Topic: Bitmain launches the Z9 Equihash miner - page 5. (Read 37211 times)

At aoutomatic fan speed it will let it go to about 70 degrees celsius and try to keep it there as max.
at 80 degrees it restarts.

Soo..

You probably don't need to keep it at 58 degrees.

Every degree will cost som fan speed?

try to find a sweetspot where it runs stable and save the fan a little.

Just my thoughts !!!

My best Batch1 Z9 mini only sustained (long average, weeks.....) 16.58kSol/s. If you have one sustaining 17kSol on a long average, congrats, you found a golden egg.

-j

i received my Z9 mini 3 days ago, overclocked it to 743 about 5 hours ago, fan 100% (i dont care about the noise), temp of the cells is 58 celcius

so far i have an average of around 17 KH/s with peaks at up to 25KH/S


edit: also without overlocking it was around 11 KH/S, so it was pretty good even though it was running at 500

Success. I have overclocked my Z9 to 650... here's a picture of it at 600.

https://imgur.com/n87ky6J

I'm going to let this 650 run for a while to check stability. The change I have made is hard coded at the moment, it'll take me a little longer to make something that should work for others... and even longer to make an image we can just install (maybe).

-j

Folk,

I wanted to provide a brief rundown of my observations on the Bitmain Z9 series (mini and big one). This is based on my experience with the Z9 and Batch1 minis, plus various forum posts here. I'm not sure of the order in which Bitmain changed things after the Batch1 minis, so I'll just refer to the changes in a non-specific order as Batch1+X, etc.

To overclock these things, we have both a software component which consists of the WebUI (which is where many people were OCing after batch1 using "F12" in their browser) and the cgminer executable, and a hardware component which is the actual hashboards themselves which consists of things like the VRM (voltage regulation, which would impact the voltage through the chips as well as limitations around current flowing to the chips) and the general capabilities of each chip (temperature sensitivity, etc. will vary as the chips are made to some tolerances).

That gives us 2 factors to focus on: the hardware and cgminer since the webUI is really just an interface on cgminer.


Batch1 Mini

Sold as 10k, screamed along at 16-17k for the really good ones, temperature sensitivity varied greatly, but mostly all stable OC'd at 750. This requires good voltage, current to the chips, and just "good chips", plus the ability to modify the frequency (web UI + cgminer support).

Batch1 Mini+X

Sold as 10k, came in around 15k, unstable when OCd much past 681Mhz. Web UI said "balanced" and "turbo", but people were able to modify the frequency just by editing the web UI. These were "good chips", but I expect the voltage and/or current to the chips were limited and the Web UI was limited, but NOT cgminer.

Batch1 Mini+X+X

Sold as 10k, came in around 13-14k. WEb UI said "balanced" and "turbo". Trying to modify the webUI and/or the cgminer.conf did NOT work. These people that know are simply moving back to a previous build of the release, but the voltage/current to the chips are still limited, basically turning these into Bactch1+X.

The Big Z9

Prepped, ready to go out the door on time, bitmain realized the hashrates were growing faster than they calculated and it would impact their sales, they investigated and realized they needed to put at LEAST the "webUI" and "cgminer" changes into the Z9s. I don't know if they retooled the boards, and I'm hoping they did not, which would mean voltage/current capabilities are still there.

In the 2 week delay, they rebuilt cgminer (it's compiled as of 9/13/2018) to limit the frequency selection AND not let you override it via command line, API, or cgminer.conf. Only accepts 500-550 and defaults back to 500 if things are out of range.

What does this mean?

If the boards are like the Batch1 Mini boards in that they can handle the current/voltage (I've not checked the volatges/currents, it's just a best guess), THEN, we should be able to revert the cgminer functionality by disassembly and patching. Bitmain doesn't release their changes to cgminer (illegally), so that is our only recourse. If this works, the tricks such as "f12" that people were using in their browser, SSHing in, API would all work and we should be somewhere between Batch1 and Batch1+X in capability (mulitplied by the increase ASIC count per chain).

I welcome other information to clarify my best-guesses.

Lastly, here is an image of the current cgminer (left) and the old (mini batch1) cgminer on the right .. I'm still learning ARM assembly in doing this, but the left has checks to ensure the frequency is between 500 and 550 and resets back to 500 if out of bounds. The right says, check to make sure the frequency is between 200 and 4294967240 Mhz, and that is it.

... I'll work on this more as I get time/energy/focus today.

-j

interesting

Well, I've found where the conditional checks are for 500 to 550mhz.

I need to understand the code around it a little more and then work on a binary patch.

*EDIT*: This is where it seems to be if there are any others so inclined... https://imgur.com/L20jFno

I'm new to ARM assembly, but this basically has a comparison on the left for the frequency being between 500 and 550.

I'll work on this more after sleep.

-j

Correct, no clue where or how to find it, that's a little too advanced for me

So, somewhere in the code there must be a quote for the miner to restart on factory settings if overclock greater than 550

That's what I noticed too, any change made above 550 reverts to 500.  I know because I got 525m to work but nothing over 550m so editing is there but it won't let it go above 550m

One of my Z9s arrived and I've been able to spend a little time with it working on overclock.

1) The control board is exactly the same as the Z9 mini (batch1, at least).
2) cgminer executable has been modified, how, I don't yet know.
3) Using the cgminer executable from the mini on the Z9 does initialize one of the chains, and I can then overclock that chain greater than 550Mhz, but does not fully bring the system up.
4) brute force swapping the control boards produces the same result as #3.

In the factory configuration, I think what they have done is modify the cgminer executable to simply not accept frequencies greater than 550, and if provided a frequency greater than 550, to simply default back to 500. I say this because when I start up the factory configuration at 575 Mhz by editing /config/cgminer.conf, the chains (asics) initialize at 500Mhz.

Since bitmain has not provided the changes they have made to cgminer back to the community, the only option here is to reverse engineer the Z9 cgminer and see my hypothesis is correct, and if it is, generate a small binary patch to remove that check.

I don't currently know ARM assembly, so that is going to take me a while, if ever... but I can at least disassemble it in IDA Pro and see if what I believe appears to be true.

Otherwise, 500 ("Balance") produces around 42kSol and 550 ("Turbo") produces north of 50kSol... it'll probably land on 50kSol on a long average.

-j

mine are now delayed till MONDAY.

Hahah. “Quality” is in the eye of the beholder in this case!  I knew you was troll. Problem is you can’t answer my questions. (In Fact No one can without revealing the truth of it all) Fake it till you make it amiright!  I remember your little rant when Coinbase shut you down and you had to kyc.  Threw your little tantrum. Anyway good luck with your investment 🍻

is anyone else getting "mechanical failure" delays for their shipments? I'm yet to receive my z9s from batch 1. Very frustrating 

https://service.bitmain.com/support/download?product=Antminer%20Z9

What is this?  Firmware changing 500m to 550m?  What?  It already has the option for "turbo" or whatever that sets it to 550m.

I'll wait for someone to post, I don't have a mini, just the big z9's

Copy the cgminer executable from one of the other Mini's and try it on the Z9 -- if anything, they simply modified the cgminer executable to only accept a set of specific frequencies. I expect that the cgminer functionality is otherwise the same and/or very darned similiar.



-j

That's what I expected.  Everything I have tried doesn't allow me to make changes, they locked everything down on this.  Piece of shit bitmain.. delay our miners and cost us 100s and 1000s just so they can limit what WE can do with OUR miners that we bought.  Typical bitmain treating customers like shit.  Literally costed us money so they can limit us to overclocking what we bought.

OK, i've done it but it doesn't apply the changes to the miner, need to find another way sorry

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