Antminer Z9 mini overclocked

[andreiv26]

I need some help I flashed the firmware of my second batch and I want to restore it.. how to do? On the bitmain website there is only the may version... I think that the old version gives some issues with the batch 2 ...

What issues

Tried factory reset???

The may version is completely fine on batch 2, i have loaded all my batch 2 machines with batch 1 FW

What speed are you getting with that firmware and where can I find the May firmware version? Thanks in advance!

[htautosjay]

I need some help I flashed the firmware of my second batch and I want to restore it.. how to do? On the bitmain website there is only the may version... I think that the old version gives some issues with the batch 2 ...

What issues

Tried factory reset???

The may version is completely fine on batch 2, i have loaded all my batch 2 machines with batch 1 FW

What speed are you getting with that firmware and where can I find the May firmware version? Thanks in advance!

Bitmain have removed the Z9 mini May FW from their tech support website.. I have a copy pm me your email and il send you a copy

[Tailgunner]

Has anyone tested the OC ability with batch 2 minis after flashing with batch 1 firmware using the frequency dropdown rather than browser trick? I'm not entirely convinced the hardware is reason these don't seem to OC as well.

[panningforcoin]

Has anyone tested the OC ability with batch 2 minis after flashing with batch 1 firmware using the frequency dropdown rather than browser trick? I'm not entirely convinced the hardware is reason these don't seem to OC as well.

I got 4 mini's in Tuesday 9/4. All of them had the newer firmware where only 'balanced' was shown. I downloaded the firmware from bitmain (only one available) an applied to one miner. Once all seemed well I applied to the other three.  I set them all to 650 freq with auto fan. Temps are in the high 60's for the hash boards. Averaging 14.5 hash per miner. All four have been running now for over 48 hours with no problems. I'm mining ZEC on Flypool.

[g33x0f]

That's good to hear.  I had something odd happen. I got my Z9 mini yesterday.  I used the browser trick just to set to 550 up from 500 and after about 45mins I had Xs for all 12 chips.  I set back to 500 and now it's been running for almost 12 hours at around ~10-11 KSol/s.  So I got what I paid for, but it seems weird that even most of the batch 2s were getting over 550 without issue and I can't even get that high.  Oh well....  I'm hesitant to mess with the firmware.

[htautosjay]

That's good to hear.  I had something odd happen. I got my Z9 mini yesterday.  I used the browser trick just to set to 550 up from 500 and after about 45mins I had Xs for all 12 chips.  I set back to 500 and now it's been running for almost 12 hours at around ~10-11 KSol/s.  So I got what I paid for, but it seems weird that even most of the batch 2s were getting over 550 without issue and I can't even get that high.  Oh well....  I'm hesitant to mess with the firmware.

I have quite a few of these Z9 Mini's, In my opinion further into the delivery schedule Bitmain have made sure the Z9's are a little tougher to OC.
Batch 1 we all know are rocket chips...I have a 5 x batch 2 Z9's arrive from the very first shipment of batch 2,   and they were all on May FW, and overclocked up to 675/681 15 sols.
Then i had another 5 x of batch 2 and they were a little bit more pedantic, they would not OC past 625/650  13/13.8 sols.
And then i had 2 x of the very last 24th August to 4th September Batch 2 and they had chips failing (00x0) when clocked past 600 freq..
Now looking at they last members comments the delivery he had 2 days ago and they don't OC at all and the hash boards fail (xxxx) when clocked..
Seems Bitmain don't want us having tuned up machines, they want us to buy the Z9 BIG BOY...
lucky i have a copy of the MAY 2018 FW from batch 1.  as i see now Bitmain have removed that from their site. Obviously Bitmain don't want us having batch 1 FW... I have sent a few members this FW today and if you need a copy just drop me a PM....

[Hitsxx]

The limitation of overclocking is not related to the firmware version. If someone needs a May version, they can download it here, without any queries - https://yadi.sk/d/949-DCwheW8a7A

Besides, it's just a matter of time before one of the more knowledgeable, experienced and long term (not to mention generous and community oriented) members in this forum post details of the mod anyways. If it even works stably - which is just a claim at this point in time. A couple pictures is all that @Hitsxx has to prove it.

Funny fact. The loudest of all about free assistance to the community are those who didn't do anything themselves. Just an observation, nothing personal.

[william618]

I don't know since I updated the May version the z9 mini batch 2 doesn't work correctly.. I have often some faults even when I don't overclock... I contacted bitmain yesterday and they told me that they will upload very soon a new version of the firmware on their website.. It is really random for me.. sometimes it works and sometimes not.. I suggest that you do a backup of the firmware before upload an older version which is maybe not adapted

[Harai Goshi]

I got 4 mini's in Tuesday 9/4. All of them had the newer firmware where only 'balanced' was shown. I downloaded the firmware from bitmain (only one available) an applied to one miner. Once all seemed well I applied to the other three.  I set them all to 650 freq with auto fan. Temps are in the high 60's for the hash boards. Averaging 14.5 hash per miner. All four have been running now for over 48 hours with no problems. I'm mining ZEC on Flypool.


