Trying to debug weird Antminer S1 behaviour

[ElrinV]

Hi all!

I have been mining successfully with my Antminer S1 for a couple of months. It was running stable for weeks on end. I recently moved the miner physically (cooler location) and have since been getting some weird behaviour:

After a while (anywhere between a few hours and a day), the miner just stops mining. I can still connect to it, it still can ping my pool, cgminer still running and sending out getwork requests, but no mining happening... cgminer-monitor re-starts cgminer as advertised, but this does not bring it back up and running. I can reboot the miner via the interface, and that gets it going successfully again.

The ant is hard-wired in (via lan1 a.k.a. WAN), so no wifi issues there. Not overclocked (yet). Runs between 45 and 48 degrees C.

I do get this in the kernel log:

Code:

[  962.200000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.210000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.210000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.230000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.230000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.240000] hub 1-1:1.0: Cannot enable port 1.  Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[  962.260000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot disable port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.260000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.280000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.280000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.300000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.300000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.310000] hub 1-1:1.0: Cannot enable port 1.  Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[  962.320000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot disable port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.330000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.330000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.350000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.350000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.370000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.370000] hub 1-1:1.0: Cannot enable port 1.  Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[  962.390000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot disable port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.390000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.410000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.410000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.430000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.430000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot reset port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.440000] hub 1-1:1.0: Cannot enable port 1.  Maybe the USB cable is bad?
[  962.450000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot disable port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.460000] hub 1-1:1.0: cannot disable port 1 (err = -71)
[  962.460000] hub 1-1:1.0: hub_port_status failed (err = -71)

Also, running cgminer-api returns this:

Code:

root@antMiner:~# cgminer-api 
Reply was 'STATUS=S,When=1400647143,Code=11,Msg=Summary,Description=cgminer 4.2.2a|SUMMARY,Elapsed=2516,GHS 5s=182.00,GHS av=180.25,Found Blocks=0,Getworks=92,Accepted=866,Rejected=1,Hardware Errors=1,Utility=20.66,Discarded=1704,Stale=1,Get Failures=0,Local Work=64987,Remote Failures=0,Network Blocks=7,Total MH=453427777.0000,Work Utility=2518.25,Difficulty Accepted=104879.00000000,Difficulty Rejected=128.00000000,Difficulty Stale=0.00000000,Best Share=825802,Device Hardware%=0.0009,Device Rejected%=0.1212,Pool Rejected%=0.1219,Pool Stale%=0.0000,Last getwork=1400647143,MHS av=180247.92,MHS 5s=181996.67,MHS 1m=181131.56,MHS 5m=180983.49,MHS 15m=169751.96|'
[STATUS] =>
(
   [STATUS] => S
   [When] => 1400647143
   [Code] => 11
   [Msg] => Summary
   [Description] => cgminer 4.2.2a
)
[SUMMARY] =>
(
   [0] => SUMMARY
   [Elapsed] => 2516
   [GHS 5s] => 182.00
   [GHS av] => 180.25
   [Found Blocks] => 0
   [Getworks] => 92
   [Accepted] => 866
   [Rejected] => 1
   [Hardware Errors] => 1
   [Utility] => 20.66
   [Discarded] => 1704
   [Stale] => 1
   [Get Failures] => 0
   [Local Work] => 64987
   [Remote Failures] => 0
   [Network Blocks] => 7
   [Total MH] => 453427777.0000
   [Work Utility] => 2518.25
   [Difficulty Accepted] => 104879.00000000
   [Difficulty Rejected] => 128.00000000
   [Difficulty Stale] => 0.00000000
   [Best Share] => 825802
   [Device Hardware%] => 0.0009
   [Device Rejected%] => 0.1212
   [Pool Rejected%] => 0.1219
   [Pool Stale%] => 0.0000
   [Last getwork] => 1400647143
   [MHS av] => 180247.92
   [MHS 5s] => 181996.67
   [MHS 1m] => 181131.56
   [MHS 5m] => 180983.49
   [MHS 15m] => 169751.96
)

Anything I should be looking for?[/code]

[stef942]

first of all, did you tried an hard reset ?

[ElrinV]

By Hard Reset, I take it you mean power-off and power-on? Yes, I have done this a few times.

I should mention that the new location has no wifi, whereas the old location did. I figure it should not matter since I was hard-wiring it anyways.

[alexrossi]

By Hard Reset, I take it you mean power-off and power-on? Yes, I have done this a few times.

Nope, with hard reset usually we mean a wipe of the internal software, back to the default configuration. You can do it by pressing a button on the control board of the S1 (is possible to find detailed explanations in a lot of guides).

[ElrinV]

I can report back that I have found the problem! Others might benefit from this too:

Don't place the miner in a vertical position (fan at the bottom, blowing up). While the main cooling on the inside of the blades work really well this way (heat rising assists the movement of air), the smaller chips on the outside of the miner at the top overheat.

This is because as heat slowly rises from the lower chips, the chips get warmer as you go up as they are in warmer air. Stray air from the fan keeps the lower quarter OK, but very little airflow over the top ones cause them to over-heat. If you have the miner horizontal, the air has to rise over fewer chips before it clears the miner, so it is not a problem.

So, unless you have small heatsinks like those sold in kits, or blow air onto the outside of your miners, don't mount them vertically. I had my miner hanging vertically in the new location. I have returned it to its original horizontal orientation, same location, and now it is stable again.