Topic: Braiins OS+ support thread - page 6. (Read 2202 times)

It's because they are cheap, they try to reduce the cost at the expense of other things, I think they set a fixed price for the cost and ask their engineers to design something within that price, all these asic miners manufacturers companies do some stupid shit that nothing justifies it except being cheap.

MicroBT do make some solid PSUs and they have a very low failure rate unlike Bitmain and Canaan, but for some reason (probably cost again) they suddenly switched from using 6 flat pins to 4 square pins, so if have a miner that has the flat pin connector when you change the PSU you are going to have to buy a new set of fans and those fans are not cheap, by doing this, they make keeping spare parts a harder job, now you need to have spare fans for both PSU types that are used by the same miner model.

And as I said back then: There are 2 reasons for it.

1. Using more PCIe connectors to feed a multi-kw mineris a bad idea. Too bulky and already proving needlessly unreliable because of the connectors being pushed to their limit and adding insult to injury them often being plugged/unplugged many times over the life of a miner and or PSU. PCIe connectors have a very small number of mating cycles before they begin seriously degrading.

2. Wall plug power efficiency. Today's best Platinum 12vdc PSU's are what - 95% maybe 98% efficient? Now that 12v was being dropped down via a final regulator on each hash board to whatever Vcore is being used. Typical string voltage was what, 7.5 to maybe 9vdc? At best the on-board regulators were *maybe* 85% efficient so...

End result is that by losing the 2nd stage Vcore regulator losses using integrated PSU's that directly set the voltage results in more TH/kW plus by using bus bars it eliminates the high current connection problems. Oh, being able to use a higher string voltage lets ya use longer strings of chips so more TH/Current drawn through the string.

The main tradeoff is that the PSU is setting the Vcore string voltage for ALL of the boards. Um, since we all know that the ideal voltage for any single board can vary a fair bit, that means the tuning process ends up with the best *compromise* voltage to reliably run the weakest board even though the other boards may perform better with a different voltage.

Now as to *why* BM,  Canaan, et al can't seem to have a more reliable PSU built is a mystery to me. It ain't rocket science to design a multi-kw PSU...

Looking at the APW8 schematics posted at https://www.zeusbtc.com/manuals/Antminer-APW8-Power-Supply-Repair-Guide.asp it looks like they use I2C to talk to the PIC in the PSU. Yes the PSU also seems to have two distinct ranges for the DC output: They describe it as 15.9-16.3v and then give an upper range of 19.92-20.5v. Point is, assuming it *does* use I2C and you know what format the commands are sent to it are, it should be easy for some 3rd party to make a compatible PSU. Just have your firmware be able to identify what the hash boards are & need for voltage and talk to the PSU...

Actually Frodocooper complained about these bespoke psu's back in 2018 when the s15's came out.

it is a pain in the butt if you have cheap power and a slightly older psu dies no one sells them and your gear is no longer any good.

I have 0 apw8's spares
I am down to 1 apw9 spare
I have 0  apw12 spares

So keeping older gear working just gets harder.

Unfortunately no. Bitmain played dirty tricks again.

In regards to the "J" miners, there are two different ones: Old ones, with pic in the hashboard, New ones without it.

You can only recognize the "New" ones when they come from factory with the PSU APW121215 rev D or later. You cannot use older PSU revisions with these "New" miners as it lacks the detailed power control. Old miners should probably work fine with the New PSUs though.

You cannot recognize the "New" hashboards without removing heatsinks, so be very careful with mix matching PSUs. Once Braiins OS supports the New miners, the log will alert if the old rev PSU is connected to new miners.

The APW121417 also uses these pic less hashboards.

I suppose the aftermarket PSUs will all just have to adapt for the "New" miners, but who knows.

Yeah, gone are the days where the PSU only supplies 12V... It changes dynamically within a range. Well the control board itself is still getting 12V (and feeds the fans with that).

Wouldn't finding a drop-in replacement PSU mainly be a matter of knowing the specs for it? Namely:
Output voltage range
Output current
Max power out rating
And here's the most important bit -- how the controller talks to the PSU to set the voltage output fed to the hash boards and if/how the controller knows what the PSU is doing. Is it simple 0-5v analog coming from a DA converter or analog output port on the SoC? Serial coms like I2C? PWM signal? etc.

Fair enough about the L7

I will likely order some of those psu's from kaboomracks in the next few months. As I get tired of the s17 psu's burning out.

The only aftermarket psu i know that works right now with Braiins OS, is the Gullpower, specifically the GPW121215-8KW immersion PSU. Some crazy person managed to pull "Over 9000!"™ watts at the wall with it... So the thing does deliver.

The development team is also studying the Alphaminers, but for some reason those need extra firmware support, so i don't know when they will get supported. Last time i read they were making the 7kw model work, so i think it should get support sooner or later.

I suppose the model you linked was tested by the reseller so they would know, when i get confirmation from a third party I'll add it to the list.

Other aftermarket brands/models are unknown if they would work or not. The Gullpower was discovered by adventurous people who just tried.

