ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[philipma1957]

My experience - consumption:

3x S3 (218,75MHz) - PSU Corsair RM1000 230V 1000W (12V/83A) - on the wall 1020-1035W, so if efficiency 88%, it means on DC side only 905W (+/-)

2x S3 (218,75MHz) - PSU FSP AURUM PRO 850 230V 850W (12V/70A) - on the wall 670-676W
2x S3 (237,5MHz) - PSU FSP AURUM PRO 850 230V 850W (12V/70A) - on the wall 740-745W

similar to mine  on different PSU too

similar to mine  2 at 231.25 + 1 at 237.50 total watts 1110 on an evga 1300     that is about 370 watts each   or more likely  365 + 365 + 380 = 1110

[GrapeApe]

I then rebooted the modem, router and then the S3s and they started hashing.

Is the desktop using the same DNS servers as the S3s?

I think the answer to that question is yes but I’m unsure now that you ask. Is there a reason they would be different?

Time Warner Cable Internet was down this AM and spotty coming up... do you have TWC?

Yes I am with TWC . This explains what started the problem but not why I couldn't get them back up without the modem and router reboot while all other devices were connected.

[Phosphorous]

FYI, MMXIV coin is holding another raffle. Although it says 1 ticket is 2 coins it has been reduced to 1 ticket for 1 coin, a pretty decent deal for a 1 in 100 chance of winning 2 Ant S3's, presumably from Batch 8.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753112.new#new

[bspurloc]

FYI, MMXIV coin is holding another raffle. Although it says 1 ticket is 2 coins it has been reduced to 1 ticket for 1 coin, a pretty decent deal for a 1 in 100 chance of winning 2 Ant S3's, presumably from Batch 8.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753112.new#new

how is that a decent deal?? for the person running the raffle quite a decent deal.

[Phosphorous]

FYI, MMXIV coin is holding another raffle. Although it says 1 ticket is 2 coins it has been reduced to 1 ticket for 1 coin, a pretty decent deal for a 1 in 100 chance of winning 2 Ant S3's, presumably from Batch 8.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=753112.new#new

how is that a decent deal?? for the person running the raffle quite a decent deal.

It's about $5 for a 1 in 100 shot at $600 in equipment.
If you don't like the odds or value ratio don't enter. I don't think it's too bad. Either you decrease the odds or increase the expense. same thing statistically.
It would appear to me that the person running the raffle is losing money or break even at todays' exchange rates. Far from a good deal for them. Would love to see how you think this is a bonanza for them.

[aztecminer]

just wanted to report that all nine of my S3 ants have been running flawlessly at 500+g/hs all month long.
i have not had to reboot a single one of them for the last three weeks.
my S3 ant farm colony is running as stable and strong as the my S1's.
of course i did make some mods before i started running them.
the above screenshot is what i see every day all the time without any reboots.
thanks bitmain for the great miners!

[blockjoe]

just wanted to report that all nine of my S3 ants have been running flawlessly at 500+g/hs all month long.
i have not had to reboot a single one of them for the last three weeks.
my S3 ant farm colony is running as stable and strong as the my S1's.
of course i did make some mods before i started running them.
the above screenshot is what i see every day all the time without any reboots.
thanks bitmain for the great miners!

Have you added SMD capacitors (e.g. 22µF ceramic) on the DC-DC converters, or an other trick to ensure the stability, and to improve a little the power efficiency? An other trick?

[visdude]

My experience - consumption:

3x S3 (218,75MHz) - PSU Corsair RM1000 230V 1000W (12V/83A) - on the wall 1020-1035W, so if efficiency 88%, it means on DC side only 905W (+/-)

2x S3 (218,75MHz) - PSU FSP AURUM PRO 850 230V 850W (12V/70A) - on the wall 670-676W
2x S3 (237,5MHz) - PSU FSP AURUM PRO 850 230V 850W (12V/70A) - on the wall 740-745W

similar to mine  on different PSU too

similar to mine  2 at 231.25 + 1 at 237.50 total watts 1110 on an evga 1300     that is about 370 watts each   or more likely  365 + 365 + 380 = 1110

