ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread

[philipma1957]

Is it more worthwhile to buy this asic or buy BTC straight?

not the correct question. 

one investment is passive buying the coin

second investment is active mining

tax law differs.   

so if you are in the usa you need to decide if you want to be paying taxes as an investor or as a business owner.

[finlof]

cant buy this 1TH unit, but you can buy a dragon miner 1TH here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=514758 or here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=409701.  all for less than $3000/unit.  i ordered one of the dragon miners Tuesday evening and received it Friday morning (LESS THAN 3 DAY TURN AROUND TO THE US!).  still waiting for batch 3 of the S2s though!

[philipma1957]

for those having power supply problems - I am interested what your room temp is at.  if i understand correctly higher temps = lower efficiency so you cannot expect the power supply to perform the same at 60 degrees F (15.5 Celsius) vs 80 degrees F (26.5 Celsius).  this also would make a difference as to where it is pulling air from (inside the case B2's vs outside the case B2's).  i for one replaced mine about 2 hrs after receiving it due to the fact that i wanted to overclock it (if possible).  but i did not have any problems with my unit using the stock PS with the room temp at 60 degrees F or below.

short term a cool room the psu will work.  long term it is under sized.  


 be smart pull a blade all worries vanish. this may be the best solution for almost all owners of the gear.

another fairly cheap solution is to replace the power supply with something beefier.  my personal recommendation (and what I did for myself) is to spend around $150 and purchase 2x of these 750w kits - http://www.gekkoscience.com/products/server_supply_breakout_board.html - and run them with power sharing pins and you have more than enough for the S2 (unless we figure how to overclock past 250mhz) and enough for 3 overclocked S1's.  and if you have one of these power supplies go bad you can replace it for a cheap $25 from ebay.  i keep an extra few on hand for myself anyway for rapid deployment for myself and customers.  if you want more info on the maker of these you can read this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=379677

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated or compensated by sidehack for this recommendation.  he has a decent product and i feel he should make money for his work and research.

EDIT:  here's pictures of my setup

the math of pulling a blade is  -100gh  -100watts.

your 150 usd purchase cost more.

pulling 1 blade is the best solution . edit if btc jumps up in price your move was okay

[raskul]

Is it more worthwhile to buy this asic or buy BTC straight?

not the correct question.  
...
so if you are in the usa...

 
perhaps next time you will be able to check the timezone of the poster before spewing out irrelevant assumptions and 'hardforking' over your glorious tax laws.

To answer the question; You can own bitcoin in a variety of ways, you do not need to mine at home; there are various cloud contracts offered these days, but please do some research before buying one of these. The same goes for mining, do research on the company and track record before putting money into a mining rig... don't listen to soothsayers and equally, forget what you hear from harbingers of doom. The choice is yours at the end of the day, one thing I will say though, mining is far more fun than just buying btc, however; I do both.
just - don't spend out more than you can afford to lose, as is the same with any trading stock.

best luck to you.

[finlof]

another fairly cheap solution is to replace the power supply with something beefier.  my personal recommendation (and what I did for myself) is to spend around $150 and purchase 2x of these 750w kits - http://www.gekkoscience.com/products/server_supply_breakout_board.html - and run them with power sharing pins and you have more than enough for the S2 (unless we figure how to overclock past 250mhz) and enough for 3 overclocked S1's.  and if you have one of these power supplies go bad you can replace it for a cheap $25 from ebay.  i keep an extra few on hand for myself anyway for rapid deployment for myself and customers.  if you want more info on the maker of these you can read this thread - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=379677

DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated or compensated by sidehack for this recommendation.  he has a decent product and i feel he should make money for his work and research.

EDIT:  here's pictures of my setup
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23772269/2x%20power%20supplies%20in%20tandem.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23772269/top%20view%20case%20off.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23772269/top%20view%20with%20case%20on.jpg

the math of pulling a blade is  -100gh  -100watts.

your 150 usd purchase cost more.

pulling 1 blade is the best solution . edit if btc jumps up in price your move was okay

nah i will resell this S2 next week.  i will be using those PS's for future antminer S1's i order and resell, any coincraft 1TH units i order and resell.  that PS setup was just an investment for my reselling.

