ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[Stratobitz]

Sorry but Im hoping to not have to dig through 438 pages of posts on this thread.

Does anyone know off hand what the most efficient config is for the S3+ units?

Frequency Settings, etc? In terms of Gh per Watt. Underclocked/Overclocked. Just curious.

Thanks!

Strato

[IronFists]

Kano  TY for the upgrade for the s3..

[Stratobitz]

Performance increase is ... well ... master cgminer is more of a lack of performance decrease
My S3 that has the latest changes in it seems to get about 1/4 of the rejects of both my S2 and S5, but both S3 seems to be pretty consistent to get around 440GHs Paid -  they are not S3+
(I only run S1s when testing code - they cost a lot more to run than the BTC they make)
S5 is still Bitmain version, S2 is well, I still wonder why my S2 still works
It doesn't have the WorkDelay option in it either.

I'm working on doing an updated version of all S1/S2/S3 and adding in S5.
It's a balance between running my pool that really doesn't have much of a hash rate 2 to 3 PH and doing cgminer updates ...
The pool wins out always for priority even though it doesn't pay very well

Kano,

Trying your update out on an S3+ and running a side by side comparison to another S3+ both clocked to 250. Ill provide stats once we have a full 24 hours of data.

Question, I noticed a few posts this page to 1-2 back that mentioned undervolting via your GUI doesnt do anything.

Can you clarify the utility of this feature a bit?  Also, would setting the voltage give better returns?

Lastly, can you provide the syntax format to use for voltage? I didnt see it in your readme.

For say 72 do you enter 0072?

Many thanks!

Strato
@stratobitz

[kano]

The voltage control works for miners that accept voltage control.
It's passed through the same interface as the Bitmain version of the voltage control code - and note that the Bitmain version of the voltage control code is the same for all S1,S2,S3,S3+,S4,S5
(of course the point here being S3 versions, but again I don't know how many S3/S3+ versions/hardware/firmware support it)
My point here being that I've no idea which Sn work with voltage control, but if it is possible, then the option on the web page will do it.
If it's not possible, then the voltage on the web page will have no effect.

Edit: the default voltage looks like 0725

[RichBC]

(of course the point here being S3 versions, but again I don't know how many S3/S3+ versions/hardware/firmware support it)

There are all sorts of anecdotes on the Forum that lead you to believe that some versions of either the S3 or S3+ have firmware voltage control.

The thing is that I cannot find a single mention of someone who has adjusted the voltage from cgminer and then measured the Core Voltage to confirm this. Also all the pictures that I can find of S3 & S3+ hash boards seem to have the TPS53355 Buck converter that relies on a resistor potential divider to set the voltage. This is what people do the pencil Mod on, or physically change the resistors to change the Core Voltage.

I have an S3 & an S3+ and neither of them support voltage control. There may well be a version that can be software / firmware adjusted, but my theory is that the code is there to support the S4 which definitely can be controlled.


Rich

[Maudite]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

[hodedowe]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I start getting problems at 47-49 deg. You could easily take it up to 44 though. I would (disclaimer: if you bust your miner I didn't tell you to do it!)

[Maudite]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I start getting problems at 47-49 deg. You could easily take it up to 44 though. I would (disclaimer: if you bust your miner I didn't tell you to do it!)

What freq to you run at to get into the mid 40's?  And can you tell me then what kind of hash rate you get?

[hodedowe]

That's subjective depending on environment. It wouldn't do you any good. You'll need to perform tests in your mining setup to see just how far you can go. Just give it a bump and see what you see. I wouldn't go over 250 though, unless you don't mind possibly damaging your miner and the replacement cost. For some it's worth the risk. For me it isn't

[kano]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I'm the only one who shows 'Paid' anywhere in bitcoin as far as I know
It's something I made up/added to miner.php a while back and then I've added to various ants.
It's the "Accepted" hash rate - thus why I call it "Paid"
It excludes "Rejected" and "Stale" hash rate so it will be lower than the avg hash rate.
Since pools only pay you based on your accepted shares, that's the number that is most useful to work out how your miner is performing.
To calculate it it's: "Difficulty Accepted" * (2^32) / "Elapsed"

[Stratobitz]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I'm the only one who shows 'Paid' anywhere in bitcoin as far as I know
It's something I made up/added to miner.php a while back and then I've added to various ants.
It's the "Accepted" hash rate - thus why I call it "Paid"
It excludes "Rejected" and "Stale" hash rate so it will be lower than the avg hash rate.
Since pools only pay you based on your accepted shares, that's the number that is most useful to work out how your miner is performing.
To calculate it it's: "Difficulty Accepted" * (2^32) / "Elapsed"

On 1 Day 22 Hours running 225 at 0720 Voltage (Although not sure even though it says it is running at 0720 on the Status GUI that it accepted the change hardware side).

Im getting 450 gh Paid on the dot. HW errors at 0.24%

Temps are 43 and 44. Room is not ideal temp however, around 76F

Kano, is the best way to find out if the voltage was accepted is to use a Kill-A-Watt meter and compare to another unit. Is tuning to 0720 more effecient than Bitmain default?

I tuned it to 262.50 at 0720. Got Xs so went back.

Thanks!

