basically mining for them!

Can someone please help?

For whatever reason it's either got a different user/pass or different IP or something. A sure way to get it to the right IP/user/pass would be to image the microSD card with my image.