I'm curious as to what the ambient room temperatures were when these measurements were recorded.  According to my data, at-the-wall wattage goes up by approximately 1W per 1C rise in ambient room temperature.  Right this very moment is the hottest ambient room temperature that my units have had to endure:

Tambient = 38.7C (101.7F)
Tdevice = 49C
Frequency = 243.75M
Speed = 490.xx GH/s
At-the-wall wattage = 425W

Edit:  Tambient is now at 39.4C (103F) and most likely still rising

[suchmoon]

39.4C

Yeah, warm and fuzzy, that's how you treat them

Reminds me of my garage in the heyday of GPU mining. Good to know that the S3 doesn't mind these temperatures.

[visdude]

39.4C

Yeah, warm and fuzzy, that's how you treat them

Reminds me of my garage in the heyday of GPU mining. Good to know that the S3 doesn't mind these temperatures.

It's indeed nice to know that they hold up well in higher temps but just the same, YMMV considering the assortment of performance variance among the S3s that we have come to know.

I'd like to think that re-torquing the heat sink screws before firing 'em up made a difference.  I'd also like to think that setting up my units in V-Air (Vertical Airflow) configuration made a difference.  Who knows.

[Master One]

Well, I have been playing with the idea for two weeks now, and I have come to the conclusion that I really have to write off the idea to start mining with either a bunch of S3+ or two SP31, as it's just not worth it.

Even when calculating energy costs with only 0.0921 $/kWh (which is an unrealistic value for me here, that I could only achieve with a little trickery) and a difficulty increase of just 20% per month they are not going to reach a positive ROI or turn negative just when reaching.

And yes, it's not only about reaching a positive ROI, but to make a profit as well. If you buy a S3+ for BTC0.58 it has to mine BTC0.58+ independently of a rising BTC value, because otherwise it would have made more sense to just buy BTC (considering to become a hodler).

We have to face it, with a total network speed of more than 200 PH/s at the current difficulty, increasing with such rates the 28nm ASIC technology has to be considered as obsolete, as it's just not possible to squeeze it at less then 0.5455 W/GH (at the wall; that value is for the SP31, with the S3+ it's 0.7837 W/GH or overclocked 0.8 W/GH). Energy is not going to get cheaper neither, so we really need new hardware.

The hardware manufacturers currently are not able to keep up with the increasing difficulty, and without a miracle it pretty much means the end of private mining. This may seem pessimistic and there may be new opportunities with tech <20nm but it really depends on the manufacturers' strategies, because if it stays the norm to keep customers waiting while mining the hell out of new units themselves till difficulty kills the opportunity for the customer to reach a positive ROI again, nothing is going to change.

I really was that close to hit the order button on a couple of S3+, but now I'm just going to watch the BTC value, buy a few BTC for hodling when it feels right, and wait for new hardware to be announced (which most likely is not going to happen this year).

Good luck to you all, especially to those who are as late to the game as I am and didn't do the math.

[polymer_city]

Hi, anyone shed any light on this?



Been running @250 for the past 3 weeks solid, then this morning that happened.

Ive clocked it down, but I'm assuming I've fried one side.

Any ideas for a repair anyone?

[OneCardShy]

Hi, anyone shed any light on this?

http://s30.postimg.org/5a74top01/Screen_Shot_2014_08_28_at_10_15_00.png

Been running @250 for the past 3 weeks solid, then this morning that happened.

Ive clocked it down, but I'm assuming I've fried one side.

Any ideas for a repair anyone?

My S2 does that trick when it gets hot. Usually a full 30 second power off fixes "-"s for me. A soft boot doesn't seem to be enough of a motivation. 

[polymer_city]

Just did a hard reboot, and swapped the plugs to the other connectors, seems to have done the trick, its nice and cool in my farm today as well.

[dentro]

just wanted to report that all nine of my S3 ants have been running flawlessly at 500+g/hs all month long.
i have not had to reboot a single one of them for the last three weeks.
my S3 ant farm colony is running as stable and strong as the my S1's.
of course i did make some mods before i started running them.
the above screenshot is what i see every day all the time without any reboots.
thanks bitmain for the great miners!

would also be interested how you mod them to get that high hashrate stable...

