ANTMINER S3+ Discussion and Support Thread

[pekatete]

Turns out this didn't completely fix it, the issue is that the pic firmware from this build is very unstable. You can fix this by flashing the pic firmware from the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware. To retrieve the stable pic firmware first flash the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware to your miner, do not retrieve from any other firmware version especially antMiner_S320141024.bin(the pic firmware is identical to antMiner_S320141013.bin but very tricky to retrieve due to the filesystems being built incorrectly).
To retrieve the firmware scp it to your computer using the following command. This assumes your miner is still on the default IP of 192.168.1.99 .

Code:

scp root@192.168.1.99:/rom/etc/config/miner_pic.hex miner_pic.hex

Next Flash the latest antMiner_S320141126.bin firmware and upload the file back.

Code:

scp miner_pic.hex root@192.168.1.99:/etc/config/miner_pic.hex

Finally reboot your miner to apply the stable pic firmware.

You are a very clever person bitsolutions. Now, can you kindly tell us how to open and read the code in that hex file please? If these jombas from bitmain are not going to be honest with us, their customers, then I think they've earned us the right to pore over their little secrets. I thank you in advance.

[dog1965]

  Can somebody please tell me how step by step to do this procedure with putty and windows 8.1 I am new to this forum so forgive me.

[bitsolutions]

Turns out this didn't completely fix it, the issue is that the pic firmware from this build is very unstable. You can fix this by flashing the pic firmware from the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware. To retrieve the stable pic firmware first flash the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware to your miner, do not retrieve from any other firmware version especially antMiner_S320141024.bin(the pic firmware is identical to antMiner_S320141013.bin but very tricky to retrieve due to the filesystems being built incorrectly).
To retrieve the firmware scp it to your computer using the following command. This assumes your miner is still on the default IP of 192.168.1.99 .

Code:

scp root@192.168.1.99:/rom/etc/config/miner_pic.hex miner_pic.hex

Next Flash the latest antMiner_S320141126.bin firmware and upload the file back.

Code:

scp miner_pic.hex root@192.168.1.99:/etc/config/miner_pic.hex

Finally reboot your miner to apply the stable pic firmware.

You are a very clever person bitsolutions. Now, can you kindly tell us how to open and read the code in that hex file please? If these jombas from bitmain are not going to be honest with us, their customers, then I think they've earned us the right to pore over their little secrets. I thank you in advance.

You can't read it since its compiled.

[pekatete]

Turns out this didn't completely fix it, the issue is that the pic firmware from this build is very unstable. You can fix this by flashing the pic firmware from the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware. To retrieve the stable pic firmware first flash the antMiner_S320141013.bin firmware to your miner, do not retrieve from any other firmware version especially antMiner_S320141024.bin(the pic firmware is identical to antMiner_S320141013.bin but very tricky to retrieve due to the filesystems being built incorrectly).
To retrieve the firmware scp it to your computer using the following command. This assumes your miner is still on the default IP of 192.168.1.99 .

Code:

scp root@192.168.1.99:/rom/etc/config/miner_pic.hex miner_pic.hex

Next Flash the latest antMiner_S320141126.bin firmware and upload the file back.

Code:

scp miner_pic.hex root@192.168.1.99:/etc/config/miner_pic.hex

Finally reboot your miner to apply the stable pic firmware.

You are a very clever person bitsolutions. Now, can you kindly tell us how to open and read the code in that hex file please? If these jombas from bitmain are not going to be honest with us, their customers, then I think they've earned us the right to pore over their little secrets. I thank you in advance.

You can't read it since its compiled.

Very well then, it seems they have even cleverer people at bitmain than I gave them credit for, my bad.
Now if you do not mind throwing some light on the issue that is perturbing me, so here goes:

Aside from the pic firmware in the Nov release (which you cleverly established to have been fiddled with by bitmain), what advantage has the rest of the update in the Nov release is there to be had over that in the Oct release? Seems to me a simple and complete reset to the  13th Oct 2014 firmware rather than fudging the two would do nicely. Ofcourse, I am speaking from a postion of utter ignorance, so bear with me there).

