Without knowing much about cryptocurrency, my friend obtained a trailer loaded with used mining equipment. There were lots of ASIC devices including some AlcheMiner systems. I think he already sold 1 AlcheMiner before he really looked into what it could do. The one he's left with probably has some bad cards, but we want to see if we can figure out which ones are good or bad. I know even less about cryptocurrency than my friend, but I'll be helping him the best I can. I'll try to familiarize myself with all this and I hope I'm not a burden to you all.

Looking at the AlcheMiner we still have, the boards had already been modified to remove the 8-pin power connections and they were replaced with thick gauge wires coming from PSUs. Because lots of USB UART adapters and rPis were included, I suspect the boards are already running jstephanop's custom firmware. I suspect I'll just have to update to the latest version to be sure.

Some of the hardware is visibly damaged and it's possible all of the boards are bad. If there are failures as we try to set it up, I won't know if it's due to bad hardware or due to my lack of understanding. I'll want to be sure I'm doing everything correctly.

If I understand correctly, the README doesn't really apply for the latest firmware. Is that right? Where should I start?

Thanks!