I purchased a used Antminer S7 and was able to download software and join a pool and setup a backup pool.  I love the idea of being part of this and contributing to the success of bitcoin.  I am not very technically savy though so getting to where I am now has taken me a while.  It was so exciting to see my miner go into action and reach 4.7 TH/s but almost immediately it began dropping down to about 1.5 TH/s.  My dashboard shows that it will rise to a peak of 4.k ish and then immediately drop down again.  It does this over and over in a repeating cycle.  The stats show that it is only averaging 2.24TH/s. Of course I don't know if I have failing hardware or if there is some sort of configuration I could look into changing.  Hopefully somebody can offer some troubleshooting advice and someday I hope to be able to pay it forward.  And if I am not posting this in the right area I apologize in advance.  Thanks, Steve.