ANTMINER S4 Discussion and Support Thread

[bolehvpn]

Hi... For those using the batch 1 PSUs the burning down thing is a real risk. I just avoided a near catastrophic disaster. The miner wasn't powering on so I decided to try another power cable and it turned on and was running fine and even started hashing. Suddenly I heard the fans going nuts... And when I went into the room a chemical smell was in the air and smoke was billowing out of my psu.

And just so that you guys don't say I am bad mouthing Bitmain here is a video I took right after I turned everything off. The cable is a proven cable and there are no signs of melting on it.
Bitmaintech S4 B1 on fire: http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

Please kindly let me know what compensation Bitmain can offer. They have not responded to my emails on the psu replacement.

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[ThePhwner]

I had one of those "exploding" PSUs. After contacting Bitmain it only took ~1 week after getting the replacement PSU, but unfortunately the miner still does not work.
When starting the fans are running at highest speed all time, without slowing down (not even after 10+ minutes). Furthermore the display does not show anything and the device can not be found on the network, even not after resetting it. I assume the controller board also has problems after the PSU "explosion", in fact it stinks a bit as the PSU did. What can I do now?
Is there a safe way to disassemble the controller board without destroying it? I tried to pull one of the cables which lead to the hashing units carefully and had a feeling that the whole connector is going to come out...
Kind regards

P.S.:
Already contacted support yesterday, but did not get a response yet.

Do you have some pics? Another miner I know had the same issue with the S4 PSU catching on fire using a 110V source. He got the runaround from Bitmain who offered only to replace the PSU; he even talked to the Bitmain rep at the booth at Hashers last week. This seems like more of an issue than Bitmain is willing to let on.

[dlowings]

I had one of those "exploding" PSUs. After contacting Bitmain it only took ~1 week after getting the replacement PSU, but unfortunately the miner still does not work.
When starting the fans are running at highest speed all time, without slowing down (not even after 10+ minutes). Furthermore the display does not show anything and the device can not be found on the network, even not after resetting it. I assume the controller board also has problems after the PSU "explosion", in fact it stinks a bit as the PSU did. What can I do now?
Is there a safe way to disassemble the controller board without destroying it? I tried to pull one of the cables which lead to the hashing units carefully and had a feeling that the whole connector is going to come out...
Kind regards

P.S.:
Already contacted support yesterday, but did not get a response yet.

Take a VERY close look at your control board. there is a good chance that when the PSU blew it took the control board with it . If you have a good working S4 Bitmain will advise you to try and switch it out with a known working control board ..

[bolehvpn]

For the record I was on a 230v during my psu burn. This is no joke...and no inverted commas...frickin thing almost brought the whole place down if I wasn't there.

[dlowings]

I had one of those "exploding" PSUs. After contacting Bitmain it only took ~1 week after getting the replacement PSU, but unfortunately the miner still does not work.
When starting the fans are running at highest speed all time, without slowing down (not even after 10+ minutes). Furthermore the display does not show anything and the device can not be found on the network, even not after resetting it. I assume the controller board also has problems after the PSU "explosion", in fact it stinks a bit as the PSU did. What can I do now?
Is there a safe way to disassemble the controller board without destroying it? I tried to pull one of the cables which lead to the hashing units carefully and had a feeling that the whole connector is going to come out...
Kind regards

P.S.:
Already contacted support yesterday, but did not get a response yet.

Do you have some pics? Another miner I know had the same issue with the S4 PSU catching on fire using a 110V source. He got the runaround from Bitmain who offered only to replace the PSU; he even talked to the Bitmain rep at the booth at Hashers last week. This seems like more of an issue than Bitmain is willing to let on.

