ANTMINER S4 Discussion and Support Thread

[dogie]

Why? Isn't it better to include PSU? Its more neat

1) You can quickly replace the PSU at your local shop if something go wrong with it, without necessity to send it back to China and so on;
2) Shipping cost usually depends directly on the weight of the package, and good qualitative PSU weighs several kg (2.3 for Corsair AX1200i).

Very likely that these are two main reasons.  

1) No you can't, unless you want to spend $350 on a PSU. You also can't because of the formfactor.
2) It depends on weight and volumetric weight. Most of these units's boxes are sized so their volumetric weight matches the shipping weight. There isn't that much flexibility to suddenly make the boxes smaller.

Server Power supplies are so cheap so, why should we go to $350 premium ones.
My assumption is that, S1, S3 are for DIY people and S2, S4 are for non-DIYs, so, PSU without an S2 and S4 even if prices are higher.

Because 1) not everyone is comfortable handling server PSUs with exposed terminals, and especially ones which require you to provide the cooling, and 2) ATX PSUs have a value after you're done with them, especially the high end ones which have insane warranties, 3) there is no warranty on a used server PSU.

Its personal choice, I was just suggesting that requiring everyone to put their own PSUs in doesn't make a lot of sense.

[aurel57]

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

As I read this I can see myself as I am sure many others can as well. Looking back when I started with buying my first 30 Bitcoins @$130 each so I could get 15 USB miners in a group buy to spending my mined coins until I had 75 of them running, then selling moving on to BFL singles selling them for the S1's and now down to 4 S'3 in the basement still mining .... It's been like catching a falling knife but I am done. Thinking of right now to sell off two of my miners and turning the last to "out to pasture" in your solo pool.

[allcoinminer]

Thanks for doing a very impressive reality write-up by ckolivas.
I quoted it to a new thread due to its importance especially for newbies.
Don't like to bury them after a new page.
The discussions regarding this may be continued there for keeping this tread clean.
New Thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=827480

[moss]

How low would the price of bitcoin need to fall for mining to be unsustainable for the big mining companies?  If the resulting dramatic reduction in network hash caused a corresponding reduction in difficulty, would mining then become sustainable again for the home miner?

It no longer matters what the numbers are. For even if the value of bitcoin would drop to, for example, 1/10th of what it is, it is guaranteed that more than 1/10th of the existing big miners will remain. They will always be at an advantage compared to you, and the investment on their side has already happened so you'll push out the least efficient of the big miners but keep the most efficient of them. If anything, the other way is more likely to bring home miners in, but it will only be a temporary effect which will be offset by yet more big miner investors, and the stakes will be higher than ever. The only chance small miners have is for bitcoin to become small time again, so the value would have to drop to 1/100th or less of what it is, and stay there for an extended period.

Speaking purely from investment terms, it's a curious phenomenon that in the history of bitcoin, you could always convert dollars into more bitcoin than any mining machine you could buy with those dollars would generate over its lifetime, yet people inevitably choose to buy bitcoin miners because of the concept of buying a "money making machine". It is the most expensive and technically challenging way to convert dollars into bitcoin. By far the most money anyone ever made off ASIC hardware are those who purchased avalon generation 1. At bitcoin prices when the avalon was first announced, there is still a chance they'd be better off just having converted their dollars into bitcoin at that time. When the avalon actually arrived they were a steal at 60GH @ 1500$=80BTC but you could not order them any more since they were always preorders (how much is 80BTC worth now?). I think bitcoin was worth less when they made their Avalon preorders so they were much more than 80BTC. They may have been the one exception and ironically the first ASIC ever so they capitalised on the diff at the time.

It's funny because for years people would happily expand/extend their hardware for reasons that had nothing to do with making money, like having the best gaming machine, or the best Mprime or setiathome or folding@home results or whatever. Yet the attraction of bitcoin mining has been that the hardware expansion you've been doing has been in the quest for return on investment. It has clouded people's judgement and brought in a different population of miners compared to the population it grew from. Somehow people lost sight of the fact that bitcoin mining moved from the former group of enthusiasts to a massive money making venture and the former group unintentionally became part of the latter group unwittingly, and then started complaining that they would never make a return on investment (which strictly speaking is incorrect, they mean they would never pay off their hardware). People got caught in the bitcoin mining wave and unintentionally converted from hobbyists to real money investors, and that's the real crime here.

