Braiins OS & Braiins OS+ custom ASIC firmware: optimize performance & efficiency

[teslaman]

You can use the firmware that I provide and remove 1 fan. The chips will stay hotter and then the outlet fan will still carry the heat fairly well. If you increase voltage temps will increase as long as freq is high enough. I recommend 8.9.

Thanks, yeah I found your thread helpful when it came to settings and using the fixed firmware, before bOS came out. The more recent version of bOS is the only one that has allowed me to control both fans and frequency though. For me, Autotune firmware would let me control the fans, but obviously not the frequency. Fixed firmware would do the opposite, no matter what I tried. I went back and forth, manually added the settings, etc etc. The main thing for me, is getting the hot air into the room, so I wouldn't want less fans. I just run them at lower speed so they aren't too loud, keeping temps below 96C.

I manually adjusted my limits too, 96C for 100% fan and 100C critical. I'd love to change the fan from 100% though, since it's quite annoying and a waste of power to sometimes barely hit the limit, then go full throttle over and over until I bump the speed up a couple %, but I haven't found that setting yet. I'd prefer setting it maybe 5% more than my fixed fan speed. If that wouldn't do it, then frankly I want the thing shutting itself down. I know, I know, these aren't "home miners", but figuring out that setting would be golden for me.

Overclocking has nothing to do with that. If you want more "heating", simply add more miners. By overclocking, you are simply over-stressing the units, basically burning them out, so don't be surprised if they fail in the middle of winter...

If miners were free, then sure, but I don't have money to burn. The idea is to keep the costs less than the gas, by making use of what I have. At 11-12c p/kw electricity, S9s are no longer viable for me otherwise. I also used them that way last winter and they're still going fine. Well, minus the two boards that the early version of bOS killed, but that's another story. I've also overclocked my old KnC Neptunes in winter, and back when they were still profitable, for like 5 years now and they're still fine too. I'm finally starting to phase them out though, since S9s are getting cheaper, making it more cost effective. Obviously, overclocking does shorten the lifespan of electronics, but so far for me, the miners will be well beyond obsolete by the time I burn one out.

On the voltages, that's true, but in bOS, I've noticed that the lower you go in frequency, the higher the voltage it recommends, even going above the defaults. Of course the recommendations are just general guesses, but it has those guesses going backwards. So that might be confusing some people who don't know better. I agree, I haven't wanted to go above 9V either, but oddly bOS defaulted me to 9.1V on one board that always ran at 8.7, so I manually adjusted that one back down. It only did that after my over and underclocking though. Initially, it was 8.7V in bOS too. It's also my miracle board, aka the only one that didn't fry when the other two did.

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[Artemis3]

I have commented about that on this thread before. The "recommendations" are meaningless, IGNORE them like they don't exist. Even the "default" settings are misleading. bOS has no way of knowing your board's best efficiency, it doesn't have any special code for calibration or an AI guessing proper settings, it is as manual as it can get.

If you don't understand this, I'm not surprised that you burned boards already. This firmware is the opposite of hand holding, it gives you full control and no protections. You CAN easily burn your hardware with it, faster than you anticipate... It is a powerful tool, but with it comes responsibility. There are even some bugs that they are addressing (like the reordering thing of the hash boards which they will remove); so "proceed at your own risk". This is a firmware for tinkerers not newbies expecting a quick replace and let it decide whatever. It is not that kind of firmware. It is certainly not tailored for overclockers, it won't protect you at all or "self guess", and the values you see are probably a result of some simple calculation that has no relation with the actual hardware involved.

You have to lower that voltage until the board stops hashing or the error rate is too high, then step a notch back and leave it there. If the board seems wants more than 9v, its time to reduce the speed, period. Every single hashboard is different, even from the same batch, even in a single unit, in addition to knowing that the middle board has poorer ventilation which you should use to your advantage by favoring the best performing board in that position and putting the less fortunate to the sides. OR do the mod to have the intake fan be farther away.

[teslaman]

I have commented about that on this thread before. The "recommendations" are meaningless, IGNORE them like they don't exist.

Ah ok, well they should at least go in the proper direction, lol. But no, that's not why two of my boards fried. I already knew all about that with the voltages and such. As I said, I've been tweaking my old KnCs for years, but that's just common sense to me anyways. I was just pointing it out, since it could use a correction.