[allcoinminer]

I need some PCI 6 pin power Connector plugs for S3. Ebay prices are very exorbitant.
I wandered many component stores and no one stocks them.
Earlier I found one thread which describing how to make them from Motherboard connectors.
Can anyone point me to that thread?

[hurricandave]

I need some PCI 6 pin power Connector plugs for S3. Ebay prices are very exorbitant.
I wandered many component stores and no one stocks them.
Earlier I found one thread which describing how to make them from Motherboard connectors.
Can anyone point me to that thread?

Go to www.frozencpu.com and get the right pieces you need.

[IYFTech]

Dear Community,

Our truly apologies for the mis-understanding reported in this Support Thread. We are very willing to share the cgminer code to the Community.
Just reviewed our internal resource again, there is a little mis-communicaton between Customer Service Team and R&D Department. We thought this task was done 3 weeks ago..  
However, R&D Department is repacking the cgminer code and will upload it to GitHub.com in 3 hours.

Any advice from the Community and Global Customers is appreciated, feel free to contact us via PM or info@bitmaintech.com.

Thank you!

Cgminer 3.12.0 has been uploaded, https://github.com/bitmaintech/cgminer. The latest version will be updated in 2 weeks.

Hello Bitmain,

Is there any news on this yet? Only a few days to go, and I'd sleep a lot easier at night knowing that the glaring security vulnerabilities in my Antminer software had been finally fixed  

Thanks.

Edit: This goes for my S2's also 

[iglasses]

just wanted to report that all nine of my S3 ants have been running flawlessly at 500+g/hs all month long.
i have not had to reboot a single one of them for the last three weeks.
my S3 ant farm colony is running as stable and strong as the my S1's.
of course i did make some mods before i started running them.
the above screenshot is what i see every day all the time without any reboots.
thanks bitmain for the great miners!

would also be interested how you mod them to get that high hashrate stable...

So would I.  I have five S3's and not one even comes close to this.  I have one with chain temps of 23 & 25 and it still only hashes @ 430Ghs clocked at 237.5.  If I clock it to 250 it gets worse.
Maybe some shenanigans here?  lol

[Moria843]

Well, I have been playing with the idea for two weeks now, and I have come to the conclusion that I really have to write off the idea to start mining with either a bunch of S3+ or two SP31, as it's just not worth it.

Even when calculating energy costs with only 0.0921 $/kWh (which is an unrealistic value for me here, that I could only achieve with a little trickery) and a difficulty increase of just 20% per month they are not going to reach a positive ROI or turn negative just when reaching.

And yes, it's not only about reaching a positive ROI, but to make a profit as well. If you buy a S3+ for BTC0.58 it has to mine BTC0.58+ independently of a rising BTC value, because otherwise it would have made more sense to just buy BTC (considering to become a hodler).

We have to face it, with a total network speed of more than 200 PH/s at the current difficulty, increasing with such rates the 28nm ASIC technology has to be considered as obsolete, as it's just not possible to squeeze it at less then 0.5455 W/GH (at the wall; that value is for the SP31, with the S3+ it's 0.7837 W/GH or overclocked 0.8 W/GH). Energy is not going to get cheaper neither, so we really need new hardware.

The hardware manufacturers currently are not able to keep up with the increasing difficulty, and without a miracle it pretty much means the end of private mining. This may seem pessimistic and there may be new opportunities with tech <20nm but it really depends on the manufacturers' strategies, because if it stays the norm to keep customers waiting while mining the hell out of new units themselves till difficulty kills the opportunity for the customer to reach a positive ROI again, nothing is going to change.

I really was that close to hit the order button on a couple of S3+, but now I'm just going to watch the BTC value, buy a few BTC for hodling when it feels right, and wait for new hardware to be announced (which most likely is not going to happen this year).

Good luck to you all, especially to those who are as late to the game as I am and didn't do the math.

I know the feeling. I was also debating buying S3s but now holding to see what happens. I'm still mining with 8 S1s and they're down to pulling in about 1 BTC a month. At my electricity cost of $0.13/kWh this cost me about $340/month. So I'm still making a small profit at the current BTC price. May upgrade using the kits, but not worth it yet. Waiting to see what happens.