With almost every other post on this forum being about mining, what miners to buy, where to buy them etc. I decided to share some of my experience and maybe uncover the “dark” side of mining business that many folks don’t take into consideration or simply trying not to think about it.
My current setup has a mix of GPUs, GS mini miners and a few “big” full size GS and Bitmain machines.
One of the Antminers I’ve purchased was used and it arrived with a damaged hashboard. But I got lucky and my awesome supplier from China offered to repair broken hashboard at no charge - I just had to ship it over to them. While waiting for the repair I’ve got a power supply issue with that same used miner, but thankfully it was an easy fix and I was able to take care of it myself.
I’ve been running “trouble free” for a few months, but just got my early “Christmas present” two days ago - my HS5 miner suddenly stopped hashing. All the lights are normal and I’m able to access it via dashboard. Restarted, reset, updated firmware - nothing. And this miner was purchased brand new just a few months ago in August. So, now I’m contacting GS Support (and my supplier from China just in case) and hoping that this can/will be resolved.
Then yesterday, one of my newer Antminers that arrived in October started reporting errors and basically have a hashboard that would not hash… Very disappointing sine I am not anywhere near ROI on any of these miners.
So, I guess the moral of the story is make sure you look at all the pros and cons when considering getting into the mining “adventure”. Deciding on what miner to buy and where to buy it is just a small part of the process - setting everything up, managing noise levels and temperatures, watching the roller coaster of coin profitability and finally “after-sale” support is a huge part of this that can’t be overlooked or underestimated.