Antminer S19 custom performance settings; alternative firmware?

[catenocrypt]

I was a bit surprised that the Antiminer S19 does not have performance configuration options (like S9), for frequency/voltage, for lower or higher performance (I'm especially interested in running it at lower power).
Is there some trick for this?
Or are there alternative firmwares supporting S19? (Braiins, HiveOS seems not)
I did some search, in this forum too, but found no answer.
S19_95T, original firmware Dec 11 2020, updated to April 11 2021 (no visible differences).

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[mystere_miner]

The S19 series shipped with firmware that requires a digitally signed firmware image to update.  So far, nobody seems to have figured out a workaround, thus there are no alternate firmwares available.

They are working on it.. braiins, etc.. but who knows when they'll figure out a workaround.

[catenocrypt]

Oh, I see, I didn't know that.  Partly it is understandable from the point of view of the manufacturer, but on the other hand, they should do a much more flexible firmware.
Generally I would be happy with a higher level of openness/interoperability/transparency in the mining HW business.

[kano]

You don't realise how funny what you say is.

All those 'other' firmware you can get do a number of things, and one they all do not do is be open.
Most of them also violate the cgminer license since they wont release the source code changes they make.

There is more open source code from the miner manufacturers than from any 3rd party firmware.

[mystere_miner]

There is more open source code from the miner manufacturers than from any 3rd party firmware.

Doesn't do any good if you need a key to sign the image for it to be loaded into the miner...

[mystere_miner]

Oh, I see, I didn't know that.  Partly it is understandable from the point of view of the manufacturer, but on the other hand, they should do a much more flexible firmware.
Generally I would be happy with a higher level of openness/interoperability/transparency in the mining HW business.

The thing is, Bitmain does that to STOP  you from tuning them.  They make a lot of money by using market diferrentiation...

They take a 95TH unit, and re-tune it and it's a 110 TH unit.  But they sell it for thousands more. 

They don't want you buying the cheap unit and tuning it yourself.

[kano]

There is more open source code from the miner manufacturers than from any 3rd party firmware.

Doesn't do any good if you need a key to sign the image for it to be loaded into the miner...

Original firmware loads fine.

You may have problems loading 3rd party firmware that is all closed source, hides what it does internally, usually breaks the cgminer license and thus none of it falls under what you said:

...
Generally I would be happy with a higher level of openness/interoperability/transparency in the mining HW business.

[mystere_miner]

Original firmware loads fine.

I think you misunderstand.

Of course the original firmware loads fine, it's signed with Bitmains key.

3rd party firmware, whether or not they release the source will not load because it's not digitally signed.  So it doesn't matter one bit whether they follow the license or not, it cannot be used as of right now.

So yeah, it doesn't matter if it's open source or not, you cannot use it.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

They take a 95TH unit, and re-tune it and it's a 110 TH unit.  But they sell it for thousands more.  
...

Almost got it right but no cigar.
There is more to it than that, the faster miners are using better grade chips that can run faster and still be stable. Same thing is done by CPU makers, the various speed CPU's in any 1 family are not different versions- they are the exact same chip design that during testing are binned (graded) for speed and stability. Some can run faster than most, most are on-target and some are slower. No matter what they are all chips have design targets that state min, avg, and max performance to be considered a usable chip and the chips are graded and priced accordingly. Fact of life is that in any given production lot there are far fewer grade-A chips (best) coming off the line than there are grade-B (avg) or grade-C (usable but...)

Sure software tweaks can make a miner run faster than what the mfrs sold it as, question is, how stable is it? Same applies to OC'ing your CPU or GPU's.

[mystere_miner]

They take a 95TH unit, and re-tune it and it's a 110 TH unit.  But they sell it for thousands more.  
...

Almost got it right but no cigar.
There is more to it than that, the faster miners are using better grade chips that can run faster and still be stable. Same thing is done by CPU makers, the various speed CPU's in any 1 family are not different versions- they are the exact same chip design that during testing are binned (graded) for speed and stability. Some can run faster than most, most are on-target and some are slower. No matter what they are all chips have design targets that state min, avg, and max performance to be considered a usable chip and the chips are graded and priced accordingly. Fact of life is that in any given production lot there are far fewer grade-A chips (best) coming off the line than there are grade-B (avg) or grade-C (usable but...)