Its the same way others also discovered the Zynq control boards C87 and C84 "just work", unlike that Beaglebone and Amlogic trash which imo are a waste of dev time and resources (they should be just thrown out), even if its theoretically possible to make them work, they do suck, very low capacity, poor cpu, etc. For example with the BB tuning takes much longer as it can't do all hashboards in parallel. Even Bitmain won't ship them if you break your board and ask for a new one you will get the C87 which is perfectly fine like the other Zynq.

Braiins is fully committed to Bitcoin, so the other algo asics will not be supported. Its also the reason altcoins were finally removed from the pool.

Finally did what you needed to do. I mentioned you should do this in your other thread years ago.

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I have a question will you consider doing bitmain L7?

Also I was considering getting some 'better' psu's

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this says it will work with your software
s17 after market psu
https://parts.kaboomracks.com/collections/power-supplies/products/alpha-miner-psu-4kbm17-apw9-new

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the 2 below do not say they work with your software
s19 after market

https://parts.kaboomracks.com/collections/power-supplies/products/alpha-miner-psu-4kbm19-apw12-new


s19 modded

https://parts.kaboomracks.com/collections/power-supplies/products/bitmain-apw12-psu-modified-from-used

they are supposed to be better made but will they work with your software?

I'm making this new thread to focus in support issues and not get derailed with off topic things anymore.

Remember that this is by my own initiative, official support is provided by opening a Support ticket, or in the Telegram Group.
Official web page is here: https://braiins.com/os/plus

I will try to keep this first post updated with latest releases and supported hardware.

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23.10.1 for Bitmain Antminer S19 series devices

• New miner model: Antminer S19XP 1.01 (manufactured 2H 2022)
• Efficiency improvements for models S19j Pro, S19j Pro+
• Improvements of the persistence of the mining pause (important for curtailments)
• Public API: User can remove tuned profiles

23.10 for Bitmain Antminer S19 series devices

• New Supported models: Antminer S19j Pro+, S19k Pro*
• Improved detection of apw121215g power supply unit
• Mining uptime metric is exposed in the public grpc API
• MinerModel enum has been removed from the public grpc API
• Bug that resulted in a slow response from the public grpc API has been squashed.

* Please note that support for the S19k Pro is in beta. As a result, miner performance when downclocking may not be optimal.
23.09.2 for Bitmain Antminer S19 series devices

• Various minor bug fixes

23.09.1 for Bitmain Antminer S19 series devices

• USER CONTROLLED RESUMPTION OF MINING AFTER PAUSE Restarting/rebooting the device will no longer resume mining.
• REDUCED UPSTREAM CONNECTIONS it makes Braiins OS+ notably less taxing on NAT space.
• OPTIMIZED CPU USAGE optimizations have been made to improve CPU performance
• GUI TEXT FIXES corrections to some incorrect wording within the GUI
• CLEANER LOGGING clearer and more streamlined logging

23.09 Support for the BCB 100 control board

• Support for our Braiins BCB 100 Control Board for Antminer S19 series devices.
• Support for the APW121215G PSU used on the Antminer S19 Pro-A
• Several improvements and bug fixes

Note that S19 miners with the hashing chip BM1398 are not supported on BCB100.
23.08 for Bitmain Antminer S19 series devices

• The process to request and receive the license from the license server will be carried out automatically by Braiins OS+.
• Extension of gRPC public API Pool configuration options, Performance configuration options, Mining mode options.
• Dynamic Power Scaling (DPS) upgrade the miner will start at the lowest power target and upscale it as it detects that temperatures are stable.

23.03.1 for X19 series (S19, S19 Pro, S19j, S19j Pro, T19, and S19 XP) with SD card installation only

• Fix for version rolling of the following X19 series miners with Zynq control boards
• Opens port 50051 which is required for the new gRPC API
• Fixes issue when updating Braiins OS+ version with SD card on Antminer S19 series devices with BBB (BeagleBone Black) control board
• Fixes fan issue

23.03 tested and optimized for X19 series (S19, S19 Pro, S19j, S19j Pro and T19) with SD card installation only

• Support for Antminer S19 sub-variant NBS1902L
• Improved autotuning without restarts
• Fixed delays to the resumption of mining experienced after the pause command
• Alpha release of our new gRPC-based public API to provide a unified standard for all current and future miner variants regardless of the manufacturer

Note: Due to improvements in autotuning, old tuner profiles will be removed with this update.
23.02 for X19 series (S19, S19 Pro, S19j, S19j Pro, T19, and S19 XP) with SD card installation only

• Support for Antminer S19 XP
• Support for Antminer S19 sub-variants BHB56802 and BHB42651
• Improved tuner - autotuning without restarts

23.01 for X19 series Zynq SD only

• [feature] added support for more S19 sub-variants
• [feature] improved efficiency of the tuning process
• [feature] added new fan control mechanism
• [feature] fans in auto mode are now default

22.08.1 This is a minor release that fixes minor bugs related to pools connections.

• [bug fixes] Minor bugs related to pools connections

22.08 This is a major release that brings BeagleBone Black Control Board for public use and Hashrate Target mode for Autotuning.

