Bitcoin Forum

HI people.  I decided to do some learning on this topic and purchased a S9(new in box)  used power supply but seems to be working.   I am aware this is a old unit and i am not looking to have this thing make money other then a few dollars maybe. 
On to the problem.   

So after learning how to get this thing up and running, updating its firmware (Linux 3.14.0-xilinx-g16220c3 #83 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 12 11:42:53 CST 2018)
Learning that people mess with its root password almost right away.  (factory resets and fast PW change fixed that!)
Joining it to a couple of different pools.  Making sure its on the dmz (dont know if that matters)

It sees the pools but 100% of any work it is sent is discarded the hashrate is zero.  I let it run a few hours and no change other then higher discard numbers. I tried digging around on this forum but i dont know enough to narrow the problem yet.

some pointers to what directions next would be good. thanks in advance.

Can you post an image of what you are seeing on the miner status page? It could also be helpful for you to post the Logs from the Antminer, as someone might pick the problem out from there. Be sure to post this using the code button looks like this "#" when you make a post. What do you see pool side? Does the pool see the miner? and is it reporting any hashes pool side.

How many pools have you tried to connect to? If only one try another.

Iirc your miner should still show a hashrate on it's status page as it's still technically doing the work.

I just want to clarify is this "discarded" or "rejected" shares. I haven't looked at an Antminer in a while.

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Here is an older thread detailing "discarded" shares - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3629509.0. This is why we need more info from you.

Well it is cheap under 100 usd I hope.

First off you did not come here first and you loaded the most up to date bitmain firmware .

This has crippled the machine.
I can't teach you about brains aftermarket firmware.  
I can't do a lot due to your choice to firmware upgrade without asking about it.

edit:

looks like you did 2018 firmware not the newest one so you may not have screwed up

Rant has ended. ;D

Go to gui and look for  system click it then click log



we can see what the log tells us what is wrong.

also screenshot the configuration page did you do all three pools?

welp it was well under 100.  shipping was almost as much =>

if i try to copy the log here it exceeds permitted size. i dont know whats the relevant part..  finding this forum was actually quite a bit harder then i thought it was be.  google keeps trying to shove me in to irrelevant reddit threads and useless bitmain support pages.

https://imgur.com/obWUe48

The miner's hashrate is 0, this is why nothing is showing on the pool, there are many things which could cause such an issue, the first suspect would be the firmware, but please don't upgrade to the latest firmware because that will lock you out of the miner and there won't be much you can do, try a custom firmware for testing, and once everything is good you could switch back to the stock firmware.

This could also be a power supply-related issue, you need to post the kernel log, ALL of it, usually the lines at the bottom are more important, but it's best if you could post all of it, try to edit your first post, and put like half there, and then put the second half in the second post.

not sure how to break up the log to get it on here even 1/8th of it is too large.   could i upload it somewhere and then link it?

Prior to that firmware update i did. it was running on stock firmware with the exact same results.  thus the firmware update.

Maybe use something like https://justpaste.it/ and paste the link here?

It's kind of strange that your miner is creating a kernel log that can't be pasted in two posts here, it's probably repeating the same error endlessly and that's why.


What is the current firmware version? if the firmware upgrade didn't fix it, then it could be "very likely"  that the PSU is bad, however, the kernel log will give us more details on the issue.

https://justpaste.it/9jit0

ty for that link.   btw.  

Linux 3.14.0-xilinx-g16220c3 #83 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 12 11:42:53 CST 2018

What these 3 lines of the kernel log are saying is that the temp sensors on all three boards are bad, while that is a possibility, it's very, very unlikely especially since you mentioned that it was a brand new gear, in most cases when all temp-sensor fail at once, it means the PSU is bad, so you need a PSU replacement, that is bad news, but also good news since PSUs are dirt cheap.


This is the Kernel Version, the firmware version is beneath that, labeled as  "File System Version" it usually starts with a day of the week like Fri / Mon and ends with a year like 2020/2019.

I would still flash custom firmware and see if it gives any different results, pretty slim chances but worth trying.

i have older PC power supplies lying around.   maybe power a single board back up with one of those and see?


ii also kept the original version backed up before attempting a newer one.

Go ahead, don't forget to power the control board as well, so you will need a total of 4*6pin 12v inputs, which most regular PC PSUs should have.


