ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread

[ZiG]

I got 20 S2 -400USD coupons and 20 S1 0.05btc coupons anybody intrested?

How does the coupons work? Are they transferrable?

Apply 1 coupon per device @ Checkout ...lowering the price to be paid...

NON-transferable ...

[sbfree]

^mine arrived the exact same with the foam strips and good shape. also had 2 or 3 screws that were free-spinning that i pried out with a knife

3 out of 3 had the plastic sleeves and the foam on the case. 1 unit was still internally exploded and had to RMA 1 blade.

If they make the case internally stronger, and maybe some of that tape and/or foam they use when shipping printers then it will be good UNLIKE KNFLEE

[buckrogers]

Am I supposed to take out this foam? Is it possibly going to catch fire if I don't?

P.S. Nothing's perfect, I got an Australian cord. Where would I find a heavy cord to run this thing?

Foam is fine to leave in.

Just buy a 15amp rated 120volt power cord and you'll be fine. They will look similar and thicker than the crappy 10amp computer monitor cables.

[DevonMiner]

Well ... I received coupons like many others ... but I won't cash them in.

Loved the S1, but the horror stories on here meant I spent my money elsewhere.

Sorry Bitmain, but even if you get batch 4 right, many of us have been disappointed .. and walked ...

[mdopro1]

One of my blades showing all ----- with a few ooo but no xxx

What's going on there? It's the original PSU

EDIT: Is chain 1 on the far left side if I'm looking at the miner from front?

[smooth]

I have several S2 $400 coupons and several 0.05 S1 coupons, and I doubt I will use any of them.

I will order miners for people using my coupons if you pay me in advance. No charge for the coupons but tips welcome.

[Questionator]

I have a Antminer S2 from the second batch, it was all fine for a few day's after putting the blades back like most of you
Until today, i restarted the damn thing and now there is nothing but blue on the screen.
The original sd card seems to be fine, new msd card with a new image does not help.
I even tried with all the blades out, only one and half of them, still nothing

Do you guy's know what could be wrong?

[buckrogers]

I have a Antminer S2 from the second batch, it was all fine for a few day's after putting the blades back like most of you
Until today, i restarted the damn thing and now there is nothing but blue on the screen.
The original sd card seems to be fine, new msd card with a new image does not help.
I even tried with all the blades out, only one and half of them, still nothing

Do you guy's know what could be wrong?

Yes i do...Bitmain is selling defective broken pieces of crap to people, and people are still buying them in hopes that it will work one day.
And he lowers his price every week so people think they are getting a deal, when all they are getting is a box of broken used parts, and a crappy OS interface.
He did well on the S1, and is using his success on that to sell this junk to people who think it will be as solid as an S1.

I guess if you are good at fixing broken parts and figuring out how to solder parts back together, then this would be the deal for you.
Just ahve a bunch of class 10 microSD cards handy for when the OS crashes.

[Questionator]

Yes i know, i mined the coins with S1's to buy the S2 on 16-03 for the second batch.
The S1's where great but this 

I hope it's something i can solder back, that won't be any problem for me.
Even if it's a bga or something like that.

On the controller board are 5 led's, only one of them is green.
it's the led with R41D5 marking next to it.
Any thoughts?

[klondike_bar]

Yes i know, i mined the coins with S1's to buy the S2 on 16-03 for the second batch.
The S1's where great but this 

I hope it's something i can solder back, that won't be any problem for me.
Even if it's a bga or something like that.

On the controller board are 5 led's, only one of them is green.
it's the led with R41D5 marking next to it.
Any thoughts?

look up support for the beaglebone black since that is the control module. its possible you need to swap in a new controller and/or sd card (probably <$50)

[buckrogers]

Yes i know, i mined the coins with S1's to buy the S2 on 16-03 for the second batch.
The S1's where great but this 

I hope it's something i can solder back, that won't be any problem for me.
Even if it's a bga or something like that.

On the controller board are 5 led's, only one of them is green.
it's the led with R41D5 marking next to it.
Any thoughts?

look up support for the beaglebone black since that is the control module. its possible you need to swap in a new controller and/or sd card (probably <$50)

The real question is: why should anyone have to swap out anything for an expensive piece of equipment that was obviously poorly tested, and used a shitty microSD card in the first place.

Also stop hiring monkies to throw your packafges onto your planes....do they think there are pilows inside an 18kg box?  what a stupid system, at least work out the delivery part so all the units dont come to people in pieces.

Fragile, or this side up, doesnt mean shit to these carriers, even if they could read them or understaing which way an up arrow is suppposed to go.  Put it in chinese then, but I dont think it will make a difference.  seems like whoever he is using to ship these units is the cheapest carrier he could find as seen in one of theose animated gifs i saw a while back where the monkey is tossing these large heavy boxes carelessly on to the conveyor belt with half of them falling off.

