Antminer S9 FW with voltage/fan/frequency control

[RadekG2]

Hi, I just made some binaries for our Antminers S9. It works also with R4. It might work with T9, but I didn't test it.

I decided to compile bmminer from official bmminer GitHub repository and since I am no programmer, I am unable to pass per-board parameters, so all binaries have fixed voltage for all chains, it requires only one fan and 3000 RPM max is enough (good for R4 or silent fans).

All versions have treshold of 675MHz+ where voltage is maxed at 9.4V for the chain (0.4476V at chip) so you can easily switch between low speed efficiency and maximum overclock. I can confirm, that 14TH/s machines can easily OC to 18TH/s+, but require two APW3 PSUs (it will draw about 2kW at 18TH/s).

Please note that 14TH/s machines are selected by bitmain and they have better efficiency, so they require lower voltage at 14Th/s compared to 13.5TH/s. Typical 14TH/s machine has 8.8V each chain.

Miner reports its version with voltage. Please consider your skills, I am not responsible for any damage you did.

How to?

Download correct binary of target voltage you wish to use.

1) Run Putty and connect to your miner IP.
2) Log in, L/P: root/admin
3) run command in Putty: /etc/init.d/bmminer.sh stop
4) now, you stopped mining and released bmminer binary to be renamed

5) Run WinSCP, connect to your miner IP address.
6) change remote directory to /usr/bin
7) rename bmminer to bmminer.old
copy new bmminer to remote dir. Double check permissions of new file - must be executable! Set attributes if not.

9) go back to putty and run command: /etc/init.d/bmminer.sh restart
10) well done! Watch your system log for correct voltage set by bmminer. You are mining at voltage you set.

TIPS:

1) install firmware with fixed frequency first before you upload new binary. Fixed frequency firmware allows you to modify fan speed at config page.
2) frequency settings are at "hidden" page. It is at <miner ip>/cgi-bin/minerAdvanced.cgi
3) most of S9 has mixed quality of boards, so sorting of hash boards will help you to keep best settings for each miner (require 2 or more machines)
4) lowest voltage I tested is 8.2V, but it is unstable even with low frequency, so play with it to find your sweet pot

Is it legit? Am I scammer? No, I am old member RadekG, but my account was hacked and now some scammer is using my identity. Just check old RadekG messages (hardware) and new about shit. In case you feel something is wrong, please update with fresh firmware, it will revert miner to factory defaults.

Please note, this modification requires basic windows + linux skills.

Big thanks to Alexander1560

here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mh3mDZ_LxkeE9D0Mx40-2f4YGhR9r57f

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[SpatariuM]

Thank you RadekG2,
Any chance you might want to share with us how you compiled Bmminer?
We would love a small tutorial here or on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4030824.0    would be great.

[RadekG2]

Thank you RadekG2,
Any chance you might want to share with us how you compiled Bmminer?
We would love a small tutorial here or on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4030824.0    would be great.

sure, here is tutorial video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD5F_KHkkqQ

[htautosjay]

Whats a safe TH go adjust to without burning boards out?..
Thanks

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Whats a safe TH go adjust to without burning boards out?..
Thanks

The only 'safe' speed is the speed the miner had when sold. Even then an unmodified s9 is not known for being reliable.

When you overclock you are on your own and yes, you WILL shorten the miner life even more.

[htautosjay]

The only 'safe' speed is the speed the miner had when sold. Even then an unmodified s9 is not known for being reliable.

When you overclock you are on your own and yes, you WILL shorten the miner life even more.

