ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[CHAOSiTEC]

It was falling quickly.  Shut it down, opened it up, made a change, do believe I fixed it.  It's been up 1h39m now, will get back later with stats and the fix.  Up 4 hours and looking good.  If still good later tomorrow I'll post.

Okay, after 10h44m the hashrate is 440.08.  That's fixed.

When I inspected the questionable S3 hashing board that had cropped to well below 418 the day before, I found that board surface between the last two pins on the right of the ribbon connector rear had raised green material.  That's pin 1 with the arrow and the pin immediately below it which I had called pin 20 but is possibly pin 2 being the adjacent conductor.  Touching the green material it came away easily and flaked free showing oxidized copper beneath.  Those two pins are common on the hashing board but the corresponding pins on the controller board are not.  They tested common on the hashing board with the ribbon removed.  Still, since it showed minor heat damage, the green material flaking off and the copper discoloration, I put a soldering iron on the pins then fired it up.  It was not a fix and the hashrate dropped quicker than usual.  Shutting it down and taking the top off, those pins were easily accessible so I soldered a quick jumper between the two pins with #28 wirewrap wire and closed.  It's been running ever since.

So, if you have an S3 that has a dropping hashrate, e.g. down to below 418GH/s in a few days, check the area of those two pins on the questionable board and if it shows indication of having heated from high current, try the jumper.  I believe this is a good fix.


soy

could you post a picture of that area please, i do have the same problem with one of mine, and the problem S3 does have a higher temp diff between the 2 boards

[1714652996]

1714652996

[1714652996]

1714652996

[ruslan4040]

It was falling quickly.  Shut it down, opened it up, made a change, do believe I fixed it.  It's been up 1h39m now, will get back later with stats and the fix.  Up 4 hours and looking good.  If still good later tomorrow I'll post.

Okay, after 10h44m the hashrate is 440.08.  That's fixed.

When I inspected the questionable S3 hashing board that had cropped to well below 418 the day before, I found that board surface between the last two pins on the right of the ribbon connector rear had raised green material.  That's pin 1 with the arrow and the pin immediately below it which I had called pin 20 but is possibly pin 2 being the adjacent conductor.  Touching the green material it came away easily and flaked free showing oxidized copper beneath.  Those two pins are common on the hashing board but the corresponding pins on the controller board are not.  They tested common on the hashing board with the ribbon removed.  Still, since it showed minor heat damage, the green material flaking off and the copper discoloration, I put a soldering iron on the pins then fired it up.  It was not a fix and the hashrate dropped quicker than usual.  Shutting it down and taking the top off, those pins were easily accessible so I soldered a quick jumper between the two pins with #28 wirewrap wire and closed.  It's been running ever since.

So, if you have an S3 that has a dropping hashrate, e.g. down to below 418GH/s in a few days, check the area of those two pins on the questionable board and if it shows indication of having heated from high current, try the jumper.  I believe this is a good fix.


soy

could you post a picture of that area please, i do have the same problem with one of mine, and the problem S3 does have a higher temp diff between the 2 boards

+1
please post a picture!

[soy]

It was falling quickly.  Shut it down, opened it up, made a change, do believe I fixed it.  It's been up 1h39m now, will get back later with stats and the fix.  Up 4 hours and looking good.  If still good later tomorrow I'll post.

Okay, after 10h44m the hashrate is 440.08.  That's fixed.

When I inspected the questionable S3 hashing board that had cropped to well below 418 the day before, I found that board surface between the last two pins on the right of the ribbon connector rear had raised green material.  That's pin 1 with the arrow and the pin immediately below it which I had called pin 20 but is possibly pin 2 being the adjacent conductor.  Touching the green material it came away easily and flaked free showing oxidized copper beneath.  Those two pins are common on the hashing board but the corresponding pins on the controller board are not.  They tested common on the hashing board with the ribbon removed.  Still, since it showed minor heat damage, the green material flaking off and the copper discoloration, I put a soldering iron on the pins then fired it up.  It was not a fix and the hashrate dropped quicker than usual.  Shutting it down and taking the top off, those pins were easily accessible so I soldered a quick jumper between the two pins with #28 wirewrap wire and closed.  It's been running ever since.

So, if you have an S3 that has a dropping hashrate, e.g. down to below 418GH/s in a few days, check the area of those two pins on the questionable board and if it shows indication of having heated from high current, try the jumper.  I believe this is a good fix.


soy

could you post a picture of that area please, i do have the same problem with one of mine, and the problem S3 does have a higher temp diff between the 2 boards

+1
please post a picture!

