ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread

[jelin1984]

helllo

i had problem with s2

all the led lights
green and one red
is lighting at mainboard
and nothing at s2

what is the problem?
how i can do hard reset/???

[jelin1984]

How many seconds
.
I must hold the reset pin
I do for some seconds but nothing happen!

[Visesrion]

I have just received the second batch S2 today (in Spain) and the unit was totally destroyed.

i opened the box expecting to put back in some connector or board, but I just get shocked when I openened the box:







So I have to put all the boards out, put by force all the bented pci slots and fans connector right again, connect every fan, pci and even the ethernet connector from the beagleboard to the fron of the case. Then one by one put back the boards, but as you can see in the pictures one side of the boards holder is totally destroyed. I don't know who the smart at bitmain has designed the boards holder, but holding so much heavy boards by plastic holders that can be taken out so easy from the chassis is just ridiculous. Why you build so strong chassis if you then put plastic holders that simply pop in the holes, not even with a screw ?



Now what, some type of compensation ? At least a replace of the broken piece and some compensation I expect. I am lucky that after all the miner is hashing right at 1-1.1 TH/s

[tzortz]

Was the courrier playing football with that box?

[freebit13]

I thought mine looked bad when it arrived today, but yours looks a lot worse
These plastic rails are a joke!


Unfortunately I can't get mine over 900Gh/s, some of the pins in the pci slots were bent and I can't get the one slot working.


I've emailed Bitmain, hopefully they'll send a replacement 

[tzortz]

I believe evryone had the same issue.

[1l1l11ll1l]

I have just received the second batch S2 today (in Spain) and the unit was totally destroyed.

i op
So I have to put all the boards out, put by force all the bented pci slots and fans connector right again, connect every fan, pci and even the ethernet connector from the beagleboard to the fron of the case. Then one by one put back the boards, but as you can see in the pictures one side of the boards holder is totally destroyed. I don't know who the smart at bitmain has designed the boards holder, but holding so much heavy boards by plastic holders that can be taken out so easy from the chassis is just ridiculous. Why you build so strong chassis if you then put plastic holders that simply pop in the holes, not even with a screw ?



Now what, some type of compensation ? At least a replace of the broken piece and some compensation I expect. I am lucky that after all the miner is hashing right at 1-1.1 TH/s

You're definitely lucky that it's running at full speed! I have to say though, I've never seen the frames bent so badly, yours had to have taken one (or more) serious blows. Even if the case had been built more sturdy, I don't see how yours could have escaped some damage, the metal behind the plastic guide rods looks like... well like:

[Visesrion]

You're definitely lucky that it's running at full speed! I have to say though, I've never seen the frames bent so badly, yours had to have taken one (or more) serious blows. Even if the case had been built more sturdy, I don't see how yours could have escaped some damage, the metal behind the plastic guide rods looks like... well like:

The worst part was before I opened the box that I could listen to that clicky noise of boards going around inside the box  

I even see a tiny yellow/orange thing between the fan grill and the box and I first though it was a piece of ruber that bitmain has put there for protecting the case from scrachting with the grills. When I take it on my hand I realize it was a capacitor and I assume something really bad was inside there

[tzortz]

You're definitely lucky that it's running at full speed! I have to say though, I've never seen the frames bent so badly, yours had to have taken one (or more) serious blows. Even if the case had been built more sturdy, I don't see how yours could have escaped some damage, the metal behind the plastic guide rods looks like... well like:

The worst part was before I opened the box that I could listen to that clicky noise of boards going around inside the box  

I even see a tiny yellow/orange thing between the fan grill and the box and I first though it was a piece of ruber that bitmain has put there for protecting the case from scrachting with the grills. When I take it on my hand I realize it was a capacitor and I assume something really bad was inside there

I am not sure if I would accept that when received.

[freebit13]

The worst part was before I opened the box that I could listen to that clicky noise of boards going around inside the box  

I even see a tiny yellow/orange thing between the fan grill and the box and I first though it was a piece of ruber that bitmain has put there for protecting the case from scrachting with the grills. When I take it on my hand I realize it was a capacitor and I assume something really bad was inside there

I had the same sinking feeling when I heard the death rattle from the box

How exactly did you get it running at 1.1Th/s with a missing capacitor?

