Topic: Braiins OS & Braiins OS+ custom ASIC firmware: optimize performance & efficiency - page 16. (Read 45481 times)

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


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

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

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:

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).

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.

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.

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.


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.

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...

The rule for the voltages applies identically no matter the speed you are setting. ALWAYS find the lowest voltage where the hashboard is still hashing. Each hashboard is different. Normally the voltages required for overclocking are higher than normal or underclocking, but that doesn't necessarily mean above "factory" settings. Again every hashboard is different, and a more efficient hashboard can usually take more of a beating as well.

There is no single universal setting, beyond starting points. You have to always find out the correct setting for each board; yes, manually. It is my opinion than anything beyond 9v is not good, and that prompts for lowering the speed. But its your gear, you are the one burning it...

Also if the input air is too cold while the inside is too hot, you are going to get a thermal shock. Worse, condensation and 100c means vapor, by overclocking you are getting into that dangerous zone (water + electronics = short), that is probably the very reason they won't be changing the 95°C thing.

Rule of thumb is simple: Overclock = premature death; Underclock = prolonged life; both vs "normal" settings.

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.

That's great and all, but some of us like using them to heat the house in the winter, so maximum TH and heat is the goal. The gas furnace here hasn't been used in about 3 years now, lol. I did notice that bOS recommends lower voltage with higher frequency, but that's backwards. So far, I run them around 700-725MHz @ 8.8-8.9V when it's the coldest, without a noticeable increase in HW errors. If I put it at the recommended "8.70V (for 700.0 MHz)", then I do get a lot more HW errors.

They have to program the driver from scratch which would take some time. But I am sure it is very similar to the S9 and other drivers for other chips. No need to reinvent the wheel everytime.

i moved the jumper , as for a test i did the bitmain firmware re-install via the T9+ install then update to s9x verson of firmware ,

did just fine ,and ive flashed 12 other units but they were all regular s9 13.5    ,   this seems to be just the s9i miners i just bought from ebay

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OK so when is the s17 going to be supported 

Sounds like you're not moving the jumper back. If moving jumper back it will boot from the control board. Make sure you gave it enough time to install on board too.

with free kwh i usually run them @ 700 mhz   factory settings are usually in the 630's to 650's ,

but same with the bitmain fw and the 2+ th settings

You were mislead. The point of bOS is NOT overclocking, but actually UNDERclocking.

It is about achieving the best efficiency ratio, the maximum hash per watt you can achieve. Overclocking actually does the opposite (unless your electricity is free and unlimited), which in the end means you earn less money.

Worry about lowering those voltages and speeds, and keep the hash going. There is no automation, every single hashboard needs to be carefully tested and measured to find out where its best efficiency lies. Again the lowest watt per hash you can manage is different per BOARD.

And because there are no "automated safety features", you are better of NOT doing overclocking, anyway. You can easily burn your miners using wrong configuration settings. Do not follow those that tell you overclock is good, it isn't. Best efficiency always wins, and with S9s, that is almost always by underclocking.

You need to measure power consumption and test speeds/voltages by yourself, PER board. No hand holding, if you want to make proper use of bOS. It is not "install and forget" firmware, you have to earn your efficiency which in the end will make your miners more profitable and longer lasting.

you should try doing the freq at 731  and the volts at 9

i over clock my s9i's  and get 15.5-16.2 avg th

and last night i set them to 65% freq scale and the fans stay within 10-20% speed and 11th
so they are not really noisy, and my garage is kinda warm in the morning

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i have a little issue i cant figure out,

have 4 s9i miners , booted using sd card, clicked install nand option ,

reset jumper and re-boot and from there i cant get back into them ,
not sure if its not booting from nand or somthing , but when i put the
sd card back in and boot with jumper in sd card boot posision they
work just fine  , what could be causing this  ?

Thanks
FM

Well, I tried it, and unfortunately I can't say that it was good for overclocking (at least for my hardware). I decided to switch to my previous one until next release of BOS.

you can crank the freq and power up , stick with stable release

just boot it, flash nand option , reboot and edit services > cgminer = add pools and there you can adjust volts and freq, or use scale option and start at like 1.10  and go to 1.15 and 1.20 and so on

and set the desired c temp , its the best firmware as it loads faster and gives real time gui so you can see if the hw errors start stacking up then adjust cgminer settings


NOTE : if you have freq and power settings and then change the scaling option the scale will apply to the chain settings

What kind of hashrates are possible with this firmware?
Also should I update to the latest dev release or stick to latest stable (?) build?

The only way you can tell is to use factory firmware again (Ie. from 2018). If the sensors are really bad, you won't be able to hash using Bitmain's and it should show in the logs. It is possible with BraiinsOS without sensors if you use the corresponding option in cgminer.conf but you risk a failing fan may burn your unit.

In the rare case where sensors truly work but are not correctly recognized, maybe after bosminer is finished you may have a chance to work with the bOS people to find a solution.

As with anything regarding improved hardware support, it will come only after bosminer is finished and released officially.

(bosminer will replace cgminer in future BraiinsOS releases).