ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[luthermarcus]

Hey guys thanks that you try to help me!
I owe you some more details:
In the moment the miner is working since 22 hours together with my other miners. I have full access to him over the webinterface. Better to say: He is working 100% like any other miner, I have yesterday even changed the firmware to the latest from 9.1.2015.
If the miner is up one time, he is running well!
But the problem appears when Im turning off while unplug/turn off the PSU
Without the contact (say stand-alone) to my PC or Netbook (that must be powered from the wall !!! too) he is not be able to start again.
So to me as a non expert it looks like there is not enough Power-Ground. But this little connection from the serial ports with a other device powered by circuit is the little bit that is needed to start.
Once it started and the network led on the miner becomes green I can remove the serial connection and keepit running.

With less words: If the miner is running I can do all the things I want, even reboot, flashing new firmware,make changes in pooll settings...all works like it should be.
But to make the miner start up he needs the "starting help" otherwise there is only the red LED of death 
Any suggestions?

"ok so are you running the Ethernet cable as well? do lights light up on ethernet cable?"(ignore this if not) or just usb tx/rx and gound? Your saying the serial gives it the proper conditions to run? What is the other device powered by circuit? How do you have this all connected can you provide pics? Bazaar and intriguing

[pekatete]

Could you find out what your network settings are? Most likely nothing to do with it ... still could be something there.

The Network is set to a free fixed IP but even dhcp is possible. Im 100% sure it has nothing to do with the network adress, because if I power up the miner without the "Better Ground-Contact" he is simply not booting

On a normal day, I'd never have even let the thought cross my mind, however, your scenario is so peculiar I can not rule that out. Unless ofcourse there is a delamination of grounding contacts on your S3 control board somewhere (that may explain the serial grounding it).
On that note, I have to say if you have not tried with the network set to DHCP, then since you have a means of reviving it, I'd try that too just to be sure. (but that's all I can offer I am afraid)

[Real-Duke]

Yeah looks like this miner is unique  
Tomorrow evening Im going to remove all screws inside and hopefully I can see something whats maybe wrong with him. Until there Im sure he will do a pretty good job for me  

[aarons6]

Yeah looks like this miner is unique  
Tomorrow evening Im going to remove all screws inside and hopefully I can see something whats maybe wrong with him. Until there Im sure he will do a pretty good job for me  

on the custom dns, put 8.8.8.8

but i dont see anything wrong with these pics?

[notlist3d]

Yeah looks like this miner is unique  
Tomorrow evening Im going to remove all screws inside and hopefully I can see something whats maybe wrong with him. Until there Im sure he will do a pretty good job for me  

on the custom dns, put 8.8.8.8

but i dont see anything wrong with these pics?

I would agree on dns changing. 

The weird thing is I think hes using a serial to usb on the controller to get it to work.    Real-Duke do you have the usb to serial plugged in for it to turn on?

[aarons6]

I still have my S3 running strong.

mine are good until 65G difficulty. then i am going to have to sell them or try to undervolt them.
right now as it is, my s3s cost 24$ a month and make 35$.

although what i have seen, these dont undervolt well.. so i dunno..

[MyRig]

@Real-Duke,

You may want to go to System's Tab and uncheck Time Server NTP.  this could be the cause if you see NTP related error log entries in System Log near the start up time, if you are having problem connecting or to hash.

If the network has problem connecting to the NTP server, it may hang there for a while.

Just a thought

[Real-Duke]

First of all big thanks to all of you that you try to help me  

The weird thing is I think hes using a serial to usb on the controller to get it to work.    Real-Duke do you have the usb to serial plugged in for it to turn on?

Exactly this is the point of attention!!! -> The miner won't boot without these connection <-
Once he starts booting (green light on the miner network plug appears) I can remove the USB/Serial connection and all is working flawlessly until I turn off the PSU again...

[notlist3d]

First of all big thanks to all of you that you try to help me  

The weird thing is I think hes using a serial to usb on the controller to get it to work.    Real-Duke do you have the usb to serial plugged in for it to turn on?

Exactly this is the point of attention!!! -> The miner won't boot without these connection <-
Once he starts booting (green light on the miner network plug appears) I can remove the USB/Serial connection and all is working flawlessly until I turn off the PSU again...

This is a extremely weird issue for it to work just by plugging it in.  Normally you would have to upload firmware via usb to serial for it to fix it.  Just plugging in should not fix the problem, but it did for you.  Sounds like there is something wrong with controller board, but glad you found a work around.   

You might check connection to board and make sure it's sitting on all of the pins and nicely snug.   

[notlist3d]

Just had make some more tests this evening
- checked al screws sitting strong
- replaced the Board with one of my other S3+ miners = Miner shows the same mistake/wont start after turn up

- Trying to start the the other miner with the board from the "broken" miner works without a problem.
So its sure there is nothing wrong with the board...
Given up for now but have taken some picture while given start-help (is up again to work now)
Saving space snip on pics

Someone wants to place an offer to receive this amazing unique miner from me? 