Many thanks for your excellent reply, ck.  There's such a rush to buy the latest kit as soon as it comes out that it's really hard not to get swept along with it.  The next time I get tempted, I am going to definitely going to re-read your post!  Your solo pool is starting to look mighty attractive!  Cheers.

[bellasage]

Hi everyone,

Finally ! got my S4 up and working as she should. She purrs ...
Thank you Dogie for all your time and effort in helping me  , turns out an exe and some of the downloads were corrupted for me , lesson learned to never try to install or set up anything when overtired.

I do have a question ,since I'm a noob .. can someone tell me about the frequency in the antminer S4 , what should it typically be set to and why so I can understand its purpose better. At the moment mine is at default 200M ..

Thanks

[Prelude]

Thank you so much for the time you've invested to make the S4 more funtional, ckolivas. I'm going to send you a donation tomorrow morning.

I'd like to try ck's new version tomorrow, but I have no idea how to go about updating cgminer. Can anyone shed some light, or point me towards a guide?

Assuming your S4's IP address was say 192.168.1.99:

Code:

ssh -l root 192.168.1.99 (or equivalent with putty)
wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/antminer/s4/4.6.1-141018/cgminer
mv /usr/bin/cgminer /usr/bin/cgminer.bak
chmod +x cgminer
mv cgminer /usr/bin/cgminer
/etc/init.d/cgminer.sh restart

I think that might not keep across a power cycle though.

Thanks for that, just finished upgrading. Also changed out --que-8192 for --lowmem. One issue, though; when I screen -r I no longer see the general cgminer stats at the top of the terminal window, this is what I get:



Is that normal or did I screw something up?

[-ck]

Thanks for that, just finished upgrading. Also changed out --que-8192 for --lowmem. One issue, though; when I screen -r I no longer see the general cgminer stats at the top of the terminal window, this is what I get:

Is that normal or did I screw something up?

Yes I didn't build my binary with the text user interface support. It was easier to minimise the dependencies since it involves a messy cross compilation, and the text interface does nothing useful for the web interface.

[Prelude]

Thanks for that, just finished upgrading. Also changed out --que-8192 for --lowmem. One issue, though; when I screen -r I no longer see the general cgminer stats at the top of the terminal window, this is what I get:

Is that normal or did I screw something up?

Yes I didn't build my binary with the text user interface support. It was easier to minimise the dependencies since it involves a messy cross compilation, and the text interface does nothing useful for the web interface.

Ok, thanks for the explanation. Rig is hashing much better with this build, seeing an increased reported hashrate on slush.

[dogie]

Hi everyone,

Finally ! got my S4 up and working as she should. She purrs ...
Thank you Dogie for all your time and effort in helping me  , turns out an exe and some of the downloads were corrupted for me , lesson learned to never try to install or set up anything when overtired.

I do have a question ,since I'm a noob .. can someone tell me about the frequency in the antminer S4 , what should it typically be set to and why so I can understand its purpose better. At the moment mine is at default 200M ..

Thanks

Leave it at 200M for now, there isn't too much headroom on the PSUs.

[Rabinovitch]

Are people buying it? Or we can hope for price dropping?..

[bolehvpn]

Why hasn't bitmain replied to my e-mail when other people are already receiving their replacement PSUs?

Also is there a way to tell if my incoming Batch 2s are the old PSUs or the new ones? Or do I have to open it up?

I opened up the first layer of casing but am not sure how to disassemble the PSU further. Any help?

[dkaufman]

Why hasn't bitmain replied to my e-mail when other people are already receiving their replacement PSUs?

Also is there a way to tell if my incoming Batch 2s are the old PSUs or the new ones? Or do I have to open it up?

I opened up the first layer of casing but am not sure how to disassemble the PSU further. Any help?

All new units should ship with the new PSU's.  But yes, to confirm you'd need to open it up and look for the bardcode on the outside of the PSU.  The old power supplies did not have a barcode, the new ones do.  At least that's what Dogie said, a page back or two...

-dave

[NotFuzzyWarm]

;d

Thank you so much for the time you've invested to make the S4 more funtional, ckolivas. I'm going to send you a donation tomorrow morning.

I'd like to try ck's new version tomorrow, but I have no idea how to go about updating cgminer. Can anyone shed some light, or point me towards a guide?

