ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[RichBC]

Has any one thought of combining a couple of s3's together sort of like the C1 but not changing over the heat sink. I mean Sort of like how the s5 is done. Would it be worth it? I mean have one controller controlling all 3 s3 instead of three separate units?

Yep, I have done some testing with these. Original S3-controller was propably meant to control more than two boards. It's schematics show connections for 4 hashboards. But problem is that firmware has support only for 2 hashboards. In hw-level I can read code from pic-mcu and reprogram it, but changing that code would need assembler coding. It's propably easier to write new code to do that. But coding isn't one of my best skills. Open-wrt module's software is also capable to update that pic's code so it might be possible to tweak it's drivers. But again,it's beyond my knowledge.
There might also be a reason why they dropped that pic/ar9331 controller out: it has only 2 physical uart's. Some of pins can be programmed for uarts but I'm not sure if that pic is fast enough for it. Some wiser men have told me that it works if the baudrate is low enough. But I really don't know, I'm just a hobbyist.
Ofcourse it can be done with usb/uart adapters like cp2102. You only need to do level shifting too and provide 1v8 and 3v3 to hashboards. It works, I have tested it, but every hashboard needs its own cp2102 adapter. I might try to build an adapter with cp2108 in it. So it could drive 4 boards with one usb connection. And it should have some pwm-controller for fans too.

I think it's all very interesting as an exploration and design exercise, but for most of us the S3, great miner that it is, is well past it's sell by date. Minor changes to efficiency through having a single controller are not going to change anything. So I think it's better to put effort into anything that would improve an S5, as for me anyway even that only lives up until the halving.

Rich

[pinhead666]

I know that it's not worth it. But it's fun. I have these S3's only for heating and experimenting. And I study S5's too. Just haven't time enough for all things I wanted to do. And I'm more interested in that open-wrt module than pic-part of S3-controller. That module might have use for another purposes.

[Epoch]

Has any one thought of combining a couple of s3's together sort of like the C1 but not changing over the heat sink. I mean Sort of like how the s5 is done. Would it be worth it? I mean have one controller controlling all 3 s3 instead of three separate units?

Yep, I have done some testing with these. Original S3-controller was propably meant to control more than two boards. It's schematics show connections for 4 hashboards. But problem is that firmware has support only for 2 hashboards. In hw-level I can read code from pic-mcu and reprogram it, but changing that code would need assembler coding. It's propably easier to write new code to do that. But coding isn't one of my best skills. Open-wrt module's software is also capable to update that pic's code so it might be possible to tweak it's drivers. But again,it's beyond my knowledge.
There might also be a reason why they dropped that pic/ar9331 controller out: it has only 2 physical uart's. Some of pins can be programmed for uarts but I'm not sure if that pic is fast enough for it. Some wiser men have told me that it works if the baudrate is low enough. But I really don't know, I'm just a hobbyist.
Ofcourse it can be done with usb/uart adapters like cp2102. You only need to do level shifting too and provide 1v8 and 3v3 to hashboards. It works, I have tested it, but every hashboard needs its own cp2102 adapter. I might try to build an adapter with cp2108 in it. So it could drive 4 boards with one usb connection. And it should have some pwm-controller for fans too.

I think it's all very interesting as an exploration and design exercise, but for most of us the S3, great miner that it is, is well past it's sell by date. Minor changes to efficiency through having a single controller are not going to change anything. So I think it's better to put effort into anything that would improve an S5, as for me anyway even that only lives up until the halving.

I haven't run any S3 units for a while now for that very reason, but I don't think anyone will argue that the more recent generation of Ants (S5, S5+, S7) have become less 'friendly' to home mining if only for the sole reason that they are LOUD. The S3 is whisper quiet compared to the later generations.

The S3/S3+ is still profitable depending on your local electricity costs, and even more so in the northern hemisphere during the winter months because it offsets heating costs. An S3+ can be found on eBay for under $150USD which still makes it attractive enough in certain conditions. Certainly an S5 will be more efficient, but efficiency isn't the only criteria for everyone.

S3's are cheap, they are quiet, and they will remain profitable during the winter in many regions of the world.

[VirosaGITS]

Has any one thought of combining a couple of s3's together sort of like the C1 but not changing over the heat sink. I mean Sort of like how the s5 is done. Would it be worth it? I mean have one controller controlling all 3 s3 instead of three separate units?