You could also contact Bitmain about buying a new S3 controller board aswell - https://bitmain.zendesk.com/hc/en-us

That is assuming you are not just wanting to only sell.

[Real-Duke]

...but the controller board is still ok (like mentioned in my post before)
No need to replace this

[notlist3d]

...but the controller board is still ok (like mentioned in my post before)
No need to replace this

Ahh ok . I was assuming it was the one you had to plug serial to usb into controller board for miner to start you mentioned earlier.  From https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671189.msg11717444#msg11717444

[luthermarcus]

...but the controller board is still ok (like mentioned in my post before)
No need to replace this

Ahh ok . I was assuming it was the one you had to plug serial to usb into controller board for miner to start you mentioned earlier.  From https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671189.msg11717444#msg11717444

Yea when he said serial connecting it confused me even more but he just meant usb jig. From the pics it looks like he is bypassing tx/rx but not ground. That should only have to do with networking correct me if I'm wrong. I dont see how that would have anything to do with powering on the miner. Maybe try replacing the connectors from the hash board to the control board and see if their is a problem there just to rule that out since this is unlikely to be the case. You could flash firmware have you tried flashing and starting it like normal?

[Real-Duke]

Once the miner is running I can do everything with him what I want to do except of turning off the PSU.
Everbody say that it makes no sense and I have to agree but it is like it is!
I have given up on it...thanks to anybody for the kind help.

[kano]

I've put an AntS3 update archive in my binaries git hub of latest 4.9.2 cgminer.
For details and installing: https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/tree/master/AntS3

This has been tested and run on both an old AntS3 and one of the later AntS3

I don't have an AntS3+ but I suspect it should work fine there also.

The menu frequency settings in the "Miner Configuration" "Advanced Settings" web interface includes default settings for both S3 and S3+

I've, of course, tested it on my pool https://kano.is/

It should also be OK on p2pool since it's the same code related to p2pool as in my AntS1 and AntS2 releases

Please give it a try and let me know if anyone has any trouble with it on AntS3 or AntS3+

[BitcoinsSX]

I just restarted my miners and none of them are showing best share- I even updated all my S3+ to the latest firmware and same thing - its so weird, they show accepted rates and stuff, but no best shares, on multiple machines... any ideas?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s201/sh/36969941-5b07-430c-bfc5-ef0a186d0ae7/814511c9f20ec3aa/res/df38b016-068f-4539-a8fb-4d96e3a1e04b/skitch.png

It used to always show - now none - so wierd.

[kano]

I just restarted my miners and none of them are showing best share- I even updated all my S3+ to the latest firmware and same thing - its so weird, they show accepted rates and stuff, but no best shares, on multiple machines... any ideas?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s201/sh/36969941-5b07-430c-bfc5-ef0a186d0ae7/814511c9f20ec3aa/res/df38b016-068f-4539-a8fb-4d96e3a1e04b/skitch.png

It used to always show - now none - so wierd.

That's bitmains cgminer fork driver - it's got quite a few problems ...

Use mine.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671189.msg11772768#msg11772768

[kano]

Your first problem is understanding what the term 'cgminer' means

The cgminer you get from bitmain and from *hash is not the master cgminer, it is a fork with many and varied known ignored problems.

Master cgminer will not support extranonce for a number of reasons, including we don't support alt-coins and the stratum change adds another MITM security risk attack vector.

So if you wish to avoid the, long well known, problems with the non-master cgminers - use the master cgminer from me.
But no it does not support that stratum change just for that proxy pool.

[kano]

The frequency settings list is in /usr/lib/lua/luci/model/cbi/cgminer/cgminer.lua

The frequency settings I put in there came from their firmware - I didn't actually delete any of their settings that were in my file.

You can just edit that file if you want or:
If you want me to add more in that's easy enough to do for a next release.
To see what is in your AntS3 before the changes, look in /rom/usr/lib/lua/luci/model/cbi/cgminer/cgminer.lua
If you paste a link to a pastebin copy of that I can add the extras that are in yours (but not in mine) into the next update I do.

The files that I change and are in the archive, you can see the original file just by adding /rom/ on the front of it

[BitcoinsSX]

I just restarted my miners and none of them are showing best share- I even updated all my S3+ to the latest firmware and same thing - its so weird, they show accepted rates and stuff, but no best shares, on multiple machines... any ideas?

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s201/sh/36969941-5b07-430c-bfc5-ef0a186d0ae7/814511c9f20ec3aa/res/df38b016-068f-4539-a8fb-4d96e3a1e04b/skitch.png

It used to always show - now none - so wierd.

That's bitmains cgminer fork driver - it's got quite a few problems ...

Use mine.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=671189.msg11772768#msg11772768

thanks, just did to one and working great!