ANTMINER S2 Discussion and Support Thread

[klondike_bar]

How can the unit draw 1Kw and only have a 1Kw PSU ?

If you buy an s-2 I advise you to pull 1 blade and list it on ebay for a high price.  say 350 usd. Slowly drop the price  if it does not sell.   

As long as you get more then 250 the price is not bad.  having 9 blades will allow the stock psu to not fry and die.  getting   250 or more for the blade will make up for the lost hash.

 do the math what does 100gh earn.
and the math shows the 100gh lost does not pay off 250 usd so selling it for 250 usd works out as the best move.

bottom line is the s-2 is not a great buy. it needs to be priced lower

Bitmain is a shrewd businessman - that is clear. He knows at this price the S2 will not ROI - watch for the price drop coming soon which will blow the S1 out of the water. This is typical businessmanship. I like this guy.

keep in mind the cost of chips - there are 10x as many chips in an S2 as there is in an S1. If the chips still cost bitmain >$1.50 each (~$0.50/GH in an antminer S1) then they are a significant portion of the S2 price. add in a nice LCD, quality case (still tweaking the card support of course), and a PSU - a price drop to $2000 after coupon with delivery before the 14th of may would be fair, and a price I could afford a small premium over the S1 to buy. (fewer cords and better stacking for bigger mining farms)

[Threader]

keep in mind the cost of chips - there are 10x as many chips in an S2 as there is in an S1. If the chips still cost bitmain >$1.50 each (~$0.50/GH in an antminer S1) then they are a significant portion of the S2 price. add in a nice LCD, quality case (still tweaking the card support of course), and a PSU - a price drop to $2000 after coupon with delivery before the 14th of may would be fair, and a price I could afford a small premium over the S1 to buy. (fewer cords and better stacking for bigger mining farms)

I could do without the LCD and related display electronic circuits and instead have a 1050w or 1100w psu

[mdopro1]

How can the unit draw 1Kw and only have a 1Kw PSU ?

PSU`s have safety margin of 10-20% so it is able to provide more than the rated 1000W but not for very long.
Lifetime of the PSU can be reduced by 500%

Cheers

As well as the fact that "at the wall" is quite different to "at the psu"... as long as the psu outlives the usefulness of the miner, I'm happy... only time will tell.

My B3S2 seems to be happy with the 1000W PSU. Time will tell but has anyone measured pull at the wall? Maybe it's 900W at the wall?

[mitak64]

1015 Watts, from the wall @120V

[mdopro1]

1015 Watts, from the wall @120V

Ouch! That's more than 100% Maybe I'll install my Seasonic 1050W in this thing tomorrow.

[digitizing]

1015 Watts, from the wall @120V

Ouch! That's more than 100% Maybe I'll install my Seasonic 1050W in this thing tomorrow.

just another case for example,
now I'm running mining rig 4x GPU R9 280x
with Seasonic X1050.
it draw 1200 watt from the wall @220 volt.
it's been running about 1 month.

[klondike_bar]

1015 Watts, from the wall @120V

Ouch! That's more than 100% Maybe I'll install my Seasonic 1050W in this thing tomorrow.

the psu is ~88% efficienct near full load. that would be about a 900w draw from the miner

[thomashrev89]

keep in mind the cost of chips - there are 10x as many chips in an S2 as there is in an S1. If the chips still cost bitmain >$1.50 each (~$0.50/GH in an antminer S1) then they are a significant portion of the S2 price. add in a nice LCD, quality case (still tweaking the card support of course), and a PSU - a price drop to $2000 after coupon with delivery before the 14th of may would be fair, and a price I could afford a small premium over the S1 to buy. (fewer cords and better stacking for bigger mining farms)

I could do without the LCD and related display electronic circuits and instead have a 1050w or 1100w psu

Second that.

[pvnamk19]

keep in mind the cost of chips - there are 10x as many chips in an S2 as there is in an S1. If the chips still cost bitmain >$1.50 each (~$0.50/GH in an antminer S1) then they are a significant portion of the S2 price. add in a nice LCD, quality case (still tweaking the card support of course), and a PSU - a price drop to $2000 after coupon with delivery before the 14th of may would be fair, and a price I could afford a small premium over the S1 to buy. (fewer cords and better stacking for bigger mining farms)

I could do without the LCD and related display electronic circuits and instead have a 1050w or 1100w psu

Second that.

3+ 
I haven't looked at 10 S1 for almost one month, just GUI & pools checked.
Next some days when BTC >= ~ 485 USD, bitmaintech website will be heavily congested.

[MrTeal]

Well, mine definitely broke somehow. All of a sudden I just started getting massive rejected shares, and my hashrate dropped to 500-600GH/s

Anyone else experienced anything similar?

[mdopro1]

Someone had figured out how to change the GUI password way back in some pages. Anyone remember where or how?

[klondike_bar]

Well, mine definitely broke somehow. All of a sudden I just started getting massive rejected shares, and my hashrate dropped to 500-600GH/s

Anyone else experienced anything similar?

pool issue? eligius is all over the place the last 2 days.  otherwise does the webUI indicate it is certain boards faulting or an overall drop in speed?

