Heatsinks on Antminer S19j Pro+

[altair_tech]

Someone recently shared pictures of heatsinks on the newly released Antminer S19j Pro+.
There's a separate heatsink for each chip here, instead of the large integrated bolt-on heatsink on other S19 models.
Does this look like we're back to S9 style, or did Bitmain go back to the notoriously unreliable S17 style heatsinks again?

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[NotFuzzyWarm]

What a horribly stupid move by them... Yeah it makes it easier (cheaper) to assemble but ya'd think that the s17 fiasco would have taught them a lesson 

[TalkativeCoin]

Maybe they know something that we don't 

Kidding aside, I'm really hopeful that they've engineered this based on data and not profit margins.

[altair_tech]

There was some debate about whether the heatsinks on jPro+ were glued on like S9 or soldered on like S17.
Someone took apart a heatsink and it's clearly soldered. 

[TalkativeCoin]

There was some debate about whether the heatsinks on jPro+ were glued on like S9 or soldered on like S17.
Someone took apart a heatsink and it's clearly soldered. 

Looks like liquid metal thermal paste?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Looks like liquid metal thermal paste?

No, it is a low temperature solder.
The chip is a flip-chip package with the backside of the actual silicon die exposed on top of the chip. That bare Si is then flashed with a copper film to allow for soldering. This gives highly efficient heat transfer but is also rather fragile, if the heat sink gets knocked off odds are it will also damage the chip.

[philipma1957]

Well here is a PSA

Do not buy the s19j Pro+


S17 are flaky and notorious for heat sinks coming loose.

These will be the same.

I was transporting an s19 j pro with bolt on heat sinks on the highway from NY to NJ I had to lock the brakes to avoid a rear ending collision the s19 slid in the trunk and hit the rear seat back hard enough to open the seat. This can happen when you have seats that have trunk access.

I can tell you for sure if I had a s17 it would have loosened at least a few heat sinks.

I am glad I purchased some m30's and m50's from what's miner.

[hZti]

To me that doesn’t even seem to be cheaper than to just slap on some thermal paste and lay one big cooler on top of it. But who knows what made them manufacture the miner in this way.

This actually also kills my ambitions to buy such a miner to convert it to hydro cooling. Is this also done on the S9, since I have one of those already laying around, or can the coolers there be easily removed?

[TalkativeCoin]

Looks like liquid metal thermal paste?

No, it is a low temperature solder.
The chip is a flip-chip package with the backside of the actual silicon die exposed on top of the chip. That bare Si is then flashed with a copper film to allow for soldering. This gives highly efficient heat transfer but is also rather fragile, if the heat sink gets knocked off odds are it will also damage the chip.

Gotcha, thanks for the detailed explanation!

[mikeywith]

What a horribly stupid move by them... Yeah it makes it easier (cheaper) to assemble but ya'd think that the s17 fiasco would have taught them a lesson 

Or they have long-term contracts with their repair employees and they want to make sure they get them working 10 hours a day for the remaining span of the contract lol.

Alas, Bitmain and their never-ending drama, make the same miner with 4-5 different control boards, change the PSU style for every slight change to the same miner they make, and use $2 solder on a gear you sell for $4,000, just the typical Bitmain.

Do not buy the s19j Pro+


S17 are flaky and notorious for heat sinks coming loose.

I learned my lesson after losing a lot of money on the 17 series, I am no longer willing to risk anything with Bitmain, for all I know, they could start shipping the other models that had the large bolt-on heatsink with the stupid single soldered heatsink the movement they run out of those large heatsinks, since I can't verify how my batch is going to look like, I rather not touch anything Bitmain related as long as there are other more reliable options.

[altair_tech]

So, I'd like to post an update on this S19j Pro+ situation.
We were initially skeptical of the soldered heatsinks that are very similar to those on Antminer S17 series.
Call it a case of once bitten twice shy.

We've run many of these S19j Pro+ units in the mine through this summer, including some with substantial overclocking of upto 135T.
The soldered heatsinks seems to be doing a much better job of heat dissipation and S19j Pro+ miners consistently ran about 5-10 deg C cooler than other S19 series miner in the mine.
No, hashboard issues this summer either. While this is with just a few months of testing, I'd say its safe to assume that whatever issues Bitmain had with soldered heatsinks on S17 have now been fixed with S19j Pro+.

Someone mentioned it was improper chip tinning which caused issues with S17 series and not the soldering itself, so it's possible that Bitmain has improved its chip tinning process.

[mikeywith]

Someone mentioned it was improper chip tinning which caused issues with S17 series and not the soldering itself, so it's possible that Bitmain has improved its chip tinning process.

I doubt this was the issue because resoldering the chips with a better solder on those 17 series gears seems to have fixed the majority of the issues, furthermore, the Malaysia batches had almost no issues compared to the Chinese ones, pretty sure the wafer thinking was the same for both factories, the soldering material / robot / human were different.

Anyway, great news, I am glad you didn't have to send all your gears for repair, and I'd say that since a few months have passed, it's pretty unlikely for them to fail now due to solder issues, those flaky 17 series started failing in few weeks, IIRC the first report from a large Chinese farm was 40% failure rate at week #6.