This is your firmware version, and It's the latest firmware from Bitmain, no S9s were made after that version which means the flash/upgrade went through since your miner is brand new, by the way is it an S9i / or S9j? or is it actually S9! and how the heck did you manage to find a brand new S9 in late 2020 anyway. :-\


That will probably be of no use since the firmware you flashed won't allow you to flash any other firmware (except going with the Sdcard route) because it says:

So i brought out a gold standard 700 watt PSU for a PC I know it still works fine It has the required plugs(4) and plugged in the control board and 1 hashboard and since it still wants a PC the old pcs MB as well. the PSU refused to turn on at all.  but it saw the MB and its indicator lights saw power.

with this failure of anything.  im interested in attempting the diag the apw++++++ PSU.

although imi going to rehookup the original psu to see if i didnt cook anything.

Checked ebay  the shipping of a PSU is about double what they are selling for lol.  

are you usa based?
i have lots of apw3+

they can ship to usa cheaply about 9 to 20.

via usps.

Canada.  New Brunswick.    with exchange rate its like 30 in shipping.  I wanted to check to see if i had a dead or non correctly functional one before just buying another.  Didn't want to start throwing money away willie nilly At something that wont pay for itself very quickly or at all.  Part education as well  I can diagnose PCs fairly well  been doing that on and off since the mid 90s. 

When a PCs PSU goes bad it rarely even turns on which is why im doing a "erm what?"  the Bitmain PSu looks like its built along the same lines as a PC unit and the unit turns on.  so.  I dont doubt you in the slightest that its bad.  but i want to know where its bad.

I'll check with someone I know on that side of the country to see if they have something for you. There's a good chance they will have something. If not I'm in the middle of the country and have a few of those PSU's around I believe.
Let me know if you decide to go that route.

The only check I've ever done on  PSU is to check voltage at the connectors. Apart from that I don't really know anyone who has bothered to open it up and look for what component malfunctioned.

It's really hard to troubleshoot a PSU, aside from the obvious fan change, most bad PSUs i dealt with had a bad fan, and changing that fixes the issue, I was told by someone who knows well about this stuff that they were not made in a way that could be fixed when something goes wrong, it's not technically impossible, but time and cost-wise is the issue, these PSUs go for as low as $10 in china, there is zero sense for anyone to attempt fixing them anyway.

I have a ton of spare Apw3/Apw7 because miners die more often than PSUs do, sadly, I am a few thousand miles away from where you are located, Steamtyme is the only guy I know of and trust who can manage to source a cheap PSU for you nearby, the next closest to him would be the people in the U.S like phill and a few others, also do check with Scott (you can find him in the hardware marketplace) he might be able to help.

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I have learned that if i leave 1 board unpowered the s9 will see its temp sensors on the other two and start hashing.   I also read on another site that the apw3++ is really only designed to run 2 boards at 110v?  what would be the point of selling an item thats under powered? not sure if that is accurate information atm.

Yes it IS accurate.  Using 110V input the APW3++ is only good for at most 1,200w and is happiest under 1,100w when fed 110v but will easily put out 1,600w when fed 220V which will run a full s9 miner at full speed. Depending on the speed the old s9's w/all 3 boards draw from 1,250w up to 1,375w.

It is not under powered, you just need to match the load to what it can put out. Ya gotta remember that for many years now most miners have been very power-hungry and so are powered with >200VAC - not 110v. BM offered PSU's that can run on 110v only because lots of folks throttle down the miners to be reasonably quiet space heaters so the lower power output is not a issue.

I got your PM. I'll look around and see what I got I also reached out to someone closer to you but haven't heard back.

Quick question are you trying to run on a 110v circuit?? You should be supplying 220v to the PSU- to run a fully functional S9. I can't remember but I think they ran on 110 for L3 litecoin miners.

Odds are you won't need a PSU. Good luck.

yeap 110v is whats available.  see im ignorant this stuff still.   id skip the new psu since this is a learning unit.   if it pays for itself running at 1/3 speed at a reasonable rate ill buy a better unit.

Again thanks for all the help people even if it wasnt specific info the talking to people was enough to get me heading the right direction.

Ooof, that was a bad decision. You cannot run S9 unless it is underclocked on 110v.
For future note, you now know that you should read specs of everything you buy.

I feel bad for telling you it was a PSU issue, I assumed that the voltage range aspect is something that everyone knows but I was wrong, it's hard to assume what the other person knows and what they don't know. if you mentioned the 110v in the OP, then everyone here would have told you that you can't run 3 boards on it, but again, how would you know?