If you must know, mine fried due to some bug that allowed the boards to heat when just the controller was off and unplugged. Like I had been doing sometimes, I shutdown the miner via putty, let the boards cool completely, then unplugged the PCI-E from the controller. I wasn't powering off the PSU/boards, since I was using 3 EVGAs to power 2 S9s. Somehow, while I was off on the PC, those boards got a brain of their own and began heating back up! Naturally, they fried, since the controller was off, aka no fans. They shouldn't heat up at all without the controller, and no cube/board has ever done that to me before, but there you have it. I'm still curious how that's even possible. Zombie boards ate braiins?!?

That was a year ago or so, but I did email them all the details, so hopefully that got fixed. I like bOS, but that certainly put me off trying it again for a while! Gotta have that nice fan control though. And it's nice not to have limits, that was one of my many gripes about KnC miners. I could've cranked them up even more. Especially after I soldered the cables onto their insane, solitary PCI-E connector, which naturally loved to burn up and sometimes catch fire on people.

[Artemis3]

What are you even talking about? How can you expect bOS to do anything if the controller is off? You might as well just unplug the ribbon data cable to achieve the same thing. Your issue was completely unrelated to the firmware, it was purely a hardware mistake. If anything, its Bitmain's flaw for not considering it. For example the nvidia cards make a loud noise if the PCI-E connector is not plugged.

Well if you must use the body parts analogy, its like blaming the body for hurting itself after the head is cut off...

The firmware does not touch the hashboards, everything is in the controller (Linux ARM). Go ahead and swap controllers, see for yourself.

The hashboards do not know if there are fans or not, that is the very reason other firmware (like bOS) can use them fanless. Factory firmware knows how to shut them down somehow, then a hard reset is needed for restart, for example when it doesn't find the fans. But this (special driver command) is unknown to bOS, that's why a few pages back some people were finding solutions for the hashboards that remain hot and power consuming even when no new worker data is present; and one of the ideas was centered on using the slowest possible speed and voltage the board can take while remaining alive to have a pseudo "sleep" mode of sorts when the situation calls for it (quiet night time, generator not producing enough power, etc). But all of this is moot if the controller is not connected or powered.

I think Bitmain in the S7 days used to warn people about turning on the controller last so that it could properly see (and control) all the boards, if the controller were to go on before the hashboard, that hashboard would not be controlled, and yet use full power etc. For the S9 they did not officially supported using multiple PSUs anymore and but later they removed that wording (not like you cared tho).

[teslaman]

Well that sure is obvious that you didn't understand what I said, so perhaps relax and re-read it. Of course I didn't expect bOS to do anything with the controller off, that's the point. And obviously it was related to the firmware, because I had done it numerous times already and the stock Bitmain firmware never did that. It also didn't do it again on my surviving board, after I went back to the stock firmware. That's the thing though, brainless miners can't hurt themselves. Until then, I have never had a board heat itself up, without a brain to tell it to do so. That would be very bad if they did. It would be a massive design flaw if the boards kept heating, since if your controller died and the fans went off, the boards would fry themselves and possibly catch fire.

And yes, I know all about turning on the controller last. I've been doing that for years too, since the KnCs are the same way. Actually, the old (Jun 2016 & Jan 2017 - V0.1) S9 Installation Guide is what I originally saw and saved, talking about using more than one PSU, so sorry, but that's wrong. They specifically mention not to power one board with separate PSUs, which makes perfect sense. And they mention powering the controller last.

Screenshot Link:

[chrysophylax]

Great Release of bOS Cobalt ...

Two issues with (one of - the bOS test miner) the S9 miner that I can see.

The miner stats page shows only two boards functional, and only one fan connected with that fan being 4560RPM max when it is capable (and does run in excess) of 5500RPM, which causes the miner

I have underclocked and undervolted the miner and it is running reasonably smooth. The Pool Side HashRates (I am testing various pools to verify this) seems to be hashing all over the place. Every thing from 7TH to 21TH. Now I am no newbie to the Mining Industry, but that is a bit wild in variance with hashrate. I have yet to try SlushPool as my account has been locked for some reason (maybe lack of use?) but an email sent to SlushPool may bring my account back, even though the account allowed me to change passwords.

