I came across what seems like a solid deal on an S9. The seller wants $75 for it, but it doesn't include a power cord.
As far as I know, it can be set up to run on a regular 110v outlet if you adjust the settings to keep it under 1,000 watts.
So I have a few questions:
Would this make it quieter? If so, any idea how loud it gets? Like, in decibels?
Does it generate less heat when it's using fewer watts?
Is this a safe setup for the long haul?
And how much TH would it kick out if I set it to around 800 watts?
if perfectly tweaked maybe 10th for 800 kwatts.
if you find better firmware maybe 7th and 550 watts which is fairly quiet.
i have old threads on how to tweak them.
i will look for one
here is the thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5253561.0
The fans in S9 units generate noise not from the hashboards, so the level of noise varies depending on the fan speed and tweak.
With the exception of my mother's voice, it might sound like a soft conversation between two people or be under 60 dB.
if he downclocks low enough the fans can be at 3000rpm which is about 50db
i have some youtube videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-tLR6sEVQs&=62s
57db two units of two boards each
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-14AWG-Computer-Power-Cord/dp/B00AC8M6DY/ref=sr_1_18?
note 14 gauge works fine
16 gauge is meh
18 gauge is not safe for the miner.
this should be the psu he offers
https://www.amazon.com/Bitmain-Antminer-Supply-APW7-Connectors/dp/B07FG81F7H/ref=sr_1_1?
$75 for this junk?
In Russia it costs 20-30 dollars in a complete set.
On free power, this asic will give 30 cents of profit and make a very loud noise.
If you have free electricity at 800 watts, then buy an old AMD RX 480, which consumes 100-120 watts and gives 20 cents profit per day, if the electricity is free.
At that power you can make a mining farm of 5 video cards for $200-250.
$75 is way over priced for an S9, anything above $30-40 maximum is simply a rip off IMO, and ya, you can run the S9 on 110v since it uses APW7 or APW3 PSUs, both can run safely on 110V but one has a higher wattage than the other, but generally, don't push either of them past 800w to be safe, and as phill said, get a 14 gauge C13 cable, make sure it's a good quality cable and avoid unplugging it, set a separate breaker for the miner so that you don't need to unplug it every time you want to power it off, the continues plug-unplug process would cause the cable to be loose on the PSU end and that would cause fires, also given that this is a used miner, you want to check the PSU input size where the C13 cable goes, make sure the cable really clicks, to the point where you can pull the PSU or even lift it using the cable, if the slight pull would separate the cable from the PSU then your PSU is bad and don't use it.
This is the dumbest idea I've seen in mining lately. If you have power and voltage limitations, it is better to use video cards. It is safer and even better in terms of profit.
Someone wants to cheat a rookie miner someone or a rookie wants to cheat himself.
lets analyze numbers 75 dollars. doing 7 th on a braiins downclock pulling 600 watts of free power.
7th is about 30 cents a day or 30 dollars in a hundred days or 109.50 usd in a year.
cost is 75 bucks. so break even in about 8-9 months.
if he is usa based i could send him a mobo and five 480 gpus.
for 200 bucks.
it would earn a dollar a day if power is free. he could point it to nicehash and get paid in btc
it would be pretty quiet and burn 600 watts.
payback about 6.5-7 months
i am not sure which one I would do with free power at say 600-700 watts
I would say 75 bucks is not terrible as compared to 200.
but once the two hundred days pass. the gpus are likely better.
having done both of these things I know a proper setup of the s-9 will run with very little issues.
I do think he could get the s9 cheaper.
I would send him one of mine if he was close to New Jersey so shipping would be cheap. Maybe 50 bucks if he is not far from 07731 zip code.
I think it's bad from a business standpoint here. Paying back 75 dollars in a year or 200 dollars in a year is ridiculous. I write a year because we have to take into account the increase in complexity, but it's not that important.
Since there are 5-6 video cards in the farm, if one of them breaks down, he will continue mining, and if the asics break down, the experiment will be over quickly.
And unfortunately, the knowledge that a miner will get when using an old asic will be irrelevant in the future. With video cards his experience will be more useful if he uses locations with small capacity limits.
Getting your investment return in a year is way better than 99.99% of businesses out there, at least the legal ones, although, I'd argue, that a 1 year ROI beats most of the illegal business ideas, so values aside (be it $75 or $200), the ROI is exceptionally short.
I do agree with going with GPUs rather than a single old S9 that would likely die very soon, although, income-wise, we know BTC is a lot more saturated than all the other coins, so the 30 cents income from S9 is almost impossible to drop to 15 cents in 1-2 years time, whereby the $1 income from GPU can drop to 50 cents in a single week.
Unfortunately it can't be called an investment because the author of this thread only has 800 watts of free or very cheap power. In mining, the main expenses go to electricity, and in such conditions the miner has almost zero costs.
Here it is easier to wash car steles in the parking lot and earn more in 1-2 days without investment, than to fight with the noise of the asic for a year
This is a bad comparison, in fact, in many countries, working for 1-2 day would get you more money than a miner would make in a month, but there is a difference between investment and work, what other somehow safe investment can get you ROI in less than a year? probably none, unless you invest in se shit coin that might make you lose everything.
For me, mining is not an investment. If I buy bitcoin and wait for a price of 100000- 1M, it is an investment.
If I buy a miner or other equipment with my own money and mine the coins, then it's self-employment or business, not work.
It will be work when I monitor and maintain someone else's equipment and get a fixed salary.
So from my point of view buying any equipment is a business, on which I spend my time every week and for 1 year of such expenses in business I will only return my 75 dollars and will be left with useless junk, the price of which will be no more than 15 dollars, if it does not break.
So from a business point of view, it is better to spend on a rag and shampoo to wash the windows of the cars of customers, and the profit will be on the first day
You can swap the firmware and use pretty much whatever wattage you like.
I've got one that is submerged in mineral oil with a pump loop & silent fans.. It's literally silent.
I really should plug it back in...
You can only use such an asic only when you have free electricity.
You can even without firmware update remove 1 board with chips and reduce power consumption.
Do you have any photos for the setup? i imagine it is a DIY setup and not some plug-and-play box?
On the S9, the efficiency you get using custom firmware is very noticeable, since both Vnish and BO+ tune each chip individually, while on the stock, the best you can do is set a differenf frequency and voltage for an entire board.
Ofcourse, the good thing about stock firmwork is that you don't any fee.