Anyway, if you ever consider upgrading to a new mining gear, know what 110v is not an option, not even when removing a hash board or two, the PSU won't run at all if not fed with the proper voltage which is above 200v.


1/3? Do you mean 2/3? you can actually run two board on 110v, also, instead of stressing one or two boards while the other one sits there doing nothing try to use custom firmware like BraiinOs or Vnish and set low frequency and voltage, you can achieve some nice results by tuning the miner, the stock firmware sucks as far as efficiency is concerned.

Yeah my misunderstanding was pretty much that if the PSU was 110 then why Wouldnt it work since that IS the PSU for the unit.

But no worries.  That is exactly why im doing this like this to learn what i dont know.   and I would have no issues with attempting an upgrade of its firmware.  but i am lead to understand that i have to now play around with an SDcard which i might have one of that size in an old phone somewhere.

and also this unit if it is stable and ive run it for 12 hours now on a litecoin which looks like it made a whopping 45 cents.  which is rather poor.  but whatever.   I switched it to slushpool and put it on bitcoin.

This unit is going to be placed in a friends business where his power is paid as part of the rent.  if theres no complaints then i dont see a real loss.  the business is also heated by heat pump.  this thing cranks out heat so it might offset the heatpumps power use and electrical costs might even out.  Until summer of course =>

How did your math add up tho? They even have specifications which note maximum W on 110v HERE (https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012411694-Introduction-to-APW3-):



Are you sure you mined Litecoin with your S9? S9s mine only Sha256. And Litecoin is using Scrypt.

There isn't much of a difference in how much fiat you earn by the end of the day, whether you get paid in BTC or any other currency, even mining different SHA256 coins won't really make a huge difference since the hashrate eventually finds a balance of some sort where all coins of the same algorithm end up making you the same profit, except for one of these coin's price goes up or down real fast compared to the rest, this usually gives you a few hours of more profit until things are balanced again.

One hashbaord (4.5th) makes about 60 cents a day at current prices and difficulty, and these days are glorious, profit is hitting the sky compared to the past couple of months, so if you are not happy with the profit now, I am afraid you will be less happy as you on forward.

Here is a good tool to estimate your profit beforehand https://whattomine.com/asic.


Some pools will pay you in any x coin you chose for Sha256 hashrate, for anyone who doesn't fully understand how mining actually works, they will think they are mining that particular coin even if it was a POS coin, I think this was the case here.

I sincerely hope so. But why would anyone use Sha256 and do payouts in Litecoin? Doesn't seem right to me.

There might be an option for him in pool to decide what is he paid in and that he is confusing that with what he is mining.

Maybe you mine bitcoin and get paid in another coin because you think the latter will outperform the former? just how other people mine other coins and get paid in Bitcoin.


There is no other way that I can think of unless he magically changed the algorithm of his S9. ;D

This is a real shame as you loaded firmware without asking us.

You could use braiins and run 3 boards at 800 watts doing 10000gh

you still can but you will need to boot from the sd card slot.



If I recall the July 2019 bitmain shit ware that you loaded has an ultra low setting.  it can do 3 boards on that setting.

it will do about 9000gh. 9th and use about 1000 watts.

You should really look at my low sound low power thread as I have a lot of info on how to down clock the s9

the bitmain firmware you loaded is not as good as the brains aftermarket  but it is not a ton of money we are talking.

so on a 24 hour period on the slushpool it runs at average of 9.4TH (2 boards)

confirmed 0.00001920 and unconfirmed 0.0008910 translates in to about 2 dollars and 22 cents Canadian.  I prolly spent 4 on power.

Sound is going to be a serious issue and while i can locate a SD card im sure.  how to load the firmware On to SD card is the question im looking in to.  since nothing i have uses an old large sd card.

I was pricing sound board at home depot its 30 dollars for a 4x8 sheet  i dont think i need more then 2x2

a silly idea came to mind and i leaned a old used wifi router on a 45 degree angle against that whacky turbine on the back and that alone took off the high pitch.

You do not need big SD card, I use 8gb because I cannot find smaller ones in my house anymore, but whole firmware tanks maybe a few MB. All you need is to download LEGIT custom firmware, format your SD card and unzip the files to root folder of it.

so I have located a old 2gb sd card of mine inside an old galaxy note 1 its of the right shape and ive checked it already for being able to plug it in to the miner I am currently charging the phone.   Will i be able to use the phone itself to download the firmware on to the sd card? or will i have to locate some sort of interface for my PC to access the card?

amazon has cheap card read write

which you should have if you want to mine.

i will come back with amazon.ca links for you.

