ANTMINER S4 Discussion and Support Thread

[yslyung]

i want S5 but not batch 1 ... unless s4 prices drops dramatically !

[Bitkoinzz]

How many people have upgraded the S4 firmware to: initramfs.bin.SD-20141016.tar.gz from the bitmain website?

I only ask because mine is still running on the factory firmware no problem with difficulty manually set, so I'm kind of wondering if I should bother with the upgrade.

I upgraded all of my S4's to this firmware and gained at least 5% hashing speed on the pool. I also set difficulty to 2048. 225 Mhz 0725 volts . They are all hashing at least 2200 and are stable meaning I don't have to hard reboot them every day for crashed chips or reduced hashing speeds.

After I reset to factory setting and set difficulty to 2048. 225 Mhz 0725 volts, I too am hashing at least 2200. It's very stable so far for past 24 hours. Thanks for the info. 

You bet brother. We are setting up 240 volts next week and I am going to overclock and see what happens.

[Sandhog]

How many people have upgraded the S4 firmware to: initramfs.bin.SD-20141016.tar.gz from the bitmain website?

I only ask because mine is still running on the factory firmware no problem with difficulty manually set, so I'm kind of wondering if I should bother with the upgrade.

I upgraded all of my S4's to this firmware and gained at least 5% hashing speed on the pool. I also set difficulty to 2048. 225 Mhz 0725 volts . They are all hashing at least 2200 and are stable meaning I don't have to hard reboot them every day for crashed chips or reduced hashing speeds.

After I reset to factory setting and set difficulty to 2048. 225 Mhz 0725 volts, I too am hashing at least 2200. It's very stable so far for past 24 hours. Thanks for the info. 

You bet brother. We are setting up 240 volts next week and I am going to overclock and see what happens.

Thanks. Keep us posted on overclock to other setting. I'm happy with current overclock setting but if it can get more hashing with stability of overclocking beyond 225, I would like that. I only have one S4 so I want to keep mining without experimenting like I did with S1s or S3s.

[sEpuLchEr]

Thanks. Keep us posted on overclock to other setting. I'm happy with current overclock setting but if it can get more hashing with stability of overclocking beyond 225, I would like that. I only have one S4 so I want to keep mining without experimenting like I did with S1s or S3s.

That's about the max you can do with the stock psu.

Althought I have tried going up to 231.25 at 0726 and it was stable. But I'm using 220/240 circuits so it's pulling less amps.

[Sandhog]

Thanks. Keep us posted on overclock to other setting. I'm happy with current overclock setting but if it can get more hashing with stability of overclocking beyond 225, I would like that. I only have one S4 so I want to keep mining without experimenting like I did with S1s or S3s.

That's about the max you can do with the stock psu.

Althought I have tried going up to 231.25 at 0726 and it was stable. But I'm using 220/240 circuits so it's pulling less amps.

Thanks. I don't think that I want to invest on PSU that cost as much as S4 itself. It would be cheaper to just get another S4 with coupon than higher wattage PSU to overclock beyond what is allow with stock PSU.

[Rabinovitch]

Does the S2 lifetime warranty?

Could you confirm this?
...We have already contacted Bitmain and they state that item is under lifetime warranty and boards may be returned for repair or replacement for free.  We would like to sell item instead of going to taking the time to return. ...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=870784.0

Checking, might be a while as quite a few staff heading to the St Peters' conference.

Hi dogie, are there any news?..

[MyRig]

May be something got lost in the translation... 

All Antminer Product comes with 90-day parts replacement warranty.

Sent you PM.  Please check! 

Does the S2 lifetime warranty?

Could you confirm this?
...We have already contacted Bitmain and they state that item is under lifetime warranty and boards may be returned for repair or replacement for free.  We would like to sell item instead of going to taking the time to return. ...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=870784.0

Checking, might be a while as quite a few staff heading to the St Peters' conference.

Hi dogie, are there any news?..

[sEpuLchEr]

New chip specs out from bitmain BM1384! Looks like S5 is not far away and comparing to BM1382, much better efficiency.

https://bitmaintech.com/files/download/BM1384_Datasheet_v2.1.pdf

[dogie]

Does the S2 lifetime warranty?

Could you confirm this?
...We have already contacted Bitmain and they state that item is under lifetime warranty and boards may be returned for repair or replacement for free.  We would like to sell item instead of going to taking the time to return. ...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=870784.0

Checking, might be a while as quite a few staff heading to the St Peters' conference.

Hi dogie, are there any news?..

Its a 90 day warranty, maybe I had replied to someone's PM asking.

[RealMalatesta]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

[CroverNo01]

New chip specs out from bitmain BM1384! Looks like S5 is not far away and comparing to BM1382, much better efficiency.

https://bitmaintech.com/files/download/BM1384_Datasheet_v2.1.pdf

Well spotted Specs are looking great with efficiency - We all have to bare in mind that China New Year will be fast approaching after Jan.

Hopefully Bitmain can dispatch before everything shuts down. Anyway good to see Bitmain is still investing in new chip design and bitcoin industry

[mdude77]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

I can tell you from experience it's not guaranteed.  If you're using it on a pool or coin that does frequent work restarts, like p2pool, you won't get 2,000 GH/s.  Just like the S2, it does not like regular work restarts.