[bitsolutions]

Very well then, it seems they have even cleverer people at bitmain than I gave them credit for, my bad.
Now if you do not mind throwing some light on the issue that is perturbing me, so here goes:

Aside from the pic firmware in the Nov release (which you cleverly established to have been fiddled with by bitmain), what advantage has the rest of the update in the Nov release is there to be had over that in the Oct release? Seems to me a simple and complete reset to the  13th Oct 2014 firmware rather than fudging the two would do nicely. Ofcourse, I am speaking from a postion of utter ignorance, so bear with me there).

The pic firmware seems to change every other release or so. For example antMiner_S320140811 and antMiner_S320140826 have the same pic firmware as do antMiner_S320141013 and antMiner_S320141024. Right now the main issue with antMiner_S320141013 is the broken webui, I recommend everyone stay far far away from antMiner_S320141024 as it greatly increases the chance of you bricking your control card(only way to recover is with ttl) since the reset doesn't work(filesystem issue), the latest firmware has the correct filesystem and fixed webui but a bad pic firmware. If you want to use antMiner_S320141013 you should ssh and execute the following command to fix the webui.

Code:

sed -i 's/Save\&Apply/Save\&Apply/g' /usr/lib/lua/luci/model/cbi/cgminer/cgminer.lua

[pekatete]

Very well then, it seems they have even cleverer people at bitmain than I gave them credit for, my bad.
Now if you do not mind throwing some light on the issue that is perturbing me, so here goes:

Aside from the pic firmware in the Nov release (which you cleverly established to have been fiddled with by bitmain), what advantage has the rest of the update in the Nov release is there to be had over that in the Oct release? Seems to me a simple and complete reset to the  13th Oct 2014 firmware rather than fudging the two would do nicely. Ofcourse, I am speaking from a postion of utter ignorance, so bear with me there).

The pic firmware seems to change every other release or so. For example antMiner_S320140811 and antMiner_S320140826 have the same pic firmware as do antMiner_S320141013 and antMiner_S320141024. Right now the main issue with antMiner_S320141013 is the broken webui, I recommend everyone stay far far away from antMiner_S320141024 as it greatly increases the chance of you bricking your control card(only way to recover is with ttl) since the reset doesn't work(filesystem issue), the latest firmware has the correct filesystem and fixed webui but a bad pic firmware. If you want to use antMiner_S320141013 you should ssh and execute the following command to fix the webui.

Code:

sed -i 's/Save\&Apply/Save\&Apply/g' /usr/lib/lua/luci/model/cbi/cgminer/cgminer.lua

Right, this is getting a bit confusing for me, but never mind, I appreciate all the information.

So to recap, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to update firmware to the Nov 2014 release aside from the fix to the web UI, which fix can be applied by a single line via ssh.

Am I correct in this or have I missed something that is obvious to you?

[bitsolutions]

Right, this is getting a bit confusing for me, but never mind, I appreciate all the information.

So to recap, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to update firmware to the Nov 2014 release aside from the fix to the web UI, which fix can be applied by a single line via ssh.

Am I correct in this or have I missed something that is obvious to you?

I'm not exactly sure if there's any improvements other than the webui fixes. Kind of your choice on whether you prefer to fix the webui or the pic firmware as both appear to have the same end result as far as I can tell however I haven't tested performance differences extensively. I have yet to check if cgminer was updated between those versions either so you may want to do a more detailed comparison.

[pekatete]

Right, this is getting a bit confusing for me, but never mind, I appreciate all the information.

So to recap, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to update firmware to the Nov 2014 release aside from the fix to the web UI, which fix can be applied by a single line via ssh.

Am I correct in this or have I missed something that is obvious to you?