I have 3 of these they work really well with apple or windows

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B072NCND62

the card below is bigger then you need as I can't find a good 8gb on amazon.ca
https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Plus-Class-Adapter-MB-MC32GA/dp/B07DKGP6RB

I have already told you what steps you need to take in order to prepare your SD card for flashing firmware to ASIC. If you can format SD card, unzip files to root folder of freshly formatted SD card within your phone, then yes, you can do everything with phone. But I always do it via laptop with SD card reader.

I linked a really nice read write for him above.  Well worth the price.

I can't find a good 8gb blank card link for him.

Yeah, just saw. Might buy it as well.

8GB and 16GB are not produced that much anymore if at all from reputable companies. They are not worth the material. That is why 32GB is a new minimum. In my local city shops, 32GB is standard and finding a shop with 16GB SD cards is like finding a block with Antminer S9.

Yes, you can, connect the phone to your pc and download the firmware on the pc, do any unzipping necessary before sending it to your phone, make sure you format the Sdcard using the phone, I have done this in the past, it works if you do it right.

I downloaded the brains OS image file.  I also downloaded that ether program And I attempted to flash the SD card like the instructions said I should.  The ether program reports that the brain's OS image file is corrupt.  Wiped out both tried again same problem. 

I am not sure which image you downloaded, use the official website (https://braiins.com/). I am not sure what ether program you are talking about and why would you need it. There is no need for anything to check if image file is corrupt or not. You format sd card and download the firmware. I am not sure if braiins can be uploaded normally with upgrade button if firmware is from 2019/2020 but for previous ones it could. You should read this: https://docs.braiins.com/os/.

Otherwise, I'd advise you to try some of smaller firmware developers found on this forum. They have really good and simple guides on how to flash your unit.

from the site you you linked.

https://braiins.com/os/open-source/download

theres a few versions in there i downloaded the one pertaining to the s9 antminer: https://feeds.braiins-os.org/20.09/braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2020-09-07-0-e50f2a1b-20.09.img

https://docs.braiins.com/os/open-source-en/Setup/1_quickstart.html#install-braiins-os  from the doc section I misspelled etcher when i posted the other article I was using voice to text on my phone.   The section talking about how to install the OS with a SD card when you have the version installed that normally prevents updates. it clearly says you must flash the SD card in advance and use the Etcher software to do it.  https://etcher.io/

I wiped and formatted the card on note 1 before removing it. I have not gotten to the part of the install for adjusting jumpers I used to debug mfms and rlls so I don't see a problem with that yet.

I was using an RCA netbook (win 10)which I haven't used in a few years.  I examined it to see if it had an SD card slot and it had one hiding that I didn't even know was there.

I have never used anything like etcher before because I haven't had any need for it. I'd advise against using it.

If you really want to use braiins, you can go to their forum/telegram or any other social media where they do customer support. There are quite good people there.

Otherwise, someone more into braiins here could chime in.

I'd even use Vnish's Asic.to before braiins, but that is just my preference.

Are you sure that you were following the instructions of firmware After 2019 (https://docs.braiins.com/os/open-source-en/Setup/1_quickstart.html#running-stock-firmware-released-in-2019-or-later) and not the other one?

I know there are two ways to run Braiins, one is by flashing it on the control board and another is by booting from the Sdcard after changing its jumper settings by switching JP4 jumper position, in both cases, you will need to move that jumper, the only difference is that you would keep it changed (to the right side) if you want the miner to boot from the Sdcard.

If you need further help with Braiins you should contact Artemis3 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=980501), I think he has the most experience in that firmware among us, if things still don't work, try Vnish.

Also, since you are running the latest firmware which is more securely locked than others, it might not be easy at all.

Welp.  That didn't work.  I moved the single jumper as indicated (annoying to get to)  I had to take the fan off the front and slide that aluminum housing forward to get that control board out.  Replaced everything, inserted the flashed sd card and the machine simply says fault, and I get nothing from it.

Tried a few times.   Zero access. Fault light steady.    Removed sd card pulled the cowl again moved jumper back to original position reassembled and it seems to be functioning like normal.   Its possible that the flashed sd card wasn't flashed correctly I have zero knowledge on how to check that.

I am looking in to that software version of updating.