In any case, does any one know why there is one fan showing not two? Why there is two boards not three? and why the fans cannot run at max RPM even though they are set at 100%?

All three boards were running before the flash to NAND on the BitMain FirmWare, and fans were running (and loud) at 5500RPM+.

Any help here would be much appreciated before any other miners are flashed across.

#crysx

[Artemis3]

Great Release of bOS Cobalt ...

Two issues with (one of - the bOS test miner) the S9 miner that I can see.

Take a look at the bosminer documentation. But this is alpha software, it probably needs more testing and bug fixing:

NOTE: This release is not production ready and is intended to preview the bOSminer software.

The June version should work fine in the older S9s (not hydro, k, e, etc.). Maybe the logs show something useful?

Official support is on Telegram: https://t.me/BraiinsOS

[chrysophylax]

Is there a simple way to install? ...

I mean literally a command line executable.

#crysx

[Artemis3]

Is there a simple way to install? ...

I mean literally a command line executable.

#crysx

Sure, as explained here: https://docs.braiins-os.org/#option-b-install-using-ssh

python3 upgrade2bos.py your-miner-hostname-or-ip

Of course you need to satisfy the requirements before doing that line, mostly just having python3 and the other python pre-requisites.

It might be easier for newbies to use the sd card install method, but that single command line works just fine. And yes after having the pre-requisites fulfilled you can literally use just that line for each of the rest of your miners.

[taserz]

[...]

There should be a target chip temp function where it keeps them at a certain temp.

[Artemis3]

There should be a target chip temp function where it keeps them at a certain temp.

You could propose them that. Do you mean automatically reduce the speed of the chips? Unfortunately each change needs a reset, i wonder if its possible to change it while running without cg/bos(miner) reboots?

For the time being, this firmware is best for people who want to set things manually and not depend in any logic guessing, for good or for worse.

[Toady001]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help. Recently built and immersion cooling tank but now can't figure out how to disable fans completely.

I found some info that editing cgminer.conf and inserting "min-fans":"0" will bypass the check, which it does but then looking at the kernel log, there is now a new error.

Whilst trying to set PIC on the chains, it seems to hang there for a bit and after some time, cgminer logs an error code "no chains enabled".

This is the first I've come across this before and the miner worked prior to editing the conf and removing the fans so can only assume that this has somewhat broken the miner software.

Has anyone got this working successfully and wouldn't mind giving a step by step.

Thank you.

[Artemis3]

Hi all,

Hoping someone can help. Recently built and immersion cooling tank but now can't figure out how to disable fans completely.

I found some info that editing cgminer.conf and inserting "min-fans":"0" will bypass the check, which it does but then looking at the kernel log, there is now a new error.

Whilst trying to set PIC on the chains, it seems to hang there for a bit and after some time, cgminer logs an error code "no chains enabled".

This is the first I've come across this before and the miner worked prior to editing the conf and removing the fans so can only assume that this has somewhat broken the miner software.

Has anyone got this working successfully and wouldn't mind giving a step by step.

Thank you.

Perhaps you made a mistake when editing this file. You have to respect json's text formatting and be sure to not introduce unwanted invisible characters, such as windows style cr/lf end of line, perhaps there is an extra or missing , etc, pay close attention.

Also make sure to be using normal bos from June, not the testing versions.

If possible check again connecting the fans and reverting the changes in cgminer.conf (just let them spin outside the tank) to make sure the problem lies there and not elsewhere.

[Toady001]

Perhaps you made a mistake when editing this file. You have to respect json's text formatting and be sure to not introduce unwanted invisible characters, such as windows style cr/lf end of line, perhaps there is an extra or missing , etc, pay close attention.

Also make sure to be using normal bos from June, not the testing versions.

If possible check again connecting the fans and reverting the changes in cgminer.conf (just let them spin outside the tank) to make sure the problem lies there and not elsewhere.

That is a likely possibility... also thinking maybe the boards are fried. I'm right by the ocean and some days during summer can be quite humid hence why the move to immersion. I have gone about connecting the fans again and letting it spin up and only after it runs fine edit the code. So far 2 are running nicely now without any fans.

Thanks for the assist and yes, waiting patiently for bos.

[Sabanic]

Yes, when I boot from SD every thing is OK! It is weird, because after installing to nand installation log’s message was successfully complete but booting from nand has no ip! green led blinking fast and red led blinking slow.

