Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining claims to have found “three problems” in the ASIC design of the two new Antminer S19 miners, units primarily used to mine Bitcoin (BTC).
These problems can cause the machines to overheat and in some cases fail completely.
The company’s mining operations team warned in its March 6 post that “miners need to be ready,” particularly those who have purchased the Antminer S19 90T and S19 XP manufactured from 2022 onwards.
While the company stated that “other versions could be affected as well,” the three shortcomings identified by the company stemmed from the devices’ lack of a peripheral interface controller (PIC), the implementation of aluminum cladding instead of laminate material, and the bundling of components on only one side of the board.
According to Compass Mining, peripheral interface controllers or PICs are used to control and monitor a range of devices and systems in all types of electronics. In ASICs they are used to connect individual hashboards instead of addressing them as a unit.
However, this has been removed in the latest design, the company said.
“In ASICs, a PIC sits on top of a hashboard and allows talking to each hashboard individually. Without them, you have to address the entity as one, instead of using three hashboards.”
Compass Mining explained that this lack of PIC means that if one hashboard fails, the entire unit “fails completely”.
“Instead, a miner fails completely. We’ve found this to be the case with our S19 XP 141 TH units, which would fail completely if just one board was having issues.” The red dot in the center represents the PIC that was present on older model S19 Antminers . Source: Compass Mining.
The mining company also said that implementing an aluminum coating on the hashboard can lead to overheating and therefore a higher “failure rate” than on printed circuit boards (PCBs) – on which the old S19s were built.
This would result in “higher maintenance requirements,” according to the company.
Meanwhile, the company has also raised concerns about the mining unit’s transition to aluminum, calling it “net negative.”
“We view the design decision to move to aluminum-clad hashboards as a net negative — one that will increase ASIC failures and underhashing, while increasing service and maintenance costs,” it wrote.
The company also explained that the presence of the aluminum would make it harder to replace faulty chips:
“The lack of a PIC is compounded by the abrupt switch to aluminum plates on all hashboards. If a circuit board overheats due to the heat dissipation properties of aluminum, the entire unit fails, not just one circuit board.”
Compass Mining said they first noticed the drop in performance when using the S19 XP at its partner facility in Texas – which may have been affected by humidity and heat.
As for the third issue, the company found that implementing the aluminum coating without changing the chassis—the basic frame of the ASIC—would also contribute to the higher failure rates.
Because aluminum is highly heat-radiating, the metal will cause “convective heating” inside the case, the company explained, before proposing a few solutions:
“A solution to this in an air-cooled environment would be to increase the air mass flow enough to dissipate the heat stored in the miner – a different design or more powerful fans.”
Related: Bitcoin ASIC miner prices are hovering at lows not seen in years
Other potential solutions suggested by the company include seeking third-party firmware that will allow the machine’s frequency and voltage to maintain appropriate temperature and humidity levels in order to achieve longer mining equipment life.
Some of the latest S19’s don’t have a PIC on any hashboard of the ASIC. Source: Compass Mining.
However, the firm acknowledged that they may have just received a “bad batch” from Bitmain, noting that it is “common knowledge” in bitcoin mining not to buy the first batch of bitcoin ASICs.
“Unknown bugs are often only discovered over time, so it’s best to let others figure them out first,” it said.
Cointelegraph reached out to Bitmain for comment but received no response at the time of publication.
Bitmain Antminers were used to mine proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as BTC, Dogecoin (DOGE), and Litecoin (LTC).
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