need serial-usb connector for terrible s3 firmware failure?

[professor21]

I was upgrading the firmware on my s3 antminer and it powered off and now the red light on the box blinks and I am getting no received info on the LAN to the s3. I can't see it on ipscanner and can't even access the control panel. I tried a push button factory reset but it didn't work?

Is there anything that could restore the software/firmware maybe a router connection with my laptop?

[RichCor]

I would suggest you contact the manufacturer, BitMain (bitmaintech.com) and inquire if they have a process for diagnostics and recovery.

Hopefully you verified the MD5 hashcheck before flashing, so shouldn't be difficult.

[professor21]

yeah it was terrible I accidentally powered off during the firmware update so the fans on the antminer won't even start now and the factory reset button didn't work. Thanks very much, I feel really sick these days!!!! I'm looking at some pools now. Thaieasyelec is a great company with great prices on the raspberry cables.

I am also looking for a router to get the miner connected to the internet, I tried to connect the miner directly through WIFI but it wasn't mining for some reason, no hashing on the GUI

[professor21]

yeah the machine failed because I powered it off during firmware upgrade. I spent all day at Pantip and couldn't find the cable which Thaieasyelec has for a great price. I'm supposed to somehow connect to the controller board and program in the firmware reset with the 4 pin connector/serial interface

[RichCor]

Yea, a power loss during a flash is never a good thing.

Hopefully the S3 manual will cover how to do the recovery process, or contacting BitMain support.

[professor21]

yeah I got a really nice reply from bitmain. I'm not sure how to connect the raspberry USB to the controller board though? And then I need to enter some commands from my laptop to reboot or reinstall the firmware from an ip address

[RichCor]

BitMain needs to provide you step-by-step instructions on how to access and recover the device.

Because the Flash was not completed in a normal process, the flash either reverts to the previous code (and works), or is left with corrupted code (and doesn't work) and connecting via Ethernet will probably be useless.

If BitMain has suggested utilizing a USB<->TTL interface then they must believe the device can be recovered by following a process (connecting one end to your PC and the other 4 pins to a special PIN HEADER on the ANTMINER S3 main board to either push the flashfile over the TTL/serial interface or push a command to place the unit in a receptive restore mode).

The directions and instructions must come from BitMain. Pictures are nice. To use the USB/TTL device you need to know how to locate a PIN HEADER on the Antminer S3 device.

Interesting that there doesn't seem to be a serial TTL interface ... there's a DEBUG point but it's not one with a already soldered PIN HEADER connector. Somewhere else then??

[RichCor]

I take it you've read through 3rd party AntMiner S3 online help forums of one sort or another for the device, for help with other potential issues?

The members there seem pretty knowledgeable about the device.

If you don't get helpful answers from BitMain then maybe someone on one of these dedicated forums can help.

[professor21]

I think they are telling me that you insert the serial connectors into the 3 debug holes and one of the 4 connectors might be a ground. I don't want to mess it up though and then I need to USB to my laptop and enter commands through a TTFP like solarwinds or putty. They gave me 2 lines of code from bitmain to restore to factory settings and to reinstall new firmware.

[rakman]

serial is pins 2(Transmit), 3 (receive) and 7 (ground) on a DB-25.

DB-9 is 2, 3 and 5.

2 and 3 can and often are reversed to match the device being connected.

A simple way to connect to your board is to get a DB-9 female connector and 3 wires you solder to the board and the DB-9, then using a db-9 male to female cable to your usb-to-serial converter connect the pc to the s3. Pin out for the board should be available, ground is easiest to find with a meter, 2, 3 then can be swapped as necessary to make it work.

Then you only have to worry about baud rate and if N-8-1 or other Parity, data length and stop bits are necessary which should be in the documentation.

Looking at some antminer links, the left most pin of the debug is ground (GND), the far right is transmit (TX) and the center is receive (RX)

One guy who seem to have similar problems on a couple of his s3 boards said to power off, connect a jumper (paper clip) between GND and TX on the board, power on and then remove the jumper.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033689.0

Edited June 29, 2015 by rakman

[professor21]

there are 4 pins on the raspberry pi serial-USB cable, TX, RX, ground and I'm not sure what #4 is. Can I do the firmware restore without soldering? Or where would I get a solderer and the parts for this at a computer shop maybe?

I'm not sure what the paperclip fix does? I'm concerned it might cause a problem or electrical damage

anyways, then I'm supposed to USB to laptop and run TTFP with solarwinds and input the commands to restore the factory settings or reinstall new firmware. You have to be careful even with the units overheating and destroying itself with some sort of glitch, I also noticed when you insert the 4 4pin power connectors you have to be careful the units are powered off or you will spark and you have to be careful to insert to the 2 separate motherboards.

I'm not sure if I can get them mining off of a house wifi to router to ethernet to the s3 antminers?

I payed thaieasyelec with paypal and they had a great price on the serial-USB connector and fast delivery tomorrow hopefully....

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Edited June 29, 2015 by professor21

[RichCor]

If you've never worked with electronic parts before then you'll definitely want someone who has experience doing this for you.

