AMT 1.2THs miner first impressions/review (WIP)

[opieum2]

DISCLAIMER: At this point the review is a work in progress. I am still putting together all the information like hash stats and such as I get them. Please note that this is not a complete review YET. Right now its unboxing and getting a few things bits of info together. I will be making notes in the appropriate places. Hash stats and power will be more comprehensive. I will strike through this message with a completed tag once I feel the review is complete.

I have put together some photos and initial first impressions of the AMT 1.2THs miner. I won't go into the shipping,delivery and other many issues as those are well documented in various other threads for that info go to.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=569769.0 (official thread)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=584891.0 (users thread)  

I am just focusing on the hardware and its performance in this thread specifically. As I just got them so hashing stats will go up in a couple days after the hardware has had some time to show consistent performance. Others with the hardware can comment on hashing performance for the 1.2Ths (5 module units) to get some more consistent info as well. This is only for the new replacement units AMT just started shipping not the older ones that were defective.

First the Deliver to unboxing experience:
I had the DHL guy just unload it there on the sidewalk as I had just gotten home.



Sealed up boxes
FIRST BOX

AntMiner S2 next to AMT Miner for visual comparison AMT miner is just a hair smaller...the studs on the screws however screw up (no pun intended) any rack mounting suggest replacing domed screws with flat heads to allow flush mounting. Also note the nice handles for easy racking and stacking. Absolutely meant for a datacenter deployment.



Internals of boxes wiring is bundled up providing for better cooling as a result



Connectors are bent by design, at first glance it looks like a defect but they are all "bent" uniformly to allow for easier cable access for PCIe connectors.



Daugtherboard with a 6th connector (upgrades?)...HUGE HUGE improvement over the extremely flawed backplane design in the old AMT/bitmine models some people got.



RasPi controller board (better pic to come later)



Blurry pic of the PSU again better pic to come



Full album for box 1
http://imgur.com/a/CRuxY

SECOND BOX

First box was clean and well packed with no problems as seen in the pics but second box....umm wtf!? I got enough scrap metal in there to start a metal shop...all said that stuff is sharp...for those still waiting for deliveries to arrive, be VERY careful opening the box. All said with all that in there it still made the international trip intact. Other manufacturers with similar form factors have not been so lucky.



Same hardware, a little dusty but nothing major to sweat over.



More of the same similar cabling job.



Second box images link plus 1-1 S2 and AMT miner comparison album

http://imgur.com/a/3cUly


The Positive.

-It is extremely well built. Solid assembly. The fans are glued on (but removable) Also 4pin PWM so adjustable fans will work here.

-Wiring is neat.

-Cool to the touch hell this is the first miner that actually shoots out cool air while mining so quite well suited for a datacenter deployment. All in all very well put together in terms of actual assembly.

-Mines at advertised speeds

-Correct power cables and accessories and a rail kit for datacenter deployment

The Negative

-LOUD VERY LOUD this is only a negative if you plan to use this at home. Otherwise it is a non-issue as there are similarly loud servers in most datacenters

https://vid.me/Yxf Video comparison vs Antminer S2

-Domed screws mess up the ability to rackmount effectively as it requires the need to space the server to not

-every machine has a unique IP from all reports. As I have 2 machines with two unique IPs that it came with this seems to bear out....wtf?!

-default SSH password seems to be unique for every device. again WTF?!

-They were clearly mining with this hardware before shipping it, the pools were set to f2pool kusmet as the user. Kusmet apparently being a word for good luck in Bulgarian, so highly doubt our Chinese friends came up with this. Can any Bulgarians here confirm what the word means?

-While not my experience people have been reporting all sorts of missing parts and failures on their miners.

-Shipping problems with the hardware (as stated mine were due to my miner not actually shipping, these miners were someone elses rejection that got rerouted to me by Joshua Zipkin)

For the record this does not mean any kind of endorsement of the company this is meant to be a hardware review on the hardware and its merits. As always Caveat Emptor. Do your research.

Part 2 with power and hashing stats to come....

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[opieum2]

PART 2:

Reserved for power consumption, hashing stats

Initial Hashing stats. I will post a more sustained average from the miner later on this is just to start.


What the pool reports after about 10 minutes. This is on BTCguild. I will move the miner over to elgius for more accurate stats.



While there is a 12 hour average here. This is pretty much what it looks like all the time. I think the 1.27Ths number is fixed and always in there. No matter what I do that number will not change. The pool reports



This is about the norm. Usually a but lower at around 950 most of the time. The performance is not consistent and this is actually the best it can do. Looks like other people who reported a 10 percent rejection rate. CGMINER stats coming soon.