I had been up early as I had to go out but posted first.  The 10h44m 440.08GH/s is now a 16hr10m 437.19GH/s so it is still falling but two days ago it would be down to 437 in 3hours not 10 hours.  So, clearly there's a big improvement but this isn't a comprehensive fix.

To see the area I needed a loupe.  The area in question is between the pin having the arrow on the 20 pin connector and the pin below it, this on the ASIC side of the board.  Because the area is 1/10" between the pins I am not able to produce an an accurate photo.  Take a magnifying glass and a tooth pick and try moving the green surface material.  If it had been heated enough to separate it from the copper beneath it, it will flake.  If not it will remain in place.


But since this didn't last as a fix and is just a good improvement,  I'll be opening it up again and will try to get a photo.  I'll be opening it up to swap out the right board looking at the RJ45 end because it has a normal fan speed and I have another machine with a board that runs its fan normally above 3000 (3180 at the moment).

When I was running the cgminer-avg-monitor app at the stock 439 and at the stock checking rate of every half hour,  it was triggering a restart every half hour because it didn't reattain a good hashrate and because the hashrate decline was so steep.  I'll run the program now and see how it responds post-jumper.

[soy]

I was just thinking, since the copper was exposed there and connection to one or the other of those 2 pins is iffy, any thru hole in that is likely questionable.  Then the thought came to me that those 2 pins might be common to one or the other rails.  There are 4 clear test points, two +12v and two ground.  When it's open I'll check.  If common to one or the other I might run a jumper to a TP from the two pins.

....
Those 2 pins, arrow and pin beneath, are common to the 12v rail.  The next 2 pins to the left seem to be common to ground.


....

Restart is poor, slowly rising from 430.  Right now I have no confidence in this fix and cannot recommend it.  Sorry.

....

The board that has dropping hashrate, it had grossly overtightened screws to the inside heatsink and new, somewhat excessive, heatsink compound.  The inside heatsink doesn't remove easily sometimes and the board can flex.  I wonder if someone flexed it enough to split the underside soldering of an ASIC to the ground plane so it doesn't sink heat properly.  

....

Got it done now all there's left to do is let them run.  Fast running fan blade paired with the dropping hashrate blade.  The fast running fan blade had an A and an A1 as did its partner on the cool side.  The troublesome S3 had no A board that I could see and the troublesome dropping hashrate board had an S and an o.    Rebooting the dropping hashrate board S3 today before the swap didn't result in an acceptable restart - taking too much time. 

[Meech]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

[Mashugina71]

I just received my 3 S3+. I have 2 corsair hx850 PSU's. Will they be enough to run all 3 at stock speeds and would their be any wiggle room to OC them a bit?

[Meech]

I just received my 3 S3+. I have 2 corsair hx850 PSU's. Will they be enough to run all 3 at stock speeds and would their be any wiggle room to OC them a bit?

Yes. Mine pull 360w at the wall stock.  So 2 on a psu at stock speeds should be just fine and the other all by itself on the 2nd.

[mneehon]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

Work for me.  Running both S1 and S3 on westhash ATM.  I would say accepted rate is very close to theoretical, or what is shown in antminers stats.

[Mudbankkeith]

I have been upgrading my s1's to s3's

Does anyone have a plan for the old S1 Blades?

I have 16 blades to re-home, any ideas?

[mneehon]

I have been upgrading my s1's to s3's

Does anyone have a plan for the old S1 Blades?

I have 16 blades to re-home, any ideas?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671128.0

Seems to be software problem, I tried to connect blades to minepeon/RasPi using USB dongle and they are recognized as AMU but hash at about 4GH/s.

[Meech]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

Work for me.  Running both S1 and S3 on westhash ATM.  I would say accepted rate is very close to theoretical, or what is shown in antminers stats.

I'm getting like 15k discarded for every 1k per the antminer ui is this normal?  And after 15 min running my btc address doesn't show up in the stats list.  Again not running anything other than from the antminer itself.

[nukefxr]

I just received my 3 S3+. I have 2 corsair hx850 PSU's. Will they be enough to run all 3 at stock speeds and would their be any wiggle room to OC them a bit?

Yes. Mine pull 360w at the wall stock.  So 2 on a psu at stock speeds should be just fine and the other all by itself on the 2nd.

360watts at the wall  at stock speed. Have you checked the at the wall wattage @ 231.25, 237.5, 243.75 and 250 That info would be a big help Thanks in advance

[Meech]

I just received my 3 S3+. I have 2 corsair hx850 PSU's. Will they be enough to run all 3 at stock speeds and would their be any wiggle room to OC them a bit?