Sure software tweaks can make a miner run faster than what the mfrs sold it as, question is, how stable is it? Same applies to OC'ing your CPU or GPU's.

That's mostly a myth.  While it's true that they can, and do use chips that aren't able to achieve peak performance, in most cases that's just not the case.  Most fabs have very high yield rates these days, and they just don't have enough lower spec chips to meet demand, so they typically use the exact same high performance chips and de-tune them for a lower speed.

Why?  Because they can sell more of the lower speed units than they can the higher speed units, and by controlling the firmware they make sure people aren't buying the low speed units and clocking them up.

Simply put, not everyone can afford top of the line, and there are more people looking to buy less expensive than more.  Even if you can afford it, many people prefer the lower speed to save on power and/or heat dissipation.

[kano]

Myth indeed. What you are saying is wrong.

They can sell every single miner they build, at a massive profit, they don't have to care about making slower miners.
Please at least say "your guess" when you make such a statement, since fact does not match what you've claimed.

[mystere_miner]

Myth indeed. What you are saying is wrong.

They can sell every single miner they build, at a massive profit, they don't have to care about making slower miners.
Please at least say "your guess" when you make such a statement, since fact does not match what you've claimed.

And yet somehow, Braiins and what not are able to re-tune tons of lower spec miners to much higher rates reliably.

The evidence does not support your claim of fact.

[kano]

Sorry, you're living in the GPU scamcoin world with the statement that current miners are force down-clocked by miner producers.

If you've been around mining for 10 years like I have, and been involved in producing modified firmware, and in my case I was possibly the first to do it, you'd know that the miners are not made to be run slower to make people buy them cheaper.

Also, there are no 3rd party firmware versions for current miners, only previous ones.

As for 3rd party firmware making them run faster, yeah like you can make anything run faster, with extra cooling and shorter lifespan.
As if the manufacturers want to handle warranty on miners that the buyers have destroyed by over clocking them ...
Bitcoin is about producing money, so people do all sorts of stupid things trying to get more money and usually end up getting less.

Anyway, your original statement was about making things more open and freely available ... to run closed source, fee driven firmware, that violates licenses.
That seems to be an obvious oxymoron ...

Meanwhile, this week I released open source code to use the S17 chip (that someone else worked out the commands) ... oh well ...

[catenocrypt]

I understand and accept the points about 3rd party firmwares being more closed than Bitmain's own, I have disregarded this.
My comment for more openness was a general comment.
I do understand Bitmain's approach and can accept it (make sure their HW is not used in other ways, foreclose revenue of 3rdparty firmware makers, etc), but in general I don't like limiting usage of a HW I own through software (be that a laptop, mobile phone, game console, etc.)

[JustaVirus]

Sorry, you're living in the GPU scamcoin world with the statement that current miners are force down-clocked by miner producers.

If you've been around mining for 10 years like I have, and been involved in producing modified firmware, and in my case I was possibly the first to do it, you'd know that the miners are not made to be run slower to make people buy them cheaper.

Also, there are no 3rd party firmware versions for current miners, only previous ones.

As for 3rd party firmware making them run faster, yeah like you can make anything run faster, with extra cooling and shorter lifespan.
As if the manufacturers want to handle warranty on miners that the buyers have destroyed by over clocking them ...
Bitcoin is about producing money, so people do all sorts of stupid things trying to get more money and usually end up getting less.

Anyway, your original statement was about making things more open and freely available ... to run closed source, fee driven firmware, that violates licenses.
That seems to be an obvious oxymoron ...

Meanwhile, this week I released open source code to use the S17 chip (that someone else worked out the commands) ... oh well ...

10 years! that's impressive. I want your take on immersion cooling? I've just built an immersion cooling system that I'm pretty happy with and looking to buy an S9 to miss around with. Running a miner on immersion cooling easily matches the stock hash rate at lower consumption. Wouldn't you be intrigued to custom firmware it and overclock it? I think it's a no-brainer only if you're into immersion cooling.

[altair_tech]

Apparently asic.to has released a beta version of Antminer S19 firmware that gives its it a 40% boost without immersion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZs9RhDGP0E

Can't wait for this firmware to release, so we can get our hands on it.