Assuming your S4's IP address was say 192.168.1.99:

Code:

ssh -l root 192.168.1.99 (or equivalent with putty)
wget http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/antminer/s4/4.6.1-141018/cgminer
mv /usr/bin/cgminer /usr/bin/cgminer.bak
chmod +x cgminer
mv cgminer /usr/bin/cgminer
/etc/init.d/cgminer.sh restart

I think that might not keep across a power cycle though.

Installed your new binary last night on the S4 I have at home and now works great on EMC pool Prior to the update was averaging 1.66ths there with swing from 1.4 up to ocassionally 1.94ths with worker dif wildly swinging between 1.2k to 1.86k.

Now diff bangs around between 1.46k and 1.87k and on EMC it's averaging 1.95-2.0THs, swing is from 1.7ish up to occasionally 2.3THs. Damn fine work with the Voodoo that you do so well

Now to see if it works on my other s4 that is at work. Made a backup of the working s4 and will apply it to the other one. That one never gets over 25ghs on EMC so is currently pointed at CKpool where its works perfect.

[dogie]

Why hasn't bitmain replied to my e-mail when other people are already receiving their replacement PSUs?

Also is there a way to tell if my incoming Batch 2s are the old PSUs or the new ones? Or do I have to open it up?

I opened up the first layer of casing but am not sure how to disassemble the PSU further. Any help?

All new units should ship with the new PSU's.  But yes, to confirm you'd need to open it up and look for the bardcode on the outside of the PSU.  The old power supplies did not have a barcode, the new ones do.  At least that's what Dogie said, a page back or two...

-dave

This. New PSUs have a barcode.

[dlowings]

What is up with the new PSU ship date … I still have a miner down and almost past the point where 10 days mining compensation would not help me … Just trying to get a time frame on when we will get our credit and our PSU … Please tell me that our 10 day mining credit will not come in the form of coupons…

[dogie]

What is up with the new PSU ship date … I still have a miner down and almost past the point where 10 days mining compensation would not help me … Just trying to get a time frame on when we will get our credit and our PSU … Please tell me that our 10 day mining credit will not come in the form of coupons…

Don't know specific dates but they're being actively shipped. The credit [as I was last told] will be in btc.

[dlowings]

What is up with the new PSU ship date … I still have a miner down and almost past the point where 10 days mining compensation would not help me … Just trying to get a time frame on when we will get our credit and our PSU … Please tell me that our 10 day mining credit will not come in the form of coupons…

Don't know specific dates but they're being actively shipped. The credit [as I was last told] will be in btc.

Trying to figure out how 1028 s3 coupons will be of any value to me

[bgibso01]

So I was bored and did a little math on my current btc situation regarding the S4:

Bitcoins on hand    13.34
Avg Cost    242.57
Basis    3,236.61
   
Estimated Current Price    385.00
Total Current Value    5,137.06
   
Gain if sold    1,900.44
   
   
Antminer S4 Cost    1,250.00
Less Coupon    (200.00)
    1,050.00
   
Bitcoins at current value    2.73
   
Basis of S4 Unit    661.55
   
   
Estimated BTC Earned 7 months   3.357298701
   
At Estimated Current Price    1,292.56
   
Gain on 1 unit    631.01
   
# of units on hand btc could buy    4.89
   
Profit of units    3,087.15

This seems to make good sense until you factor in shipping. Once that's done, it's practically the same gain as selling coins. Not only that, but a 7 month horizon is probably too long a time for bitcoin risk. Oh well, just thought I'd share.

[bolehvpn]

Here's another binary for S4 owners
http://ck.kolivas.org/apps/cgminer/antminer/s4/4.6.1-141018/cgminer

This one works a heck of a lot better on pools that wouldn't work previously, and slightly better on the rest.

I can confirm this.

Take a look at this hash graph with the new binary on a Batch 1 Antminer S4 (not yet replaced PSU).

Thanks ckolivas!

[ImogenV]

Why hasn't bitmain replied to my e-mail when other people are already receiving their replacement PSUs?

I replied to bitmain (shao) on the 15th Oct regarding the replacement psu.
Today they (shao) emailed me saying he is still waiting for my email regarding the replacement psu.

I took some screenshots of my sent email, and emailed them once again.

Maybe they did not receive your original reply to their email.