Firmware for S9 November Batch

[NateTGreat]

Hello All,

I am a beginner, and I will be receiving my S9 antminers in a couple weeks and was wondering about the firmware update. First of all, what is cgminer and will I need to be using that? Second of all, when it comes to firmware updates, do I need to do them all or just the latest? I see on BITMAIN's site they have 5 total updates for the S9. Any ideas on which one(s) I will need to download for a 13.5TH S9? Thank you in advance!

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[NotFuzzyWarm]

.....
You spent all that money on a miner and never bothered to read Bitmains operator manual I take it? Why ?? It *is* on their site ya know...

The miners ship with the latest stable release of Firmware. NEVER EVER update FW unless you have some issue requiring it. Frankly unaware of that ever being the case (needing to update).

They are stand-alone miners. No PC required, just a something with network access and a browser. RTFM

[NateTGreat]

Thank you for your expertise. I did in fact read the entire S9 manual from BITMAIN's site. No where in section 6. 'Administering Your Miner' did it give me the warning you did. It just gave instructions for updating the firmware. It did not specify when or why to update, and it did not say that it comes loaded with the latest version. I am just starting and do not know the intricacies of these machines. That is why I am here! So, thank you!

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Okey Dokey.
For the most part since s1 days (late 2013-mid 2014) all of Bitmain's miners have been stand-alone using first RasPi then BeagleBone and now BM's custom ARM SOC computers. Pretty much setup once and just let run.

I do agree BM should emphasize to update ONLY if directly instructed to by Bitmain as part of a troubleshooting issue. Hell, virtually all of my s9's going back to Batch-1 were running as-shipped with zero issues. The only updates I did were ones to totally remove the controversial (never used) AB along with (again never used) user remote-access code that Bitmain left hanging around since the s7 days.

[NateTGreat]

Sounds good. I'm glad to hear that I won't have to deal with firmware updates much if at all. Being the noob I am, I am glad to know that I can plug them in and they are ready to go!  Thanks again!

[NateTGreat]

I was thinking of mining with nicehash and came across this: https://www.nicehash.com/asic-mining#sha256

Here it states that the antminer S9 NEEDS FIRMWARE UPDATE to the current version. Is this true? If so, why?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Because Nicehash does some - odd - things in the background passing the work your miner does around to folks paying for rental hash and BM was nice enough to accommodate them. Personally that is just another reason I do not use Nicehash and mine in a pool. I mine for ME with no middle-man taking a percentage of the earnings.

[NateTGreat]

Obviously, I am looking to make as much profit. I was recommended on using whattomine.com to determine day to day pool profitability. It seems that Nicehash is always at the top of the list for the SHA-256 algorithm. It is currently around $17.50 per miner per day to mine on nicehash (@$0.09/kWH) with an S9. Is there another pool you would recommend to increase that profitability?

Thanks for your feedback, NotFuzzyWarm. I really do appreciate you taking the time.

[fanatic26]

There are a ton of reasons to flash the firmware. They wouldnt put it out if there were not improvements being made.

For some reason there are a bunch of people on this forum that think flashing firmware is dangerous. I have literally flashed ten thousand plus bitmain units and have never bricked a machine with a firmware update. Im betting that a lot of people flashed incorrect firmware because they are too impatient to confirm they are using the correct one and blamed bitmain instead of their own incompetence.

If you are receiving machines from the November batch they will most likely already have the most current firmware. I have even received some that had newer firmware than what is offered on the bitmain support site so the chances are you wont need to update yours.

[NateTGreat]

Thank you for your thoughts, fanatic26. I will likely try plug and play first and see how it goes before updating the firmware. I even spoke with nicehash customer support and they said it was not necessary to make the miners compatible if it was the November batch. Wish me luck!

[ccgllc]

I agree with Fantic26.  I have not flashed 10's of thousands, but am probably near 100.  Have only bricked one, and that was my own fault (got distracted while doing batches of 8 at a time, and started the process twice on the same box.  My bad.).

I am curious why about 1 in 15 of the December batch are coming with a November firmware?  The rest appear to have the July release, which I'm flashing up to the August release.

[dinotom]

There are a ton of reasons to flash the firmware. They wouldnt put it out if there were not improvements being made.

For some reason there are a bunch of people on this forum that think flashing firmware is dangerous. I have literally flashed ten thousand plus bitmain units and have never bricked a machine with a firmware update. Im betting that a lot of people flashed incorrect firmware because they are too impatient to confirm they are using the correct one and blamed bitmain instead of their own incompetence.

If you are receiving machines from the November batch they will most likely already have the most current firmware. I have even received some that had newer firmware than what is offered on the bitmain support site so the chances are you wont need to update yours.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Where can one get the November or December firmware?
Bitmain's site has Apr 2017 as latest version.

[Bitwiz78]

There are a ton of reasons to flash the firmware. They wouldnt put it out if there were not improvements being made.

For some reason there are a bunch of people on this forum that think flashing firmware is dangerous. I have literally flashed ten thousand plus bitmain units and have never bricked a machine with a firmware update. Im betting that a lot of people flashed incorrect firmware because they are too impatient to confirm they are using the correct one and blamed bitmain instead of their own incompetence.

If you are receiving machines from the November batch they will most likely already have the most current firmware. I have even received some that had newer firmware than what is offered on the bitmain support site so the chances are you wont need to update yours.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Where can one get the November or December firmware?
Bitmain's site has Apr 2017 as latest version.

The newest firmware is at the bottom of the page.