ANTMINER S9 power circuit

[ugjay]

I am repairing the board of a bitcoin miner that has blown MOSFETS. I need help deciphering the buck converter operation that supplies the power to the hashing chips. It involves DB9305 DC/DC converter and Infineon BSC0901 MOSFETs probably managed by a PIC chip(on reverse side also). Any insights would be appreciated(a probable schematic would be amazing).

I suspect the PIC is blown turning on the MOSFETS 100% of the time, exceding their current limits on this 400W board. External power is a 1300W 12V DELL server PWS and comes in at the top.

[stj]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

what test gear have you got?

[ugjay]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

what test gear have you got?

Very basic arduino scope, bench supply, DMM, and LCR meter. I have a 100A ammeter and ICP PIC programmer; plus repacement MOSFETS, CAPS, and PICs on the way.

[ben7]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

Might very difficult if not impossible to fix due to the PIC chip. It might be read protected, or completely fried, etc..

[cpt.charlie]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

Likely your controller is the uP9305

http://www.ubiq-semi.com/en-article-upi-473-1459

q1, q5 q19 and q20 could be the mosfet drivers, check all these components.

[ugjay]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

Likely your controller is the uP9305

http://www.ubiq-semi.com/en-article-upi-473-1459

q1, q5 q19 and q20 could be the mosfet drivers, check all these components.

Thank You! I could not find that datasheet anywhere!(getting replacements might be even harder). I did discover that the PIC is operating just fine but the buck converter controller is either not functioning or is not being enabled.

Any Ideas as to why the transistors are there? Datasheet says the chip has MOSFET drivers built in.

[cpt.charlie]

Re: ANTMINER S9 power circuit

Maybe the controller can't handle 4 mosfets at the same time (too much gate capacitance).

[ZoneMind6006]

So in doing a search for 'Antminer' I'm surprised that this is the only thread that came up. I was wondering while on the subject, regarding other Antminer units (and I'm sorry to necro bump) such as the S17+, S19 etc., how necessary is a 'test jig' or 'eeprom editor' that I keep seeing all over eBay, sold at extremely high prices in comparison to something like an EZP202*+.

[ugjay]

Wow this is an Old Post LOL, I made it back in the days when I hardly knew anything. You're in luck though, now I'm a top industry expert in this field(and instructor). A test jig is a literally S17 series control board that has custom software on it to test hashboards during the repair process(with a fancy, though redundant, LCD display added & case). Every board, since I believe the S15 series, have an EEPROM on each hashboard identifying it to the control board, it allows the control board to reject model mismatches and contains information on the ASIC and it's speed etc. The code editor which is a modified I2C eeprom reader is useful when consolidating several broken machines into one.

[ZoneMind6006]

Wow this is an Old Post LOL, I made it back in the days when I hardly knew anything. You're in luck though, now I'm a top industry expert in this field(and instructor). A test jig is a literally S17 series control board that has custom software on it to test hashboards during the repair process(with a fancy, though redundant, LCD display added & case). Every board, since I believe the S15 series, have an EEPROM on each hashboard identifying it to the control board, it allows the control board to reject model mismatches and contains information on the ASIC and it's speed etc. The code editor which is a modified I2C eeprom reader is useful when consolidating several broken machines into one.

Thank you for your response! I'd love to pick your brain. I'm wanting to get into Monero mining as of late. So what would be stopping me from using flashrom (I'm a Linux guy) and a maybe a pickit or buspirate to do the same? Also the custom software on the board, is it available to the public, is it open source?