Yep, I have done some testing with these. Original S3-controller was propably meant to control more than two boards. It's schematics show connections for 4 hashboards. But problem is that firmware has support only for 2 hashboards. In hw-level I can read code from pic-mcu and reprogram it, but changing that code would need assembler coding. It's propably easier to write new code to do that. But coding isn't one of my best skills. Open-wrt module's software is also capable to update that pic's code so it might be possible to tweak it's drivers. But again,it's beyond my knowledge.
There might also be a reason why they dropped that pic/ar9331 controller out: it has only 2 physical uart's. Some of pins can be programmed for uarts but I'm not sure if that pic is fast enough for it. Some wiser men have told me that it works if the baudrate is low enough. But I really don't know, I'm just a hobbyist.
Ofcourse it can be done with usb/uart adapters like cp2102. You only need to do level shifting too and provide 1v8 and 3v3 to hashboards. It works, I have tested it, but every hashboard needs its own cp2102 adapter. I might try to build an adapter with cp2108 in it. So it could drive 4 boards with one usb connection. And it should have some pwm-controller for fans too.

I think it's all very interesting as an exploration and design exercise, but for most of us the S3, great miner that it is, is well past it's sell by date. Minor changes to efficiency through having a single controller are not going to change anything. So I think it's better to put effort into anything that would improve an S5, as for me anyway even that only lives up until the halving.

I haven't run any S3 units for a while now for that very reason, but I don't think anyone will argue that the more recent generation of Ants (S5, S5+, S7) have become less 'friendly' to home mining if only for the sole reason that they are LOUD. The S3 is whisper quiet compared to the later generations.

The S3/S3+ is still profitable depending on your local electricity costs, and even more so in the northern hemisphere during the winter months because it offsets heating costs. An S3+ can be found on eBay for under $150USD which still makes it attractive enough in certain conditions. Certainly an S5 will be more efficient, but efficiency isn't the only criteria for everyone.

S3's are cheap, they are quiet, and they will remain profitable during the winter in many regions of the world.

S5's and S7's now have the fan control setting, so i'm running them at the same noise level as the S3. So no problem there. The only irk-ish is that their high performance fan wont go under 2400-2600 RPM so its not possible to make them exactly quiet, but nothing prevent you from getting better ones.

[pinhead666]

I have S5's and SP31 to create some coins for me but I can't really run them at my bedroom. S3 hisses quietly under my bed and keeps room temperature comfortable. S5's are in my sauna,windows are open and temps still 30-40C. And it's about winter-time here. S31 is in a cold storage running underclocked and still it keeps that storage temps at 20C. If I run it at full speed I have to ventilate air even there. And noise is terrible. S3's just pay their costs if I measure only electricity, but they provide pleasant amount of heat, and they do it quietly. My wife wants more of them and S5's out!

[enthus]

I used to own Antminer S3 and I still think it is one of the best miner out there

[hodedowe]

I used to own Antminer S3 and I still think it is one of the best miner out there

I agree with this. The S3 was the pinnacle of design from Bitmain. Everything since hashes more, but seems to be put together without much thought. If they re-designed the S8 as an S7 with the ease of use and sound profile of the S3s they'd have a blockbuster miner.

[VirosaGITS]

I used to own Antminer S3 and I still think it is one of the best miner out there

I agree with this. The S3 was the pinnacle of design from Bitmain. Everything since hashes more, but seems to be put together without much thought. If they re-designed the S8 as an S7 with the ease of use and sound profile of the S3s they'd have a blockbuster miner.

Yeah a two blade S7 with the enclosure and fans with a lower minimum RPM, we'd be in S1/S3 territory. Also one thing that's putting me off from S7 at the moment is the way the heatsink are holding in place...

They're not bolted or anything so they can fall if the thermal compound heat. Or sometimes they get lose after getting a little kick.

I kind of wish we could go back to the S3 thermal level, except we'd be getting 1400-1700GH/s out of the cute little quiet thing. And no need to plug in 10 fucking pci-e port per miner either.

That last one make it feel like a cash grab, inciting people to buy their PSU, instead of existing options.

[RichBC]

I used to own Antminer S3 and I still think it is one of the best miner out there

I agree with this. The S3 was the pinnacle of design from Bitmain. Everything since hashes more, but seems to be put together without much thought. If they re-designed the S8 as an S7 with the ease of use and sound profile of the S3s they'd have a blockbuster miner.

Yeah a two blade S7 with the enclosure and fans with a lower minimum RPM, we'd be in S1/S3 territory. Also one thing that's putting me off from S7 at the moment is the way the heatsink are holding in place...

They're not bolted or anything so they can fall if the thermal compound heat. Or sometimes they get lose after getting a little kick.

I kind of wish we could go back to the S3 thermal level, except we'd be getting 1400-1700GH/s out of the cute little quiet thing. And no need to plug in 10 fucking pci-e port per miner either.

