ANTMINER U3 Discussion and Support Thread

[Xan_Baeyens]

Nothing a good refrigerator can't do, by keeping the thing cold :-)
still. Everyone here has a valid opinion on the U3.
I agree, i have for about 72h now, and the first 12h were very troublesome.
Cleaned the thermal paste (like every other device that comes into my hands)
Didn't mess with the circuitboard though. just the BM1382 chips.
Maybe should do that.
Finally, after some hardship, got it to running. Read up on what others wrote in posts or "how-to's".

As said prior, everone here has a valid opinion.
That makes me supprised no one mentioned a way or ways to fysically adjust the circuit.
Would have been nice some here has done this.
And likes to share his/her experiences.

Don't mind doing it myself (if possible)
But would like to learn from those that came before me.
Before i wreck my only device i have.
Not like i have the money to buy a new one either.

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[Blake Birk]

just pulled my 2 antminer u3's rev 2 out of storage to mine a new sha256 coin..working like a beauty...all accepted shares non-stop..man I miss seeing these things work..to bad they are totally useless at mining bitcoin...just not enough hash...they are only about 50 - 60 GH's each..still a great piece of hardware

[leowonderful]

just pulled my 2 antminer u3's rev 2 out of storage to mine a new sha256 coin..working like a beauty...all accepted shares non-stop..man I miss seeing these things work..to bad they are totally useless at mining bitcoin...just not enough hash...they are only about 50 - 60 GH's each..still a great piece of hardware

They get the zombie issue after a while and it's pretty big especially if you're trying to run one for extended periods of time like me. Otherwise they're nice miners and the most powerful usb-based miners that aren't power hogs like some of the rockminers.

[demonmaestro]

With everyone talking about crazyguy's firmware and how it works.. The issue is. Cannot find a link to download the firmware.

[csdnet]

Hey all,

Cleaned the dust off some of my old U3's.

I have a raspberry pi 4 (8gb).

I have installed the bitamin version of cgminer, cgminer sees the units connected but won't seem to recognise them as usable.

Just wondered if any one had any luck setting these up as of late?

Thanks all 

[movellan]

I had several of those also and used them mining a different SHA-256 coin. After a while they all die. Cleaning and replacing the heat-sink paste doesn't help. They just die. Too bad as it was a good design but the hardware just didn't hold up.

Hey all,

Cleaned the dust off some of my old U3's.

I have a raspberry pi 4 (8gb).

I have installed the bitamin version of cgminer, cgminer sees the units connected but won't seem to recognise them as usable.

Just wondered if any one had any luck setting these up as of late?

Thanks all 

[gt_addict]

You could try running the non sh*tmain cgminer. That may well pick them up. But as already said. Chances are they are just dead. Plus they are very underpowered now. Try getting a Gekkoscience product. Great USB sticks and also the R606

[csdnet]

Oh definitely get that, was doing more as an experimental thing rather than profit. I'm not sure their dead though. Maybe I will try connecting via windows see if I get any luck. I have 6 so surely they can't all be dead.

Will deffo be checking out other usb options 

Maybe even some of the older S series miners just to have a play with.

Cheers anyways guys, will see if I can get these  things to run 

[gt_addict]

You could try the version of cgminer that VH has written. Its in the Gekkoscience Newpac/R606 thread. That detects for “zombie” devices and resets them. It may well work better.

[movellan]

Would you be so kind as to post a link to that thread? TIA.

You could try the version of cgminer that VH has written. Its in the Gekkoscience Newpac/R606 thread. That detects for “zombie” devices and resets them. It may well work better.

[gt_addict]

Would you be so kind as to post a link to that thread? TIA.

Literally the third thread down from this one at the moment....

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5053833.0

[csdnet]

One more thing?

I have managed to get them running apart from 2, on both units the fans seem to twitch forward and one has an led (R16) blinks red. Anyone have any experience of this?

Devices are found in Linux but cgminer doesn't recognise them...

Thanks for all the help and input guys much appreciated 

[gt_addict]

One more thing?

I have managed to get them running apart from 2, on both units the fans seem to twitch forward and one has an led (R16) blinks red. Anyone have any experience of this?

Devices are found in Linux but cgminer doesn't recognise them...

