ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[Stinky_Pete]

Are you trying to plug in an S3 with the PSU running? Not a good idea. Turn PSU off before plugging/unplugging miners.

[padrino]

Observations re S3 (vs S1)

S3 is quite a different beast. S1 was like a soldier. You give it an order to march at higher speed-and it does or "dies" trying-gives you XX.
One of my S3-I give it more juice (225 vs 218.75)-it goes up to 455, then back to the same 420 GH (while keeping all 0000).
Now trying 212.5, but it can do 430GH max on this-we will see.
There must be a controller (probably R47) that limits the performance no matter of what mhz you give it.
Cooling the case with an additional airflow from two fans directed at opposite sides did not help at all-I tried it.
However, i think that experimenting with heat sinks on R47 is a worthwhile endeavor.

I am wondering how the load average impact these, I ask because seeing the system at an average load average of 2.3 and 0% CPU cycles free all of the time I wonder if cgminer is getting resource starved. On the surface it sure seems like it..

[mcmike313]

na everything is off they power on and when they do the first beep it shows off the psu unless only one s3's is plugged in, i thought the 850watt should be able to power 2 so i went and got the 1200watt thinking that would definatly handle two but same problem

[JennaK]

How can I get a S3 up to Canada for cheap?

[Biodom]

Observations re S3 (vs S1)

S3 is quite a different beast. S1 was like a soldier. You give it an order to march at higher speed-and it does or "dies" trying-gives you XX.
One of my S3-I give it more juice (225 vs 218.75)-it goes up to 455, then back to the same 420 GH (while keeping all 0000).
Now trying 212.5, but it can do 430GH max on this-we will see.
There must be a controller (probably R47) that limits the performance no matter of what mhz you give it.
Cooling the case with an additional airflow from two fans directed at opposite sides did not help at all-I tried it.
However, i think that experimenting with heat sinks on R47 is a worthwhile endeavor.

I am wondering how the load average impact these, I ask because seeing the system at an average load average of 2.3 and 0% CPU cycles all of the time I wonder if cgminer is getting resource starved at all. On the surface it sure seems like it..

Very well may be.
They should hire some cgminer developer as a consultant.
This miner (S3) feels like it might need some software optimization.

[Stinky_Pete]

na everything is off they power on and when they do the first beep it shows off the psu unless only one s3's is plugged in, i thought the 850watt should be able to power 2 so i went and got the 1200watt thinking that would definatly handle two but same problem

Do you have only two S3s? Are you trying to run other kit at the same time? Do you use the paperclip or something more sophisticated?

[mcmike313]

I use an old psu and just cut out so cables to make the jumper, although the 1200 watt didn't turn back on until I fixed the jumper cable so maybe that was the problem, I have 4 s3's 2x850watt and 1x1200 watt I'll give it another crack now that I know the 1200 watt can make 1 s3 mine

[Lowell904]

Overnight run  so far so good...

~450watts for ~500gh/s

I think the massive HW spike is from internet outtage, it was at 40HW very early in the morning. Who knows. Either way it's minimal compared to 22,000 shares at 256 diff ( ~5mil shares )

Did you mod this machine?
Looks awesome

I see that your discards are very low. Did you change any other settings besides the frequency when you OCed?

[mcmike313]

same thing happened i powered down the psu, plugged in the second s3 and then powered it back on, all came up, then as soon as they beep it shuts down the psu. could this be a problem with my jumper cable not being adequate enough?

[Stinky_Pete]

Jumper cable?

Is it always the same pair of S3 units that show this behaviour?