I'm not exactly sure if there's any improvements other than the webui fixes. Kind of your choice on whether you prefer to fix the webui or the pic firmware as both appear to have the same end result as far as I can tell however I haven't tested performance differences extensively. I have yet to check if cgminer was updated between those versions either so you may want to do a more detailed comparison.

I do not think that cgminer was updated in the Nov firmware ... but could be wrong. Aside from that, since they made a dog's dinner out of the pic_firmware, I can not for the life of me see else-where performance enhancements could have been made.

Here's an interesting thought, would it not be nice if you wrapped one good bin file firmware update for us mere mortals? Here I mean one that has the correct and properly working hex file plus a working filesystem. that would be nice.

On another note, I managed to extract that hex file from one of my S3's (keep it for a rainy day) using MinGW on Windows. When I call file on the hex, it says it is ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators! I am tempted to open it up in notepad .....

[ATCkit]

@bitsolutions

".... I recommend everyone stay far far away from antMiner_S320141024 as it greatly increases the chance of you bricking your control card(only way to recover is with ttl) since the reset doesn't work(filesystem issue)...."


I have the bricking problem you mention. Bitmain just told me my warranty has expired. (They must start counting the 90 days from the time they ship instead of teh day I received it )

Questions:

1. Instead of buying another control board, how do i use ttl to recover it? Sorry, I 'm gonna need step by step instructions.

2. My other S3s are running okay on the Oct 24th release. Should i re-flash them to the Oct 13th firmware?

[dog1965]

Can somebody please tell me how step by step to do this procedure with putty and windows 8.1 I am new to this forum so forgive me 

[pekatete]

<snip> .... </snip> Now, can you kindly tell us how to open and read the code in that hex file please?  <snip> .... </snip>

You can't read it since its compiled.

Not being one to take good advice when given some, after realising the miner_pic.hex file was an ASCII file, I decided to deploy my secret reference material (read google) and seem to have found something, though I can not make any sense of it. I am sure bitsolutions, the clever clogs on our side, can so here goes.

1. My reference material suggested a site to view a hex file: http://en.webhex.net/
On visiting the site, I browsed to the file and uploaded the miner_pic.hex file

2. On the next screen, I scrolled to the bottom of the box and clicked on the Export link

3. When the Export screen was loaded, I un-checked the Headline, Offsets and Readable Characters check-boxes then clicked on the Export button on that screen.

4. I was then presented with the hex data in a web page. I had not mentioned this, but earlier,  my reference material had also suggested to me an online dis-assembler here : http://www2.onlinedisassembler.com/odaweb/

5. I copied all the exported hex data (Ctrl + A then Ctrl + C) then flicked over to the dis-assembler, clicked on the Platform button and changed it to avr (this may b wrong), and in the box below that I pasted the hex data into it.

The page then did a little spinning wheel and after a short while, spewed out something like this:



Now the easy bit, @bitsolutions or any of you clever clogs out there, can you make any sense of that?

[dog1965]

ah that is assembly language otherwise known as "MACHINE LAUNGUAGE" I used to write programs with it back in the 1980's so I know how to do it I recognize the commands just some new ones in there I see. like I said I am rusty but I think I can do I just have to brush up on the new commands.

[macgyver007]

I am looking at one of the most "incredible" displays of sheer incompetence and negligence by a company, namely BITMAIN releasing not 1, not 2 but 3 sabotaged firmwares in the last 2 months to the day...what really bothers me is not only the fact that all of the last 3 firmwares are BROKEN and not only has BITMAIN basically ignored these problems by doing nothing, they are allowing the community to in essence POISON the bitcoin network with faulty hardware by allowing others to still download and brick their miners....unbelievable really

I don't see how this is not negligent behavior and not downright reckless by BITMAIN to still even have those 3 firmware on their page...1 is worse than the other and all 3 can brick units....

