Setting up an Antminer S9

Hello everybody! This is your resident ASIC expert chiming in with a quick startup guide on how to set up an Antminer S9. The principles can likely be applied to previous versions of the Antminer, and future versions as well. I won't spend a lot of time babbling -- instead, we'll jump right into it.

Before you set up your miner(s), there's a few things to ensure you have:

- A crypto wallet (software/hardware/paper/whatever)
- An account with a mining pool
- Proper cooling / ventilation
- A power supply
- An ethernet cable
- A power cord
- Proper electrical supply to your outlets
- The ability to login to your modem to see IP ranges of each connected device in your household/farm

Once you meet the checklist above, you're ready to get started!

Out of the box, you will have your miner and your power supply. Position your miner and power supply where you want them.

Extending from the power supply, you will notice ten connectors. Nine of these can be plugged in now to the 3 slots on each hashboard (totalling 9). You will have one extra connector that plugs into the main board of the miner, separate from the other 9 connections. Leave that one unplugged for now.

Plug your ethernet into the miner, and the other end into your modem or network hub.

Finally, plug in the power cord to the wall and the miner. Only at this point should you connect the final connector to the main board.

Once it's all plugged in, your miner will start up and make noise. This is a good sign. Now, we have to direct the miner/worker on what to do and how to do it. There's a few methods people use for this, but I'm going to tell you how I specifically do it. I'm not saying it's the best or the worst -- it's just what I do.

Navigate to your modem's firmware and find the section that shows you the IP address of each device connected to it. Most likely you'll be operating on a DHCP lease, which means each of your connected devices will start with a 192.168 address.

Each modem is different, and I would recommend consulting your user documentation in order to find this area. It shouldn't be difficult.

Once you've located the IP address for your Antminer, you need to open a web browser and type the IP into the navigation bar. Press enter. You should be taken to your miner's login page, and the default UN/PW for the Antminer S9 is root/root.

Once you're inside the miner, you will see a page that looks like this:



Navigate to the "Miner Configuration" tab. This is where you will tell your miner what to do.

There are three sections, each with three boxes. You can ignore the bottom two sets of boxes, and just focus on the top one.

Next to URL, input your mining pool's link. You can find this through your mining pool's website.

Next to Worker, input the worker's name. The worker's name is generated through your mining pool's website, so again, refer to them.

Next to Password, you can input a password for the miner if you like. This is not required.

Save your settings, and your miner is off to the races. Depending on your pool's website, it can take 10 minutes to an hour to appear and show that it is mining. However, you can check the "miner status" tab to see it working before then.



The GH/s boxes should have numbers in them within ~10 minutes when you check. This will tell you that the miner is working.

There are additional programs you can use to make your life easier, especially when managing multiple miners, but this is the basic gist of the process. You likely need to research your own pool and the way they do things in order to get more accurate information on linking the miner up with it. Typically, you make an account with a pool, create a worker, and then tie that into your miner in the username box.

I hope this helps some of you out there. Enjoy!