Archive for the ‘Mining Hardware’ Category

Don’t Throw Out Your Antminer S9 Bitcoin ASIC Just Yet

14, May 2020

Prior to the recent Bitcoin block reward halving it was all about overclocking your old ASIC mining hardware such as the most widely used Antminer S9 SHA256 ASIC, so that they can manage to mine as much as possible before the halving. Now, a few days after the halving is a fact people are turning off their old Antminer’s as they are hardly profitable anymore, unless you have very cheap electricity or even free one. Don’t be in a hurry to throw them out just yet, this time however, instead of overclocking them, you might be actually downclocking them in order to get better power efficiency and extend their life a bit more. There are a number of modified alternative firmwares available for the Antminer S9 that allow you to get options for finer tuning for higher hashrate for better efficiency. We personally like to use the Braiins OS and more specifically the newer plus version that supports autotuning.

With Braiins OS+ autotuning feature it is really easy to get optimal results not only for higher hashrate, but for better efficiency at a lower power usage as well. We did a quick test to see how good it works and what results can we get trying to optimize power usage while retaining the best possible hashrate. So in about 3 hours we managed to get about 10.4 TH/s for 800W of power usage from a single Antminer S9. That is about 77 Watt per THS which is not bad result for just setting the 800W power target and let the firmware do the rest automatically, but going somewhere between 700W and 800W of power usage should be the sweet spot of about 75W or even a bit less per Terahash of hashate. Of course results can vary from miner to miner, can also be affected by the cooling and so on, but it won’t hurt to try. Do note however that the Braiins OS+ and the autotuning feature do come at a cost as there is a 2% built-in development fee.

– For more information and to download and try the Braiins OS+ and the autotune feature…

Futurebit Apollo LTC Pod ASIC Miner Running Full Litecoin Node

25, Apr 2020

Futurebit’s Apollo LTC Pod ASIC Miner is not new, but the mining device is getting better and more functional over time. The latest Batch 3 of the Apollo comes with support for a full Litecoin (LTC) Node that can run on the miner itself with the blockchain stored on a large enough USB drive plugged in to the USB port of the device. There are three different version of the Apollo LTC Pod available – a Standard one for the miner only with no PSU sold for $349.99 USD, Full Package with a 200W custom power supply for $399.99 USD and a Full Node package that also includes a 64GB USB flash drive for the Litecoin blockchain available for $419.99 USD. All three versions support running a full Litecoin node, so you can use a custom PSU and your own USB flash drive if you already have them and get just the standard package or get everything bundled.

Full node support is available out of the box with the latest Batch 3 of the Apollo LTC Pod miners, earlier Batch 2 miners will just require software update in order to be able to get the new functionality. Owners of the first batch of Futurebit Apollo LTC Pod ASIC miners however should need a hardware upgrade in the form of a new MCU board due to insufficient RAM on Batch 1 units. The good news is that there is also an Apollo Full Node Upgrade Kit available. Here you can find more details and instructions on how to run a full node on the Futurebit Apollo LTC Pod.

Futurebit Apollo LTC Pod ASIC Miner Features:
– Compact Stand-alone Pod Style Miner (4x6x4in) that mines any scrypt based algorithm coin (Litecoin, Digibyte, Verge, Einsteinium, Gulden, etc)
– Runs a Full Litecoin Node directly on the device
– Very wide range of operation modes with preset ECO (quiet) mode, BALANCED, and TURBO mode.
– 100-135+ MH/s of Scrypt performance per miner (+/- 5%)
– Industry leading 1W/MH in ECO mode, and 1.4W/MH for TURBO (100-200 watts +/- 10%)
– Powered by a fully integrated Quad-Core A7 ARM based controller
– First miner to be fully controlled over wifi, only cable needed is power! (this will be a Beta feature on launch..backup ethernet port is available as well).
– Clocks and Voltage is fully customizable by user with easy to use interface (no more pots!)
– Industry leading 97% efficiency 12v power-stage, with 27 ASIC chips powered in a 3×9 parallel/serial power arrangement
– Custom designed cold forged hexagonal pin heatsink with leading thermal performance for the quietest ASIC miner in operation!
– 2k-6k PWM High Static Pressure Dual Ball Bearing Fan with automatic thermal management with onboard temperature sensor
– Controlled via local connection on a web browser similar to antminers. You can simply set it up via smartphone browser. No crazy driver installs, hard to use miner software or scripts needed.
– Two Six Pin PCIE power connectors for wide-range of power draw (only one is needed in ECO mode)
– Custom Designed all Aluminum case
– Now comes with its own optional PSU and is ready to run out of the box with the PSU+SD Card option!
– New future platform features including full-node/peer to peer fully decentralize mining, full stand-alone solo mining, cloud/app based controls, and more in development.