That last one make it feel like a cash grab, inciting people to buy their PSU, instead of existing options.

Yes and if it turned out that Batch 8 has a Buck Converter and Software adjustable Voltage and they went back to a one piece heatsink and all of the above. 


Rich 

[sgi02]

Recently purchased a batch of S3's. They're all working great, but one unit is displaying incorrect fan values. Additionally, all of the S3's seem to keep the best share value at zero. Any ideas on how to correct this? Thanks!

[pinhead666]

Flash latest fw and use Kano's cgminer: https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/tree/master/AntS3
Incorrect speed readings are quite common. It's annoying but won't do no harm. As long as controller gets right temp-data, it drives fans right speed.

[sgi02]

Flash latest fw and use Kano's cgminer: https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/tree/master/AntS3
Incorrect speed readings are quite common. It's annoying but won't do no harm. As long as controller gets right temp-data, it drives fans right speed.

Thanks for the reply. Firmware is updated to the latest version and using different cgminer revisions yielded the same results. It will run all day without issue and the fans are working perfectly. I guess this S3 is just a little special!

[Prelude]

Flash latest fw and use Kano's cgminer: https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/tree/master/AntS3
Incorrect speed readings are quite common. It's annoying but won't do no harm. As long as controller gets right temp-data, it drives fans right speed.

Thanks for the reply. Firmware is updated to the latest version and using different cgminer revisions yielded the same results. It will run all day without issue and the fans are working perfectly. I guess this S3 is just a little special!

The 0 Best Share is a long standing bug with bitmain hardware. Best share wont show up if your share difficulty is a power of 2. Change your share difficulty and it'll start working. Try 500 instead of 512.

[pinhead666]

Flash latest fw and use Kano's cgminer: https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/tree/master/AntS3
Incorrect speed readings are quite common. It's annoying but won't do no harm. As long as controller gets right temp-data, it drives fans right speed.

Thanks for the reply. Firmware is updated to the latest version and using different cgminer revisions yielded the same results. It will run all day without issue and the fans are working perfectly. I guess this S3 is just a little special!

The 0 Best Share is a long standing bug with bitmain hardware. Best share wont show up if your share difficulty is a power of 2. Change your share difficulty and it'll start working. Try 500 instead of 512.

That best share bug is corrected in Kano's version. Atleast it works with my miners. That speed thing is trickier. I think it gets incorrect data from hashboard or there's open circuit somewhere. I have exact same problem with my homemade controller and I'll have to study it further. At last I got my own controller working!

[ganjasmokingg]

Hello everybody ,  i am searching for an PSU wich can power an  antminer S1 and s3 , or do i need to go for seperate PSU;s ?   I hope someone here can give me some answers !    tnx in advance !  I am only familliair with gpu scrypt mining and x11 etc...   

[Real-Duke]

Corsair CX750M will do

[Rusalka68]

Ok, here's one for the group.  Has anyone run into issues with the S3+ interfering with over the air TV reception (channels 11 thru 13)?

Wife just made me put a timer on the units so that she can watch the news @ night.

[VirosaGITS]

Ok, here's one for the group.  Has anyone run into issues with the S3+ interfering with over the air TV reception (channels 11 thru 13)?

Wife just made me put a timer on the units so that she can watch the news @ night.

Umm, thats weird, you could probably disable the Wifi, but its so weak, it should not affect anything anyways and if they're not setup, they should not broadcast anyways. Are you using S3 over Wifi?

Then i guess anything could interefere with the weak air TV. Maybe get her real TV?

[clarkjhaley13]

Ok, here's one for the group.  Has anyone run into issues with the S3+ interfering with over the air TV reception (channels 11 thru 13)?

Wife just made me put a timer on the units so that she can watch the news @ night.

My experience is it is the psu's that create the interferance. My neighbor only had over the air tv and mine destroyrf his signal. I cured it by simply putting a dome of aluminum foil over my stuff. Leaving air flow open of course.

[RichBC]

Ok, here's one for the group.  Has anyone run into issues with the S3+ interfering with over the air TV reception (channels 11 thru 13)?

Wife just made me put a timer on the units so that she can watch the news @ night.

Umm, thats weird, you could probably disable the Wifi, but its so weak, it should not affect anything anyways and if they're not setup, they should not broadcast anyways. Are you using S3 over Wifi?

Then i guess anything could interefere with the weak air TV. Maybe get her real TV?

There are some High Frequency Square waves in the Miners, not entirely surprising that there is some interference? Do we know if the miners are tested for or comply with any EMC regulations? Quite often testing for & passing these regulations takes some time, would not surprise me if they have not even been tested?

Rich