[Biodom]

same thing happened i powered down the psu, plugged in the second s3 and then powered it back on, all came up, then as soon as they beep it shuts down the psu. could this be a problem with my jumper cable not being adequate enough?

is this single rail psu? most current in use by miners are single rail, like CX750M, CX500 or EVGA1300

[mcmike313]

na its any combination with any of the psu's im using a enermax revolution87+ 1200 watt psu
using the native cables to power on s3's and attempting to power the second using the cpu/gpu/ram power at the back, there are 3 options 12v2, 12v3,12v4 i currently have it plugged into the 12v4

[Lowell904]

Trying to learn how to SSH today, I learned how to do a pencil mod to over and under-clock the S1. I won't under-clock it until the difficulty goes up a bit more but here are some results I got from over-clocking today.

Powered by a 600W Bronze Corsair
S1 Stock -                                            ~180GH/sec @ ~410 Watts
S1 OCed to 400Mhz                               ~205GH/sec @ ~468 Watts
S1 OCed to 400Mhz with pencil mod        ~215Gh/sec @ ~520 Watts

So to pencil mod only got me another 10GH/sec but it cost 50 Watts, where
going to 400Mhz alone got me an extra 35GH/sec  for 58 Watts.

I cleaned off the pencil and will stick with 205GH/sec @ 468 Watts for now

I've tried to SSH the S3 to change my queue setting in hopes of lowering the super high number of discards but I'm having trouble accessing the screen that I need to edit. I know how to edit and save, I just need to know how to bring up the Queue setting I want to edit. Can anyone tell me what I need to enter. I am using putty on windows, btw.

[Stinky_Pete]

That's the same PSU I have (except mine is the 1050W) and I have no trouble. You shouldn't be using the CPU power or the peripheral power cables, they are not interchangable. Only use the GPU / PCIe cables which have the red sockets.

[sjc1490]

Observations re S3 (vs S1)

S3 is quite a different beast. S1 was like a soldier. You give it an order to march at higher speed-and it does or "dies" trying-gives you XX.
One of my S3-I give it more juice (225 vs 218.75)-it goes up to 455, then back to the same 420 GH (while keeping all 0000).
Now trying 212.5, but it can do 430GH max on this-we will see.
There must be a controller (probably R47) that limits the performance no matter of what mhz you give it.
Cooling the case with an additional airflow from two fans directed at opposite sides did not help at all-I tried it.
However, i think that experimenting with heat sinks on R47 is a worthwhile endeavor.

I am wondering how the load average impact these, I ask because seeing the system at an average load average of 2.3 and 0% CPU cycles all of the time I wonder if cgminer is getting resource starved at all. On the surface it sure seems like it..

My load average is running 1.77 after I changed that parameters in the cgminer file.

[Askit2]

I have a problem. My "Authorized Distributor" has done the following.

I (stupidly) agreed to overpay on batch 1 S3 because I wanted a batch 1. They usually make money especially batch 1 where you have good clarity on what difficulty might be when they ship. I paid very early on July 1.

I received my confirmation emails. I re-checked my account after end of business later that day. So far everything was in order. Batch 1 S3 etc.

2 weeks about go by and I pop in to check my account to find out when my Batch 1 order will ship to discover it's a magical Batch 2. I have no idea when it was ordered, what point in the queue it was at or anything. At this point I have received 0 contact from distributor. Order was altered 25.5 hours after I placed it. I wish I had known I needed to babysit this order to keep things on track and at a price I could live with.

I notice in my account there is ask us a question. So I ask if they can fix my Batch 1 order to actually be a Batch 1. I really wasn't thinking that someone intentionally changed anything but that there was a clerical error.

24 hours pass still no contact from distributor.

I send a message to the person who has their email on my receipt (I dug it up just to ask again). I was not nice about it. Reply was received in 3 hours. Nothing too helpful just an offer for fair compensation. What is fair for bumping me into a cheaper batch, failing to ask me about changing my order, failing to ask about re-pricing my order? At this point I didn't want a batch 2. I never wanted a batch 2.
 
I asked within 3 hours for the following, after apologizing, What my total refund would be AND what my "Fair Compensation" would be.

Within 12 hours the disputed order shipped.

No answer Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. Email was sent late Thursday. As of Monday late my order finally finished its warehousing. Tuesday I send another email asking if distributor would please reply to my last email. Last email included in current email.

