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A sudden shutdown, or a refusal to start at all, almost always comes back to the device's own power. It does not have to mean a serious fault: most of the time the cause turns up in the basic checks.

What to do

1. Check the cables and the connectors. A loose or damaged connection is one of the most common reasons for unstable work. Every power cable should sit tight, with no play, and visible damage or scorch marks on a connector mean it has to be replaced.

2. Check the power supply. It has to match what the device draws. A poor or worn unit goes into protection under load, and it can take the hash boards with it, not only itself. If the problem survives a new power supply, it is most likely the device.

3. Check the mains. Swings in the supply can send the power supply into protection as well. If several devices are unstable at once, the electricity at the site is what to look at.

Important: problems with power cannot be left alone. An unstable power supply is a risk to the hash boards as much as to itself, and those cost far more to bring back.

If the basic checks turn up nothing, write to our technical support.

Overheating does not always mean a fault: more often than not the cause is dealt with without replacing a thing. What matters is finding it in time.

1. Check the dust. Dust on the heatsinks and the fans is the most common cause of all: it breaks the airflow and keeps the heat from leaving. Blowing the device out with compressed air and clearing the inlets and the outlets is the first step of any diagnosis.

2. Check the fans. A worn or failing fan does not move enough air even through a perfectly clean device. In PITBIT ONLINE you can set the power to 100% and watch whether the fans spin all the way up. A noise that was not there, or no spin-up at all, means replacement.

3. Check the ventilation of the room. If the hot air does not leave the room, the temperature climbs whatever the device is doing. Cold air should come in, hot air should go out, and the two should not mix.

4. Renew the thermal paste. If the temperature is still high after cleaning and after checking the ventilation, the paste may have dried out — especially on equipment that has run for more than a year without service.

Important: heat that looks bearable today wears the chips and the solder joints faster. What it does shows up later, and costs more to undo.

Questions about diagnosis, or about setting the monitoring up? Write to our technical support, or open a ticket inside the service itself.

One of the questions support is asked most. The device is behaving oddly, and it is not clear whether a restart will settle it or it is time for the service bench. Here is how to go about it.

Start with a restart. Some things — a lost connection to the pool, a hashrate that dips for a while — go away with one. If everything is back to normal afterwards, it was most likely software.

If the restart did not help, look at the symptoms.

A sharp, lasting drop in hashrate. If the device held one figure and now it has fallen and will not come back, that is a signal — especially if one of the hash boards reads zero in the interface, or is not found at all.

A smell of burning, or marks of damage. That is a reason to stop at once. If there is a smell of burnt electronics, darkening on the connectors or traces of moisture, do not start the device again until someone has looked at it.

Noise or vibration that was not there before. Mechanical sounds mean wear, or a broken fan — and one failing fan can overheat a whole hash board.

Errors in the device log. If the log keeps reporting chips, temperature sensors or hash boards that cannot be found, that points at hardware, and a restart will not mend it.

Important: PITBIT ONLINE catches a falling hashrate and a device going offline as it happens. The sooner a problem is seen, the smaller the loss and the easier the diagnosis. If the symptoms match, do not wait — write to us and we will help with the first step.

We are still building the ecosystem out, and here is the list of what has just changed. This update brings:

— Widgets are yours to set: turn on the ones you need, change their size and their order.

— A completely new set of filters: control board, pool, external IP, subnet, operating mode, uptime, whether there is a hashrate at all, temperature, autotuning, frequency, board balance, J/TH efficiency, chip balance, firmware, errors, boards.

— Every action on a device now asks to be confirmed.

— The confirmation for switching a pool says where the miners are being switched to.

— Renaming miners in bulk by a mask, with a preview of the result.

The PITBIT team: thank you for being with us.

We are still building the ecosystem out, and here is the list of what has just changed:

— A new search, and more room for your devices.

— Devices can be moved into a location straight from the general list.

— A button that clears the hotel fee out of the settings.

— Chinese added.

— Various improvements to performance.

The PITBIT team: thank you for being with us.

We are still building the ecosystem out, and here is the list of what has just changed:

— Google sign-in: the system can now be entered with a Google account.

— A partner link, so partners can register through Google as well.

— A location gives a monthly report when you click the month, and all of its figures export to Excel.

— The utility in the Firmware section brought up to its latest version.

— Data loads faster and the interface answers quicker.

The PITBIT team: thank you for being with us.