I don't think there is any reason to blow this out of perspective, I have 4 units and one of the PSU's exploded. Bitmain told me that they are sending me replacement PSU's but I have not seen anything yet. I also provided them with pics of the unit and I have not yet got my 10 day return on my downed miner but I'm content on waiting a little bit for that. My only concern right now is that I have one unit completely off line.. I know it will get resolved, my ONLY concern is the amount of time it takes.. Due to the price and cost of shipping of these units I'm REALLY up against a wall for ROI … In short I'm trying to say, I feel Bitmain will resolve all of this but its going to cost me money in the end …  

[dlowings]

For the record I was on a 230v during my psu burn. This is no joke...and no inverted commas...frickin thing almost brought the whole place down if I wasn't there.

I think these units are UL certified so that should limit any risk on the house going up… I had one blow in my rack on a rolling reboot of all the units. It made a noise and had a burnt smell. On inspection I can see where it tried to burn but the steel case that the PSU is in prevented the spread of fire nicely .

[bolehvpn]

Did you see the video I posted?

http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

This wasn't a burnt smell only. visible smoke billowing and this was after it had calmed down a bit.

[dlowings]

For the record I was on a 230v during my psu burn. This is no joke...and no inverted commas...frickin thing almost brought the whole place down if I wasn't there.

I think these units are UL certified so that should limit any risk on the house going up… I had one blow in my rack on a rolling reboot of all the units. It made a noise and had a burnt smell. On inspection I can see where it tried to burn but the steel case that the PSU is in prevented the spread of fire nicely .

This is off topic, take your back and forth somewhere else please .

[dlowings]

Did you see the video I posted?

http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

This wasn't a burnt smell only. visible smoke billowing and this was after it had calmed down a bit.

I had the smoke as well, but on inspection I feel it came from the grey pad that is attached to the inside of the unit… I still feel there was no risk of a real fire, short of having a ton of news papers around your miner…

[bolehvpn]

Why are my S4 going up in flames an off topic discussion as opposed to hate on Dogie and BAN? This is a S4 support thread is it not

[dlowings]

Did you see the video I posted?

http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

This wasn't a burnt smell only. visible smoke billowing and this was after it had calmed down a bit.

Nice video, looked about the same as my setup…

[dlowings]

Why are my S4 going up in flames an off topic discussion as opposed to hate on Dogie and BAN? This is a S4 support thread is it not

sorry about that, I have no clue how that appended to your message… I was talking about the back and forth bickering. I personally think Dogie needs to just stop responding to certain people… That would be the professional thing to do .

[dlowings]

Did you see the video I posted?

http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

This wasn't a burnt smell only. visible smoke billowing and this was after it had calmed down a bit.

Here is where smoke comes from ….


http://postimg.org/image/3ulmdi42d/

As you can see the case did its job in preventing the flash point from going any further.

[tempestb]

Honestly, miner manufacturers should just have us buy our own PSU's and avoid all the issues of fires, cables, CE markings, customs issues, not to mention the extra weight to ship it out.  If they want to recommend a PSU and provide a spot in the case for it, so it can be racked properly (For those units designed for racks) great.  But stop with the wholesale PSU market, somebody is going to die before too long and that's the last thing we need in the Bitcoin negative news of the week.  Just one man's opinion.

[dlowings]

Honestly, miner manufacturers should just have us buy our own PSU's and avoid all the issues of fires, cables, CE markings, customs issues, not to mention the extra weight to ship it out.  If they want to recommend a PSU and provide a spot in the case for it, so it can be racked properly (For those units designed for racks) great.  But stop with the wholesale PSU market, somebody is going to die before too long and that's the last thing we need in the Bitcoin negative news of the week.  Just one man's opinion.

As long as the PSU fits inside the unit like the S2 and S4 I'm fine with that. You have to remember that a lot of us, myself included need a rack mount solution. Now for the bad news, due to the rate of increase on difficulty and the amount of chips required in these units, Bitmain is going to be pressed to keep future home miners in these small cases like the S1, and S3. There will be a day where you will need 2 THs as an entry level, that day is coming. Bitmain from what I can tell is TRYING to keep the home miners in the game but more people need to support the form factor of the S2 and S4, That WILL be the future … As I stated months ago, Bitmain needed to STRONGLY focus their R&D on the form factor of the S2… The S4 fit that bill, and I believe that they will resolve the issues… going forward, I suspect they MAY have to look into another controller, or look into a split brain setup of some type… I hope that this water cool unit is a novelty, I don't see it being a long term solution .