Do note that the Apollo LTC Pod ASIC miner is not intended for use in large Scypt ASIC mining farms, the device is designed with the home user in mind that will most likely run a single not so powerful miner at home and will require a more affordable and silent in terms of operation hardware. The Apollo LTC Pod is a Scrypt miner that comes with its own web-based control and monitoring functionality, it is a standalone miner that does not require to be connected to a computer to operate. With it you can mine any Scrypt-based cryptocurrency and not just Litecoin (LTC), however as far as the new full node support is concerned it is only for Litecoin at the moment in order to provide more nodes to the network.

– If you are interested in the Futurebit Apollo LTC Pod ASIC Miner Running Full Litecoin Node…

How to Update the Firmware on Problematic Bitmain Antminer E3 Miners

23, Apr 2020

Last month Bitmain has released an updated firmware for their Antminer E3 miners to extend their life for mining Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Ethereum (ETH) with the approach of 4GB DAG sizes, however a lot of users had issues updating all devices successfully. Errors preventing the proper update to the fixed firmware such as:

413 - Request Entity Too Large

or

mount: mounting ubi1:rootfs on /mnt/config failed: Invalid argument mkdir: can't create directory '/mnt/config/home/usr_config': No such file or directory cp: can't create '/mnt/config/home/usr_config/': No such file or directory umount: can't umount /mnt/config: Invalid argument mount: mounting ubi1:rootfs on /mnt/upgrade failed: No such file or directory runme.sh: cd: line 122: can't cd to /mnt/upgrade/upgrade umount: can't umount /mnt/upgrade: No such file or directory

The easiest method we have found that works 100% in a couple of Antminer E3 miners that we had issues updating remotely via the web interface of the devices is to flash the SD card recovery firmware and then update normally with the latest fixed firmware. The only drawback for this method is that you need to have physical access to the E3 miners as you cannot do the SD card recovery procedure remotely unfortunately.

Here is a quick guide on how to updated problematic E3 miners:
– Download the E3-SD-20180806-pool.zip SD card recovery firmware file from Bitman
– Have a handy 4-8GB micro-SD flash card (larger capacity should work but is not needed), format it with FAT32 file system and extract the contents of the E3-SD-20180806-pool.zip archive on the card
– Insert the SD card into the slot at the back of the Antminer E3 device (it should be powered off)
– You need to open the control board of the miner and switch the position of the jumper labeled JP4 and then power on the device
– Wait for about a minute until you see the red and green LEDs on the control board start blinking together
– Power down the Antminer S3, revert the position of the JP4 jumper to its original place, remove the SD card and insert the control board back on its place
– Power on the miner, wait for it to boot (it will have the default configuration settings) and go to Upgrade to flash the latest fixed firmware
– You can download the latest fixed firmware for Antminer E3 here – E3_V540_0327.tar.gz
– Wait for the flash procedure to finish and the miner to reboot, set your mining pool and wallet address in the configuration settings and you should be ready to mine normally once again until the DAG size for ETH and ETC reaches very close to 4GB that is…


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