ANTMINER U3 Discussion and Support Thread

[megatron1337]

My last U3 just died.  I can see it with zadig and reinstall the driver, but it does not get recognized by cgminer, nor is the R1 able to fire it up as a controller.  The red USB led lights up, but that's it.  It will no longer hash no matter what I do.  RIP U3.

Yours may just be dead/defect also, zOU.

And as usual it's never the users fault and bitmain sent you a crappy u3 right?
I don't want to say it's your fault but chances are you overclocked it behond safe parameters even though you might not admit it.

I have 3 out of 3 working fine with my R1.  I am not trying to push them though.  I get around 50GH or so out of each and around 150GH or a tad less out of all together.   So far has seemed to work pretty good.

I don't really OC anymore on any of my miners.  During S3 day's I didn't have a second thought about doing it.  But i just don't risk it anymore besides my compacs I do push them sometimes.

I quoted mikestang..  How come you're answering? lol

[dime2spend]

Just got my U3. After compiling cgminer with icarus-enabled I have it running now at solo.ckpool.org just for fun. To be on the safe side (at least I hope so) I used the following options "--au3-freq 200" and "--au3-volt 725". So far the baseplate of the miner as well as the power brick is staying relatively cool. The miner is hashing with around 50 Gh/s which is quite ok for underclocking it.

Curious to see how long it takes before it zombies/melts/burns/explodes/solves a block or whatever ...

[Mikestang]

My last U3 just died.  I can see it with zadig and reinstall the driver, but it does not get recognized by cgminer, nor is the R1 able to fire it up as a controller.  The red USB led lights up, but that's it.  It will no longer hash no matter what I do.  RIP U3.

Yours may just be dead/defect also, zOU.

And as usual it's never the users fault and bitmain sent you a crappy u3 right?
I don't want to say it's your fault but chances are you overclocked it behond safe parameters even though you might not admit it.

Not sure where this attack is coming from...  I have run my U3 well within its operating parameters for the entirety that I have owned it.  For the last several months that has been 785volt 237.5freq, well well below not only the maximum values, but below bitmains recommended settings as well (which you can find in this thread if you dig back far enough).  I can assure you this was not user error, for months it "worked just fine"*, then suddenly it will no longer hash.  The U3 is a piece of shit, this is no secret, so a sudden failure comes as no surprise to me.


*there is no such thing as a U3 that works just fine

[notlist3d]

My last U3 just died.  I can see it with zadig and reinstall the driver, but it does not get recognized by cgminer, nor is the R1 able to fire it up as a controller.  The red USB led lights up, but that's it.  It will no longer hash no matter what I do.  RIP U3.

Yours may just be dead/defect also, zOU.

And as usual it's never the users fault and bitmain sent you a crappy u3 right?
I don't want to say it's your fault but chances are you overclocked it behond safe parameters even though you might not admit it.

I have 3 out of 3 working fine with my R1.  I am not trying to push them though.  I get around 50GH or so out of each and around 150GH or a tad less out of all together.   So far has seemed to work pretty good.

I don't really OC anymore on any of my miners.  During S3 day's I didn't have a second thought about doing it.  But i just don't risk it anymore besides my compacs I do push them sometimes.

I quoted mikestang..  How come you're answering? lol

I answered with my luck on 3 without pushing OC hard or anything like that.  I quoted you as I thought it was worth keeping in it as good points.

With U3 I would not push it to hard myself just as I had so many zombies I don't like to add to issues.  But since getting my R1 with crazyguy's custom firmware I have not touched my U3's in over a month  maybe close to 2.

[zOU]

My last U3 just died.  I can see it with zadig and reinstall the driver, but it does not get recognized by cgminer, nor is the R1 able to fire it up as a controller.  The red USB led lights up, but that's it.  It will no longer hash no matter what I do.  RIP U3.

Yours may just be dead/defect also, zOU.

And as usual it's never the users fault and bitmain sent you a crappy u3 right?
I don't want to say it's your fault but chances are you overclocked it behond safe parameters even though you might not admit it.

Not sure where this attack is coming from...  I have run my U3 well within its operating parameters for the entirety that I have owned it.  For the last several months that has been 785volt 237.5freq, well well below not only the maximum values, but below bitmains recommended settings as well (which you can find in this thread if you dig back far enough).  I can assure you this was not user error, for months it "worked just fine"*, then suddenly it will no longer hash.  The U3 is a piece of shit, this is no secret, so a sudden failure comes as no surprise to me.


*there is no such thing as a U3 that works just fine

hehe thank you Mike

I've never ran mine (and still don't) over the 63Ghs mark which is what they are given for (and which is what bitmain support asked me during the tests)

[dime2spend]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

[.anto.]

I bought 2 Antminer U3s in August this year. Today 1 ASIC chip on each of them stop hashing, the 3rd chip on the first one and the 1st chip on the second one. I have tried resetting them so many times but they keep refusing to do the hashing. So the chips just seem to work for only 4 months.



I want to try to desolder the good chip from one miner to replace the bad one on the other miner.

Does anybody know how to identify the exact location of the bad chips?

