Overview ASIC miner Antminer S9 - Part I

A little more than six months from the start of series production Antminer S7, and in April 2016 began to emerge about the new generation of chips and miners from BITMAIN. Especially because the main competitors - Bitfury, BW and Avalon - have already begun to manufacture or testing ASIC process technology of 16 nm. However, Bitmayne decided not to market the crude product and a month was spent on debugging and chip cards.
The plot has been kept - until 31 May, when it was officially published a press release about the chips BM1387 and early production Antminer S9 network appeared only fragmentary and not very accurate information.
At this time, the Chinese engineers have been able to move a little "mayningovy Moore's Law" - the main indicator of the profitability of mining, energy efficiency of the new chip - could not improve in 2 and 2.5 times (from 0.25 to 0.1 W / GC / s). And due to a small increase in the power of the device itself, the performance of hashing, compared with the previous generation increased 2.75 times - from 4.7 Tx / s to an impressive 13 Tx / s. The first batch was even issued with a nominal capacity of up to 14 Tx / s, but it was too hot, and the operating frequency was reduced in subsequent series.
Shipping and receiving

But enough theory - let us return to our ASIC-in. For me, this story began the previous week, when he called EMS courier and said that in his arms for me posting from China, which he gave in a few minutes. From a distant China parcel often arrives in rumpled and even torn boxes, but this time the box and its contents have been received intact. By the way, I rode posting a relatively short time: May 31 was commissioned in China, and by the evening of June 5, I was holding it in his hands in St. Petersburg.


Delivery was quite austere: in the bag taped to the box, there were only from EMS waybill and invoice from BITMAIN, but inside the box was Antminer S9 himself in splendid isolation. Any documentation, cables, and other frills severe Miner does not rely. Therefore, unboxing and initial examination passed quickly enough.
Walked a separate power supply sending several delayed and he was less fortunate - the box was crumpled, as in the EMS was even made the act. However, he did not suffer block.
first look

I got one of the first miners of the first batch with serial number 0003. It's nice, but the first in a series of devices often suffer from childhood illnesses, with which he had to learn from experience.



Antminer S9 in appearance and layout to the extent of complete confusion is similar to its predecessor. Several different layout management boards and hash, but otherwise, not seeing "ANTMINER S9" stickers, it can easily be confused with the previous model. Stylish aluminum case for the traditional "ants" odd series form factor has been so successful that it was decided not to alter. Moreover, unlike plastic, aluminum casing acts as an additional heat sink. On the sides of the hull remained slides to mount the nth number of miners in a horizontal stack. Hash dress exactly as freely inserted into the cabinet slots, without rigid attachment.
But despite the resemblance with the "old men" in my latest hiding Asik mayningovye chips with a total power of 14 teraheshey per second. A year ago, for the 14 teraheshey I needed a rack with Asik and 7-8 kW "from the socket" that is extremely difficult to organize at home.
But here I was expecting the first trouble. Steep miner in his hands, I heard a distinct rattling inside of a foreign object. Do not run the risk of Asik in this state, I was forced to disrupt the security seals and remove the board hashing.


As it turned out, one of the chips come off the radiator and wander freely inside the housing. I had to take advantage of hot melt and postpone acquaintance with the apex mayningovoy thought the next day.
Power and Cooling

Let alone on this aspect, it is essential for domestic miners. Whatever the device's performance, non-stop howling fans and electricity bills can cool down the hottest fan cryptocurrency.
The regular power supply from BITMAIN - APW3-12-1600-B2 - is concluded in the usual case the server power supply, and has just enough 6-pin connectors as needed to connect one S9 - that is, 10 units, 3 on each board and hashing 1 control board. In addition, there are contacts for the switch (default closed) and monitoring.


His regular duties unit performs well and provides smooth power a little more than 12V, to work on default frequencies it is more than enough. The unit has a very decent performance - not less than 93%, that is, "garbage" and the consumption of the heating block is minimal. Its only drawback - the noisy fan, which is heard in the background even more powerful fan of Asik.
When using two or more blocks on a miner power necessary to make sure that each of hashing circuit board connectors are connected only by a single block. Otherwise, at the first inclusion of the most valuable part of your miner will be aluminum body.


Miner same as the previous model, equipped with two 120 mm fans with a maximum rotation speed to 6000 rpm. Unfortunately, the Chinese engineers have primarily taken care of cooling efficiency and hoped to use the miners in non-residential premises. Running at full speed fans emit a loud whistle at high pitch, which is difficult to endure, being near. Therefore, for the operation of S9 at home is necessary to optimize the cooling system, on which we will focus in the second part of the review.
Getting Started

So, we have established a miner in the right place and blow fan (farthest from the control board) is not directed at the wall. Since the power of Asik is comparable to iron or kettle, special requirements for outlet there. If you do not have power button to power the unit, it is advisable to use a power strip with a switch.
Take a look at the controller board, placed in a semi-open metal casing. It includes the following items:

Slot for SD-card, you will most likely not be useful - it is intended for firmware miner if he ceased to be run with the built-in flash memory. the reset button can be useful if you have incorrectly configured manually Ethernet connectivity and miner became inaccessible over the network.
From the Fault indicators and Normal blinking simultaneously only one. Normal blinking green in the event that a miner is fully operational and has a connection to the pool. After turning a few minutes can flash Fault, before the device enters the normal mode.
Check that all connectors are properly connected and firmly seated, turn on the power. To begin with, Antmayner acquaints us with their acoustic capabilities, blowing body at maximum fan speed. Children are impressionable and women at the same time it is desirable to keep away.


