Antminer S9 March 4th, 2019 firmware experience?

[ccgllc]

Hi all.

Bringing some S9s back online and noticed the Bitmain site has a Antminer-S9-all-201704270135-autofreq-user-Update2UBI-NF.tar.gz firmware release posted.

Google seems to be failing me on any commentary however, and its been over a month.  

I'm coming from the 1117 release and was curious what peoples experience has been like.  Is it recommended?  Website claims the reboot problem has been fixed, which would be nice.

See there is a newish "Low power enhanced mode" (came out in December firmware) that really seems to underclock the box.  Only one review online that I've found so far though.

[mikeywith]

being running on some of my gears and everything seems great so far.

temps wise = better
stable no random restart

The Enhanced mode comes with it by default so you have to disable it if you don't want it



it brought the hashrate down to 9th to 9.7th but temps were super low.

i didn't measure power consumption but assuming the temps drop so i think power wise there should be a bit of improvements.

TL;DR ; I find the March 2019 firmware to be good and stable overall.

[ccgllc]

ok, ran tests on (5) different known good 14TH S9s.  Low Power Mode with Low Power Enhanced Mode provides about an 11% improvement in J/Th, although at a huge drop in performance.



That said, for folks like me with a lot of S9s powered off, its a big win.  I can handle a ~32% performance hit, I'll just plug 32% more miners in!

[mikeywith]

these results look great for guys who have a problem with power cost, have you tried disabling "Low Power Mode" while keeping "Low Power Enhanced Mode" ? i tried and nothing changed for me, so was wondering if that's the same case for everyone, i tried on 1 miner only tho just for fun.

[ccgllc]

Think I read on the Bitcoin Support page that Low Power Enhanced mode implies Low Power Mode.

Having a bit of a problem with a few machines that previously were back leveled and set with fixed frequencies.  Those don't work well with the new system.

ok, updated about 90 machines, most went without issue.

ONE is running at a fixed frequency, 600 MHz, and I can't seem to get it to down speed even though Low Power Enhanced Mode is toggled.  Any suggestions?  Should I just manually downclock it via minerAdvanced.cgi?

Have another one that I can't SSH into.  The web interface works, but SSH does not.

Any suggestions?

[PassThePopcorn]

This isn't any suggestion but more of a question on the other S9's. Does ssh work on the others?

[ccgllc]

This isn't any suggestion but more of a question on the other S9's. Does ssh work one the others?

Yes, its works on all but two, so (88) Yes.  (2)  No.  This prevents Awesome Miner from having configuration access btw.  And since I can't SSH in, I can't manually add access.

Update:  This morning all the upgraded machines are refusing SSH access, which means I have no way to remotely poweroff, and tools like Awesome Miner can't change pools.

[euhctcyn]

Been running this fw in 21 miners for 1 month and no issues so far, I recommend it 

[ccgllc]

Been running this fw in 21 miners for 1 month and no issues so far, I recommend it  

Any problems SSHing into your boxes?  Other than 2/~90 I had problems with last night, all allowed it yesterday, but this morning, they are all blocking it.  This is hobbling Awesome Miner.


Based on 12 hours of running, I'm happy to confirm the need to reboot is gone.  I'm not seeing ANY dip in performance over that time period.

However, the disabling of SSH functionality, and apparently the ability to downgrade, even through the web app, is rather concerning.  The Bitmain page indicates this release:

2.Add security firmware feature, enhance antminer security ability

I suppose this is what they mean by that.

[euhctcyn]

Any problems SSHing into your boxes?  Other than 2/~90 I had problems with last night, all allowed it yesterday, but this morning, they are all blocking it.  This is hobbling Awesome Miner.

I now have all S9s working at a friend's place and unfortunately have no direct access to them, so can't test it out, but I don't remember testing SSH after the firmware upgrade since I don't really need it 

[PassThePopcorn]

So for a few hours you were able to SSH and then it went away?

Are you not able to revert firmware? or did they just remove the previous firmware from the site so you no longer have it?

