Antminers E3 still alive for ETH?

[daworm06]

I have 4 antMiner E3's. Three of them stopped hashing a week ago and the 4th stopped hashing today and it just won't connect. I waited for an hour and a half.

At this time I am mining Expanse for heat.  I will probably trade the Expanse on Bittrex for another coin.

I would like to hear what other E3 owners plans are.

[adaseb]

I have 4 antMiner E3's. Three of them stopped hashing a week ago and the 4th stopped hashing today and it just won't connect. I waited for an hour and a half.

At this time I am mining Expanse for heat.  I will probably trade the Expanse on Bittrex for another coin.

I would like to hear what other E3 owners plans are.

My advice is just list it on Craiglist and say that its for hobby purposes only and someone will buy it since BTC broke $20K today and many will want to get into crypto. Sell it for like $50.

I did this in 2015 when I had old miners like Antminer S1 or KnC Jupiter. I told people that you won't make any profits what so ever with it. Its just to learn about crypto and if you like it you can get more advanced ASICs or GPUs.

Because $50 will yield you the most profit than mining a coin such as Expanse.

[badbart]

I wounder is all the E3s are not working i don't see a drop in the eth difficulty or hash rate.

[adaseb]

I wounder is all the E3s are not working i don't see a drop in the eth difficulty or hash rate.

Look at, https://ethermine.org/statistics

There was a drop when the epoch hit. However it looks like hashrate is growing from somewhere. It topped at 65TH/s and now its back to 61TH/s so 6% total reduction, if you add to entire hashrate of ETH which is 280TH/s, it means 16.8TH/s has left the network. This obviously is just an estimate. Since its one pool and there are new GPUs going online everyday.

But that 16.8Th/s is almost 100K of E3's. However most likely there was some 4GB cards that stopped mining as well.

[FloppyPurpleGherkin]

4GB cards still mining ETH right now, will lose around 5-6% hashrate for every new epoch until around mid-late jan when they will be at around 50% of their original speed.

The above is true for Linux, Windows is much worse.. 4GB cards on windows hashrate will be halved around now or in the next week.

[adaseb]

4GB cards still mining ETH right now, will lose around 5-6% hashrate for every new epoch until around mid-late jan when they will be at around 50% of their original speed.

The above is true for Linux, Windows is much worse.. 4GB cards on windows hashrate will be halved around now or in the next week.

No its going to be around 50% of the original speed in about 3 weeks or so. Go to the lolminer thread and there is a benchmark posted. I think unless there is some interest in developement then most will shut off their rigs by the end of the year.

There are lots of 4GB sitting idle since ETC is not profitable that maybe some clever developer like Claymore or Phoenix can find a way to get them hashing again at close to their original mining speed. But who knows if that will happen. Since lol did it, it might be possible.

[TGJ]

Are the E3 190 MH/s miners also dead, or will be soon?

[daworm06]

Are the E3 190 MH/s miners also dead, or will be soon?

Mine are all dead now for ETH. If you want to continue mining another coin, you will need to downgrade your firmware as version 5.4.0 and 5.6.0. will not work.

[adaseb]

Anyone open up their E3 units? I am assuming that the RAM found inside it is surface mount? Most likely bitmain ordered the DDR2 memory chips instead of actual memory modules.

However if there are interchangeable DDR2 memory modules inside, then maybe its possible to upgrade the ram to a higher capacity. You will need some open source software to be able to rewrite the firmware however. Most likely won't be worth while to resolder any surface mount memory chips. I can imagine that there are probably a few hundred of them in total on the E3.

[miner29]

I suspect just like 570/580's the memory chips can be replaced with higher capacity units.  Would probably need a fix to firmware but maybe not.  Surely somebody will open one up...removing and replacing SMT components is not a big deal....if ya got the gear.

[xxcsu]

Anyone open up their E3 units? I am assuming that the RAM found inside it is surface mount? Most likely bitmain ordered the DDR2 memory chips instead of actual memory modules.

However if there are interchangeable DDR2 memory modules inside, then maybe its possible to upgrade the ram to a higher capacity. You will need some open source software to be able to rewrite the firmware however. Most likely won't be worth while to resolder any surface mount memory chips. I can imagine that there are probably a few hundred of them in total on the E3.

Each Antminer E3 have 3 Blades , on every blades have 6 BM1790 ASIC chip

[cali747]

Anyone open up their E3 units? I am assuming that the RAM found inside it is surface mount? Most likely bitmain ordered the DDR2 memory chips instead of actual memory modules.

However if there are interchangeable DDR2 memory modules inside, then maybe its possible to upgrade the ram to a higher capacity. You will need some open source software to be able to rewrite the firmware however. Most likely won't be worth while to resolder any surface mount memory chips. I can imagine that there are probably a few hundred of them in total on the E3.

Each Antminer E3 have 3 Blades , on every blades have 6 BM1790 ASIC chip

https://beszeljukmeg.com/AntminerE3/1.jpg

https://beszeljukmeg.com/AntminerE3/31.jpg

https://beszeljukmeg.com/AntminerE3/4.jpg

https://beszeljukmeg.com/AntminerE3/5.jpg

yours still working?