[Visesrion]

I am not sure if I would accept that when received.

That was when I was unpacking the miner already, so nothing I could do. If I listened to that clicking noise before of course I wouldn't accpet the package.

I had the same sinking feeling when I heard the death rattle from the box

How exactly did you get it running at 1.1Th/s with a missing capacitor?

That is a nice question. I looked at every board for not connecting the one with the missing capacitator when I was pluging them in but all look fine. I will take a closer look now as bitmain has told me to send that board back. That is again 20-25 days without that board and they have said nothing about sending me the destroyed holder of the box 

[freebit13]

That is a nice question. I looked at every board for not connecting the one with the missing capacitator when I was pluging them in but all look fine. I will take a closer look now as bitmain has told me to send that board back. That is again 20-25 days without that board and they have said nothing about sending me the destroyed holder of the box 

I've just found one of my boards is missing a little yellow capacitor too, but it was still hashing without it, my cat found it lying at the bottom of the box. HW errors were looking a little high and I think this has brought them down slightly.

I've also found that my main problem is not the pci connections on the backplane, I have those all working now, it's actually one of the boards. It's missing the tiny resistor that's closest to the pci connection which has a "0" on it and that stops it from hashing, the board shows up in the gui, but won't hash.

[sbfree]

Well my RMA'd board that was bad is on its way back from China. It will take a little bit boys, but they will handle it.

[Biffa]

Well one arrived today after floating around in UPS limbo for a week. Surprisingly just the mainboard and one blade were dislodged, but I removed every blade, wiped off the excess TIM from around the heatsink and any spills of TIM on the chip side of the blades, plugged it all back in, noticed there was a pcie power cable unplugged, started her up and whoosh. 1.075TH. Similar experience to the S1's that have passed through my hands. Nice one Bitmain. 

[faustus66]

I could not resurrect my dead PSU and emailed Bitmain, a day later a replacement PSU is on its way with tracking numbers etc. I am returning the dead PSU at their expense too, I had kind of expected to pay for that myself so that was a nice surprise.
 

[Maxcoin88]

Hi, does anyone know how to reset fan control on the S2?

I have recently purchased two Antminer S2 units. One of the unit is working perfectly but I have a problem with the second unit running the fans at full speed all the time.

In the miner web interface I can see that the Fan 1 is showing 0 instead of the fans rpm but the fan is working at full speed ( all the other fans are working also ) but it wont adjust speed  to control the fan loudness.

On the other unit everything is working good and Fan 1 is showing rpm.

I tried unplug and replug the fan on the board but it is still the same fans are running at maximum speed all the time. I tried upgrading firmware ( succedeed without problem ) , I also tried a hard reset but it has changed nothing.

This is very loud and consuming.

I guess it is related with the firware but upgrading didnt help.

Is there any way to adjust / control / reset the fan control?

[dalenorman2005]

Hi, does anyone know how to reset fan control on the S2?

I have recently purchased two Antminer S2 units. One of the unit is working perfectly but I have a problem with the second unit running the fans at full speed all the time.

In the miner web interface I can see that the Fan 1 is showing 0 instead of the fans rpm but the fan is working at full speed ( all the other fans are working also ) but it wont adjust speed  to control the fan loudness.

On the other unit everything is working good and Fan 1 is showing rpm.

I tried unplug and replug the fan on the board but it is still the same fans are running at maximum speed all the time. I tried upgrading firmware ( succedeed without problem ) , I also tried a hard reset but it has changed nothing.

This is very loud and consuming.

I guess it is related with the firware but upgrading didnt help.

Is there any way to adjust / control / reset the fan control?

The S2 has a total of 5 fans, but the motherboard has 6 places to connect a fan.  Only fans 1-4 are monitored by the Web GUI.  So, when the factory banged out hundreds of S2's in a short period of time, guess what happens....

All 3 of my S2's have their fans connected differently.  I don't have the problem you describe, but perhaps it happens if two of your main fans are connected to plugs 5 and 6 rather than 1-4?

[klondike_bar]

I know it was talked about earlier in the thread - but I have not been frequesnt the last few days and am planning to visit my S2 for the first time tomorrow morning.