[/quote]

I got two on the same date, have them at 662 avg 14.8. 

[grinbuck]

Funny fact. The loudest of all about free assistance to the community are those who didn't do anything themselves. Just an observation, nothing personal.

Funnier fact. The loudest of all against free assistance to the community are those who "claim" stuff on the basis of (potentially) photoshopped pics and try to entice the community to pay them on the basis of nothing else but big talk. Just an observation, nothing personal.

[shaninium]

Can a member with a high trust post a link to the may firmware , bitmain has taken it down.

[300cpilot]

I got what I think is a batch 2, Z9 mini 5 days ago. However it has the Sat May 26 20:42:30 CST 2018 firmware and has the over clocking values instead of "Balance". It will overclock to 675, but is unstable after that. Averaging 14.9 KSols. I have only one Z9 on a bitmain psu, running 240 volt and it is drawing 364 watts with the fan on 100%, at the wall. Average temps 57-58c. The room it is in is not cooled and yesterday it was 95 degrees F in there.

The question is that it is getting 1000's of discards per hour, is this normal? On Suprnova at the moment. Good or bad?

[shaninium]

I got what I think is a batch 2, Z9 mini 5 days ago. However it has the Sat May 26 20:42:30 CST 2018 firmware and has the over clocking values instead of "Balance". It will overclock to 675, but is unstable after that. Averaging 14.9 KSols. I have only one Z9 on a bitmain psu, running 240 volt and it is drawing 364 watts with the fan on 100%, at the wall. Average temps 57-58c. The room it is in is not cooled and yesterday it was 95 degrees F in there.

The question is that it is getting 1000's of discards per hour, is this normal? On Suprnova at the moment. Good or bad?

Discards don't matter, rejects and stales do.

[imine2]

Can a member with a high trust post a link to the may firmware , bitmain has taken it down.

File: Antminer-Z9-Mini-201805262047-500M.tar.gz
sha-1: 8791eee569dfff728c8363e5d8fd93f68957a2ee

http://ftp://file.bitmain.com/shop-bitmain/firmwares/Antminer%20Z9%20mini/Firmware/Antminer-Z9-Mini-201805262047-500M.tar.gz

(There should NOT be a "http://" before the link! I can't see the "http://" when editing)


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[theissue]

The link it's not working. Cam you please paste the link again?

[imine2]

The link it's not working. Cam you please paste the link again?

File: Antminer-Z9-Mini-201805262047-500M.tar.gz
sha-1: 8791eee569dfff728c8363e5d8fd93f68957a2ee

http://ftp://file.bitmain.com/shop-bitmain/firmwares/Antminer%20Z9%20mini/Firmware/Antminer-Z9-Mini-201805262047-500M.tar.gz

(There should NOT be a "http://" before the link! I can't see the "http://" when editing)

[d.v.]

everyone, i'm pretty sure that Bitmain has restricted the VRM (voltage regulation module) to a certain voltage so that the chips will only run so high before they crash. more than likely, batch 1 was lesser restriction, batch 2 has more, and i guess batch 3 has a lot?! my assumption is that too many people were frying their miners from unresponsible OCing (because they either had a bad chip or was poorly cooled) and then warranty-claiming them back to Bitmain. i don't think there is any way Bitmain can tell that the miners have been OC'd unless there is a hidden log somewhere. the super-strip down version of linux that runs the miner is imprinted into ROM and reloaded upon each power-up cycle; the only changes it keeps (i.e. stratum, address, frequency, etc) is saved to a config file.

anyone who has experience OCing CPUs will know that at some point you need to up the voltage to keep going... well, in the case of these Z9M chips, you can't do that so as you OC the MHz up and up, it will hit a ceiling and crash. trip the VRMs enough times and the darn thing will go into a "i don't want to play anymore, i quit" mode where it won't hash at all and you will think you have bricked your miner. if and when this happens, just power down the miner, exhaust all the power from the miner, disconnect the psu, exhaust the power from the psu, and fire it back up (or just disconnect everything cables and all and let it sit off for 15-20 minutes).

if you want to go above what Bitmain has set, you will need to have some electrical engineering background or knows somebody who does and have some equipment, like a USB-PMBus dongle tool at the minimum to regulate the voltage as well as needing to solder some connectors to certain points on the PCB itself. this is no easy task as you need to be able to read electrical schematics let alone know what the hell you're doing so you don't fry your boards on the first power-up after you mod it. FPGA-guys are already doing this as they really need to regulate voltage when they push their chips while mining. of course this isn't the only way as the direct interface to the PCB may allow modification.