[1l1l11ll1l]

after 20 minutes cooling down (and changing S1 IP) reset buttin works...

will try again with stock settings & 1l1l1l1l1ls SD image

Off the bat its doing nothing,

Antminer S2
192.168.1.99
0GH/s
Max 0C

so its not hashing for 1l1l1l1l1l either....

im 24 hrs deep now with this fkn rig... not happy at all

So it doesn't work with 1l1l1l1l1l's SD image (unmodified)... that worries me.  That image worked for me (and obviously 1l1l1l1l1l).  Must be a piece of faulty hardware because we know that software image works.

A couple of shots in the dark:
1) Try running 1l1l1l1l1l's SD image on another new SD card (just to rule out the chance of a faulty new SD card).
2) Try running it with just one hashing card, to see if you can get anything hashing at all.  If that works, build it up slowly one card at a time, testing each time that each additional card works.  If one card doesn't work, try a different card and a different slot until you can get one card hashing.  If you can't get even one card to hash then something central must be the issue: BBB, daughter-board that BBB sits on, backplane at the bottom...

Try replacing the internal ethernet cable. I had one unit with a poorly crimped end, and that machine was acting all sorts of crazy weird. replaced the cable, 100% running.

[mattie]

Found my culprit with the faulty antminer.
Seems one of my slots doesn't report any temperatures when a module is running in it.
This makes the fans go haywire and probably trip a security thing in the antminer it self or the PSU

so running with 1 blade less works fine?

Yup no problems yet.. though missing out on some gigahashes now :/

On a side note found it not to be the slot it was mining in but one of the cards tripping the PSU protection.
It either looks like one of my miners needs more power then the power supply gives or one of the blades is faulty and tripping the surge protection.
I ordered a 1350W platimax enermax power supply to find out if this resolves it using all 10 blades
I have another antminer S2 which is running fine with the 1000W enermax powersupply but I think these 1000W power supply's are cutting it really close to max usage of the power supply and will probably end up frying it in the end.. not something I am looking forwards to.
On other thoughts I hate to spend another 250 euros to replace the power supply.

You say you have two units, have you tried one at a time by itself?

Yes one works fine .. unfortunately found the second miner off again this morning I was a bit presumptuous that my troubles where gone with this miner.
Will have to wait for my new PSU

[raskul]

Many Thanks to all who offered support.

Still not heard back from Bitmain wrt Dead PSU.

So i bought an 8 port ether switch, plugged that into my router now hashing fine with 9 blades between 780-971.50GH/s Max 62C so far but its only been running for 5-10 minutes

Still using the OCZ1000W PSU, stuck it back in the case with its inlet facing out & the case slightly ajar but i've ordered an add2psu and will use 2 650-750W PSUs when it arrives so i can put that 10th blade back in.

As addictive as GH are, i think ive had about enough.. but ive said that a lot.

Spondoolies do seem to be working overdrive to get a bunch of orders in but august is a long ways away.

Ooh - just touched 1040GH/s with 9 blades! (then dropped to 817 so make of that what you will.

Ed

glad you got hashing eventually Ed.

[Marcellow]

Thx!

sadly i now have 6 empty ether ports that could do with filling.

We call that prepared ...

[sbfree]

Bitmain, sent you a PM regards RMA on my blade. UPS said that you have moved, please provide correct address or further instructions. Thank you. sbfree

[Zelek Uther]

Many Thanks to all who offered support.

Still not heard back from Bitmain wrt Dead PSU.

So i bought an 8 port ether switch, plugged that into my router now hashing fine with 9 blades between 780-971.50GH/s Max 62C so far but its only been running for 5-10 minutes

Still using the OCZ1000W PSU, stuck it back in the case with its inlet facing out & the case slightly ajar but i've ordered an add2psu and will use 2 650-750W PSUs when it arrives so i can put that 10th blade back in.

As addictive as GH are, i think ive had about enough.. but ive said that a lot.

Spondoolies do seem to be working overdrive to get a bunch of orders in but august is a long ways away.