If you reboot does SSH come back, as in is it a time lock? The S15 that I tested didn't have the capability to SSH in the released firmware, the code and programs to SSH were there just not enabled. Since we had no access to the systems we didn't go forward with more S15's and since the T15's were so similar never even thought of getting those. If this is the case it's possible they are trying to reduce the control users have over their own systems.

[ccgllc]

Hmmm, have to think about this.  I actually changed the default pools (which requires SSH) PRIOR to upgrading the firmware, so perhaps not.  Most of these machine have been unplugged since last November and had old pool choices.  Knowing the machines would be rebooted when I changed firmware, I elected for change the pools first.  So its possible SSH has been disabled since upgrading.

Rebooted does NOT enable SSH.  Reverting via the web interface also fails after a few moments with a "Cannot find signature" error, at least with the 1117 and prior versions.  It will let me reflash the current version.

I've notified Patrik over at Awesome Miner, since this seriously cripples his software with S9s.  Hoping he has come across this and has a work around (like they switched SSH ports or something).  Hmmm, a portscan of a miner could prove interesting.  Back with those results later.

Update:  Only 3 ports now open:

80 - HTTP web interface
4028 - Standard API port for monitoring
6060 ???

Bitmain ticket opened.

[BitMaxz]

Have you tried to factory reset the miner? If not try to reset it first it might enable the ssh back.

You can follow the "3 ways to factory reset the miner"

[ccgllc]

Have you tried to factory reset the miner? If not try to reset it first it might enable the ssh back.

You can follow the "3 ways to factory reset the miner"

Yes, all three fail.  All three do, however, reset the mining pools back to Bitmain defaults (which isn't a bad way to know what one ties did take).

I have a ticket into Bitmain requesting a procedure to allow me to backlevel to the November release.  Think I'll try just going back to December and see if it allows that.

Update:  Nope, the 1218 firmware results in the same "Cannot find signature" error that other previous releases I've tried die with.

[mikeywith]

Update:  Nope, the 1218 firmware results in the same "Cannot find signature" error that other previous releases I've tried die with.

There is a simple yet effective way to by pass that stupid signature thing , you can follow my thread here > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090664.msg48938476#msg48938476

in case that does not work, copy  the code in this file

upgrade.cgi

post it here and i will alter the code so that it it will allow you to downgrade to any firmware you want.

[PassThePopcorn]

There is a simple yet effective way to by pass that stupid signature thing , you can follow my thread here > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5090664.msg48938476#msg48938476

in case that does not work, copy  the code in this file

upgrade.cgi

post it here and i will alter the code so that it it will allow you to downgrade to any firmware you want.

This would be useful, but they also limited ssh ability so there is no way to ssh in to edit the file.

[ccgllc]

So far, this is the only thing I have not tried that shows promise as a downgrade approach.  Note it requires disassembly of your S9 to gain access to the control board jumpers.  I'll likely try this later this week.  Only good side:  since you will have your hash cards out, its a fine time to clean them!

https://support.bitmain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019493654-S9-series-S9-S9i-S9j-S9-Hydro-Control-Board-Program-Recovery

[mikeywith]

can you try this method > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5128618.msg50519867#msg50519867

i had a batch that did not allow me to change the firmware, it also refused ssh connection , it's not exactly the same issue, but give it a shot.

[ccgllc]

Tried the "do it quickly after IP Button" approach using Chrome (Windows 7 though) without luck, but thanks for the reference.  Trying the SD-Slot now.

Been running for a few days now.  Firmware seems to be reliable on 13.5TH and 14TH machines, but having problems with most of my 13TH boxes.   This is typical:



Any clues on what might be happening or how to get their hashrates back up?  7 of my 10 13TH boxes are doing this, 3 appear fine.

[Artemis3]

Been running for a few days now.  Firmware seems to be reliable on 13.5TH and 14TH machines, but having problems with most of my 13TH boxes.   This is typical:

https://puu.sh/DdG80/3d228c9db0.png

Any clues on what might be happening or how to get their hashrates back up?  7 of my 10 13TH boxes are doing this, 3 appear fine.

For testing purposes, try disabling LPM and ELPM and see if it makes a difference.

Do they have something else in common? Same controller/PSU model vs the other 3 that are fine?