M

[RealMalatesta]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

I can tell you from experience it's not guaranteed.  If you're using it on a pool or coin that does frequent work restarts, like p2pool, you won't get 2,000 GH/s.  Just like the S2, it does not like regular work restarts.

M

Hm, my average is 1.8863636364 TH/s over two weeks. Tried on several pools. So it is 0.1136363636 below guaranteed hashrate. With 6 S4, this means that I loose about 20 TH/s per month. So if there would be a guarantee, they should reimburse me for this :-)

[mdude77]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

I can tell you from experience it's not guaranteed.  If you're using it on a pool or coin that does frequent work restarts, like p2pool, you won't get 2,000 GH/s.  Just like the S2, it does not like regular work restarts.

M

Hm, my average is 1.8863636364 TH/s over two weeks. Tried on several pools. So it is 0.1136363636 below guaranteed hashrate. With 6 S4, this means that I loose about 20 TH/s per month. So if there would be a guarantee, they should reimburse me for this :-)

My S4s work well with Eligius and ckpool.  They get flaky with westhash and p2pool.  (But when westhash was paying good, it didn't matter.)

I also run them through Slush's proxy for ckpool and Eligius.  Because I have other miners pointed to the proxy as well, my worksize jumps up pretty quick for Eligius to solve the low worksize problem the S4s have.  On ckpool I set my starting work size manually, so no issues there.

Have no doubt, S4s are picky.  But if you point them to a pool they like, they work pretty well.

M

[klondike_bar]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

I can tell you from experience it's not guaranteed.  If you're using it on a pool or coin that does frequent work restarts, like p2pool, you won't get 2,000 GH/s.  Just like the S2, it does not like regular work restarts.

M

Hm, my average is 1.8863636364 TH/s over two weeks. Tried on several pools. So it is 0.1136363636 below guaranteed hashrate. With 6 S4, this means that I loose about 20 TH/s per month. So if there would be a guarantee, they should reimburse me for this :-)

thats 94.3% of spec - only about 5% under spec, and you could likely increase frequency slightly to get a full 2TH

[dogie]

"Hash Rate: 2,000GH/s guaranteed" - hm, wondering how Bitmain fulfills this "guarantee" if the miners show a lower hashrate?

I can tell you from experience it's not guaranteed.  If you're using it on a pool or coin that does frequent work restarts, like p2pool, you won't get 2,000 GH/s.  Just like the S2, it does not like regular work restarts.

M

Hm, my average is 1.8863636364 TH/s over two weeks. Tried on several pools. So it is 0.1136363636 below guaranteed hashrate. With 6 S4, this means that I loose about 20 TH/s per month. So if there would be a guarantee, they should reimburse me for this :-)

Can you post a status screenshot?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

S5's are announced on Bitmains site Looks damn interesting.

Speaking of interesting: From point-3 in the S5 specs they say, "When better power efficiency is needed in the future due to higher network difficulties, you may want to buy some special PSUs 9V DC with more than 10A output, which will allow you to have a 0.2J/GH mining efficiency, but at lower hashing speed. "

Assuming the S3+'s and S4's do not have fault limits monitoring the +12v supply, could this apply to them as well? (using a 9v supply)
I assume you just highly undervolt which normally increases Vcore regulator losses or pushes it out-of-band. Lower supply gives lower in/out delta.

Anyone tried serious UV/UC with a lower supply voltage?

[dogie]

S5's are announced on Bitmains site Looks damn interesting.

Speaking of interesting: From point-3 in the S5 specs they say, "When better power efficiency is needed in the future due to higher network difficulties, you may want to buy some special PSUs 9V DC with more than 10A output, which will allow you to have a 0.2J/GH mining efficiency, but at lower hashing speed. "

Assuming the S3+'s and S4's do not have fault limits monitoring the +12v supply, could this apply to them as well? (using a 9v supply)
I assume you just highly undervolt which normally increases Vcore regulator losses or pushes it out-of-band. Lower supply gives lower in/out delta.

Anyone tried serious UV/UC with a lower supply voltage?

S3 and S4 has DC/DC so I doubt this approach will still work.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

S5's are announced on Bitmains site Looks damn interesting.

Speaking of interesting: From point-3 in the S5 specs they say, "When better power efficiency is needed in the future due to higher network difficulties, you may want to buy some special PSUs 9V DC with more than 10A output, which will allow you to have a 0.2J/GH mining efficiency, but at lower hashing speed. "

Assuming the S3+'s and S4's do not have fault limits monitoring the +12v supply, could this apply to them as well? (using a 9v supply)
I assume you just highly undervolt which normally increases Vcore regulator losses or pushes it out-of-band. Lower supply gives lower in/out delta.

Anyone tried serious UV/UC with a lower supply voltage?

S3 and S4 has DC/DC so I doubt this approach will still work.

The Vcore regulators are typical flyback-bucking regulators that usually can provide anything that is less than 50% of the supply voltage. To some extent the wider the difference the better with the only real trade-off being design target efficiency as the permitted bands for in/out are increased.

Questions are, are the low volt-in limit monitors in pert-near all regulator chips taken advantage of (preventing running that low in) and is the regulator circuit setup to handle those conditions if lower supply voltage is allowed?

If I was designing the Vcore regulator circuit for S3+ and S4's, yes would lock out on supply under-volt and for initial design targets rather doubt that last part.

[freebit13]

If anyone is looking for coupons, I have a bunch for C1's, S3's & S4's.