Yes. Mine pull 360w at the wall stock.  So 2 on a psu at stock speeds should be just fine and the other all by itself on the 2nd.

360watts at the wall  at stock speed. Have you checked the at the wall wattage @ 231.25, 237.5, 243.75 and 250 That info would be a big help Thanks in advance

I have 3 on one psu and the psu is plugged into the meter.  Current average for 3 is 1112w off of 120v outlet.  So Bitmain claims 355w per so I just took an average of all.

[rpandassociates]

Yes please post what a oveclocked s3 does I am dying to know. I run two of these over clocked each on a corsair pro hx1000 (1000w) gold rate psu. Well because i got the psu's on ebay for around $75-$90 each I know I know the server psus are cheaper but they are so hard to find specs on or info on wiring up the needed cables etc.
Maybe something to try one day as a backup in case

I have 1` s3
and 1 s3+ (another one  on the way)

I guess I need to order a killawatt meter- figured though save myself a bit of cash and find someone else who has the readings. If you got those readings miners everywhere will love you, because i cant find that info anywhere.

  

[Meech]

Yes please post what a oveclocked s3 does I am dying to know. I run two of these over clocked each on a corsair pro hx1000 (1000w) gold rate psu. Well because i got the psu's on ebay for around $75-$90 each I know I know the server psus are cheaper but they are so hard to find specs on or info on wiring up the needed cables etc.
Maybe something to try one day as a backup in case

I have 1` s3
and 1 s3+ (another one  on the way)

I guess I need to order a killawatt meter- figured though save myself a bit of cash and find someone else who has the readings. If you got those readings miners everywhere will love you, because i cant find that info anywhere.

  

The specs. you request have been posted here before, I bought my kilowatt meter for like $25.  But I don't want to overclock them so you'll have to search.  I would assume overclocked, no more than 475-500w per antminer using 4 pci-e connectors.

[tripppn]

When will Batch 10 go up for sale???  I'm ready to get a couple more.

[soy]

FYI after putting thermal compound on the inner heatsink, before mating it with the hashing board, if one takes a bit of solvent and cleans in the area of the LM75A such that there is no thermal compound there, the board will read a higher than expected temperature by about a degree and the fan will run faster.

[mneehon]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

Work for me.  Running both S1 and S3 on westhash ATM.  I would say accepted rate is very close to theoretical, or what is shown in antminers stats.

I'm getting like 15k discarded for every 1k per the antminer ui is this normal?  And after 15 min running my btc address doesn't show up in the stats list.  Again not running anything other than from the antminer itself.

I didn't do anything too special, just put westhash pool info and that's it.  My BTC address showed up in stats immediately.

I do have huge number of "discarded", about 30:1 to "accepted" but hashrate shown on westhash is roughly the same as shown in ant UI.  Try setting difficulty using "d=xxx" password, I use "d=128" for S1 and "d=256" for S3 however S3 usually switches to diff 512.  I also initially had better luck connecting to nicehash, which is strange (I'm in US, however on the east coast).

[xstr8guy]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

Work for me.  Running both S1 and S3 on westhash ATM.  I would say accepted rate is very close to theoretical, or what is shown in antminers stats.

I'm getting like 15k discarded for every 1k per the antminer ui is this normal?  And after 15 min running my btc address doesn't show up in the stats list.  Again not running anything other than from the antminer itself.

Discarded shares has been discussed here ad nauseam. Simply ignore it, it means absolutely nothing.

[Meech]

Do the ants work on Nicehash/Westhash to be exact.  I'm sure this has been discussed before and my ant s3+ are running stock config.

Work for me.  Running both S1 and S3 on westhash ATM.  I would say accepted rate is very close to theoretical, or what is shown in antminers stats.

I'm getting like 15k discarded for every 1k per the antminer ui is this normal?  And after 15 min running my btc address doesn't show up in the stats list.  Again not running anything other than from the antminer itself.

I didn't do anything too special, just put westhash pool info and that's it.  My BTC address showed up in stats immediately.

I do have huge number of "discarded", about 30:1 to "accepted" but hashrate shown on westhash is roughly the same as shown in ant UI.  Try setting difficulty using "d=xxx" password, I use "d=128" for S1 and "d=256" for S3 however S3 usually switches to diff 512.  I also initially had better luck connecting to nicehash, which is strange (I'm in US, however on the east coast).

Thanks.  Will retry.