There is a good chance that the Sdcard you using is bad, I am sure almost everyone has experienced such a thing before, some of those Sdcard simply won't work on the S9 flash.

Also, there is a chance that you might be doing something wrong, my advice would be this.

Use the stock recovery files, download from this link https://service.bitmain.com/support/download?product=Flashing%20SD%20card%20with%20image

Make sure you use this version (t9+ -SD Tools.zip), do not under any circumstances use the S9 version which was published a few weeks ago, also to be on the safe side I would use the stock recovery files but download them from elsewhere such as from here https://vnish.ru/en/firmware/antminer-s9.html or ask one of the trusted members here to send it to you, just in case the publish date for the t9 files on Bitmain's website is incorrect, you simply want to avoid anything new form bitmain because that will make things even worse.

Follow this guide to flash the miner: https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019493654-S9-series-S9-S9i-S9j-S9-Hydro-Control-Board-Program-Recovery

If that does not work, try a different Sdcard.

That was an annoying chore lol.   Who would have thought I would have to resort to command prompt to force a partition on to an SD card.  Windows was completely refusing to partition the SD card larger then 16MB so no files would fit on it.

The miner has been returned to factory.  With that T9 version. Will attempt a remote upgrade to brains after lunch. 

Stuff like that happens all the time.


There are 2 versions of BraiinOS, one is free and the other one has dev fees, the latter comes with more features like auto-tune which you might not need, so I would stick to the free version and start with the lowest frequency and increase it one step at a time, you will need a Watmetter or amp clamp of some type to measure the power consumption, you don't want to push past 1000w to be on the safe side.

ok. so next problem that ive run in to.


when using the cmd and typing in.  bos-plus-toolbox-am1-s9 install 192.168.2.14.....

it goes ok  password.   entered.   installing files  at the end it says  failed.  unsupported miner version Antminer t9+ 

ok guessing the flash to original thats supposed to be the same as the t9.   isnt. 

does this mean i use one of those old flash files from bitmain for the s9 instead?

There is no need to do that.

Anyway, your current problem is related to installing BraiinOS, I suggest you ask this question here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5036844.0), alternatively, use Vnish (AwesomeMiner or Asic.to), those are easy to deal with, you can flash them from the webpage itself but they both have dev fees.

Hi, I see that you have a lot of trouble flashing your S9 ... I also see that you have the 2018 version installed above, which shouldn't be a problem for an update ...

I propose to you, my thread, which consists simply in making an update, then installing my patch, and you will thus have control of the tension and the frequency ... all without SD card ...

let me know if you are interested (update links), this is all completely free and risk free, and it will not block your miner.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5127323.0

again id like to thank all the people that helped me on this.  My s9 test/learning unit is up and running with the Braiins OS  now i have to learn that.

And after some testing and alot more reading yes i Did have to install some s9 firmware from 2017 on top of the return to t9+ before the braiins installation was able to recognize what it was dealing with.

now i have to learn yet more new software and figure out how to get all 3 boards running at some sort of low rate and a much lower fan speed.  theres no way that the person i will be sucking power off of will tolerate that fan at that volume.

I am glad you got your miner up and running, now for the fan noise part, you can manually set a fixed speed, usually, anything below 40% is "ok", the stock fans are noisy as hell compared to other fans, there are other methods proposed by thierry4wd and phill for noise reduction ( search the forum you will find them).

In order to reduce the fan speed without toasting your miner, you will need to reduce the voltage and the frequency, I suggest you start with a frequency of 475 and 8.0V, this should (at least according to taserz (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4513567.0) whom I trust) give you 10th at 750 watts, the miner will run pretty cool and if the room temperature isn't bad, I think you might get away with 30% fan speed.

I adjusted its settings prior to going to bed last night.  Results are 10 and 1/2 TH running on three boards. Fan speed 38% I let it adjust those speeds on its own. 

I was unable to tell the unit to run at 475 and adjust its voltage. It did not seem to matter what I put into those for adjustment, the unit ignored those settings.  But changing its power setting was a different story, limiting it to 800 w it automatically on its own brought the speed down to about 473 and it's running at 7.94 volts.  Again I don't seem to have any control over those settings except for the wattage limitation.  Temperature is hovering between 60 and 80° c.  And the fan will ramp itself up and down to adjust temperature.  Each board was being limited to 241 watts.

But the most important thing of all for what this unit is going to be doing is it's almost down to a large PC fan sound.  It's quite tolerable to be in the room with it.