Ooh - just touched 1040GH/s with 9 blades! (then dropped to 817 so make of that what you will.

Ed

glad you got hashing eventually Ed.

Yes, good to hear!

[sbfree]

anyone have a very recent successful RMA make it to BITMAIN in China...seems address I was given is not working and I need to update the delivery address?? Anyone have a good address to share or compare?

[jelin1984]

how i can understand if all my blade at s2 works?

[imar2014]

how i can understand if all my blade at s2 works?

Read the manual from the manufacturers website.

[BitcoinPappi]

how i can understand if all my blade at s2 works?

Log on to the web interface and under status you should see a temperature and "0000 00000 …." associated with each of the blades. You could also remove the case and look if they all have blinking green lights

[dogie]

Put technical discussion and problems in here. This thread was never really meant for it and findings don't get amalgamated into the OP.

Dogie's comprehensive setup guide in super HD!

[NorTiaN]

Been thinking of getting 3x of these S2.
However, all these reports of messed up hardware, failing PSUs, burned out LCD screens and other probs are kinda scary.
Are more recent units suffering from all of this aswell?
Bitmain, it kinda seems you took a nose dive on this one, m8.

Peace

[googlemaster1]

Been thinking of getting 3x of these S2.
However, all these reports of messed up hardware, failing PSUs, burned out LCD screens and other probs are kinda scary.
Are more recent units suffering from all of this aswell?
Bitmain, it kinda seems you took a nose dive on this one, m8.

Peace

I had a batch of the S2, and there is a couple things I would recommend if you get these:

1)  Buy a new microSD card.  The ones that come with these are crap.  Image it with one of the images linked in this thread. blank it with the reset button, and boom.

2)  I don't know if its just me, but I changed the subnet on these guys.  When I had them on the .1.x subnet, this never happened, but as soon as I put it on my .254, if the unit gets unplugged abruptly, or resets, sometimes I have to reflash the firmware.  I don't see this being a problem in the future as there was some special cases trying to manage all my miners and figuring out loads.  A few breaker trips happened due to my stupidity.

Aside from some of the boxes getting mangled in shipping, and some of those issues, I would say it hasn't been the worst experience ever.  It sure as hell is a far cry from the good ole S1 plug and go, though.

[ZiG]

Been thinking of getting 3x of these S2.
However, all these reports of messed up hardware, failing PSUs, burned out LCD screens and other probs are kinda scary.
Are more recent units suffering from all of this aswell?
Bitmain, it kinda seems you took a nose dive on this one, m8.

Peace

S2 reminds me of Block Erupter Blades...Just sold my last 10...and saw how similar are they...

Add the case...PSU...some fans...BBB controller... LCD...You got it...

The only difference is...Erupter Blades have been working nonstop 24/7 since November 2013...HP Server PSU - 1000W though...IRON...

[AdvocateOne]

Found my culprit with the faulty antminer.
Seems one of my slots doesn't report any temperatures when a module is running in it.
This makes the fans go haywire and probably trip a security thing in the antminer it self or the PSU

so running with 1 blade less works fine?

Yup no problems yet.. though missing out on some gigahashes now :/

On a side note found it not to be the slot it was mining in but one of the cards tripping the PSU protection.
It either looks like one of my miners needs more power then the power supply gives or one of the blades is faulty and tripping the surge protection.
I ordered a 1350W platimax enermax power supply to find out if this resolves it using all 10 blades
I have another antminer S2 which is running fine with the 1000W enermax powersupply but I think these 1000W power supply's are cutting it really close to max usage of the power supply and will probably end up frying it in the end.. not something I am looking forwards to.
On other thoughts I hate to spend another 250 euros to replace the power supply.

You say you have two units, have you tried one at a time by itself?

Yes one works fine .. unfortunately found the second miner off again this morning I was a bit presumptuous that my troubles where gone with this miner.
Will have to wait for my new PSU

I had a similar issue with S2 power supply just shutting down at will every few hours or so.  After replacing the *power cord* with a thicker heavier duty one, it has not yet shutdown after running for 24+ hours.