Thanks for all the help and input guys much appreciated 

Probably worthwhile taking the fan off and "servicing" it as best you can. Maybe try it on an external power source to make sure it still works.

I assume you are running cgminer on the linux based machine? If not and its windows then you need to run Zadig and change the USB driver first.

I've managed to find the U3 user manual after a bit of digging on Bitmains website. it may be useful.

https://service.bitmain.com/support/download?product=Antminer%20USB

[csdnet]

I did just that 

I'm going to test on a different power source.

I cleaned and added new thermal paste to chips  and underside. So fingers crossed, hopefully I can revive one of the 2.

Cheers for all the help so far... 

[AzagraMac]

Good, so I got an antminer U3, new.

The source does not give me much confidence, any specific model? I have looked at amazon, models of 12v and 7.5A, but the connector of the U3, I do not know its size.

On the other hand, I have several cgminer compiled, with the --enable-icarus parameter, v4.9.0, v4.9.2 and v4.11.1 in addition to the bgfminer v5.5.0.

The first thing that I am going to do is to change the paste finishes, for a new one of quality.

Can you mine something with this and 2 USB RedFury? any altcoin SHA256 that you can get something out? or solo.ckpool.org

## Update.
Photos.
https://i.ibb.co/DpbPtM4/IMG-20210429-130632.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/m6yBX5H/IMG-20210429-153236.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/RDcMsSh/IMG-20210429-153140.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/q7HXm6m/IMG-20210429-135853.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/bP3k3Cx/IMG-20210429-132723.jpg

[movellan]

Unfortunately for you, myself and the rest of us who bought U3 miners on Bitmain's reputation gained from the sturdiness of the U1 and U2 units, the U3 turned out to be not as durable. They all eventually, even with good maintenance, will have USB ports that will cease communication. All mine died a premature death. Too bad Bitmain hardware was lacking in longevity on these units as they were a good design and very efficient.

Good, so I got an antminer U3, new.

The source does not give me much confidence, any specific model? I have looked at amazon, models of 12v and 7.5A, but the connector of the U3, I do not know its size.

On the other hand, I have several cgminer compiled, with the --enable-icarus parameter, v4.9.0, v4.9.2 and v4.11.1 in addition to the bgfminer v5.5.0.

The first thing that I am going to do is to change the paste finishes, for a new one of quality.

Can you mine something with this and 2 USB RedFury? any altcoin SHA256 that you can get something out? or solo.ckpool.org

## Update.
Photos.

[AzagraMac]

Yes, I have been reading the posts about problems with the power supply, problems with the chipts that stop some units from working...

in this case, it's something I can't do much about, good ventilation, it's been working right now 24h after maintenance, I'm using cgminer v.4.9.2 and it has no zombie state, the base of the U3, is cold, right now it's giving 62GHh/s with some peak of 64 and dip of 59, but the avg is 62Gh/s, this with the default parameters of 225Mhz and 775mV.

I put another power supply, the original one, it doesn't give me much confidence... it's a 12v and 10A 120W, it doesn't heat up at all, the original one after 10 minutes was very hot to the touch, The PSU I am currently using is, LEDMO brand, model JCY-12100, 12V 10A.
Link Amazon: https://www.amazon.es/LEDMO-Transformador-12v-10A-Adaptador/dp/B08DCW22ZN/

## Update ##
As you can see, it has been online for 3 days now, without zombie, what I can see, is that it has found a share of 3.99Mb, does that mean something?
It found one of 1.37Mb a few days ago, and some remuneration I have taken, nothing interesting...

Code:

2021-04-30T06:29:02 Accepted 0c3d20bd Diff 1.37M/296 AU3 0 pool 0
2021-05-01T22:00:05 Accepted 0433b552 Diff 3.99M/304 AU3 0 pool 0

Right now it is mining alone, with the parameter "m=solo".

