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Our trusty miner has died
Topic Started: Apr 21 2014, 10:02 PM (176 Views)
Corather
Administrator
I could see the writing on the wall. It was taking more temperature all the time to kickstart our sick ASIC into working at 100%. I even under volt the unit for better performance while it lasted.

I came home today to find the machine not responding. I did reboot it and it worked for a bit but I couldn't get chip 3 to fire up for longer than a few seconds. I tried and tried and eventually the board just went dead. It was a good run, and if we had a functional device it would probable still run for much longer. I think the warranty wore out, but at the time if I had sent it back we'd have lost a lot of BTC, so I decided to babysit the machine as much as possible.

I still have a few BTC I'm trying to grow to get into a heavier unit.

Just wanted to send the news and shed a tear. She was a trooper.
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tonychau7

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2013-2014
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Corather
Administrator
I have good news. Our trusty miner is still under warranty! YAY!

What that means:

I contacted KnC, and asked for an RMA. I just sent them the email so give them a week to respond. When they do, I'll send the ASIC out for repair/replacement. When it comes back it's going to be mostly useless for BTC though it won't be completely. I think from that point I'll elect a number of alt-coins to mine including bitcoin because it looks like I may start an ant-miner farm here. We have enough BTC in the reinvestment fund to buy 5 Antminers. That's near 1 TH of mining power, and it'll pay for itself within 2 months give or take. I can also set aside some funds for expansion though eventually I'll have to move into a building and build a data center. At the current prices for antminers (give or take 300 a piece), they are profitable even with rising difficulty.
Edited by Corather, Apr 24 2014, 02:37 PM.
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tripppn

That's GREAT NEWS!!!
If we have enough in reinvestment for 5 S1s that means we have +/-3BTC?

I'll look around and see if I can find something more efficient then ants. They are kinda power hungery. The 3 we have are pulling 1300W from the wall =(
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tripppn

DUDE!!! What about a Gridseed blade???
http://minersource.net/collections/frontpage/products/gridseed-g-blade-asic-miner
I can find a better price but that has specs.

I'll run the SHA stuff you run the scrypt stuff ;)
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tripppn

Also... Can prob get some cash for the miner once you get it back.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KNC-Mercury-100-GH-s-KnCminer-ASIC-Bitcoin-Miner-KnC-IN-Hand-/291132047737?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43c8d28179

It has no bids... I'm gonna put it on watch to see if it sells but I don't think it will for $666

I'll keep an eye out.

I LOVE THIS SHIT!!!!
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Corather
Administrator
It's around 2.7 BTC and yeah I am considering gridseed. I think there's more potential for a longer ride with scrypt. The market is larger and more spread out and profitability declines at a slower pace. GAW Miners have the blade for around 1600 with one year of hosting. The decline in BTC means we need to wait a bit longer in order to buy one, but they are viable with multipool. cex-io offers an amazing multipool option, but there's others like ltc-rabbit for example.
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Corather
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tripppn
Apr 25 2014, 02:07 AM
That's GREAT NEWS!!!
If we have enough in reinvestment for 5 S1s that means we have +/-3BTC?

I'll look around and see if I can find something more efficient then ants. They are kinda power hungery. The 3 we have are pulling 1300W from the wall =(
That's a lot of power. Though it's roughly less than double what a KnC Jupiter would draw and you have them OC'd right? That's really not terribad.
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tripppn

I'm keeping an eye on this:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=519943.0

It's being made by the same guy that made the Chilli and runs at about 650GHs and looks like it will run on about 700 Watts

They are supposed to go up for sale this weekend but they haven't posted a price yet.
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Corather
Administrator
Oooh, those look interesting.
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Corather
Administrator
I have heard back from KnC. I have a RMA number. I have to pay for shipping out so that means I will be recouping those costs when the board arrives back. However, once I get it installed and working again I'll put up a vote as to what to mine since it's life as a bitcoin miner is over.
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tripppn

Corather
Apr 25 2014, 10:40 PM
I have heard back from KnC. I have a RMA number. I have to pay for shipping out so that means I will be recouping those costs when the board arrives back. However, once I get it installed and working again I'll put up a vote as to what to mine since it's life as a bitcoin miner is over.
Sounds good
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Corather
Administrator
I pulled the board and placed it inside of an anti-static bag. The board looks heat damaged on the bottom so it could have very well fried out due to the excessively high temperature I had to run it in order to keep all of the cores running. I'll ship it to Sweden sometime this week. Just been so busy with work and whatnot. I don't know how long it'll take to get a replacement but I'll keep everyone in the loop. Hopefully they won't claim negligence and tell us we're out of luck. That would annoy and I'd hate to have to strike yet another ASIC manufacturer off the list.

The list includes:

Butterfly labs
Hashfast

Sorry, in a bad mood. :(
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tripppn

$1650 for a S2! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=608147.0
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tripppn

Any update?
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Corather
Administrator
I have not mailed it out yet. I suffer from congestive heart failure and it started acting up a few weeks ago. Between work and trying to recover I have not had the strength to do the things I need to do. This is changing though. The boss man gave me a few days off and with all the rest and proper nutrients I'm beginning to back away from deaths door. I have to go pick up some meds today at walmart, I should have the strength to send out the board also.
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Corather
Administrator
Well I'm finally starting to feel better. This is the trouble with this illness, it never really goes away and it can resurface with suffering. :(

Anyway! I finally sent the board out! It should be in Sweden within a week. It cost about 24 dollars to mail, ouch! So sorry for the delays, I know health comes first but I wasn't expecting it to knock me out for so long.

The miner won't mine much bitcoin these days, but I think it's life in the alt coin market will last a little longer.
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Corather
Administrator
Good news. The replacement board arrived today. I don't have time to install it right now but after work I'll get to it. I know it's not much good right now but with all that's going on in altcoin land it may still be of use.
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Corather
Administrator
So I installed everything. Stabbed myself with an x-acto knife and bandaged it up. I don't know when it happened but the PSU blew up before I started working on getting the miner back together. It might still be under warranty but at this point it's not even worth getting it replaced after shipping.

I give up.
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Corather
Administrator
Looks like I lost more blood than I thought when I jabbed myself with that x-acto knife. The miner is running again! The power supply has a switch in the back I seemed to have forgotten about. Pffft, haha. Running around 66c, which is normal for a single board KnC.
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Corather
Administrator
I don't understand. It was working for two hours and something happened. I don't know how or why but the voltage conditioner quit working for a bit and it seems the power supply must have blown or something. I just don't get it. It was working fine and then for no reason at all it just quits. FML
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Corather
Administrator
Okay, it wasn't the power supply, or it may be I'm not certain but it's either that or the ASIC board blew up 2 hours into operation. I can power the beagle-bone and it's operational, but as soon as I plug in the asic board the power supply trips a safety and it won't turn on at all.

Well that was fun. For 2 hours anyway. The black lord of the universe is having a lot of fun at my expense.
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