When repairing hashboards, the main goal is to get all ASIC chips to pass successfully. A fully working board will display green indicators across all chips when tested using a hashboard tester.
However, even when all chips pass and show green, the miner might still not hash properly. One common reason for this is the Antminer EEPROM error. This issue appears often, especially when dealing with firmware-level inconsistencies.
Here’s an example of troubleshooting this type of problem using a Bitmain Antminer s19 running on Braiins firmware.
✅ Diagnosing the Issue
In this case, all three hashboards were tested and passed correctly. Each board showed full green indicators during testing, which typically means they are in working condition.
However, when running the full miner, it was not hashing. Upon closer inspection, noticed something unusual:
- Hashboard 1 showed a PCB version of 0x013c
- The other two boards showed 0x011e
This difference suggested a potential EEPROM mismatch. To address this, we performed a repair EEPROM update across all three hashboards, ensuring they were aligned to the same version: 0x011e.
⚠️ New Error After EEPROM Update
After updating the EEPROMs and restarting the miner, a new error appeared:
vbnetCopyEditRegister 20 write error: Hashchip: number of responses 75 of read_register(reg=0x14) doesn't match chip count 76: reply 0x4e missing (retrying)
This pointed to a possible issue with data transfer, which could be caused by the EEPROM chip or another supporting component responsible for handling communication.
🔧 The Fix
To resolve this Antminer EEPROM error, we replaced the EEPROM chip along with one nearby component related to data processing. After replacing the two chips and running the miner again—it successfully started hashing.
💡 Final Tip
Even if a tester shows that all hashboards are good, it doesn’t guarantee the miner will hash correctly. If there’s an issue with the firmware or communication layer, especially related to EEPROM, a repair EEPROM process or full replacement may be the key solution.
This case shows the importance of checking both the physical chips and firmware values when dealing with Antminer s19 repairs.