Code:

 cgminer version 4.9.2 - Started: [2021-04-30 08:33:53]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):59.80G (1m):61.09G (5m):60.11G (15m):61.40G (avg):61.67Gh/s
 A:1468936  R:0  HW:70  WU:791.7/m
 Connected to eu.bsod.pw diff 304 with stratum as user PE2dDjzHVAfaAcXfA6kz47Fer8Zk8jtDCA.nanopi
 Block: 551af2d7...  Diff:3.09G  Started: [15:26:26]  Best share: 3.99M
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: AU3 0       : 225MHz 775mV            | 57.50G / 61.67Gh/s WU:791.7/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTC 1DCRu4pnnwtbUYRy1evVw7TzXGW8XMwMNc

[kano]

You expect, on average, 1 X difficulty share per X difficulty of mining.

So you expect, on average, a 3.99M difficulty share per each 3.99M difficulty of mining.

A 61GH/s miner will take, on average, (2^32)*3.99*10^6 / (61 * 10^9) seconds to mine 3.99M difficulty of shares.

Or about 58.5 hours

The current network difficulty is 20608845737768.2 = 20.6T
You got a 3.99M

So it's about 5165124 times harder than that to find a block at the moment ...

[AzagraMac]

You expect, on average, 1 X difficulty share per X difficulty of mining.

So you expect, on average, a 3.99M difficulty share per each 3.99M difficulty of mining.

A 61GH/s miner will take, on average, (2^32)*3.99*10^6 / (61 * 10^9) seconds to mine 3.99M difficulty of shares.

Or about 58.5 hours

The current network difficulty is 20608845737768.2 = 20.6T
You got a 3.99M

So it's about 5165124 times harder than that to find a block at the moment ...

Thank you very Kano much for this information, I have looked at the log, and I see that you also have another one of 56.1M, it is the highest so far.

Code:

Accepted 4c9fb694 Diff 56.1M/304 AU3 0 pool 0

I also have to say that the pool where I am connected is to mine Peercoin, at the time of writing this post the difficulty is 2.66G.

The thing is that it takes days, and if it has found a block for which I have obtained 0.016060505080PPC, but the rest of the time ... absolutely nothing at all. (is this normal, or is there some parameter that escapes me?)

I have another one with Litecoin Cash, and it's going the same way, and the network difficulty is 97.9Mb at the time of writing this post.

Here I have obtained several of 2.81M, and the highest of 4.94M.

Code:

Accepted 05f577fe Diff 2.81M/160 AU3 0 pool 0
Accepted 03656188 Diff 4.94M/160 AU3 0 pool 0

Code:

 cgminer version 4.9.2 - Started: [2021-04-26 21:29:53]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):66.69G (1m):67.52G (5m):67.43G (15m):67.41G (avg):67.21Gh/s
 A:612206  R:0  HW:3675  WU:855.4/m
 Connected to eu.bsod.pw diff 160 with stratum as user Cbr82B3WfK11AdjYb2ioNKHZTRHcWYTr2m.raspi
 Block: 22cb6c05...  Diff:97.9M  Started: [09:18:42]  Best share: 4.94M
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [U]SB management [P]ool management [S]ettings [D]isplay options [Q]uit
 0: BF1 13140115:                         | 2.173G / 2.515Gh/s WU: 35.2/m
 1: BF1 0a0b0415:                         | 2.114G / 2.587Gh/s WU: 36.3/m
 3: AU3 1       : 225MHz 775mV            | 61.53G / 62.12Gh/s WU:784.0/m
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Config:

Code:

{
   "pools":[
      {
         "url":"stratum+tcp://eu.bsod.pw:2496",
         "user":"Cbr82B3WfK11AdjYb2ioNKHZTRHcWYTr2m.raspi",
         "pass":"x"
      }
   ],
   "api-listen":true,
   "api-network":true,
   "api-allow":"W:172.16.1.0/24",
   "api-description":"cgminer 4.9.2",
   "api-mcast-addr":"224.0.0.75",
   "api-mcast-code":"FTW",
   "api-mcast-des":"",
   "api-mcast-port":"4028",
   "api-port":"4028",
   "api-host":"172.16.1.6",
   "au3-freq":"225.0",
   "au3-volt":"775",
   "hotplug":"5",
   "log":"5",
   "syslog":true,
   "nfu-bits":"50",
   "osm-led-mode":"4",
   "shares":"0"
}

[kano]

Alas all your questions above are about altcoin mining which is completely off topic for this area of the forum.