Good work Bitmain, way to kill your entire business operations in one clean sweep.

Maybe you shoulod lower the price again next week and try and get some more suckers to give you money.

[el_rlee]

Yes i know, i mined the coins with S1's to buy the S2 on 16-03 for the second batch.
The S1's where great but this 

I hope it's something i can solder back, that won't be any problem for me.
Even if it's a bga or something like that.

On the controller board are 5 led's, only one of them is green.
it's the led with R41D5 marking next to it.
Any thoughts?

look up support for the beaglebone black since that is the control module. its possible you need to swap in a new controller and/or sd card (probably <$50)

The real question is: why should anyone have to swap out anything for an expensive piece of equipment that was obviously poorly tested, and used a shitty microSD card in the first place.

Also stop hiring monkies to throw your packafges onto your planes....do they think there are pilows inside an 18kg box?  what a stupid system, at least work out the delivery part so all the units dont come to people in pieces.

Fragile, or this side up, doesnt mean shit to these carriers, even if they could read them or understaing which way an up arrow is suppposed to go.  Put it in chinese then, but I dont think it will make a difference.  seems like whoever he is using to ship these units is the cheapest carrier he could find as seen in one of theose animated gifs i saw a while back where the monkey is tossing these large heavy boxes carelessly on to the conveyor belt with half of them falling off.

Good work Bitmain, way to kill your entire business operations in one clean sweep.

Maybe you shoulod lower the price again next week and try and get some more suckers to give you money.

You can use whichever carrier you want, if you don't package it in a way it can be kicked around without taking damage it's guaranteed to arrive in pieces.

[dogie]

Got my two s2's today. Both where fucked up inside, Cards everywhere, bent pci slots. Plastic thingy holding the cards had about 50% survival rate.
After assembling them back together one did not start and one worked at 650Ghs. After some hours of trying different things I got two new PSU's, XFX Black Edition 1250W and RECOM 1600W(Overkill but had it laying around) One are stable at 1Ths the other is working at 920ghs with row 10 showing only lines.

I feel the s2 is a step down from s1 when it comes to build quality and overall design.
Next time pack each cards individually with bubblewrap and stick them inside the miner. Shipping the miner with the cards already in their slot is borderline retarded. 

I had the same and found that the card that wasn't registering was missing one of the tiny resistors ("0") closest to the pci connection on the board. I replaced the resistor with some pencil and some silver conductive paint and it's working fine for a week now.

Thank you for that, will try it out. You got picture so I can see? I got no education in electronics so this wil be "monkey see, monkey do"

All I have is this:
https://i.imgur.com/2Zt1Yen.jpg

It just shows which resistor it was, it's slightly blurry. I've got no education in electronics either, but I saw the corresponding resistor on another board had a "0" on it, so figured it wasn't providing much resistance and just shorted it and it worked. It would have been RMA anyway, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Be careful though, I can't take any responsibility if something goes horribly wrong... 

Found this online:

Usually they are used in single layer boards for connections which cannot be routed on copper due to density. In other cases, 0 ohm resistors are used as factory switches, when the same pcb board can be equipped in several variants, and particular connections must exist in each variant. Sometimes they are used as fuses.

Suggests you just need to bridge it.

[thomashrev89]

Got my two s2's today. Both where fucked up inside, Cards everywhere, bent pci slots. Plastic thingy holding the cards had about 50% survival rate.
After assembling them back together one did not start and one worked at 650Ghs. After some hours of trying different things I got two new PSU's, XFX Black Edition 1250W and RECOM 1600W(Overkill but had it laying around) One are stable at 1Ths the other is working at 920ghs with row 10 showing only lines.

I feel the s2 is a step down from s1 when it comes to build quality and overall design.
Next time pack each cards individually with bubblewrap and stick them inside the miner. Shipping the miner with the cards already in their slot is borderline retarded. 

I had the same and found that the card that wasn't registering was missing one of the tiny resistors ("0") closest to the pci connection on the board. I replaced the resistor with some pencil and some silver conductive paint and it's working fine for a week now.

Thank you for that, will try it out. You got picture so I can see? I got no education in electronics so this wil be "monkey see, monkey do"

All I have is this:
https://i.imgur.com/2Zt1Yen.jpg

It just shows which resistor it was, it's slightly blurry. I've got no education in electronics either, but I saw the corresponding resistor on another board had a "0" on it, so figured it wasn't providing much resistance and just shorted it and it worked. It would have been RMA anyway, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Be careful though, I can't take any responsibility if something goes horribly wrong... 

