Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining recently came out with the claim that they have found three issues with the two new Antminer S19 mining machines. These machines are mainly used for bitcoin mining. According to the company, the problems can even lead to overheating and complete breakdown of the machines. On the sixth of March, Compass Mining published the your post and addressed the buyers of the S19 90T and S19 XP Antminers. It has not been ruled out that other machines may also be affected.
According to Compass Mining, they may have just been unlucky
The problems discovered stem from the lack of a peripheral interface controller (PIC), the use of an aluminum coating instead of a laminate, and the mounting of components on only one side of the board. PIC controllers are used to control and monitor systems in electronics. In a mining machine, they are used to interface with hashboards.
Ha there is no such thing in the machine, then the hashboards can only be called as a single unit, not separately. That is, the lack of a PIC in Antminers can mean that if a hashboard breaks down, the whole unit breaks down. The use of aluminum coating for hashboards is a problem because it can easily overheat and thus there will be a much greater chance of the entire machine failing.
By the way, the previous S19s were equipped with printed circuit boards, and there was no such risk there, according to the company. And not only the chance of failure is greater, but also the cost of its maintenance. So according to Compass Mining, switching to aluminum was a big mistake. They say they first noticed the problems when they installed S19 XP machines in the already warm state of Texas.
In addition, the introduction of the aluminum coating did not come with the modification of the frame, which caused that there could be errors much more often due to the continuous heat emission on the frame. Basically, this can only be improved by cooling. At the end of the post, Compass Mining pointed out that the problem may have been caused by the fact that they ordered from Bitmain from the first production series. Because it quite often happens that such errors have already been corrected on the following machines.
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