[opieum2]

reserved webgui, howto


Quick Notes/Issues (WIP) Will be edited with a more formal howto

If you did not flash the image provided by AMT, please note the IP is unique PER MINER and statically set. I had to pull it from the /etc/network/interfaces file on the SDCard using another linux machine.

How to get it without hooking up the HDMI or needing a linux machine:

Pull your SDCard from the unit (requires opening it) And look at the number written in marker onto the SDCard. 192.168.1.X (X is the number on the SDCard) That is your IP. Monumentally poor judgement on that decision. I will provide those who PM me with a modified image correcting any weird issues I encounter like the IP and have it set to a default IP or you can use this method to get up and running. While I believe in the OSS model I feel that AMT will profit from my work and not give due credit or compensation for it. Hence my need to approach it this way.

Other notes the miner uses Rasberrian. Apt-get and other tools for customzation are in there so it is more friendly to configuration (within limits) than most of the other miner tools out there. Depending on your skill level I would caution against modifying it. But if you are comfortable with linux customization I say go for it. Even upgrading to the latest cgminer if it uses an unmodified A1 driver.

FYI According to AMT this is the login for the machine SSH and web interface
*Note this is AMT's info. It should work. If not please report here I can provide alternate workarounds if it does not*
User:  admin

Password to ssh is:
root\stone201405

Since AMT has chosen to take down or delete the dropbox link I am rehosting it here. http://tinyurl.com/q5rl56g This is the amt_a1_0820v01 a.img.bz2 file they posted.

Here is a FULL backup of the stock image. The ONLY modification on it is the IP address which is 192.168.0.245. As AMT has ceased to support any of their stuff, it seems appropriate to post it here.
Please note this is a torrent link. Use the torrent client of your choice do download it.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3UUG3LZWZI52GD2IVZG6L6YSKZVDLJHM&dn=AMTImage&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3a80&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.ccc.de%3a80&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.istole.it%3a80&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.publicbt.com%3a80


FINAL THOUGHTS

This miner is not as efficient as it could be. Considering the size, and power consumption on the miner 1300, not to mention the various other issues that customers have had with just getting them, I cannot recommend this as an option to purchase. For comparison on price AMT charges 1200-1350 for these devices (again a problem as its a variable price) for what basically is 1Ths @ 1200 watts. Compared to the same amount you could spend on 4 Bitmain Antminer S3s get 1.8Ths @ 1475W for the same price. The choice here is clear. Despite my other issues with the company, the device is well built. BUT they really need to work on power consumption.

[tarmi]

full of dust, why I am not surprised.

[opieum2]

full of dust, why I am not surprised.

That was all on the exterior. I won't go into my opinions on it, but in this case it was on the outside. The interior was actually fairly clean. Did not see much if any dust at all.

[Syke]

What is the purpose of all those pieces of sheet metal?

[opieum2]

What is the purpose of all those pieces of sheet metal?

<snip>

I think to add weight. My guess for some shipping purpose. I have seen HP do something similar with some hardware. Once I got to see a 4 foot box packed to the brim with paper only to contain....2 sticks of memory. So logic is lost in this. That said I am putting the metal to use lol. Having someone smelt it down and forge it into armor plates for me. There was enough there to make some armour pieces from it.

[theerachate]

First time I see someone put their mining equipment in their living room   Nice pictures by the way

[loshia]

I am curios if you will post pool graphs of your miners in part two and power usage on/in/at the wall
And they are of course well build for stuff made in china there is some dust here and there but having in mind 6 mounts delay and price paid you gona live true it I am sure
By the way how much did you paid for this?
I just forgot....oh yes when your payment was accepted ?

Look from the bright sight winter is coming so it may be double purpose equipment
And do not forget to become a regular amt customer from no on

[opieum2]

I am curios if you will post pool graphs of your miners in part two and power usage on/in/at the wall
And they are of course well build for stuff made in china there is some dust here and there but having in mind 6 mounts delay and price paid you gona live true it I am sure
By the way how much did you paid for this?
I just forgot....oh yes when your payment was accepted ?

Look from the bright sight winter is coming so it may be double purpose equipment
And do not forget to become a regular amt customer from no on

No need to troll and be a dick. We all know the story of AMT I am not the only one in this boat. I am just trying to make the best of a shitty situation. But hey you clearly get your jollies by rubbing it in when people are in a bad situation. Not the first time you have done that either. Or me calling you out on it. It is what it is.

