Bitmaintech S1 Miner & Power Supply Fire (Nearly)

Hi I have 2 S1 Antminers from bitmain & i was just wondering if anyone has had any problems with overheating (To the point of melting my power supply lead & Main Point)

I have a Strider Gold Evolution 1200w (80 Plus Gold)

http://silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=321&area=en

So i know it has plenty of power to push 2 x S1 miners, I plugged in 1 x 8 pin pci-e plugs which on the other end have 2 x 6 + 2 pin connection.

I put 1 x 6 pin into one miner & from the extension of that cable i put the other 6 pin plug into the other blade.

I did the same with the other blade with another plug.

So now i have both miners running along nicely for about 3 weeks and started to notice a weird smell coming from my miners & what had ended up happening was the plug in the power supply had started to melt & the lead to the miners plastic had all started to melt away.

Im going to take some pictures later today & put them up i just wanted to know if anyone else had the same thing if not started a fire??

I remember having the same problem when overclocking technobits hexc 20 gh miner so i had to downclock it to stop it from melting down.

Pic's here!

What sort of environment are they in? Do you have air moving around them? What kind of temps are you seeing on the chips?

Environment = Ventilated bedroom. Fan it came with plus an extra one i installed on the other end to pull the heat away..

Temps between 40 & 48 approx.

The melt down happened on the power supply side not the miner.

The pci-e plugs i was using had was one lead from the power supply to 2 lots of 6 pin plugs on the other side.

My new way i'm running it to be safe is using 2 new pci-e power ports but i'm only using 1 lead with one blade, One the opposite blade i've used 2 x 8 pin cpu power leads, They just have 4 black & 4 yellow leads on them, so i chopped of the adaptor on one end and manually wired in the leads as stated in the guide from bitmain.

So now each blade has its own lead and plug rather than try to use 1 lead to power 2 blades...

U'll see what i mean when i post the pic's!

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 07:43:10 PM

I'm confused. The specs for that PSU state it has 4 6+2 PCI-e and 4 6pin PCI-e. The S1 only needs 2. Why aren't you using a single cable for each blade? You've got plenty of PCI-e connectors, and 4 separate plugs on the PSU for them. Why are you using, or trying to use, 2x8 pin CPU power leads?

Ill show u in the pictures...

Won't be long!

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 07:53:30 PM

Ill show u in the pictures...

Won't be long!

I know just what you did.. the cable on the psu side was 8 wires.

the cable split into 2 6 wire plugs you used 1 cable and it went from 8 to 12 wires.

this means 4 pos and 4 neg became 6 pos and 6 neg

the problem is very simple the 4+4 =8 pin side can not carry 360 or 400 watts.

you were just beyond its capabilities so it took 3 weeks to show up.

Exactly... The only problem was i didn't know how much each rail would hold till this problem showed up.

So now each miner has 2 blades and both require a power lead to each blade.

So i run 1 lead each to each blade which = 4 leads.

Just a heads up to others out there cause u could burn your house down....

Yeah, each blade on it's only lead back to the psu. Do not split them, share them, etc. the 6 pin pci-e plugs are meant to carry a max of 75watts.

If you are splitting it across 2 blades, you are pulling about 350watts...

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 08, 2014, 07:59:19 PM

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 07:53:30 PM

Ill show u in the pictures...

Won't be long!

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 08:09:13 PM

There's only a single rail on that PSU. Philipma1957 said what I was thinking you did... and hence my confusion as to why you did it since the PSU has plenty of cables - and inputs (4 PCI-e plugs in the PSU) - to drive them both safely.

The simple fact is you pushed too much power through two cables that should have been handled by 4, and as a result melted things. I'm glad you caught it prior to any damage to your home or yourself.

yeah those cables 8 to 2 x 6

can do 300 max

they have 4 x 18 gauge pos wires at the psu an 18 gauge wire will do 75 watts so 4 will do 300 watts (so pulling 360-400)

is just too much for 24/7/365 use... The op was very lucky. Just think if he had been off on a 3 day weekend at the Jersey Shore he would have come back to a burnt out house.

Quote from: Pjones on July 08, 2014, 08:12:38 PM

Quote from: philipma1957 on July 08, 2014, 07:59:19 PM

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 07:53:30 PM

Ill show u in the pictures...

Won't be long!

Just a heads up regarding the technobit miners. Under no circumstances should you connect more than one miner to one line, even though each line on a PSU has multiple plugs. The same logic would apply to the Antminer S1. The seller of the technobit miners advised us not to try to cut power from CPU power connector.
If you connect two miners to one line, then that cable will feel twice as hot when you touch it, compared to having just one miner connected. I have an auxillary fan to the side of my technobit miners to add extra cooling to the power connectors, the 4 pin molar plugs are the ones most prone to melting from overheating.

Quote from: snowcrawl on July 08, 2014, 08:19:37 PM

yeah not only not enough wires in the four pin connectors. they are very often 20 gauge not 18 gauge so it is a double whammy for melted wires.

Oh god, this is basic miner knowledge! It's even basic knowledge for PC/GPU enthusiasts. One PCI-e cable per connection.

Sorry i know my pc inside out and back to front but when it comes to power volts amps & watts.....

I am very inexperienced.....

That said, This is the reason i am posting this as a warning to others...

I just thought big power supply 1200w 2 pci-e cables would pull enough power down...

We are not all experienced - Electricians or Miners...

Ok now thats out of the way can u tell me how much power i'm using here per lead per blade??

2 units,

Each S1 has 1 x 8 pin from the power supply to the connectors on the miner u need to screw them into & 1 x 8 pin pci-e to 2+6 pins on the plugging into miners pci-e port.

I've got an Antminer S3 miner i wanna put on the same power supply if thats possible??

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 08:46:55 PM

OK... you're asking if you can put an S1 and an S3 on the same PSU? (the one you showed pictures of in the first post)?

Well actually 2 x S1's plus an S3

If ur saying that the S1's are 350w, 2 is 700w

Plus the S3 is 370w = 1070w

It is a 1200w power supply.

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 08:46:55 PM

I've got an Antminer S3 miner i wanna put on the same power supply if thats possible??

In an earlier post you stated that you are not an electrician. That doesn't mean that you can't start trying to think like one. That means trying to err on the side of "more than adequate" power supply for each of your miners. I wouldn't be thinking: "What is the maximum number of things I can get away with connecting to this PSU, including my brand new Antminer S3". I would be more like: "I will be using 1 good quality PSU to power my new Antminer S3, and that PSU will not be supplying power to anything else."

Quote from: lovenlifelarge on July 08, 2014, 09:46:13 PM

Well actually 2 x S1's plus an S3

If ur saying that the S1's are 350w, 2 is 700w

Plus the S3 is 370w = 1070w

It is a 1200w power supply.

You will need 6 PCI-e connectors to power them all. The S1 at stock clocks is 360W, so 720 for both. The S3 will be about the same 360.

So... you have a 1200W PSU that has at least 1 of the 4 PCI-e connectors melted, so you're going to try to push 6 connections out of 3 ports.

The short answer to your question is no, don't do it. You got lucky and caught the potential meltdown last time. Do yourself a favor and get another PSU. I'd suggest the EVGA G2 1300W. It has 6 PCI-e inputs (8 total plugs) and will handle the 3 just fine. Or, if you really want to ensure you don't blow things up, get 3 separate PSUs. Why tempt fate by trying to push as much as you can out of a single PSU?