What do you operate your S9's at?..
I have mine adjusted up to 675M running about 14,300/14,500 TH they seem to be fine, low temps and 0% Diffa.. but its unknown territory as to will we burn boards out..or does board burning come at 15TH plus..
Your thoughts
Thanks mate
Jase

[RadekG2]

Whats a safe TH go adjust to without burning boards out?..
Thanks

All miners have safety built-in cut-off temperature (can be disabled), where miner stops and cools down. Maximum speed depends on chip and VRM temperature. My own experience is that S9 survive temperatures over 110C at chips for 24/7 operation. For those who do not agree just looak at Antminer R4 which is "silent" and always works at 110-115C. Anyway, based on earlier S5, chips they unsoldered themselves under full load, so temperature exceeded 200C. They worked again when resoldered back.

So back to temperature: It is not possible to check VRM temperatures, but first batches of S9 was without heatsink on VRM. They worked well at standartd frequency, so newer batches should work well when OCed. My opinion is that only VRM temperature is the only limit of OC level, so keep temps as low as possible.

Unreliability of S9 leading to lost chips is caused by unpredicted behaviour of chips in serial chain. This will cause temporary overvoltage of some chips which will destruct them. Only one dead chip can make whole board stop hashing or prevent detecting of ASICs. Unfortunatelly, S9 still hasn't reliable overvoltage protection.

I do not agree you will shorten life of your miner in any measureable way. Chips are deeply under its maximum performance, only one unknown is VRM. Anyway I agree that even unmodified S9 is not reliable. Hope my opinion will help you.

FYI: Alexander1560 from the video claims he has working S9 at 850MHz.

[htautosjay]

All miners have safety built-in cut-off temperature (can be disabled), where miner stops and cools down. Maximum speed depends on chip and VRM temperature. My own experience is that S9 survive temperatures over 110C at chips for 24/7 operation. For those who do not agree just looak at Antminer R4 which is "silent" and always works at 110-115C. Anyway, based on earlier S5, chips they unsoldered themselves under full load, so temperature exceeded 200C. They worked again when resoldered back.

So back to temperature: It is not possible to check VRM temperatures, but first batches of S9 was without heatsink on VRM. They worked well at standartd frequency, so newer batches should work well when OCed. My opinion is that only VRM temperature is the only limit of OC level, so keep temps as low as possible.

Unreliability of S9 leading to lost chips is caused by unpredicted behaviour of chips in serial chain. This will cause temporary overvoltage of some chips which will destruct them. Only one dead chip can make whole board stop hashing or prevent detecting of ASICs. Unfortunatelly, S9 still hasn't reliable overvoltage protection.

I do not agree you will shorten life of your miner in any measureable way. Chips are deeply under its maximum performance, only one unknown is VRM. Anyway I agree that even unmodified S9 is not reliable. Hope my opinion will help you.

FYI: Alexander1560 from the video claims he has working S9 at 850MHz.

Cool Thank you for your detailed answer, your experience is appreciated, I have 15 now running at 662Mhz to 668Mhz at 14,150Th 14,300Th with lessthan 10 HW faults and 00000% DiffA# they seem to be running better on the 650 fixed firmware then the Nov 17 Auto Fq Firmware.. and temps are 82 max.
Cheers
Jase

[RadekG2]

Cool Thank you for your detailed answer, your experience is appreciated, I have 15 now running at 662Mhz to 668Mhz at 14,150Th 14,300Th with lessthan 10 HW faults and 00000% DiffA# they seem to be running better on the 650 fixed firmware then the Nov 17 Auto Fq Firmware.. and temps are 82 max.
Cheers
Jase

Based on my experiences with Antminer D3, some boards works better at higher frequency at the same voltage level. The correct frequency was only one unique frequency. Lower didn't work and higher didn't work also. It is probably because of chained chips are dividing voltage between each chip group a bit different at each frequency.

Check kernel log for "setting working voltage" where you will see which working voltage it applies with autofreq or with fixed voltage. Autofreq boards has different voltage for each board while fixed freq sets the same voltage for all boards. I was shocked, that at 600MHz fixed firmware applied 9.3V for the chain and at 650MHz it undervolted to 8.8V.