Strato

[RichBC]

If the voltage setting is having an effect, then as you turn the voltage down, leaving the Frequency unchanged, you will see a lower reading on the Kill-A-Watt meter. If you turn it down too far you will see an increase in hardware errors. If you go much too low you will see a lot of hardware errors or the unit will not hash at all.

If the voltage setting is working then for any frequency there is an optimum voltage setting, that point being where you just get a few HW errors, say .005% or less. The lower you set the frequency the lower you can set the voltage before the HW errors become unacceptable.

There are a lot of IF's in there because I have yet to see an S3 that lets you adjust the voltage from cgminer.


Rich

[Maudite]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I'm the only one who shows 'Paid' anywhere in bitcoin as far as I know
It's something I made up/added to miner.php a while back and then I've added to various ants.
It's the "Accepted" hash rate - thus why I call it "Paid"
It excludes "Rejected" and "Stale" hash rate so it will be lower than the avg hash rate.
Since pools only pay you based on your accepted shares, that's the number that is most useful to work out how your miner is performing.
To calculate it it's: "Difficulty Accepted" * (2^32) / "Elapsed"

Thank you for the reply.  yes i see now that the average hash rate is indeed between 500 and 550+.  I would call this upgrade a must for every s3 owner.

[Moria843]

I updated to Kano's latest and tried setting to 0625. In miner status it shows 0x0650 under voltage, so I assume it took. But it didn't change anything with respect to efficiency. See link below for details.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1127340.msg12211638#msg12211638

[kano]

I updated to Kano's latest and tried setting to 0625. In miner status it shows 0x0650 under voltage, so I assume it took. But it didn't change anything with respect to efficiency. See link below for details.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1127340.msg12211638#msg12211638

Yeah I'm guessing that some or all of the S3 don't actually support voltage change.
(see discussion above/on the previous page)
It wont cause any problems, but it simply uses the driver interface to change the voltage as per "specifications"
If it's possible, it will work, if it's not possible it wont change anything.

[Darthswan]

Kano,

Does this firmware work well with both the S3 and S3+?  or does it work well with just one over the other?

Thanks..

[Jake36]

I did the update, and although I do like the additional info in the Miner Status screen, I'm not sure that I am getting an improvement.

At stock frequency (225 on the s3+) I still get standard 440 ish hash rate.  At 250, I get 480 - 490.  I am on F2Pool, and these numbers are from the GH/s paid column of stats.

Running at 250, I get a temp of 40 (max).  Perhaps I should go for a higher frequency and take it up to about 50 degrees.  Thoughts?

I'm the only one who shows 'Paid' anywhere in bitcoin as far as I know
It's something I made up/added to miner.php a while back and then I've added to various ants.
It's the "Accepted" hash rate - thus why I call it "Paid"
It excludes "Rejected" and "Stale" hash rate so it will be lower than the avg hash rate.
Since pools only pay you based on your accepted shares, that's the number that is most useful to work out how your miner is performing.
To calculate it it's: "Difficulty Accepted" * (2^32) / "Elapsed"

On 1 Day 22 Hours running 225 at 0720 Voltage (Although not sure even though it says it is running at 0720 on the Status GUI that it accepted the change hardware side).

Im getting 450 gh Paid on the dot. HW errors at 0.24%

Temps are 43 and 44. Room is not ideal temp however, around 76F

Kano, is the best way to find out if the voltage was accepted is to use a Kill-A-Watt meter and compare to another unit. Is tuning to 0720 more effecient than Bitmain default?

I tuned it to 262.50 at 0720. Got Xs so went back.

Thanks!

Strato

Try bumping the voltage to 0725 with the 225 frequency.

With a S3+ I'm on 4 days 20 hrs with 454 gh/avg with .0003% HW errors at 225 freq and 0725 volt, but also staying between 37-39C with a 40C thrown in every now and then.

If you set 262.5, you should have started at 0750 voltage with all 4 power cables plugged in and then played with lowering/raising volts.

[Jake36]

Kano,

Does this firmware work well with both the S3 and S3+?  or does it work well with just one over the other?

Thanks..

It works on my S3+.

[kano]

Kano,

Does this firmware work well with both the S3 and S3+?  or does it work well with just one over the other?

Thanks..

Both.

[Moria843]

I updated to Kano's latest and tried setting to 0625. In miner status it shows 0x0650 under voltage, so I assume it took. But it didn't change anything with respect to efficiency. See link below for details.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1127340.msg12211638#msg12211638

Yeah I'm guessing that some or all of the S3 don't actually support voltage change.
(see discussion above/on the previous page)
It wont cause any problems, but it simply uses the driver interface to change the voltage as per "specifications"
If it's possible, it will work, if it's not possible it wont change anything.

I tried 0625 assuming this would lower the voltage to 0.65 V and got the 0x0650 listed in the voltage value after restarting. When I tried imputing 625 I thought I might get 0x650, but the voltage value did not change.

Thanks to input from Rich, I may have a board with a multi-phase buck converter and would like to experiment some more. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1127340.msg12222540#msg12222540 for details.

Kano, or anyone else, do you know the correct format to input for voltage? Does the 0x0650 listing indicate 0.065 or 0.65 V, or some incremental offset from the default?