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Underclock My Whatsminer With Factory Firware
- Barnminer
TLDR
- Have a whatsminer M3X
- Update newest Firmware release and Whatsminer Tool (Requires Windows PC)
- Use Adjust Frequency down to get significant efficiency gains. Note hashrate will go down.
- Optional- get a clamp meter to measure power consumption at wall. Don’t trust the software, verify.
Whatsminer is a beast, it eats kilowatt hours for breakfast. An M30S++ 100-110T is rated at 31 W/TH when compared to its competitor, the Antminer S19J Pro being rated at 29.5 W/TH. The reported efficiency is +/-5% less than the Antminer. And, that has a significant impact on the power bill. However, bear in mind that you will see pleb miners opting for the Antminer. Further, with aftermarket firmware such as Braiins OS+ or VNISH you can tweak the settings to overclock or underclock any of the Antminer rigs. I prefer Whatsminer regardless of the efficiency gain of the Antminer running stock.
In a low hashprice environment at home, miners look for as much efficiency as possible.The more efficient, the more innovative the miner is. We have seen these guys innovate ways to reuse waste heat back into their HVAC, even how to heat the water in their home, and some have even heated their pools and dried laundry with the excess heat. This essentially allows the miner to double spend on the utility bill. But, unfortunately hashprice has drastically plummeted since the spring of 2021.
Hashprice as defined by Luxor
Hashprice, a term coined by Luxor, refers to the expected value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day. The metric quantifies how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific quantity of hashrate. You can denominate Hashprice in any currency or asset, but we display the metric in terms of USD or BTC (sats). For example
– $0.20 per terahash/second per day ($0.20/TH/s/day)
– 475 satoshis per terahash/second per day (475 sats/TH/s/day)
Hashprice is a function of three inputs: network difficulty, Bitcoin’s price, and transaction fees. Bitcoin’s hashprice will change with every new block added to the blockchain. Luxor’s Bitcoin Hashprice Index uses a 144 lagging SMA to account for transaction fees.
Hashprice is positively correlated with changes to Bitcoin’s price and transaction fee volume and negatively correlated with changes to Bitcoin’s mining difficulty.
Since we don’t all geek out over technical analysis or predictions, we won’t be going over them in this article. That is not the purpose of this piece and I don’t care to read tea leaves. The Hashprice Index over the last year is provided by Luxor in the following chart. And we can see by the visual representation of the downward sloping trajectory that the hashprice is clearly tanking. While it seems in the lower right space to be climbing somewhat steadily in the early weeks of 2023, we have twelve more months ahead to be able to clearly analyze the data instead of making predictive analysis. We can only hope for an upward trend; but don’t be surprised if it dips and pops back up again. One thing is for certain, we are still early and we are in for a bumpy ride.
There have been minimal efficiency options for Whatsminer owners other than factory Low Power setting. I have been a fan of Low Power Mode since this summer. When Low Power Mode is enabled, a user is able to hash more efficiently by reducing power consumption and reducing the Watts/Terahash. Low power mode can be +10% more efficient than normal mode. Whatsminer updated firmware to allow for more customized settings. They released a firmware and Whatsminer Tool update in October 2022 that allows for more control and better efficiency.
The most recent Firmware Update allows for frequency and power limit settings. Make sure to update the firmware and the tool for full functionality. It is available on their website for download. See the photograph below for more detail:
The video tutorial can be viewed here.
*The classic power modes are illustrated here from the tool user guide .Link *link-okk and to what or for what?
The October update allows the ability to adjust frequency and power consumption. The up-frequency option is only available for water cooled rigs. For the plebs with air cooled rigs, the frequency can be lowered or power limited in an effort to increase efficiency thereby decreasing the W/TH (J/TH for our non U.S. pleb miners). I have yet to tinker too much with it but, I can tell you I have been able to reduce the W/TH further than the classic Low Power Mode.
In addition to Frequency Adjustment there is also a Power Limit Setting.
I have been running a few M30S++ with a -30% frequency and seeing about 27 W/TH. I have also adjusted one with a power limit of 1,930 watts with less efficient results. Below are three M30S++ 110T models in both frequency adjusted and power limit adjusted scenarios. It appears the frequency adjustment is working more efficiently than the power limit set to a similar wattage.
Both the Frequency and Power adjustment can be executed in bulk by selecting the IP addresses in the tool you want to change. For those thinking, “what is the reading on the wall?” I feel you. I can not compare second by second; but spot checking the WM tool data with my Iotawatt I observe +/- 10-20 watts between the two data points. The WM tool data is pretty damn close to what I am seeing off the circuits.
I wanted to write this quick post because I keep running across folks that say I wish I could adjust my Whatsminer wattage. Well you can bro. The efficiency gains are worth the time to tinker with. I also want to note that this release came out before Antiminer Christmas present. Imagine that? Hope this helps someone save some fiat on the power bill while hashrate, difficulty, and electricity pumps. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to any of the pleb miners on Twatter or join Steve Barbour’s Home Miining Wizards telegram channel. With constant upgrades and tweaks, Whatsminer is a beast. There is just no other way to put it.
Happy Hashing