[htautosjay]

Based on my experiences with Antminer D3, some boards works better at higher frequency at the same voltage level. The correct frequency was only one unique frequency. Lower didn't work and higher didn't work also. It is probably because of chained chips are dividing voltage between each chip group a bit different at each frequency.

Check kernel log for "setting working voltage" where you will see which working voltage it applies with autofreq or with fixed voltage. Autofreq boards has different voltage for each board while fixed freq sets the same voltage for all boards. I was shocked, that at 600MHz fixed firmware applied 9.3V for the chain and at 650MHz it undervolted to 8.8V.

This Is 650 Fixed Firware

Code:

Fix freq=662 Chain[5] voltage_pic=108 value=880
Fix freq=662 Chain[6] voltage_pic=108 value=880
Fix freq=662 Chain[7] voltage_pic=108 value=880
set_reset_allhashboard = 0x0000ffff
set_reset_allhashboard = 0x00000000
Chain[J6] has 63 asic
Chain[J7] has 63 asic
Chain[J8] has 63 asic
Chain[J6] has no freq in PIC, set default freq=662M
Chain[J6] has no core num in PIC
Chain[J7] has no freq in PIC, set default freq=662M
Chain[J7] has no core num in PIC
Chain[J8] has no freq in PIC, set default freq=662M

Chain[J6] set working voltage=880 [108]
Chain[J7] set working voltage=880 [108]
Chain[J8] set working voltage=880 [108]

Is that It? 880 8.8V? So maybe better running the 600M Fixed Firmware and adjusting that to 662/668Mhz etc

[taserz]

So you set it to 9.4v for every frequency. There really is no underclocking then since when you set the voltage it sets that for each of the 21 lanes. 9.4/21=0.44761V a chip. If you are trying to underclock it for better efficiency you would need to recompile bminer and lower the voltage to whatever works best for whatever frequency your using. This is only good if you are trying to get the fastest th/s and don't care about losing efficiency since autotune was made for increased efficiency.

[htautosjay]

So you set it to 9.4v for every frequency. There really is no underclocking then since when you set the voltage it sets that for each of the 21 lanes. 9.4/21=0.44761V a chip. If you are trying to underclock it for better efficiency you would need to recompile bminer and lower the voltage to whatever works best for whatever frequency your using. This is only good if you are trying to get the fastest th/s and don't care about losing efficiency since autotune was made for increased efficiency.

If I load the 600M Fixed Fq Firmware that sets a higher Voltage what will the benefit be?.. as at the moment i have the 650M Fixed Fq Firmware, and i have set the Fq between 662mhz 668mhz and i am producing a solid 14,200TH.. with very low HW faults and 0.0000% DiffA.. is more voltage for running a higher Fq?.

[RadekG2]

So you set it to 9.4v for every frequency. There really is no underclocking then since when you set the voltage it sets that for each of the 21 lanes. 9.4/21=0.44761V a chip. If you are trying to underclock it for better efficiency you would need to recompile bminer and lower the voltage to whatever works best for whatever frequency your using. This is only good if you are trying to get the fastest th/s and don't care about losing efficiency since autotune was made for increased efficiency.

Fixed freq FW adjust voltage depending on frequency. Higher freq means high quality of chips, so FW will set 8.8V per chain. If you use 600MHz, it will set 9.3V for the chain, because it expect lower quality of chips. I compiled binaries which do not respect quality of chips and up to 675MHz will set declared voltage (eg 8.4V). 675MHz and more will force voltage to be at 9.4V for easy OC without copying new binary.

So, for underclocking, copy bmminer with 840mV (8.4V) to your /usr/bin directory. It will force 840mV for all frequencies up to 675MHz.

[taserz]

Fixed freq FW adjust voltage depending on frequency. Higher freq means high quality of chips, so FW will set 8.8V per chain. If you use 600MHz, it will set 9.3V for the chain, because it expect lower quality of chips. I compiled binaries which do not respect quality of chips and up to 675MHz will set declared voltage (eg 8.4V). 675MHz and more will force voltage to be at 9.4V for easy OC without copying new binary.