BITMAIN PULL THE DEFECTIVE FIRMWARE FROM YOUR SITE AND FIX IT..this is IRRESPONSIBLE AND RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT

[nitrox1]

Very new here.But seem like I'm another the latest firmware as bricked my control board.
It was flashed over WIFI network, and had the message that the firmware was ready to flash.
Now I have the red flashing LED of death.
Latest firmware took on my two other units.
I'm able to open a telnet connection on the old IP address, but that is it. I'm lost from here.
I see some HEX stuff going on, but it is way beyond me. Is the hex file able to be flashed through ethernet?
Any solutions to get firmware flashed over again maybe over LAN1, Debug???

[macgyver007]

Very new here.But seem like I'm another the latest firmware as bricked my control board.
It was flashed over WIFI network, and had the message that the firmware was ready to flash.
Now I have the red flashing LED of death.
Latest firmware took on my two other units.
I'm able to open a telnet connection on the old IP address, but that is it. I'm lost from here.
I see some HEX stuff going on, but it is way beyond me. Is the hex file able to be flashed through ethernet?
Any solutions to get firmware flashed over again maybe over LAN1, Debug???

If you can telnet to the miner all hope is not lost...does it allow you to log in to the miner using telnet?
You can use serial connect instructions are here....
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=889206.0

[nitrox1]

Very new here.But seem like I'm another the latest firmware as bricked my control board.
It was flashed over WIFI network, and had the message that the firmware was ready to flash.
Now I have the red flashing LED of death.
Latest firmware took on my two other units.
I'm able to open a telnet connection on the old IP address, but that is it. I'm lost from here.
I see some HEX stuff going on, but it is way beyond me. Is the hex file able to be flashed through ethernet?
Any solutions to get firmware flashed over again maybe over LAN1, Debug???

If you can telnet to the miner all hope is not lost...does it allow you to log in to the miner using telnet?
You can use serial connect instructions are here....
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=889206.0

Ok, let me clarify. Telnet connection over putty, to the old IP address over Ethernet, is the only one that doesn't say connection failed. I don't know if I actually have a connection. I still get a blank screen

[dog1965]

push = push onto stack.   pop=pull off of stack  note: first byte in is last byte out so if I push four values "10 20 30 40 whatever" I have to pop the stack four times to get the first value I pushed in.

jne = jump if not equal     compare values if they are not equal the jump back in the loop to LOC_00000010   this is the beginning of the sub loop routine.



ret = return from sub loop once values are equal. Continue processing "keep going down screen"


you get the idea its like C the same structure.   when you compile C this is what it turns it into provided you did not make any error lol.  
 

[pekatete]

ah that is assembly language otherwise known as "MACHINE LAUNGUAGE" I used to write programs with it back in the 1980's so I know how to do it I recognize the commands just some new ones in there I see. like I said I am rusty but I think I can do I just have to brush up on the new commands.

Another clever clogs about .... very well. If you need anything from me, post here or drop me a PM.

[nitrox1]

So if I get a USB to serial, then connect to debug.
Quote: "the ground pin, connect tx and rx....if you get a load of junk on your screen reverse the rx/tx and you will see magic...well not really but you will see the data on the screen...for putty set 115200, no flow control, and make sure you have the correct COM port defined"

Then what,? Hit it with a herring? Or other smoked fish? Get the fans going and cook bacon? So lost

[pekatete]

push = push onto stack.   pop=pull off of stack  note: first byte in is last byte out so if I push four values "10 20 30 40 whatever" I have to pop the stack four times to get the first value I pushed in.

jne = jump if not equal     compare values if they are not equal the jump back in the loop to LOC_00000010   this is the beginning of the sub loop routine.

ret = return from sub loop once values are equal. Continue processing "keep going down screen"

you get the idea its like C the same structure.   when you compile C this is what it turns it into provided you did not make any error lol. 
 

I catch the drift .... I think ..... yes, I think so.
Anyhow, is it possible to dis-assemble this machine language further into C++? The image above only shows a small fraction of the data, possibly less than 1% ....