There are several ways to make that debug pads temporarily into an active HEADER, but it needs to be done with caution as you don't want some temporary connection coming apart and contacting other live parts on the circuit board. Best get the instructions and take it to someone.

The Paperclip trick Rakman wrote about is a way to create a temporary shorting-jumper to cause a hardware/firmware reset.

Also, he wrote about DB-9 connectors ... those are finished connectors and since this is a temporary thing you don't need the actual connectors, (especially if your USB<->TTL adapter doesn't use then and just has bare header connectors) so just focus on what he wrote about the wires.

The "TFTP" program is a File Transfer Protocol application.

[professor21]

thanks!!! well I don't want to starve and need to pay rent so how do I do it myself with the raspberry serial/USB connector? this is kind of great that you can do this since many people are abandoning their antminers instead of resetting/flashing firmware.

I think I just need to figure out which pin on the serial/USB is tx, rx, and ground and then I can use Solarwinds TFTP. I have taken some courses in theoretical physics and math but mainly calculated theoretical Gaussian surfaces. I can send you the code from bitmain, I think they are selling these for much lower than I bought

I'm not sure about the paperclip everyone is telling me on the forums how fragile these machines are and not to even mess with the firmware.

Edited June 29, 2015 by professor21

[RichCor]

The "payback" and profit from running these devices is dropping, costs more in electricity than you can collect from creating new coins.

[professor21]

it could be true, the s5 is supposed to be lower in power consumption. I think the price of bitcoins seems to be stable at the moment

[professor21]

bitmain is telling me just to do a factory reset with the usb-serial and putty. by the way how much is electricity, can I find a place with free electricity? I'm paying about 6750BHT right now.

[professor21]

well yes I may have been robbed by this austrian IT guy, they are saying the s3+ costs 330w an hour, but he seemed to be running them for several days from his Leaf condo on Sukhumvit

I'm showing a profit of 21.73/month he was claiming a profit of 70-80USD a month but that is before electric fees of 0.1USD/Kwh

[professor21]

I got putty command prompt open with serial connection with a paper clip connection, but then the firstboot and other code didn't work and the fans are still not powering up....

[professor21]

you see the 3 debug holes, I guessed the the 3rd one was ground black, and then you connect green rx to tx, and white tx to rx?

[Jdietz]

If someone sells you a magic plug that supposedly makes you money, wonder why they don't plug them all in themselves..

[RichCor]

you see the 3 debug holes, I guessed the the 3rd one was ground black, and then you connect green rx to tx, and white tx to rx?

As Rakman already mentioned in post#10, "the left most pin of the debug is ground (GND), the far right is transmit (TX) and the center is receive (RX)"

The left most solder pad, under the printed word "DEBUG" is directly connected to the larger copper surface area that's a major portion of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB), so this is a good indication that this pad is Ground (GND).

[RichCor]

If someone sells you a magic plug that supposedly makes you money, wonder why they don't plug them all in themselves..

Aren't these similar to those magic plugs that are supposed to cut your electricity bill in half?

[professor21]

so you connect tx to rx, rx to tx? bitmain sent me this, but how do I setup a TFTP with the latest firmware?

I was doing some pure math and trying to study and wasted hours on this, disabled and crippled....

Bitmain (Bitmain_D)

Jun 27, 21:08

Connect a TTL cable like this http://www.adafruit.com/product/954 to the 3 pin TTL header on the control card.
Reboot it and press "p" right away to get the uboot command line.
Connect a computer and run a TFTP server with the latest firmware on it from 192.168.1.100
Run these 4 commands to flash the firmware:
tftpboot 0x80000000 antMiner_S320150109.bin
erase 0x9f020000 +0x7c0000
cp.b 0x80000000 0x9f020000 0x7c0000
reset

[RichCor]

First, have you tried doing what Rakman mentioned in his post,

putting a paperclip in the DEBUG solder pad holes (far left and far right),

power on,

when the fans start up, remove the paperclip

< snip >

Looking at some antminer links, the left most pin of the debug is ground (GND), the far right is transmit (TX) and the center is receive (RX)

One guy who seem to have similar problems on a couple of his s3 boards said to power off, connect a jumper (paper clip) between GND and TX on the board, power on and then remove the jumper.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1033689.0

Oh, and I see you found and posted in "[GUIDE] Taugeran's Antminer S1/S3 revival story guide"

This are VERY HELPFUL directions for setting up your USB<->TTL adapter and knowing what to expect if it's working properly.

What he's saying, once you have the USB<->TTL Adapter connected to the S3 DEBUG port correctly, and are running PUTTY on the PC, you should see text stream by on the PC display showing what the S3 is doing... (this is debug mode).

While watching, you're to wait for the second "pause" in the display and then hit (send) F <enter key> so the process is interrupted and sent into Failsafe Mode.

Once the S3 is in Failsafe Mode then you type each line (as listed in the CODEBOX from the other forum) and wait for a response, and as said, "make note of the IP address!". Follow the direction until complete.

If you don't get the expected text displayed on your screen, then you've either not followed instructions, a wire is not connect or connected properly, or the S3 isn't functioning at all.