So, for underclocking, copy bmminer with 840mV (8.4V) to your /usr/bin directory. It will force 840mV for all frequencies up to 675MHz.

Ahh okay so your just hard setting voltage then pick and choose which frequency is running best and you have it set by default to 675. So we could just go in there and set it to 700 etc.

Do you know which voltage would be the highest the bitmain 1600w psu can use. I want to run my s9 at 1550-1600w to draw around the max the psu can handle and hash as fast as possible with that psu

[htautosjay]

Ahh okay so your just hard setting voltage then pick and choose which frequency is running best and you have it set by default to 675. So we could just go in there and set it to 700 etc.

Do you know which voltage would be the highest the bitmain 1600w psu can use. I want to run my s9 at 1550-1600w to draw around the max the psu can handle and hash as fast as possible with that psu

I loaded the 600M Firmware that is 9.3v and adjusted to 675.. i am getting better results from the 650M Firmware that is 8.8v.. I am currently running some S9's on 723Mhz at 15,300 Th. 688Mhz is about 14,200Th
Give that a Go ON THE 650M firmware at awywhere between 675Mhz and 723Mhz

[RadekG2]

Ahh okay so your just hard setting voltage then pick and choose which frequency is running best and you have it set by default to 675. So we could just go in there and set it to 700 etc.

Do you know which voltage would be the highest the bitmain 1600w psu can use. I want to run my s9 at 1550-1600w to draw around the max the psu can handle and hash as fast as possible with that psu

Just try what your PSU accept. It has overload protection, so in case it will be overloaded, it will shut itself off.

[htautosjay]

Just try what your PSU accept. It has overload protection, so in case it will be overloaded, it will shut itself off.

You have really helped me understand my S9's firmware and overclocking them, just want to say thank you RadekG2

[rahuldel]

Thanks a lot for this excellent work.

I live in an extremely hot area so for me reducing the heat is important and so I have tried the 840 and 820 version, somehow the 830 version is missing from the download folder.

I just want to run my antminers near the default speeds with reduced temperatures and less HW errors, please advise the best way.

On 840 with freq of 650 the temp are almost the same.

On 820 with 650 with speeds get reduced and HW errors start occurring.

Thanks.

[htautosjay]

Thanks a lot for this excellent work.

I live in an extremely hot area so for me reducing the heat is important and so I have tried the 840 and 820 version, somehow the 830 version is missing from the download folder.

I just want to run my antminers near the default speeds with reduced temperatures and less HW errors, please advise the best way.

On 840 with freq of 650 the temp are almost the same.

On 820 with 650 with speeds get reduced and HW errors start occurring.

Thanks.

I personally think the 650M Firmware, leaving it at 650Mhz is what you are looking for that will give you 13,900 Th with no temp rises, the temp rise from what i see is that the Auto Adjust Fq firmware the fans run up to 6000 which keeps them cooler, where the fans on 600M and 650M run to about 4600.. the HW faults come from a poor pool from my experience, do you use Slush?..they seem to be the cleanest

[rahuldel]

If someone could help I am not able to change the fan speeds at all.

I have got a 13.5 T Antminer S9 and with the 650M Fixed Freq firmware my fans just keep on doing High and low every minute.

I am trying to fix the fan speeds at 90% but the fans seem to be auto adjusting.

Below is the content of my bmminer.conf

Code:

"api-listen" : true,
"api-network" : true,
"api-groups" : "A:stats:pools:devs:summary:version",
"api-allow" : "A:0/0,W:*",
"bitmain-use-vil" : true,
"bitmain-fan-ctrl" : true,
"bitmain-fan-pwm" : "90",
"bitmain-freq" : "650",
"bitmain-voltage" : "0706",
"multi-version" : "1"

Thanks.