Prohashing Mining Pool Forums

Hey guys! Do any of you do a power down/cool down cycle for your asic machines? I've heard of those who will power off their machines for an hour or 2 every 7 to 14 days to allow the chips to cool down to room temp and give the fans a break. Do any of you do the same? If so, what does your protocol look like!

Thanks!

I never power off a miner unless it is necessary for changing pools or hashboard problems or changing a fan. Fans and BBBoards i have always on stock.
But regarding cooling a room is more difficult or a challenge. Usually, I learnt from a heating technician, heat is near the floor and if the room is getting to hot you need a ventilator which is bringing out the hot air off the room. So myself I let build a channel to the window and on the floor is strong venitlator which brings the hot air out. This ventilator is regulated according the room temparatur. In Wintertime I change the ventilator and he brings in the cold air which warms up the whole floor of the building. Then you need probably a ventilator who brings in the cooler air in the room (in summertime).
But all depending how many miner you have working in a room. Also it depends GPU or ASIC.
Also my experience with ASIC miner from bitmain S9 13.95 if they were running for 2-3 month without break and I power off I often encounter hashboard problems.
Anyway if you have a couple of ASIC miners running your facing electricity problems which are even the bigger challenge.

And one thing I am facing is the pool I am mining if I put of my miner during hashing a block I may use all the income. Therefore I never put off a miner.

Tom3 wrote:I never power off a miner unless it is necessary for changing pools or hashboard problems or changing a fan. Fans and BBBoards i have always on stock.
But regarding cooling a room is more difficult or a challenge. Usually, I learnt from a heating technician, heat is near the floor and if the room is getting to hot you need a ventilator which is bringing out the hot air off the room. So myself I let build a channel to the window and on the floor is strong venitlator which brings the hot air out. This ventilator is regulated according the room temparatur. In Wintertime I change the ventilator and he brings in the cold air which warms up the whole floor of the building. Then you need probably a ventilator who brings in the cooler air in the room (in summertime).
But all depending how many miner you have working in a room. Also it depends GPU or ASIC.
Also my experience with ASIC miner from bitmain S9 13.95 if they were running for 2-3 month without break and I power off I often encounter hashboard problems.
Anyway if you have a couple of ASIC miners running your facing electricity problems which are even the bigger challenge.

And one thing I am facing is the pool I am mining if I put of my miner during hashing a block I may use all the income. Therefore I never put off a miner.

Thanks @Tom3 for your input and advice! I haven't intentionally powered down for over a month and was curious as to what others do. Great advice to have extra fans on hand.

Thanks again!

Tom3 wrote:I never power off a miner unless it is necessary for changing pools or hashboard problems or changing a fan. Fans and BBBoards i have always on stock.
But regarding cooling a room is more difficult or a challenge. Usually, I learnt from a heating technician, heat is near the floor and if the room is getting to hot you need a ventilator which is bringing out the hot air off the room. So myself I let build a channel to the window and on the floor is strong venitlator which brings the hot air out. This ventilator is regulated according the room temparatur. In Wintertime I change the ventilator and he brings in the cold air which warms up the whole floor of the building. Then you need probably a ventilator who brings in the cooler air in the room (in summertime).
But all depending how many miner you have working in a room. Also it depends GPU or ASIC.
Also my experience with ASIC miner from bitmain S9 13.95 if they were running for 2-3 month without break and I power off I often encounter hashboard problems.
Anyway if you have a couple of ASIC miners running your facing electricity problems which are even the bigger challenge.

And one thing I am facing is the pool I am mining if I put of my miner during hashing a block I may use all the income. Therefore I never put off a miner.

Hmm interresting. What were his arguments about the heat is near the floor? I have studied mechanical engineering and spent alot of time on thermodynamics. I have learned the opposite: that the density of gasses are related to pressure and temprature by the laws of thermodynamics. As a result, by constant atmospheric pressure (well negligible pressure differentials) the air wil expand as a result of higher temperature, making the air less dense. This causes the hot air to rise to the ceiling and the cold air to remain on the floor. One reason i can think of why the heat is near the floor is because the floor acts as thermal buffer, storing alot of heat but this seems unlikely because the floor gets cooled by the dense cold air.

To give an addition to the anwser for the TS:

One major element of the wear of your asic machine is thermal related. If the temperature rises, the aging of the components accelerates and eventually components will fail. Especially capacitors are sensitive to thermal aging. When your machine is running it will reach a thermodynamic balance based on the cooling capacity and load of the asics. The same happens with the bearings of the fans. By frequently turning your asic on and off the electrical components and bearing will cool down and heat up. This will cause more wear as a result of expanding and shrinking of the components which is disadvantageous to the lifetime of your machine.

Conclusion: By turning the miner off to let it cool down to room temperature will only result in less runtime during a given timespan, but increases wear of your components. Components don't need a break, they need consistency, in the right environment. The miner itself reboots frequently based on software related aspects but the downtime is short so the componts can't cool down to room temperature.

So try to keep your heat sinks free of dust, clean them every month with soft brush and wear ESD wriststraps while disassembling the machine. Also keep the fan blades clean of dust, don't use compressed air to clean the fans because you don't want dust in your bearings.

Myself I have no arguments bcse I do not understand heating technic. But as I got explained from a specialist in heating installation he draw me the function of the heat of the miner. So we did together this construction. Should work for winter and summer. So I will see if he was right. But I think he is because in the same fabric is a gpu farm which did the same and actually it should work.
But right, my knowledge is not profound (yet) in this field.
I am cleaning the miners outside the room. It has never much dust. Luckly.

Well don't worry about where the fan is placed, as long as the dissipated heat is brought outside your room and colder air can get in.

As a Mechanical Engineer, I agree completely with Stranger's comments on heat & wear & tear

Hi,
Any good place to buy spare BBBoards?
Waiting for the delivery of my miners from bitmain
Thanks