If everything is connected correctly, the buzz subsided, and soon a little salute flashes green LED on the Ethernet connector. If you are running a DHCP server (it is available on most home routers), S9 will not have to search long or configure specific subnet.
To find out which address is assigned to your miner Rauter just go to the web interface and check the list of DHCP clients. Also, you can use the utility from the manufacturer or any IP Reporter software network scanning. Use IP reporter is very simple - you need to run the application, click the Start button, and then really the miner a few seconds to hold the IP report button. The program detects and shows miner's MAC and IP addresses.

After receiving the address, type it in your browser and get to the web interface. Username and password defaults traditional - root / root.

Web interface S9 differs little from the previous miners production BITMAIN, but it continues to remain the trend to simplification. "Superfluous" settings is becoming smaller. Perhaps the developers believe that all qualified user can configure by connecting via SSH.
The first tab of the System of greatest interest tab Upgrade: there you can save or restore the saved configuration, and upgrade firmware.

If you need to change your network settings miners, for example, set a static IP-address, this is done on the Network tab of the latter. However, without the need for this should not be done - miner with improperly configured network interface becomes unavailable, and to bring him back to life, you may need to reset the hardware - with the Reset button on the controller.

Setting up of mining

If a device and the network connection is all right, then with the default settings, he immediately begins to "dig in" on the pool manufacturer. Your first task - to register their pool settings or to register for the pool if it is not already.

Miner from BITMAIN use their own modification of the stratum protocol, so without any problems, you can only work on compatible with her Chinese pools - Antpool and F2pool. Compatibility with other pools can not be guaranteed.
Will register on Antpool. It's very simple, the more that site interface is partially translated into Russian. Fill in your details, you will find yourself in a personal account on the pool. When you first enter the pool ask you about your account for mining: that it will be used in the miner settings, so just copy it to the clipboard.


To adjust the miners on your account nothing else is required. Again, go to the settings page pools in the web interface miners instead antminer paste from the clipboard your account name and save the settings. Worker`s name after the underscore and password do not need to be changed - a worker at the pool are automatically generated.

Checkbox "Stop running when temprerature is over 80" should be left - it will drop the device on heating circuit boards over 80 degrees. The chips themselves are heated above 100 degrees, although it is not necessary to bring them to it. Ideally, the circuit board temperature must not rise above 50 degrees, and the chip - above 80 degrees.
Below, you can set a constant fan speed - it is useful, if the room temperature is constant. In addition, the fan speed drops will not tear your ears.
Consumption of my miners to the factory settings was about 1350 W, and the utilization of the device according to the ratio - about 100%, which shows the high quality power .

On the Advanced Settings set the clock frequency mayningovyh chips. For batch 1, which is described in this review, it is 650 MHz, for later - 600 MHz. To disperse preferably at least one of the hash boards connect through another power supply, since "native" margin of minimum power.

When you save the settings of mining process restarted - and now your Asik starts to work for you. After a while, go to the tab Miner Status - this will show statistics of the miners.
Now is the time to drink a coffee and to get involved in work Miner. An hour later, another look at the statistics interface and miners at the pool. The average productivity of miners at that time ustakanivaetsya starts, and you see how lucky you caught instance. Deviation of 5% in both directions from the manufacturer stated rate is considered normal.

In addition to performance and temperature need to control the number of HW - hardware errors chips, as well as Rejected and Stale - the number is not accepted pool hashes (ball, shares). These indicators should be as small as possible.
Summary

In this first part of the review is now complete. In the second part we take a closer look miner, see how it lends itself to overclocking and how to make it quieter and cooler without sacrificing performance.
The first impression from working with Antminer S9 positive. He has undeniable advantages:
High performance in a compact form factor
High energy efficiency is one of the best to date.
High-quality cooling.
Full autonomy miners and high-grade Linux on board.
It does not require complicated setup - in fact, it is sufficient to register the address pool, and a user name.
Sophisticated union miners in a large farm.
Quality external power supply from the manufacturer.
Among the shortcomings should be noted:
Very noisy fans of the miners and power supply, which makes the device suitable for small home of mining in the absence of special facilities.
Not very high-quality hot melt radiator chips.
Poor compatibility with pools, except Antpool and F2Pool.
Let us hope that these shortcomings of the first production models will be corrected in subsequent editions. Details of the operation miner read the subsequent surveys.
See you!!!