[xxcsu]

nope ... today was the last day ... around 4.30pm EST all of my working E3 become a door stopper  

[adaseb]

Looks like there are 32 memory chips per ASIC, so 32*6=192 per blade so 576 memory chips per Antminer E3. Like I assumed before they didn't use memory ram modules but just used the chips. Looks like they are DDR3 SDRAM instead of DDR2 like I thought.

Sure you can easily use a hot air station station to desolder one chip, but not 576. Each chip would take maybe like 2-3 minutes to desolder, then you need to solder the new chip, if its new then you don't need to reball it however if you are taking the chips from actual DDR3 ram you would need to desolder that, then reball the chip, and finally solder it onto the E3. Basically just not worth the hassle. Even with all the free time we got during covid this job wouldn't be worth it. Then you would need to recode the firmware so it recognises the higher density chips. I'd say its officially a doorstop.

[xxcsu]

yes those are ddr3 chips , there is the Data sheet : https://datasheetspdf.com/pdf/1305324/ESMT/M15T1G1664A/1

maybe this is what we need to replace those chips : https://www.esmt.com.tw/upload/pdf/ESMT/datasheets/M15F2G16128A(2L).pdf

If anyone can do the software part , i might would be happy to deal with the hardware part , really depend on my free time , but just for try  , why not

[gnik81]

Hello guys,

I believe much more possible will be to make Ant E3 start mining ETC again because the DAG file now is 2.5 GB
Maybe I'm totally wrong, but for me seems to be a software fix. Ant E3 is just a case /box/ with GPUs inside and Linux OS and miner software.
Can we somehow install another mining software like Claymore / Ethminer / PhoenixMiner ?
The original one is a cgminer named bmminer
If Ant E3 can mining ETC again will be great.
I have only one Ant E3 and currently mining ETHO or EGEM coin, but profit is max $3.50 per day
Any ideas or suggestions are very welcome

Thanks,

[miner29]

Hello guys,

I believe much more possible will be to make Ant E3 start mining ETC again because the DAG file now is 2.5 GB
Maybe I'm totally wrong, but for me seems to be a software fix. Ant E3 is just a case /box/ with GPUs inside and Linux OS and miner software.
Can we somehow install another mining software like Claymore / Ethminer / PhoenixMiner ?
The original one is a cgminer named bmminer
If Ant E3 can mining ETC again will be great.
I have only one Ant E3 and currently mining ETHO or EGEM coin, but profit is max $3.50 per day
Any ideas or suggestions are very welcome

Thanks,

No they changed the Algo specifically to prevent asics from being able to mine it. 

[gnik81]

No they changed the Algo specifically to prevent asics from being able to mine it. 
[/quote]

I agree with you about the Algo, and I think this is the part that I'm missing and confuse
I believe the Algo is managed by the software.
For example, PhoenixMiner 5.2 and older versions can't mine the new ETC algo, but the new ones over 5.3 no problem.
From a hardware point, there should be no difference between GPUs and Ant E3. They both are GPUs.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
By the way, Ant E3 was the most profitable asic miner ever. More than 2 years and a half and still profitable. Is unbelievable. And I'm sure E3 can continue to work fine, but I don't believe bitmain will release new firmware
Hope someone will found a way to patch the software

[miner29]

No they changed the Algo specifically to prevent asics from being able to mine it.  

I agree with you about the Algo, and I think this is the part that I'm missing and confuse
I believe the Algo is managed by the software.
For example, PhoenixMiner 5.2 and older versions can't mine the new ETC algo, but the new ones over 5.3 no problem.
From a hardware point, there should be no difference between GPUs and Ant E3. They both are GPUs.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
By the way, Ant E3 was the most profitable asic miner ever. More than 2 years and a half and still profitable. Is unbelievable. And I'm sure E3 can continue to work fine, but I don't believe bitmain will release new firmware
Hope someone will found a way to patch the software

[/quote]

 

Asics in your bitmain and all others are good for only the specific algos they have been designed and made for.  The miner software in this case is basically feeding the raw data and receveing and conveying the results back to the pool.  In a gpu setup the order and types of operations are coded in the miner software but it relies on the big complex gpu.  So gpus can quickly adapt to any change in algos where asics take a lot of time and money to develop. 

[adaseb]

Yes I think you are confusing the E3 with an FGPA which is reprogrammable. However the E3 is an ASIC and its hard-coded on the silicon chip and even one slight change cannot be done unless you create a new fabrication chip which costs millions.

This is why many people always ask, what to do with old bitcoin ASICs. People want to "crack" passwords with them because its SHA256 however the way that its coded, you cannot even do that even if there was money to be mad "cracking" password.

Yes ETC forked and changed the algo to prevent ASICS, I don't know why they did this because the extra E3 hashrate on ETC network would provide more hashrate and security. I don't think the E3 posed as a threat. Maybe the devs just don't like Bitmain and their ASICS.