[klondike_bar]

Honestly, miner manufacturers should just have us buy our own PSU's and avoid all the issues of fires, cables, CE markings, customs issues, not to mention the extra weight to ship it out.  If they want to recommend a PSU and provide a spot in the case for it, so it can be racked properly (For those units designed for racks) great.  But stop with the wholesale PSU market, somebody is going to die before too long and that's the last thing we need in the Bitcoin negative news of the week.  Just one man's opinion.

Integrated PSU can be a very good option if it is a decent psu and particularly if the miner and psu work well together.

Look at the spondoolies gear for an example - the miner website can tell you the voltage, wattage draw, and many other helpful details about how the psu is operating, and the slim psu being built in makes the spondoolies hardware the absolute best for plug-and-play.

Messing with external psus and wiring can get crazy. A clean solution is the key.

[dogie]

Honestly, miner manufacturers should just have us buy our own PSU's and avoid all the issues of fires, cables, CE markings, customs issues, not to mention the extra weight to ship it out.  If they want to recommend a PSU and provide a spot in the case for it, so it can be racked properly (For those units designed for racks) great.  But stop with the wholesale PSU market, somebody is going to die before too long and that's the last thing we need in the Bitcoin negative news of the week.  Just one man's opinion.

Integrated PSU can be a very good option if it is a decent psu and particularly if the miner and psu work well together.

Look at the spondoolies gear for an example - the miner website can tell you the voltage, wattage draw, and many other helpful details about how the psu is operating, and the slim psu being built in makes the spondoolies hardware the absolute best for plug-and-play.

Messing with external psus and wiring can get crazy. A clean solution is the key.

Lets be honest, of everything they do well, PSUs are not one of them. They're so loud that they exclude themselves from any inhabited buildings, where as if they went to a larger formfactor and could use ATX PSUs there wouldn't be that problem.

[dogie]

Hi... For those using the batch 1 PSUs the burning down thing is a real risk. I just avoided a near catastrophic disaster. The miner wasn't powering on so I decided to try another power cable and it turned on and was running fine and even started hashing. Suddenly I heard the fans going nuts... And when I went into the room a chemical smell was in the air and smoke was billowing out of my psu.

And just so that you guys don't say I am bad mouthing Bitmain here is a video I took right after I turned everything off. The cable is a proven cable and there are no signs of melting on it.
Bitmaintech S4 B1 on fire: http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

Please kindly let me know what compensation Bitmain can offer. They have not responded to my emails on the psu replacement.

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=796839.msg9207574#msg9207574

[bolehvpn]

Hi... For those using the batch 1 PSUs the burning down thing is a real risk. I just avoided a near catastrophic disaster. The miner wasn't powering on so I decided to try another power cable and it turned on and was running fine and even started hashing. Suddenly I heard the fans going nuts... And when I went into the room a chemical smell was in the air and smoke was billowing out of my psu.

And just so that you guys don't say I am bad mouthing Bitmain here is a video I took right after I turned everything off. The cable is a proven cable and there are no signs of melting on it.
Bitmaintech S4 B1 on fire: http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

Please kindly let me know what compensation Bitmain can offer. They have not responded to my emails on the psu replacement.

See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=796839.msg9207574#msg9207574

Yes have replied to that email when they sent it out but haven't heard back from them. and the psu failed completely after I replied to them....

[mindtrip]

Did you see the video I posted?

http://youtu.be/uiZPOZcI20o

This wasn't a burnt smell only. visible smoke billowing and this was after it had calmed down a bit.

Mine looked the same when it smoked as well