My S4 arrived yesterday (YEA!) and is now happily hashing away at 2240GH/s, slightly overclocked from 200mhz to 225mhz.
First, some initial observations:
0. I was very happy with how fast it shipped (early AM on the 29th as promised) and arrived (two days later, on Oct 1 as estimated) and enjoyed tracking its progress from China to Pennsylvania via Alaska, through customs, etc.
1. It was packaged well — thanks for the four little rubber feet, for those of us who don’t have a 19” server rack to mount it in!
2. I thought it was DOA because the PSU fan came on (slightly) but the thing didn’t *actually* turn on (fans, network, LCD display) until I discovered the tiny little black power “button” sticking out of the back of the PSU. I was so mad by then I was ready to scream!
3. and then, OMG, The Understatement Of The Year was on Bitmain’s product page, where it mentions that the fans are:
“a little bit noisy”
Holy Cow! The thing sounds like a twin-engine Cessna taking off, blasting to full power the moment the power finally does come on. I swear I must've jumped about 3 feet in the air. And, then (exactly the opposite of the S3’s, which spin up *after* hashing starts) they quiet down once the thing finishes booting. The good news is once it starts hashing, the fans haven't gone back to that super loud highest power, since the thing has been running cool as a cucumber so far!
4. Nice logo on the LCD. Nice iridescent blue glow now filling my darkened basement. To all the haters saying it'll never pay for itself, I don't mine for (fiat) money, or even to better the network. I heat and light my basement with the byproducts from a bitmuseum of obsolete mining machines ...and one day maybe the bitcoins I collect will be worth a kajillion USD and then I'll have the last laugh :-) ...and in the meantime? My blinky lights are cooler than your blinky lights!
Now for the: Questions That Are Eating Away At Me Currently
Power Cord: The Bitmain site says the A/C power cord (that they don't supply) must be rated for 6 amps ("Power line not included. You may look for one line with no less than 16A in your local market"). Those are kinda hard to find! I'm currently powering the S4 with a standard 10A PC power supply power cord. I do have a 16A one (it came with my EVGA SuperNOVA 1300G2 power supply, but it's busy powering my two S3's). You can definitely feel the thicker wire gauge, heavier weight and increased stiffness in the 16 amp compared to the flimsy-by-comparison standard 10 amp AC cords. But I had lots of flimsy 10 amp cords laying around and I wasn't about to wait 2 more days to start hashing while i wait for this new one to arrive:
Tripp Lite Heavy Duty Power Cord, 16A,14AWG (NEMA 5-15P to IEC-320-C15) 8-ft.(P019-008)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0091F8GP6/ $21.22 (free 2 day shipping if you have Amazon Prime)
So my first question is:
A. Does the S4 really *need* this monster $20 A/C cord?
-- or (put into more practical terms) --
2. is my house gonna burn down today (with my family in it) while I'm at work cuz I couldn't wait to start hashing? or
III. DId I just waste $20 on a monster A/C cord because Bitmain exaggerated its requirements?
And Question #2:
In the S4 manual
https://bitmaintech.com/files/download/Antminer%20S4%20Manual_EN_2014.9.29.pdf 9on page 4 where it "explains" how to overclock the thing, it says):
"Voltage needs to be modified when adjusting the frequency."
But while the Frequency drop-down list presents an impressive and tantalizing selection of possible frequencies that I can't wait to tell it to (try to) run at, there is no mention whatsoever what corresponding voltages need to be entered into the Voltage (which is, unhelpfully, a) free-form text input, in order for it to run optimally at those dizzying speeds!
For now I've left the voltage at the "stock" value of 0275 (0.725 Volt) when I upped the frequency to 225 from 200 but, from all the S3 overclocking info hereabouts, it seems like the voltage *should* need adjustment too, so [the question part of the question is]:
Does anyone have a table of the correct voltages for these various preset frequencies like those that we have in the S3's /etc/config/asic-freq file, and the the mods for it, that are seen all over these forums?
Thanks!
-dave
