ASIC miner: what it is, and how to manage many of them

ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit: a chip designed for a single task. In mining, that task is one hash algorithm. A Bitcoin ASIC computes SHA-256 and nothing else. It cannot be switched to Scrypt or any other algorithm later. That single purpose is what makes it so much faster and more efficient than a graphics card or a processor.

What is inside

• Hashboards. They carry the mining chips, usually three boards in a machine, with the chips wired in voltage domains.
• A control board. It runs the firmware, talks to the mining pool and offers the miner's own web page.
• A power supply.
• Cooling. Fans in most machines, a liquid loop in hydro and immersion models.

Why a fleet needs management

One miner is easy to watch on its own web page. A few hundred are not. A weak hashboard, a dead fan or a miner that fell back to a backup pool costs money for every hour nobody notices. That is the job of fleet management software.

ASIC miners in FARMGOD

• Many makes, one list. Antminer, Whatsminer, AvalonMiner, Sealminer, Auradine, Goldshell, Elphapex, VolcMiner and the small BitAxe family.
• Six algorithms. SHA-256, Scrypt, kHeavyHash, Equihash, Eaglesong and Blake2b, each counted in its own units.
• Down to the chip. Every miner with its boards and chips, and on several firmwares a map of every single chip.
• Actions for one or for many. Reboot, sleep and wake, power modes and pools, for a single miner or a whole selection.

Getting started

FARMGOD Cloud is free for up to five miners, with no time limit. Sign up, start FARMGOD.OS on a spare PC in your miners' network and run a scan: your ASIC miners appear on your dashboard. Get started shows the three steps. For a whole farm, a Private VPS brings every feature on a server of your own: see the pricing.