[freebit13]

Well, mine definitely broke somehow. All of a sudden I just started getting massive rejected shares, and my hashrate dropped to 500-600GH/s

Anyone else experienced anything similar?

pool issue? eligius is all over the place the last 2 days.  otherwise does the webUI indicate it is certain boards faulting or an overall drop in speed?

Yeah, I also think it could be pool issues, but I'm not sure. My machine has been far from stable on Eligius the last few days, but I wasn't sure if it was the 2 damaged boards or the pool itself. It seems like it might have calmed down today, but I had the same problem of pool hashrate suddenly dropping down with the miner gui reporting 1005GH/s avg. and I found it was leaking shares to my backup pool.

I also noticed a lot of stales from switching pools, but the GUI didn't actually report diffS, it just stays at 0.

[xstr8guy]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread. So if my S2 is shutting down after running just a short while, it's most likely the underpowered PSU, correct?

Well it looks like I'm replacing the PSU now. My batch 2 S2 has worked flawlessly from day one. But today it has started shutting off after running less than an hour. Luckily I have a nice Corsair AX1200i powering some ancient BFL Singles in my garage. It's time to shut them down anyways.

C'mon BitMain, use the proper PSU for the job! 

[freebit13]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread. So if my S2 is shutting down after running just a short while, it's most likely the underpowered PSU, correct?

Well it looks like I'm replacing the PSU now. My batch 2 S2 has worked flawlessly from day one. But today it has started shutting off after running less than an hour. Luckily I have a nice Corsair AX1200i powering some ancient BFL Singles in my garage. It's time to shut them down anyways.

C'mon BitMain, use the proper PSU for the job! 

My machine seems to be doing fine with the stock psu, no shutting down at all. I guess the easiest way to test would be to pull one board and see if it runs longer than an hour without shutting down. Just out of interest, what are your running temps?

[xstr8guy]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread. So if my S2 is shutting down after running just a short while, it's most likely the underpowered PSU, correct?

Well it looks like I'm replacing the PSU now. My batch 2 S2 has worked flawlessly from day one. But today it has started shutting off after running less than an hour. Luckily I have a nice Corsair AX1200i powering some ancient BFL Singles in my garage. It's time to shut them down anyways.

C'mon BitMain, use the proper PSU for the job! 

My machine seems to be doing fine with the stock psu, no shutting down at all. I guess the easiest way to test would be to pull one board and see if it runs longer than an hour without shutting down. Just out of interest, what are your running temps?

Mid 50's. I have recently moved it to a different room/circuit and that's when the problem started. But the temps haven't increased.

[freebit13]

Mid 50's. I have recently moved it to a different room/circuit and that's when the problem started. But the temps haven't increased.

Interesting, I've never been over 52^o (usually around 50) and my psu is doing fine, perhaps it's the temp that's causing it, I'm not sure what others are running at. With the cutoff at 80^o one would expect it to handle high temps, but maybe the psu is struggling.

Also, if you've changed it to a different circuit, I'd expect it to trip at your breaker box, not at the psu if that was the problem.

[smooth]

Mid 50's. I have recently moved it to a different room/circuit and that's when the problem started. But the temps haven't increased.

Interesting, I've never been over 52^o (usually around 50) and my psu is doing fine, perhaps it's the temp that's causing it, I'm not sure what others are running at. With the cutoff at 80^o one would expect it to handle high temps, but maybe the psu is struggling.

Also, if you've changed it to a different circuit, I'd expect it to trip at your breaker box, not at the psu if that was the problem.

It may be there is a bit more voltage drop on the second circuit. Wouldn't necessarily trip the breaker but might push the PSU -- already being pushed to the limit -- over the edge. If you have a kill-a-watt or multimeter you can measure the voltage at the outlet you are using and see.

[Biffa]

Mid 50's. I have recently moved it to a different room/circuit and that's when the problem started. But the temps haven't increased.

Interesting, I've never been over 52^o (usually around 50) and my psu is doing fine, perhaps it's the temp that's causing it, I'm not sure what others are running at. With the cutoff at 80^o one would expect it to handle high temps, but maybe the psu is struggling.

Also, if you've changed it to a different circuit, I'd expect it to trip at your breaker box, not at the psu if that was the problem.

Some of mine are hitting above 60°C

[Soros Shorts]

Mid 50's. I have recently moved it to a different room/circuit and that's when the problem started. But the temps haven't increased.

Interesting, I've never been over 52^o (usually around 50) and my psu is doing fine, perhaps it's the temp that's causing it, I'm not sure what others are running at. With the cutoff at 80^o one would expect it to handle high temps, but maybe the psu is struggling.

Also, if you've changed it to a different circuit, I'd expect it to trip at your breaker box, not at the psu if that was the problem.

It may be there is a bit more voltage drop on the second circuit. Wouldn't necessarily trip the breaker but might push the PSU -- already being pushed to the limit -- over the edge. If you have a kill-a-watt or multimeter you can measure the voltage at the outlet you are using and see.

I'd be a little worried if I saw a voltage drop of more than a few volts. At around 10 Amps if the voltage dropped from 120V to 118V it means that there is 20W of power lost somewhere in the electrical wiring.  This 20W goes towards heating up the wires and things can get pretty hot if it is all concentrated one spot (like a bad connection). If you are an electronics hobbyist you'd know how hot a small 20W soldering iron can get. So yeah, if there was a voltage drop that's big enough to affect the PSU I'd stop using that outlet.