ASICBOOST to be released this evening

[Simon_says]

Steve, how do we implement, install, activate or enable this asicboost thing on the Antminer S9?

As far as I know, in the first place there are two types of Asicboost - covert and overt. Which Asicboost type has been implemented by Prohashing?

Also, it is necessary to update the miner's firmware in order to make it compatible to one or another Asicboost type??? if not, how do the miner takes advantage of this Asicboost?

Thanks.

[CSZiggy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... m/dfy5o65/

[alim]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/commen ... m/dfy5o65/

Thank you! I will probably spend the morning trying to figure it out! Or I would have if both the links hadn't been taken down.

Back to writing about some crypto stuff... I'd like to eat next month.

[CSZiggy]

Link above worked for me when I click it.
Here is the jist of the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've also got overt ASICBOOST operating on my Antminer, it needs enabling in a hidden configuration (and a pool that supports it). Open up /config/bmminer.conf and look at the last setting.

{
...
"multi-version" : "1"
}


To enable multi-version needs to be >1, the number being how many bits of the version number you're allowing it to modify for ASICBOOST. Enabling this will cause a new field in mining.submit which includes which version number it ended up using for the share solve, the pool server needs to be able to parse that and be able to validate it. The code for this is on github in the bit main account so don't take my word for it.

Maybe someone like Slush will make a public pool that enables people with handicapped S7, S9, R4 hardware to use ASICBOOST today and reduce their power consumption? It's a few altered responses on the stratum server and some instructions on how to modify the configuration on your miner to enable it, and you're up and running.

the ASIC supports overt and covert ASICBOOST
the FPGA in the miners sold to people supports ASICBOOST
the software in the miners sold to people supports overt ASICBOOST but it's disabled
antpool.com supports overt ASICBOOST messages
Never meant to be used for the good of the ecosystem, right?
If you believe that you're being a little bamboozled.

[Steve Sokolowski]

Link above worked for me when I click it.
Here is the jist of the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've also got overt ASICBOOST operating on my Antminer, it needs enabling in a hidden configuration (and a pool that supports it). Open up /config/bmminer.conf and look at the last setting.

{
...
"multi-version" : "1"
}


To enable multi-version needs to be >1, the number being how many bits of the version number you're allowing it to modify for ASICBOOST. Enabling this will cause a new field in mining.submit which includes which version number it ended up using for the share solve, the pool server needs to be able to parse that and be able to validate it. The code for this is on github in the bit main account so don't take my word for it.

Maybe someone like Slush will make a public pool that enables people with handicapped S7, S9, R4 hardware to use ASICBOOST today and reduce their power consumption? It's a few altered responses on the stratum server and some instructions on how to modify the configuration on your miner to enable it, and you're up and running.

the ASIC supports overt and covert ASICBOOST
the FPGA in the miners sold to people supports ASICBOOST
the software in the miners sold to people supports overt ASICBOOST but it's disabled
antpool.com supports overt ASICBOOST messages
Never meant to be used for the good of the ecosystem, right?
If you believe that you're being a little bamboozled.

You said you got it enabled. Are you able to run it here successfully? As far as I know, the system does support the commands necessary to run it.

[CSZiggy]

No I don't even own any sha-256 miners.

I was just passing along info from a page off the internet.
I think Lestat quoted the same page before in one of the other posts, I was just added that info here for people to read.

Im pretty sure they need to putty into their miners, access the file in the folder listed and alter it and then test until they find the number that works best for this pool. I have no other information than what I read from that webpage.

Good Luck!

[Steve Sokolowski]

No I don't even own any sha-256 miners.

I was just passing along info from a page off the internet.
I think Lestat quoted the same page before in one of the other posts, I was just added that info here for people to read.

Im pretty sure they need to putty into their miners, access the file in the folder listed and alter it and then test until they find the number that works best for this pool. I have no other information than what I read from that webpage.

Good Luck!

If it's sending that command, then it's not going to work with this pool, because it's not implemented. Only the standard implementation of version-rolling is available.

In order to implement it, I need to find out what the numbers mean, so that the mining server knows how to interpret them.

[Simon_says]

It seems that someone else had the same question I have in other forum and this was the answer he or she got.

Hello,

when the miner supports an overt AsicBoost, you don't have to configure anything special, it runs automatically (for example on DragonMint T1).
As we know so far, it's not supported on Antminer S9.

Thank you for mining on Slush Pool and if you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us again.

Have a nice day,
Adam
Customer Care
Slush Pool "

[LMC]

Hi All
I'm not having much luck with my ASICBOOST experiments!
I've tried at setting 2, 3, 4 and 8. The S9i would only run stable at 2 and 3.
I tried dynamic diff, then 65K, then 131K.
None of the above gave a hashrate above about 7.5 TH/s. [normal hashrate = 13.5 TH/s].
Mining efficiency continued to drop at all settings, with reason: "miner is using an incorrect algorithm".
The only setting I changed in the miner conf file was:
"multi-version" : "x" [1=standard setting, 2 or higher for ASICBOOST]
For the moment, I'm going back to standard settings!

Any ideas?

[Steve Sokolowski]

Hi All
I'm not having much luck with my ASICBOOST experiments!
I've tried at setting 2, 3, 4 and 8. The S9i would only run stable at 2 and 3.
I tried dynamic diff, then 65K, then 131K.
None of the above gave a hashrate above about 7.5 TH/s. [normal hashrate = 13.5 TH/s].
Mining efficiency continued to drop at all settings, with reason: "miner is using an incorrect algorithm".
The only setting I changed in the miner conf file was:
"multi-version" : "x" [1=standard setting, 2 or higher for ASICBOOST]
For the moment, I'm going back to standard settings!

Any ideas?

We're aware of this issue. The S9 uses a different version of ASICBOOST from the "version rolling" implementation, for which there is no documentation. I wasn't able to figure out what the "multi version" stratum command is supposed to do, and there is a post and a ticket out asking people what it means.

If you can find more documentation on how to implement support for the stratum commands the S9 uses for ASICBOOST, we'll be glad to implement it. Do you have any links?