• [feature] Hashrate Target mode for Autotuning
• [improvement] Improved Power Curves for S19j PRO and S19 PRO
• [improvement] Adjusted power limit defaults for Antminer X17 family

NOTE: The default power limits for the X17 family are now aligned with the stock power limits based on the machine variant. The previous default power limit of 1700W is now 2200W, which will more closely match the consumption and hashrate output to the stock specifications.
IMPORTANT: If you are currently running many X17 devices at the default power limit, this update will cause a significant increase in power consumption. To prevent that, you can simply change the power limit on your machines slightly (e.g. to 1710W) so that the upgrade does not cause any major changes.
If you install Braiins OS+ on a stock device, or have been using a user defined power limit, this change will not impact you at all.
22.06 This is a major release for Beaglebone control boards only.

• [feature] Added support for Beagle Bone based control boards (including tuner, but excluding the auto-upgrade functionality)

Note: this release won't run on other than Beaglebone control board equipped miners.
Note: not sure which control board you have? check here
22.05 This is a minor release containing improved power curves for selected Antminers models.

• [feature] Power curve matrix has been added for models S19J and S19 pro so the estimation of power consumption is now more accurate

Read the documentation here.

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** Remote install method ** Optional for BBB, required for AML:
- Download the latest Braiins Toolbox for your OS:
Linux x86_64 (Intel / AMD PCs, etc).
Linux aarch64 (Newer Raspberry PI or clones).
Linux armv7 (Older Raspberry PI or clones).
MacOS x86_64 (MacOS 12.4 or later).
Windows x86_64 (Windows 10 or later).

Example downloading, unpacking and running from a Linux terminal in a PC:

Running without options starts a local web server: http://127.0.0.1:8888 point your web browser to it and use the web UI.
Run it with option --help to see more options and CLI usage.

If you want to access this from another PC in your lan (example you are running it in a headless Raspberry PI), add the -g option to allow access like this:
./braiins-toolbox -g 0.0.0.0:8888 and then point your browser to the IP address where the toolbox is running, same port.

** Micro SD method ** Optional for BBB, required for Zynq:
- Download the image for the micro SD (max 16g):
x19 Zynq/Xilinx/7007 (23.10.1) sha256sum.
x19 BeagleBone Black (23.10.1) sha256sum.
x17 Zynq/Xilinx/7007 (22.05).
S9, S9j, S9i Zynq/Xilinx (22.05).
(S9 only) move jumper jp4.
- Flash the image from a pc with BalenaEtcher, Rufus or dd.
- Insert the micro SD card and reboot the miner.
- Log into the miner with a web browser: user root, no password.
You can find its IP with bos-toolbox listen + ip report button, or AngryIP / Nmap.
— — — — — — — — — —
- (Optional) Install to NAND from (System > Status >) System > Install to NAND (Only 22.05 with S9/x17 control boards).
(Old) bos-toolbox for S9/S17: Linux x86_64 - Windows x86_64

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Braiins OS+ is a full replacement firmware made from scratch. Braiins has to figure out hardware support without any aid or documentation from manufacturers, for this reason the number of supported ASIC miners is limited. Braiins takes no shortcuts modding existing firmware and therefore its impossible to support new miners that have been just released. It takes countless hours of research and development to support each new variant or model in a manner that is clean, safe and efficient.

Since its release in 2020, the results has always been the best efficiency, often resulting in a "generation leap". For example:
People who used it with the S9, could make 74 J/TH, same as S11 with stock.
People who used it with the S17, could make 29 J/TH same as S19 with stock.
People who used it with the S19j, could make 21 J/TH same as S19 XP with stock.
People who used it with the S19 XP, could make 18 J/TH same as S21 with stock.

Some results reported publicly by users of Braiins OS+:
For most of 2023, you could have made your XPs achieve the so called 1XJ/T ahead of the manufacturers newest models, by simply using Braiins OS+.

Even if you subtract the dev fee, you still get better than others with "zero fee". For example 101.2*0.975=98.67 1856.3W/98.67TH=18.81J/T (normalized against "zero" fee). By using Braiins OS+, you support the development of a truly independent and clean alternative developed from scratch using the Rust language. Braiins OS+ was made in Europe at the Czech Republic by an international team working across the globe in multiple time zones.

The reason why Braiins always achieves the best efficiency is because of its unique autotuning, a deep and continuous process others aren't able to imitate no matter what they claim, since they don't get it and take shortcuts which are inefficient and never adapt truly to your hardware. Its not who does it first, its who does it best. Worldwide market adoption has been overwhelming, and for good reason. Think of cars, what quality you get from Europe, America, China and Russia...

And on top of that, enjoy the 0% pool fee by using Braiins Pool. Since you are already paying for Braiins OS+ you get the benefit of using Braiins Pool for free! Two products for the price of one!

** Get notifications from: **
Braiins OS+ web page https://braiins.com/os/plus
Braiins Announcements Telegram channel to: https://t.me/Braiins
Braiins OS+ support Telegram group https://t.me/BraiinsOS