1) Should I reflash the firmware of the unit AND/OR copy a new version of the SD card?  (I saw an SD image posted a few days ago)

2) I am changing to a 2kW server PSU and want to see what sort of overclocking is available.  How can I change the clocks? I saw several posts indicating that the unit clears the settings at a reboot, so when changing the clocks you have to start/stop the cgminer only.  Can someone post the code for that (using putty SSH and I have experience with S1)

3) overclocking, the hex codes are the same as were listed in the U1 documentation?  https://coinreport.net/overclock-antminer-u1-guide/  is correct?  (the initial clocks are 160-170MHz right? I would be aiming to 212-225MHz to start.

4) overclocking, do the stock fans get fast enough to handle it, or will I need to pull the top off and add a pair of 230mm fans to increase flow? I could run the PSU outside the case to lessen the heat created

[1l1l11ll1l]

I know it was talked about earlier in the thread - but I have not been frequesnt the last few days and am planning to visit my S2 for the first time tomorrow morning.

1) Should I reflash the firmware of the unit AND/OR copy a new version of the SD card?  (I saw an SD image posted a few days ago)

2) I am changing to a 2kW server PSU and want to see what sort of overclocking is available.  How can I change the clocks? I saw several posts indicating that the unit clears the settings at a reboot, so when changing the clocks you have to start/stop the cgminer only.  Can someone post the code for that (using putty SSH and I have experience with S1)

3) overclocking, the hex codes are the same as were listed in the U1 documentation?  https://coinreport.net/overclock-antminer-u1-guide/  is correct?  (the initial clocks are 160-170MHz right? I would be aiming to 212-225MHz to start.

4) overclocking, do the stock fans get fast enough to handle it, or will I need to pull the top off and add a pair of 230mm fans to increase flow? I could run the PSU outside the case to lessen the heat created

An OC to 225MHz shows 1147GH/s on the miner, but less than 1,000GH/s at the pool, basically the HW errors are so much higher you get a lower effective speed at the pool. Hoping the community can figure this out, maybe a firmware update or a more optimized CGminer.

[freebit13]

I know it was talked about earlier in the thread - but I have not been frequesnt the last few days and am planning to visit my S2 for the first time tomorrow morning.

1) Should I reflash the firmware of the unit AND/OR copy a new version of the SD card?  (I saw an SD image posted a few days ago)

2) I am changing to a 2kW server PSU and want to see what sort of overclocking is available.  How can I change the clocks? I saw several posts indicating that the unit clears the settings at a reboot, so when changing the clocks you have to start/stop the cgminer only.  Can someone post the code for that (using putty SSH and I have experience with S1)

3) overclocking, the hex codes are the same as were listed in the U1 documentation?  https://coinreport.net/overclock-antminer-u1-guide/  is correct?  (the initial clocks are 160-170MHz right? I would be aiming to 212-225MHz to start.

4) overclocking, do the stock fans get fast enough to handle it, or will I need to pull the top off and add a pair of 230mm fans to increase flow? I could run the PSU outside the case to lessen the heat created

1) You'll only need to flash the firmware if it's older than "Thu Apr 10 19:08:42 CST 2014". My batch 2 unit came with the latest firmware already installed. I would suggest making a backup SD card though, in case it does corrupt the one in there with a power down. I suggest doing it with your own image, once you've changed all the settings and have the pools set up or you'll have to do that each time you insert a backup card. I've not needed to reflash the sd card yet, but I've been using the suggested method of ejecting it before powering down and that seems to work very well.

2) I'm sure the overclocking is much the same as the S1 as I remember reading earlier on. It's just that the file is now "asic-freq.conf" and is in a different location (no time to search the thread history).

3) I would expect the hex codes to be the same as the S1 as they use the same chip. The initial clocks are 196Mhz.

4) I'm not sure about the stock fans with OC, but they seem to handle the standard clock speeds ok. Mine are running at 1920rpm, with the hottest board furthest from the psu running at 48^oC, ambient around 20^oC and case closed.

I had trouble with smashed innards, a broken off reducer/capacitor and a missing resistor, but with a little ingenuity and silver conductive paint, I'm hashing at 1Th/s now and it's been stable overnight