[loshia]

Then please be so kind and finish your noble job
Besides people do post prices of the miners reviewed for sure.
Post pool graphs and power consumption like everybody who are reviewing hardware please?
Will you do that?
From this review I can see nothing
Just a boxes full of metal that is all and a cable mess al over
Are they working at all
You are about to reveal that fact right?
Ps
By the way before leaving the impression to newbies that amt are delivering please make sure to state when this pice of metal was paid. Just make a newbies a favor and do not push them towards amt. Will you?
As you said we know the story but did they know it also?

[Bicknellski]

I am curios if you will post pool graphs of your miners in part two and power usage on/in/at the wall
And they are of course well build for stuff made in china there is some dust here and there but having in mind 6 mounts delay and price paid you gona live true it I am sure
By the way how much did you paid for this?
I just forgot....oh yes when your payment was accepted ?

Look from the bright sight winter is coming so it may be double purpose equipment
And do not forget to become a regular amt customer from no on

No need to troll and be a dick. We all know the story of AMT I am not the only one in this boat. I am just trying to make the best of a shitty situation. But hey you clearly get your jollies by rubbing it in when people are in a bad situation. Not the first time you have done that either. Or me calling you out on it. It is what it is.

Wondering how  much Marto74 "helped out" with AMT? And to what degree Loshia is part of the mess as well that is AMT given he is the lapdog of Marto74. Surprising Phin hasn't turned his hate filled racist bile in Marto and Loshia's direction then you might actually see where all this leads given the "support" AMT was given by Technobit.

[loshia]

I was asking just for fair review that is all
The rest of the story  is in my signature  
Dear Bick ......

[rik_khaos]

No power supply can't get mine up and running yet

[gitbknowsall]

seems a bit used. will you make roi ? not speculative roi.

[asprin]

seems a bit used. will you make roi ? not speculative roi.

Hell no, not without extra hashing power to compensate for the 18 billion increase in network difficulty since the time we ordered until the time delivered.  No way.

[opieum2]

seems a bit used. will you make roi ? not speculative roi.

Hell no, not without extra hashing power to compensate for the 18 billion increase in network difficulty since the time we ordered until the time delivered.  No way.

+1 to this. Unless the price of BTC more than doubles then it likely will not happen. As was noted we paid 6k for this hardware months ago and no comp appears to be on the way. AMT has publicly stated they would once they settle their other cases. But they could just as likely lose that so getting comp is easily just as speculative.

[opieum2]

I was asking just for fair review that is all
The rest of the story  is in my signature  
Dear Bick ......

I guess the question is how is the review NOT fair? I posted up pics. And as noted in the title it is WIP (Work IN Progress). I got plenty more coming and I am going to be editing alot of what I have done to comment on my experiences with setting it up. This will accurately reflect the other experiences people are having. I know english is not your first language but take the time to read it carefully and you will see that I have been trying to keep the drama out of the review. My goal is to do an unbiased review as much as possible. As far as the physical build with the units I got they are well built. If you are expecting me to say they suck ass I am no going to lie about that. The physical build is excellent. Once I start the performance, power, hashing, temps, that might change there. Or it might work as advertised. I will post my findings once I have them. My reserved posts will cover all that.

If you still want to troll it out and rub it in, I will state it here. I paid 6K for this months ago and got what is a 1200 dollar machine now. Does it suck? Hell yes it sucks. BUT as I said I am making the best of a shitty situation and it just shows your character that you feel the need to rub in other peoples bad situation into their face. I get if you are going at AMT, but you are now attacking the customers not just me with those comments. Because pointing out anything here also reflects them as well as we all made that same unfortunate choice to go with AMT on this.

As I said and last time I am saying this. The review is on the merits of the hardware and its performance ONLY I covered the unpacking experience as well so people know what to expect. I got lucky and got one well packed unit and a second box full of metal plates cardboard. If its well built and it performs as advertised they will get credit for it. Of course I referenced the other threads so people can clearly see how they have operated and let those comments stand on their own. I got two miners to compare performance stats from. So it will be an apples to apples comparison to see how consistent it is. It will be a few days before I get it all up. But I am working on it.

[Syke]

I guess the question is how is the review NOT fair?

At this point it's just an unboxing slideshow. Get part 2 posted with power, hashing, UI, etc.

[opieum2]

I guess the question is how is the review NOT fair?

At this point it's just an unboxing slideshow. Get part 2 posted with power, hashing, UI, etc.

Yea thats the plan. Again once the review is finished I will remove the WIP from the title. As it is there are some config issues. Reading the other threads you will see there are quite a few people having similar problems. I actually got lucky with getting PSUs in my units. Issues are with configs and a backup of the original image for archival purposes. The config issues will ALSO be reflected in the review. This won't be all positive and happy. But I will give praise where deserved and criticism where deserved as well.