Editor's Note: This article comes fromZhikuang University (ID: gh_37c9e0eaf00a), reprinted by Odaily with authorization.

Zhikuang University (ID: gh_37c9e0eaf00a)

Zhikuang University (ID: gh_37c9e0eaf00a)

, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.

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Figure: Affected by the heavy rain in Sichuan, the computing power of major mining pools has dropped to varying degrees

In the eyes of miners, the mining machine is a money printing machine. As long as it is turned on, wealth can be dug out continuously every day. Mining is not only a financial behavior, but also an industrial production behavior at the bottom. Even if the mining machine is well maintained, it will encounter various emergencies, resulting in the final mining machine not being able to start or the computing power not being as expected.

Today, we will give you an inventory of these emergencies.

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power outage

Mining is very particular about cost control. The biggest daily expenditure of the mining machine is electricity, so where the electricity cost is low, the mining machine will be relocated. In the middle and late May of each year, Sichuan Province gradually enters the flood season. Cheap hydropower resources attract miners to relocate mining machines from thermal power mines in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, and then move back after the flood season.

During the wet season, Sichuan has a lot of rainfall, and continuous rainstorms are likely to cause flood disasters. In order to alleviate the losses caused by floods, many hydropower stations need to cooperate with the dispatch of relevant departments to release floods and sand in time. Once the hydropower station starts flood discharge and sand discharge, the power supply of the mine cannot be guaranteed. The time for flood discharge depends on the actual local conditions, and sand discharge generally takes 12 hours to 2 days.

exist"The owner of the mine talked about all aspects of the park's electricity2. Power resources are dispatched

At present, most of the mines in Sichuan are direct power supply mines, that is, the electricity generated by the power station is directly transmitted to the mines without passing through the national grid.

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The owner of the mine talked about all aspects of the park's electricity

"In the article, we explained that although direct power supply is cheap, it is inferior to park power in terms of compliance and stability. If there is less precipitation and power resources are in short supply, the hydropower station should give priority to completing the power supply plan of the State Grid and ensure the electricity consumption of residents. It will be difficult to guarantee the direct power supply of the mine. The mine may be required to reduce the load, or the mine may be required to Shut down for a while.

The hydropower station will regularly overhaul the power facilities of the power station. If there is an overhaul, the mine will basically be shut down for a period of time.

4. The power facilities of the mine are damaged

The most common is that the transformer in the mine exploded, causing power outages and shutting down the mine.

What the hydropower station sends to the mine is untransformed high-voltage electricity, also known as "bare electricity", which needs to be transformed by the mine's transformer before it can be used by the mining machine. Many of the newly built mines are equipped with 1 to 3 transformers in a factory building, and the transformers are independent of each other. If one of them explodes, it will only affect the power supply of the mining machine on a specific shelf, and other mining machines will not be affected. The design is more scientific.

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disconnected

Mining has high requirements on the network. For the mining pool, if the mined block is not broadcasted in time, it is likely to become an orphan block, which makes the ducks fly away; for the mine farm, if there is a network delay, the submitted proof of work If it is rejected by the mining pool, or the network is disconnected and communication with the mining pool cannot be established, then the mining machine is equivalent to a waste of work.

The following situations may cause the mine to be disconnected from the network:

Yesterday (August 18), the computing power of many Bitcoin mining pools declined to varying degrees. The main reason was that the heavy rain in Sichuan caused geological disasters such as landslides and mudslides in some areas, causing communication network interruptions.

2. The switch equipment in the mine is faulty

If the switch of the mining farm fails, the mining machine will be disconnected, unable to accept the tasks distributed by the mining pool, and the proof of work cannot be uploaded; if the performance of the switch is insufficient and network delays occur, it may cause the work submitted by the mining machine to The proof of quantity was rejected by the mining pool, and the rejection rate remained high.

In order to deal with the above situation, the mining farm generally uses a dedicated line network with equal upload bandwidth and download bandwidth, and also configures a network dedicated line provided by a different service provider as an emergency. For example, it is equipped with a telecommunication network dedicated line and a mobile network dedicated line. When the telecommunication network dedicated line fails, it will be switched to the mobile network immediately to reduce losses.

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Mine shuts down or loses computing power

The mining machine is the money printing machine, and the computing power is the money printing ability. The loss caused by the shutdown of the mining machine or the loss of computing power is very large. For example, the Antminer S19-95T mining machine, the current daily net income of each mining machine is about 43 yuan (electricity fee is calculated according to ¥0.23). A mine has tens of thousands of mining machines, and if it is shut down for one day, hundreds of thousands will be lost.

In addition to the shutdown of the mine due to a power outage in the mine, failures of the mining machine itself, temperature, and firmware viruses may cause the shutdown of the mine or loss of computing power.

1. The failure of the mining machine itself

There are many types of failures of mining machines, the most common ones are hashboard failures, broken fans, and broken power cables. The latter two are easier to understand, so without too much introduction, here we will focus on the faults of the hashboard.

Antminer’s T17 series mining machines are the ones with frequent hashboard failures. For example, Antminer’s T17e has three hashboards, and each hashboard has more than 100 heat sinks. In order to save costs, these heat sinks are fixed to the hashboard with solder paste and low-temperature brazing. When the mining machine is running, if the temperature is too high, a kind of flux called 'rosin' in the solder paste will melt, causing the heat sink to loosen and fall down, causing the entire hashboard to short-circuit, and eventually causing the mining machine's hash rate to drop.

Temperature and humidity also have a greater impact on mining machines. If the temperature is too high or too low, it will also cause the computing power of the mining machine to drop. At present, the mine mainly uses fans and water curtains to control the temperature inside the mine.

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3. Firmware virus

In addition to the hardware failure of the mining machine that will cause the mine to shut down or lose computing power, if there is a virus in the firmware of the mining machine, it will also affect the computing power of the mining machine. It is actually very simple to avoid firmware viruses. Only use the firmware version officially launched or recommended by the mining machine manufacturer.