also, heat is going to be an issue if you can actually accomplish what i mentioned above. just like OCing CPUs, the higher it goes, the better fan heatsink or waterblock you better have. i recommend liquid immersion but that's just me. if you disregard this, your chip will fry really quick.

either way, take what i said with a grain of salt cause i am still a noob in regards to this forum and have zero trust so what do i know, eh? just an observation, nothing personal, hehe...

i'm pretty sure at least 99% of you Z9M owners will not be attempting this and the ones who have done this will keep it to themselves and not share out. why give more hashing power to the rest to increase difficulty, right? welcome to the world we live in. happy mining!

 

[shehz81]

After OC, has anyone be able to run the second batch Z9 mini at 700 or more?

I have two minis.
One runs at 675 and the other is at 650 running with temperatures of the chips hovering around 55 or lower.

 

[efudd]

everyone, i'm pretty sure that Bitmain has restricted the VRM (voltage regulation module) to a certain voltage so that the chips will only run so high before they crash. more than likely, batch 1 was lesser restriction, batch 2 has more, and i guess batch 3 has a lot?! my assumption is that too many people were frying their miners from unresponsible OCing (because they either had a bad chip or was poorly cooled) and then warranty-claiming them back to Bitmain. i don't think there is any way Bitmain can tell that the miners have been OC'd unless there is a hidden log somewhere. the super-strip down version of linux that runs the miner is imprinted into ROM and reloaded upon each power-up cycle; the only changes it keeps (i.e. stratum, address, frequency, etc) is saved to a config file.

anyone who has experience OCing CPUs will know that at some point you need to up the voltage to keep going... well, in the case of these Z9M chips, you can't do that so as you OC the MHz up and up, it will hit a ceiling and crash. trip the VRMs enough times and the darn thing will go into a "i don't want to play anymore, i quit" mode where it won't hash at all and you will think you have bricked your miner. if and when this happens, just power down the miner, exhaust all the power from the miner, disconnect the psu, exhaust the power from the psu, and fire it back up (or just disconnect everything cables and all and let it sit off for 15-20 minutes).

if you want to go above what Bitmain has set, you will need to have some electrical engineering background or knows somebody who does and have some equipment, like a USB-PMBus dongle tool at the minimum to regulate the voltage as well as needing to solder some connectors to certain points on the PCB itself. this is no easy task as you need to be able to read electrical schematics let alone know what the hell you're doing so you don't fry your boards on the first power-up after you mod it. FPGA-guys are already doing this as they really need to regulate voltage when they push their chips while mining. of course this isn't the only way as the direct interface to the PCB may allow modification.

also, heat is going to be an issue if you can actually accomplish what i mentioned above. just like OCing CPUs, the higher it goes, the better fan heatsink or waterblock you better have. i recommend liquid immersion but that's just me. if you disregard this, your chip will fry really quick.

either way, take what i said with a grain of salt cause i am still a noob in regards to this forum and have zero trust so what do i know, eh? just an observation, nothing personal, hehe...

i'm pretty sure at least 99% of you Z9M owners will not be attempting this and the ones who have done this will keep it to themselves and not share out. why give more hashing power to the rest to increase difficulty, right? welcome to the world we live in. happy mining!

 

I have the equipment, but only half the clue... It's been a while since I went through my first Z9mini, but I vaguely remember some options around voltage (in the API, perhaps?). However, I'm not sure if it is implemented.

If I had a spare control board (I wonder if they are universal enough I could borrow from an S9 I have that is idle, flash with the Z9 rom, and use it...), I'd yank one of my hash boards out and do a little investigating around the serial buss exposed on the hash board.

I don't have a batch2 device, but I'm wondering if there was a hardware change, or a programming change during initialization that could be influenced via I2C/SPI/etc. with a buspirate or the like.

-j

[d.v.]

I have the equipment, but only half the clue... It's been a while since I went through my first Z9mini, but I vaguely remember some options around voltage (in the API, perhaps?). However, I'm not sure if it is implemented.

If I had a spare control board (I wonder if they are universal enough I could borrow from an S9 I have that is idle, flash with the Z9 rom, and use it...), I'd yank one of my hash boards out and do a little investigating around the serial buss exposed on the hash board.

I don't have a batch2 device, but I'm wondering if there was a hardware change, or a programming change during initialization that could be influenced via I2C/SPI/etc. with a buspirate or the like.

-j

give it a whirl and if it works, you may discover a new market for used control boards, hehe. flash firmware and sell to Z9M owners.