Wednesday I get a reply. Here is your tracking #. Batch 1 and 2 shipped about the same time. I have to refund the 7.7% for specs and I have to refund 0.02 for the price difference. Let me know wallet address.

I reply I asked for full refund and fair compensation. Order is complete when package is accepted I have not and in 7 days UPS will return your package to you. I point out I still wouldn't have paid shipping on Batch 2 (ordering from bitmain) and told distributor I figured the 0.1115 over the cost of batch 2 directly was fair compensation at this point. I notified distributor that I was interested in either 0.1115  or a full refund and they have until the package goes back at that point I expect a full refund.

No reply in 48 hours. Send email to admin because I get an order complete email. I point out 1.48 is better then 0. Ask what they would prefer.

48 hours more still no replies.

I really would like a way to deal with this that doesn't leave me with a more then Batch 1 priced shipped same as batch 3 held in China for 4-5 days batch 2 then left at UPS because I have an issue with the questionable way this has been handled. Most of this is the price of business

1. Why did you not order directly from bitmain?
2. If you paid with paypal or a credit card you can file a dispute directly with them.  Although, filing a dispute due to "shipping time" might be a hard case to win.  "Batch 1" and "Batch 2" are identical products.
3. If you paid with BTC you are SOL
4. Best thing to do is identify them in the forum as a warning to others.  The bad publicity might make them act.

1: They had run out. I thought the distributor that listed them for sale ordered in advance and then sold.
2: I'm a chump that payed in bitcoin.  They are marked as seperate items on website. That doesn't mean much but they are.
3: Pretty sure you are right.
4: It's 112bit.

[sjc1490]

Overnight run  so far so good...

~450watts for ~500gh/s

I think the massive HW spike is from internet outtage, it was at 40HW very early in the morning. Who knows. Either way it's minimal compared to 22,000 shares at 256 diff ( ~5mil shares )

Did you mod this machine?
Looks awesome

I see that your discards are very low. Did you change any other settings besides the frequency when you OCed?

I am sure he did the cgminer parameter changes as many of us did, go back a couple of pages and read through the previous posts.

[Lowell904]

Observations re S3 (vs S1)

S3 is quite a different beast. S1 was like a soldier. You give it an order to march at higher speed-and it does or "dies" trying-gives you XX.
One of my S3-I give it more juice (225 vs 218.75)-it goes up to 455, then back to the same 420 GH (while keeping all 0000).
Now trying 212.5, but it can do 430GH max on this-we will see.
There must be a controller (probably R47) that limits the performance no matter of what mhz you give it.
Cooling the case with an additional airflow from two fans directed at opposite sides did not help at all-I tried it.
However, i think that experimenting with heat sinks on R47 is a worthwhile endeavor.

I am wondering how the load average impact these, I ask because seeing the system at an average load average of 2.3 and 0% CPU cycles all of the time I wonder if cgminer is getting resource starved at all. On the surface it sure seems like it..

My load average is running 1.77 after I changed that parameters in the cgminer file.

Please tell me how.

I can access the units with putty, I know how to edit and save, I just need to know how to access those parameters.

[Lowell904]

Overnight run  so far so good...

~450watts for ~500gh/s

I think the massive HW spike is from internet outtage, it was at 40HW very early in the morning. Who knows. Either way it's minimal compared to 22,000 shares at 256 diff ( ~5mil shares )

Did you mod this machine?
Looks awesome

I see that your discards are very low. Did you change any other settings besides the frequency when you OCed?

I am sure he did the cgminer parameter changes as many of us did, go back a couple of pages and read through the previous posts.

I have read this entire thread over the last couple of weeks and I have been trying. What do I have to type into putty to access the parameter that need changing?

[Lowell904]

I updated the firmware today and everything seemed fine but I still have outrageous discards and now my hash rate at the GUI is 1/3 what it should be, Pool side the hash rate is within specs.