Today we are writing a blog post about why we don’t use Bitmain’s Antminer PSU for running S9, the most popular bitcoin miner.
Most people order ASIC miners from Bitmain, especially their powerful S9. Although there are many other vendors in the market, Bitmain’s S9 is still the most popular one, considering hashrate, cost and stability, etc.
Therefore, in most of the cases, people will also get Bitmain’s Antminer PSU as a bundle. Because the S9 doesn’t come with a PSU itself. However, while we were setting our own bitcoin mining farm, we found out that the official Antminer power supply from Bitmain can NOT provide enough power for the miner under 110V. This caused unstable performance of our S9 miners, and maybe cause permanent damage as well.
In North America, residential and commercial properties usually provide 110V. Only some of industrial areas may have the 200~240V. However, under 110V, Antminer PSU can only output 1200W, which is much less than what S9 requires. In the specs of S9, it is said it needs at least 1320W for a stable performance. If providing less power than that, It may cause permanent damage to the miner. With our own experiment, using Antminer PSU, the performance of S9 is very unstable. Many of them were only working with 2/3 of the total hashrate. Also under 110V, the efficiency of Antminer PSU deteriorate dramatically. Please see the following chart.
Instead of using Bitmain’s Antminer PSU, we finally found the right alternative: Lianli 2500W PSU. This PSU can provide maximum 1600W under 110V, and 2500W under 220V, which almost 1.5 times what Bitmain’s PSU can provide. Also the price is lower. Please see our youtube video to see more differences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3SL0is0ohY
Happy mining & Keep Bleev.In