OTHERWISE...

The instructions BinMain sent you are similar, except you will be doing TWO THINGS AT ONCE.

1. Running PUTTY

2. Running TFTP Server on an Ethernet Connection.

You configure your PC Ethernet IPv4 connection to 192.168.1.100 subnet 255.255.255.0

Connect an Ethernet cable from the PC to the S3

Run an TFTP Server application pointing to the latest firmware [ antMiner_S320150109.bin ]

While watching the boot process via the DEBUG port in PUTTY,

You turn the S3 on and press "p" right away to get the uboot command line.

Connect a computer and run a TFTP server with the latest firmware on it from 192.168.1.100

Run these 4 commands in PUTTY to flash the firmware over the Ethernet connection:

tftpboot 0x80000000 antMiner_S320150109.bin

erase 0x9f020000 +0x7c0000

cp.b 0x80000000 0x9f020000 0x7c0000

reset

[professor21]

Thanks very much!!! I tried the paper clip to hole #1,#3 but it didn't work. And the paperclips with the serial-USB connector doesn't seem to work. I am trying a LAN-Wireless connection bridge, but it doesn't work. The antminer is powering on and the fan starts up and stops. Is there a way to access the miner and change the firmware via LAN?

[RichCor]

If you can't connect to the S3 via Browser on its preset IP address then you have to access it through DEBUG port. That's why it's there.

Did you verify that your USB<->TTL setup worked before connecting it to the S3?

Text from the GUIDE:

I installed the drivers and opened it with putty using 115200,8,n,1,xon-xoff,
connected tx to rx and made sure it echoed.

This means the Guide Writer installed the driver software for the USB<->TTL device, launched the Putty application, set software to use the correct Serial Port (COM port #) established by the driver software, set communications parameters (baud rate: 115200, Data Bits: 8, Parity: n, Stop Bit: 1 Handshaking: xon-xoff), then put a paperclip 'jumper' between TX and RX wires on the USB<->TTL output so any Data Sent would 'echo' (immediately return) through the Data Receive wire. [Typing 'H' in the Putty Terminal would display an 'H' and another 'H' if successfully echoed. So... typing "HELLO" would display as "HHEELLLLOO" due to echo.]

You must do this first to verify that your connection is actually working.

A similar check might be needed to verify that your Ethernet TFTP Server is set up to communicate correctly.

[professor21]

ok I get text flashing on the putty screen by only connecting TX RX no ground. but it won't stop and I can't input commands?

[RichCor]

ok I get text flashing on the putty screen by only connecting TX RX no ground. but it won't stop and I can't input commands?

No idea what you mean by "I get text flashing".

You first need to verify that Putty terminal running on your PC is sending keyboard characters out using the USB<->TTL device, and by connecting TX directly to RX those characters should come right back into the Putty terminal, as an 'echo'. (TX not connected to RX, no echo. TX connected back to RX, echo.)

Nothing else should appear on the Putty terminal, only what you type, and an echo of what you type when TX is connected to RX.

Once this "test" is complete, then you can try connecting it to the DEBUG connectors on the S3.

When you power on the S3, text output should steam to the Putty Terminal showing what the interface on the S3 is doing. If the communication parameters are correct you should recognize some portions of the text as being English (it shouldn't appear as complete random giberish).

Only then will you be able to input commands, after following the instructions given (...waiting for text output to pause, pressing letter, etc.)

[professor21]

thanks!!! this wasn't covered in electrodynamics....I attached TX and RX and get text streaming across the putty screen with no stop. there is no way to input commands, how do I do that? I'm really sick and exhausted I need to repair this and start mining or sell it off

[RichCor]

When Putty is launched and connected to the CORRECT serial device, Putty screen should not display any data traffic. It should be absolutely quiet, no text appearing.

As I wrote previously, the interface needs to be tested to verify that it will work BEFORE CONNECTING IT TO THE S3.

You CAN'T input commands during the test, your PC isn't even connected to the S3 !!!

Try doing this as a checklist.

USB<->TTL device driver software installed on PC

USB<->TTL device connected to PC USB port, wires loose, not connected to target

Identify what COM Port the device is assigned (COM 1 - 9)

Launch Putty Terminal Application

Configure Putty Terminal to use COM port assigned to USB<->TTL device

Configure Port Communications to use (baud rate: 115200, Data Bits: 8, Parity: n, Stop Bit: 1 Handshaking: xon-xoff)

Putty Terminal Display should be quiet, no text appearing

Press a few letters on the keyboard. Does it appear on screen.

Put paperclip 'jumper' on TX and RX of wire. Random character(s) may appear, but then should be quiet.

Press a few letters on the keyboard. Do they get 'echoed' back? ABC displays as AABBCC?

ONLY when the above test is confirmed can you even attempt to connect to the S3.

Connect the GND, RX, TX wires to the DEBUG port of the S3.

*** Make sure the wires WILL NOT easily disconnect and touch other S3 components

Power on the S3

Text should appear on the Putty Terminal windows, showing what the S3 is doing.

Follow the GUIDE as instructed.