Found this online:

Usually they are used in single layer boards for connections which cannot be routed on copper due to density. In other cases, 0 ohm resistors are used as factory switches, when the same pcb board can be equipped in several variants, and particular connections must exist in each variant. Sometimes they are used as fuses.

Suggests you just need to bridge it.

Thanks dogie, I will try the wood glue + pencil shavings.

[googlemaster1]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone purchased the S2's at the $2199 price even?  I'm tempted to if BTC reaches $480+ in the next few days.... thoughts?

[freebit13]

Got my two s2's today. Both where fucked up inside, Cards everywhere, bent pci slots. Plastic thingy holding the cards had about 50% survival rate.
After assembling them back together one did not start and one worked at 650Ghs. After some hours of trying different things I got two new PSU's, XFX Black Edition 1250W and RECOM 1600W(Overkill but had it laying around) One are stable at 1Ths the other is working at 920ghs with row 10 showing only lines.

I feel the s2 is a step down from s1 when it comes to build quality and overall design.
Next time pack each cards individually with bubblewrap and stick them inside the miner. Shipping the miner with the cards already in their slot is borderline retarded. 

I had the same and found that the card that wasn't registering was missing one of the tiny resistors ("0") closest to the pci connection on the board. I replaced the resistor with some pencil and some silver conductive paint and it's working fine for a week now.

Thank you for that, will try it out. You got picture so I can see? I got no education in electronics so this wil be "monkey see, monkey do"

All I have is this:
https://i.imgur.com/2Zt1Yen.jpg

It just shows which resistor it was, it's slightly blurry. I've got no education in electronics either, but I saw the corresponding resistor on another board had a "0" on it, so figured it wasn't providing much resistance and just shorted it and it worked. It would have been RMA anyway, so I figured I'd give it a go.

Be careful though, I can't take any responsibility if something goes horribly wrong... 

Found this online:

Usually they are used in single layer boards for connections which cannot be routed on copper due to density. In other cases, 0 ohm resistors are used as factory switches, when the same pcb board can be equipped in several variants, and particular connections must exist in each variant. Sometimes they are used as fuses.

Suggests you just need to bridge it.

Nice one Dogie, looks like my gut feeling was correct 

Good luck Thomas, perhaps glue some copper wire into that bridge too.

[freebit13]

I got my miner today and except 3 free spinning screws that I had to break everything inside was in perfect shape. I might know why too. See pictures below.



This rubber padding might have something to do with my miner coming in 1 piece.

Mine also had that rubber on the lid, it didn't help much... the problem is that the documents and stickers are stuck to the side of the box and not the top, which leads to the delivery guys packing them vertically and with one bump it bends the pci connector and dislodges the cards and then they proceed to screw up the little pins inside the connectors.

This could all be avoided by placing the docs on the lid of the box and adding a "fragile" and "this way up" sticker to show which way they should be transported. I'm hoping to see some improvements for batch 3 customers and hope they haven't just stuck to their current packaging.

That hole in the side of the cover for the psu is new though... I guess I'm lucky winter is on it's way down here 

[freebit13]

I have a Antminer S2 from the second batch, it was all fine for a few day's after putting the blades back like most of you
Until today, i restarted the damn thing and now there is nothing but blue on the screen.
The original sd card seems to be fine, new msd card with a new image does not help.
I even tried with all the blades out, only one and half of them, still nothing

Do you guy's know what could be wrong?

When I've had this problem, it's been the SD card, try re-imaging it with the image from 1l1l11ll1l. If you need to power your machine down, first eject the card (no need to completely remove it), then power off, then push it back in and power on again. I've had no more problems since following this routine.

[freebit13]

One of my blades showing all ----- with a few ooo but no xxx

What's going on there? It's the original PSU

EDIT: Is chain 1 on the far left side if I'm looking at the miner from front?

Check my previous posts, I found a missing resistor that needed to be bridged...

Chain 1 will be furthest from the PSU, if you look closely you'll see the PCI numbers on the backplane.

[Questionator]

I have a Antminer S2 from the second batch, it was all fine for a few day's after putting the blades back like most of you
Until today, i restarted the damn thing and now there is nothing but blue on the screen.
The original sd card seems to be fine, new msd card with a new image does not help.
I even tried with all the blades out, only one and half of them, still nothing

Do you guy's know what could be wrong?

When I've had this problem, it's been the SD card, try re-imaging it with the image from 1l1l11ll1l. If you need to power your machine down, first eject the card (no need to completely remove it), then power off, then push it back in and power on again. I've had no more problems since following this routine.

I tried the image from 1l1l11ll1l but for my it did not work.
win32discimager writes for a few seconds but after that i can't read the sd card.

There was also a other image ( updated? ) and that one worked.
It took a few minutes to write that one.

I have just send a email to bitmaintech to ask about this booting problem.
When i have found the problem i will post it in here.