I found an Antminer S7 with bad firmware ending soon on ebay that is currently at a price I can afford. I think the fact that I can save on the shipping fees living in the same city as the miner is located in, may make this a great deal for me.
My questions are:
1) Is the idea that I could save money on an S7 with bad firmware sound?
2) How difficult would it be to get a s7 with bad firmware up and running?
3) What are the steps involved in relishing the bad firmware if I do not have a way to access the miners I.P.?
I will post a link to the Antminer so you guys may have a better idea of what I am looking at, Thank you in advance.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bitmain-AntMiner-S7-Was-hashing-at-over-4-7-TH-s-as-is-not-working-NOT-S9-/232191226447?hash=item360facf24f:g:pRUAAOSwnHZYZwASIt's only a great deal if you can get it working. Maybe. Start by using the search feature on this site to see if anyone else has figured out how to "fix" the problem described. The S7 has been around for a while so someone has probably had to recover one from an upgrade gone wrong. Check the Mining Hardware sub-forum to start.
If you plan to run this in your house just know that it is LOUD and produces
a lot of heat. Oh, and that heat is produced by burning electricity. If electricity is free and you don't care about your hearing, it might be an OK deal.
I have an S7LN which was lower noise (and lower hash rate) to start, but which was then made even quieter by sidehack (a user here) who hacked the power code to run at a lower voltage reducing the power draw to just 450 Watts which lets me run the miner with the fans at 20% which makes it quiet enough to be in the home office next to me, and helping to heat my home.
YMMV and you'd be well served by doing you research first.
Cheers,
- zed