On the PCB, the BM1382 ASIC chips are identified as U8, U9, U10 and U11. Could anybody confirm please that on my AMU0 the bad chip is U10 and on my AMU1 the bad chip is U8?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[puck2]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Where did you pick up a U3? I'm looking around... I'd like to pay bitcoin.

[zOU]

Bitmain website is a good start

[dime2spend]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Where did you pick up a U3? I'm looking around... I'd like to pay bitcoin.

I got mine from www.usbminer.ch and I also paid with Bitcoins.

And regarding the issues so many owners of the U3 have, no worries my U3 isn't flawless either. My U3 did zombie after running it for about 24 hours. I had to replug the USB-cable to bring it back to life. No overheating issues so far but then I do underclock and undervolt it.

[baazju]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Where did you pick up a U3? I'm looking around... I'd like to pay bitcoin.

I have 7 brand new I just got in. Can sell for BTC assuming you are in US.

[notlist3d]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Where did you pick up a U3? I'm looking around... I'd like to pay bitcoin.

I have 7 brand new I just got in. Can sell for BTC assuming you are in US.

Where did you get them brand new from?  I was thinking bitmain was not selling them.

So just curious on your source of brand new U3's.

[baazju]

After running it about 20 hours I have nothing to complain about the U3 so far. I will keep it underclocked because it seems to run quite stable that way. And it doesn't matter anyway 50 Gh/s or 67 Gh/s is way too little in any case these days.

Where did you pick up a U3? I'm looking around... I'd like to pay bitcoin.

I have 7 brand new I just got in. Can sell for BTC assuming you are in US.

Where did you get them brand new from?  I was thinking bitmain was not selling them.

So just curious on your source of brand new U3's.

I got them from my supplier in China, picked up the last few they had to resell in the states.

[Riseman]

When I bought mine in summer there were plenty of them sold new by different resellers.

I wonder if anyone ever had luck finding a block with just a U3 anytime since the model launch.

[notlist3d]

When I bought mine in summer there were plenty of them sold new by different resellers.

I wonder if anyone ever had luck finding a block with just a U3 anytime since the model launch.

That would be a interesting stat.  But no way to really know besides if someone tell us.  I was excited on the R1 it told how many hit, thought that was a cool feature.  But it remains at 0 last i saw and there was still 100 something.  Guess it was limited edition almost.

I really wonder if they are working on u4 or said not worth the time compared to selling a big miner.  Just seems like they would be much more interested in selling higher price which ultimately means higher profits.

[Riseman]

When I bought mine in summer there were plenty of them sold new by different resellers.

I wonder if anyone ever had luck finding a block with just a U3 anytime since the model launch.

That would be a interesting stat.  But no way to really know besides if someone tell us.  I was excited on the R1 it told how many hit, thought that was a cool feature.  But it remains at 0 last i saw and there was still 100 something.  Guess it was limited edition almost.

I really wonder if they are working on u4 or said not worth the time compared to selling a big miner.  Just seems like they would be much more interested in selling higher price which ultimately means higher profits.

Most likely. I suppose that devices like U3 don't sell well because they're practically useless for mining big time. If someone needs much hashpower it'll be cheaper to buy a few big miners than a bunch of small ones. And there're not many casuals mining for fun. Maybe U3 was made just to put leftover and defective chips to use. That could be the reason for it's instability.

[baazju]

I've actually had the u3 sell very well for me. I've sold quite a few. Great small investment for anyone wanting to learn. Of course I'm a bit biased lol. Better than those usb sticks like the Avalon nano.

[.anto.]

I bought 2 Antminer U3s in August this year. Today 1 ASIC chip on each of them stop hashing, the 3rd chip on the first one and the 1st chip on the second one. I have tried resetting them so many times but they keep refusing to do the hashing. So the chips just seem to work for only 4 months.



I want to try to desolder the good chip from one miner to replace the bad one on the other miner.

Does anybody know how to identify the exact location of the bad chips?

On the PCB, the BM1382 ASIC chips are identified as U8, U9, U10 and U11. Could anybody confirm please that on my AMU0 the bad chip is U10 and on my AMU1 the bad chip is U8?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Just a quick update.

I was still not sure if one chip on each of my 2 Antminer U3 are really broken. So I played around with the settings a bit more last night. Both chips that look to be broken are hashing again when I set the voltage to 0.8 V and the frequency to 100 MHz. However, they are only hashing at around 1.5 Gh/s. With the voltage below 0.8 V, HW errors were shown on the chips including the good ones after just a few seconds of hashing.



It looks like the problems are somewhere else. I have checked each components on the PCB for loose solder due to drawing high current, but they seem to be all right. I think I will try to change the electrolytic capacitors, possibly with higher capacitance.

Does anybody have any other suggestions?

[Mikestang]

Anyone have any use for a U3 that no longer hashes?  Fan spins, usb led comes on, but it won't hash.  If you pay shipping I'll send it to you.

[.anto.]

Anyone have any use for a U3 that no longer hashes?  Fan spins, usb led comes on, but it won't hash.  If you pay shipping I'll send it to you.

I definitely need that, Mike!

But I am not sure if it would be worth it to pay the shipping cost. How much do you think the cost to send it to Austria?