Another experience here regarding S9 repairs.
Out of five S9 units I have been through five hash board repairs and one IO / control board replacement.
I used bitmainwarranty for various reasons, but mainly because of the time involved. My longest repair took two weeks.
The pricing was $175 +$25 shipping three times, $132 including $25 shipping once, and $150 plus $25 shipping once.
I purchased the IO and control boards and did the replacement myself on that issue.
Odd thing is two of the S9 units I have purchased were from a great forum member who can mention his name if he wants and four of the hash board repairs were from those two units. All have been ran in the exact same environment and I know this forum member takes great care of his equipment. He provides a great deal of advice and reviews here. Simply luck of the draw for me.
What I hope to see is the S9 be around for much longer than the past generations. We went through a period with S5s where you couldn't buy them for less than Bitmains list and Bitmain even went dry for a long time before the S7 was released so difficulty was much more controlled. I am not expecting the difficulty to be reigned in the way it was but the lifespan of a miner should exceed 8 months.
What I am getting at here is the 14/16 nm process. I expect to see Bitmain release new models, make improvements in various areas, etc, but I do not expect to see another die shrink anytime soon. If more effort is put into tweaking S9 performance we may be able to squeeze much longer life.
When you see an S9 hashboard providing approximately 4TH each it can put the competition in a different perspective. Truly price what you have gotten from your S9 experience against the competition and you may find the 6TH, etc much more cost effective, IE Avalon. Personally, Avalon didn't sit well with me by not accepting BTC as a payment option. This is our business and a company in this field refusing BTC as payment starts to rub the "principle" side the wrong way. However, I have been beaten to hell much less rubbed the wrong way by Bitmain China so many times I can certainly stand to be RUBBED wrong in one way or another from some competition.
The S9 failure rate is completely unacceptable and I have not purchased another one. I am selling and will continue to sell everything except the S9s, my PSUs, some spare parts and cables. I plan to keep mining and am looking for an opportunity to purchase a bulk order. I have been attempting to find something worth putting a significant amount of cash in for almost a year now. I wanted to purchase x00 S9s when they were released and thank everything good I was ignored by Bitmain. If I had ended up with the same failure rate % you all would be sick of reading my complaining by now. When I tried to discuss the purchase via e-mail, no answer. The Avalons price per TH was too much but it is time I should revisit that price.
Now it appears we have a couple of sources and Sidehack will have offerings on something with a decent amount of hashrate. That is the single reason I have held my S3 and S5 miners. I knew IF sidehack was able to get chips he has the ability to put a retro kit out and there is one thing I have zero doubts about and that is sidehack addressing a warranty situation. He does so the same way I treat my customers. The old saying above and beyond applies to his business and this is not words, this has been my personal experience with products purchased from him. I have always looked at how I can give sidehack money and couldn't be more excited to lurk in his threads regarding progress. I believe he has the ability, knowledge, and resources to pull in as needed if / when he reaches a position to scale up quickly. Myself and several others with electrical experience from basic to advanced have offered to drive over and help.
My parents generation was the Vietnam war, not WW II, but that generation still believed in taking pride in your work and looking towards a future with your customer base. Basic business models in this type of industry has proven time and time again that a small investment in customer service and support now pays huge dividends over the lifetime of your company.
Basically Bitmain have turned so many of their customer relationships into a vengeful type of "I buy from you because I do not have another choice." It has been and still is a long time coming but I can actually see the landscape changing. We will eventually have other choices. I was "first in line" to buy the S7 and S9. Unless I have another choice I will probably still purchase whatever next gen is released, but, I do it because it is what is available. Now, I do want to say my experience with bitmainwarranty in Colorado has been good. I have previously stated I firmly believe there are people working through that site who get it, but are controlled by policies put in place by the CEO in China and he cares about his existing largest accounts who are repeat customers.
In that vein I firmly do not believe the cheerleaders or fan boys who will not have a mature conversation regarding bitmain current failures. Do not take my comment wrong. I know there are people who have purchased bitmain products over the years who either have not experienced issues or, have been through what they consider to be good experiences with an issue. However, failing to recognize issues which continue to plague many of us and only cheering for Bitmain simply shows me how worthless ANY opinions put forth by such a person are not worth reading, much less a new miner trusting. People have expectations when purchasing certain equipment and electronic devices costing upwards of $2,000.00 should come with excellent support, turn-around time, optional cross-shipping, explanations of repairs, used parts marked and openly noted as used, etc I would never send a used part to a customer without first discussing it with them.
At least we are able to have the S9 hash boards "repaired." If I had known sidehack was repairing these I would have been discussing it with him. It isn't that bitmainwarranty in Colorado have sent me back unrepaired boards but for the price and the lack of details not to mention what sidehack does for this community I believe more of us should find ways to support his endeavours.
Good Luck to all of the home miners. Just since my short time of mining since 2014 so many people have departed. Hopefully many are still involved in various ways. The price of coin is nice and I hope it at least holds around $850 but I fear another drop as I recall the $190s and spent way too many coins around that price range. If I'd only held everything I made in 2015 rather than going all in on S7s I would be at a much higher P/L ratio.