I  involve with a problem that you had  with S9j  control board.

I install Braiin Os on board by SD card  and then try to write on board by NANAD  command in software. Everything goes right and messages are successful .  But  procedure doesn't work . I couldn't get IP !  my problem is exactly like yours.

I found out  you had this problem with 3 S9j a couple months ago .  Finally could you find a way to solve this problem?If yes , let me know how.?

[Grigoryevi4]

Hi,
I connect an additional 3 hash boards to ASIC Antminer S9 to get Dual mode (6 hash boards)
I want to control the power, hash rate and temperature of the chips on all 6 hash boards with two exhaust fans turned off.
What firmware from the list https://feeds.braiins-os.org/ should install on the ASIC for the successful functioning of all 6 boards ?

Code:

../
am1-s9/                                            07-Jun-2019 12:54                   -
dm1-g19/                                           07-Jun-2019 12:55                   -
dm1-g29/                                           07-Jun-2019 12:55                   -
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img     07-Jun-2019 12:54            48234496
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img.asc 07-Jun-2019 12:54                 819
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-09-14-0-5128de47-bosm..> 14-Sep-2019 11:54            48234496
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-09-14-0-5128de47-bosm..> 14-Sep-2019 11:54                 819
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-12-18-0-62eb0834-bosm..> 18-Dec-2019 21:53            48234496
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_2019-12-18-0-62eb0834-bosm..> 18-Dec-2019 21:53                 819
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_bosminer-preview.img          18-Dec-2019 21:53            48234496
braiins-os_am1-s9_sd_bosminer-preview.img.asc      18-Dec-2019 21:53                 819
braiins-os_am1-s9_ssh_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.tar.gz 07-Jun-2019 12:54            26242945
braiins-os_am1-s9_ssh_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.tar..> 07-Jun-2019 12:54                 819
braiins-os_am1-s9_web_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.tar.gz 07-Jun-2019 12:54            26191855
braiins-os_am1-s9_web_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.tar..> 07-Jun-2019 12:54                 819
braiins-os_dm1-g19_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img    07-Jun-2019 12:54            48234496
braiins-os_dm1-g19_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img..> 07-Jun-2019 12:55                 819
braiins-os_dm1-g29_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img    07-Jun-2019 12:55            48234496
braiins-os_dm1-g29_sd_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.img..> 07-Jun-2019 12:55                 819
braiins-os_dm1-g29_ssh_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.ta..> 07-Jun-2019 12:55            25067389
braiins-os_dm1-g29_ssh_2019-06-05-0-0de55997.ta..> 07-Jun-2019 12:55                 819

[Artemis3]

Hi,
I connect an additional 3 hash boards to ASIC Antminer S9 to get Dual mode (6 hash boards)
I want to control the power, hash rate and temperature of the chips on all 6 hash boards with two exhaust fans turned off.
What firmware from the list https://feeds.braiins-os.org/ should install on the ASIC for the successful functioning of all 6 boards ?

June. Those with bosminer are still in a testing stage. There is a cosmetic fix that matters for 6 boards but you'll have to wait until they release a stable version this year. The cosmetic change has to do with the numbering of the boards (which may cause problems if one board fails but you don't use identical (or default) voltage/speeds on all 6).

They promised to undo their renumbering and use the physical position instead to cure this.

Yes June technically works, but be careful if you lose one of the boards the remaining boards may get the wrong configuration. Hopefully they will hurry up on that bosminer release now...

[Seph213]

Is there a way to get the Watts per board and total watt consumption ?

Would be really helpful for tweaking to get best J/th

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Is there a way to get the Watts per board and total watt consumption ?

Would be really helpful for tweaking to get best J/th

No.
Miners have no circuits for reporting current draw and without that 1/2 of the equation (W=V*I) they cannot report power usage.

edit: As Artemis says lower on, any firmware that does give watt or Joule readouts are doing it based on the devs testing gear at various speeds/freq/temps to find typical power usage with those settings. From there is just a matter of them guess.., er, extrapolating results from where you have the miner set.

[Seph213]

So how these third party firmware give u a pretty close reading ?

I tested the reading vs physically taking the reading and they get pretty close .  +-20watts in total consumption.