What's the most common issue you encounter when using Antminer？
My biggest headache is what if I buy an Antminer and it has a defect? That's why I've always been picking GPU over ASIC miners because I know that when I buy from Nvidia or AMD, it's gonna be a high-quality product, while I don't have the same sense for Bitmain. The problem is that if the miner that I bought from China has a defect and I have to return it back, I'll have to pay hundreds of dollars for shipping from my country to China, which isn't worth it for me. Buying from a local market is a bad idea because they sell antminers at double the price.
You mentioned the most basic rule for a miner. You don't need to buy something that you can't repair in your country.
First, you need to find a good service and find out the repair prices to calculate the risks. I know that official service centers have their own rules: if 4-5 chips burn out on the board, they change them; if more, the equipment can be sent to China, and that takes a very long time.
Does Bitmain have a repair centres in countries outside of China? Or are there craftsman that work on repairing damaged ASIC miners? Btw the fact that I can't repair miner in my country wouldn't be a huge issue for me if postal services were cheap here. I can cheaply receive miner in my country but sending them back is a nightmare. It literally costs you a kidney to send something in the USA too. I paid $100 to send a paper in the USA but pay $10 to receive 1 kilogram from the USA. Yeah, postal services are messed up here.
I wish GPU mining was as profitable as it was in 2016.
Based on information I gathered from a short video from a YouTuber, I saw and heard that he successfully recovered his Bitmain Antminer S21, which he had previously found it broken, then he used a repair service in the US (specifically in Delaware). He only had to pay 20 bucks, or $20, as he is located on the east coast in Virginia, making the repair process relatively quick and inexpensive. Essentially, he mentioned that his repair center is in Delaware, so I think this might be helpful. By the way, the video was made last year, so you might want to check back for its existence, and I don't really understand it out there because I live in a country that is very far from it.
Here is the source:
Youtube - Voskcoin "I just got my broken bitcoin miner back"