Topic: ASIC Miner with Dual PSU (Read 329 times)

This is more of an issue on the s7 then the s9. The s9 will not burn up on its own but if you are in a hot enough environment and the controller loses power and the fans stop spinning heat soak is a larger concern.

some people argue that the controller is responsible for controlling power draw for the hashboards, therefore a failure of the PSU which is connected to the controller will put those hashbaords which are connected to the other PSU at a great risk of burning/dying.

i am not aware of whether that above is technically correct as i do not have the tools nor the knowledge to monitor how is power draw done on miners. but i hope someone who knows these stuff quite well can confirm.

Assuming your Power Supplies are up to spec, you may safely power ASICS with more than one PSU. There are two most important things to remember when doing this.

1. Be sure to not mix power supplies to a single individual hashing board
---- For example, an Antminer S9 has three hashing boards. On each board there are three connectors for power. You want to make sure that each of these three connectors are receiving power from that one same power supply. Many people will make the mistake of doing the following: if they had two power supplies of 5 connectors each, they may think it is okay to take power supply #1 and use the first three connections on hash board one, and then the following two power connections on hash board two. Typically these people will wrongfully then complete the 3rd power port on hash board two, followed by completing the three power connectors on hash board three. And then of course the final connector of the power supply #2 to the control board. In this wrong example, hash board two is pulling power from two separate power supplies and this is very bad.

2. Be sure that the hashing boards are powered on first, and then the control board second.

Here are several scenarios that may answer some additional questions...

Scenario #1: You have two power supplies and one Antminer s9
- Assuming power requirements are met, you may use power supply #1 to plug into two of the three hashing boards (you have just plugged in 6 connectors in total). You may now use power supply #2 to plug into the remaining hashing board and the control board (you have just plugged in 3 connectors on the last hashing board, and 1 on the control board).

- To power on the miner, begin with turning on power supply #1 first, and shortly after power supply #2

Scenario #2: You have three power supplies and one Antminer s9
- Assuming power requirements are met, you may use power supply #1 for hashing board #1, power supply #2 for hashing board #2, and power supply #3 for hashing board #3 and the control board.

- To power on the miner you would turn on power supply #1, then #2, and then #3

Indeed, what fanatic26 said re power is critical.  In fact I tend to spec much larger output PSU's than what one might think is enough.  This is so I'm running around 60% of max output which tends to be in the sweet spot of efficiency.
For example, I have two Thermaltake 750W PSU's running my R4.  Each hashboard is only around 400W or so each.  (they were on sale at Fry's...)

As always, YMMV!  

What miner are you trying to do this on? If it is an s9 or t9 the boards pull about 450 each so 2 boards on a single power supply would overload that PSU. You would be better off with a 1000w and like a 600w if you really wanted to run a machine like that

Redundant Array of Independent Disks

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I'm running a unit with 3 hashboards, I'll just connect 1 power supply to two boards and the other to the controller and 3rd board. BTW, what do you mean by RAID? 

I run my miners at home with multiple PSU's - think RAID but with power supplies instead of HD's! 
Just make sure of a couple things:

1) Do not power any hashboard with multiple PSU's.  That would be bad. Miner can have multiple PSU's on it, but not the hashboards.
2) Power up the PSU(s) without the controller first, then lastly the PSU with the miner's controller on it.

Mine ON! 

Not sure what unit you're looking at but there really isn't a on/off switch like your thinking typically. You want to power up a couple boards with one and another board with the CB. Still you'll want to turn everything off in reverse other wise you'll draw a fair amount of power with just power to the boards. Unless you have a switched pdu.

https://service.bitmain.com/support/download?product=Antminer%20S9

I couldn't find a solid answer to this question other than for GPU mining, so I thought I would post it here.

Does anyone know how to safely power an ASIC miner with dual EVGA Power supplies? I have two 850w titanium power supplies and I would like to know how to safely use them together instead of buying a single 1600w Power supply. Preferably, I would like to have one of the units function as an on off switch instead of flipping both switches on or off. Would I also need two jumper pin cables?

Thanks for any help.