Bitcoin mining company Compass Mining claims to have found “three problems” in the ASIC design of the two new Antminer S19 miners, devices that are primarily used to mine Bitcoin (BTC).
These issues could cause the machines to overheat and in some cases break down completely.
The company’s mining operations team warned in its March 6 post that “miners need to be prepared,” especially those who purchased the Antminers S19 90T and S19 XP manufactured after 2022.
Bitmain changed its ASIC design. Miners need to be readyhttps://t.co/cs8z96lR1L pic.twitter.com/2NN4O3sEfP
— Will Foxley (@wsfoxley) March 7, 2023
Although the company stated that “other versions may also be affected,” the three flaws it identified stem from the drives’ lack of a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC), the implementation of aluminum plating instead of laminated material, and the grouping of components on a single side of the board.
According to Compass Mining, Peripheral Interface Controllers, or PICs, are used to control and monitor a number of devices and systems in all types of electronics. In ASICs, they are used to interact with the boards individually, rather than addressing them as a single unit.
However, this has been removed in the most recent design, the company claims.
“In ASICs, a PIC sits on top of a hashboard and allows you to talk to each one separately. Without it, you have to address the unit as one unit, rather than three hashboards.”
Compass Mining explained that this missing PIC means that if one hashboard fails, the entire unit “fails completely.”
“Instead, one miner fails completely. We have found this to be the case with our S19 XP 141 TH units, which have completely failed when only one board has problems.”
The mining company has also claimed that by applying an aluminum coating to the printed circuit board, it could overheat and therefore cause a higher “failure rate” than printed circuit boards (PCBs), which it’s what the old S19s were built with.
This would cause “increased maintenance needs,” according to the company.
Meanwhile, the company has also raised concerns about the mining unit’s transition to aluminum, referring to it as “net negative.”
“We view the design decision to switch to aluminum for hash boards as a net negative, as it will increase ASIC failures and underhashing, while increasing service and maintenance costs,” he wrote.
The company also explained that the presence of aluminum would make it difficult to replace damaged chips:
“The lack of a PIC is exacerbated by the abrupt switch to aluminum plating on all chipboards. If one board overheats due to the heat dissipation properties of aluminum, then it will fail the entire unit rather than just a plate”.
Compass Mining said they first became aware of the drop in performance when they deployed the S19 XP at their partner facility in Texas, which could have been affected by humidity and heat.
Regarding the third issue, the company noted that implementing the aluminum skin without changing the chassis – the base frame of the ASIC – would also contribute to higher failure rates.
As aluminum is very heat emitting, the metal will cause “convective heating” within the chassis, the firm explained, before proposing some solutions:
“A solution to this in an air-cooled environment would be to increase the air mass flow enough to dissipate the heat stored within the miner: a different design or more powerful fans.”
Other possible solutions proposed by the firm include finding third-party firmware that allows the machine’s frequency and voltage to maintain reasonable temperature and humidity levels to achieve greater longevity for mining machines.
However, the company acknowledged that Bitmain may have supplied them with a “bad batch”, noting that it is “common knowledge” in Bitcoin mining not to buy the first batch of Bitcoin ASICs.
“Unknown bugs often only reveal themselves over time, so it’s best for others to discover them first,” he said.
Cointelegraph reached out to Bitmain for comment but did not hear back by press time.
Bitmain’s Antminers have been used to mine proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as BTC, Dogecoin (DOGE), and Litecoin (LTC).
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