Prepare your ASICs for hot summer days

Quite hot, yeah? Yes, we know how in summertime the outside temperature can reach and even exceed 40°C. This is dangerous for ASICs, as they are generating heat by themselves. As a result, ASICs’ chips may get damaged, which will affect the hashrate, the lifespan of the devices, and your income. To keep your equipment and money safe, follow our recommendations on how to prepare your ASICs for hot summer. Monitor the temperature Tracking the temperature all the time is essential, and Hive OS can significantly simplify this process. First of all, you can monitor the temperature of all your ASICs at the same time — this is possible thanks to the heatmap. You can see the temperatures across all your workers.If one of the devices reaches the critical temperature, it will get red on the map, and you will notice this quickly even if you have hundreds of ASICs. The default threshold value for ASICs is 85°C. You can change it in the farm settings, but remember to avoid values higher than 90°C. They are too dangerous for ASICs. Secondly, you can set up notifications that will keep you informed about dangerous temperature increases even in case you get distracted from the heatmap. The notifications can be sent to Discord or Telegram, and here you will find a guide on how to set them up. It works like this: if the temperature of your device exceeds the threshold value by 3°C (so your device heats to 88°C), you receive a message informing you about it. The critical value of 85°C can be changed — click the thermometer icon to do this. However, we don’t recommend doing this, as changing this limit may be dangerous to your ASICs. If you still decide to change it, keep in mind that you are doing this at your own risk. Keep the temperature under control Hive OS will help you not only to monitor the temperature of your ASICs — it will also help you to keep it under control and protect your devices from overheating. This is possible thanks to the autofan feature. To enable it, follow these steps: Log in to your Hive OS account; Click the fan icon in the top right corner; Change the following fields, if necessary: target temperature, minimum fan speed, and maximum fan speed; Move the slider in order to turn the autofan on; Click “Apply”. That’s it, the temperature of your ASICs will be maintained at the desired level. Please note that the recommended temperature for ASICs is 75–80°C. However, if the critical value is somehow reached, another useful Hive OS feature comes to the rescue: a temperature watchdog. It reboots the system or stops the mining process to prevent the damage of the equipment. To set it up, click the fan icon one more time and specify the critical temperature and action. Hiveon ASIC firmware is also equipped with a temperature watchdog. It prevents the chips from falling below the critical value and stops the mining process in case the temperature gets too high. Besides, unlike other firmware, Hiveon ASIC has no quiet start feature. The reason for this is that during the quiet start the temperature sensor is not working, so an ASIC can overheat and even burn down. By the way, Hive OS is free for Hiveon ASIC users. Decrease the power consumption Decreasing power consumption will also help to prevent the risk of overheating. You can do this using the Hiveon ASIC downvolting feature. When setting up properly, it can reduce consumption by around 1,000 kW. As an option, you can combine overclocking and downvolting. Switching between these two modes can be done automatically with the help of the Hive OS scheduler. Ensure the air movement One more way to simplify your ASICs’ life in the summertime is to ensure the air movement in the room where they are located. First of all, open the doors and windows. Secondly, don’t place your devices too close to each other — leave some space between them. Thirdly, get a fan (or even several fans in case you have a lot of ASICs) and make sure the air flow it creates moves to the open door or window. In this way, a fan will remove the extra heat from the room. Remove the dust regularly An ASIC full of dust has much higher chances for overheating than the clean one. Therefore, we recommend removing the dust not only in summer, but on a regular basis — at least once a month. In this way, you will prolong the lifespan of your devices. The most effective way to remove the dust is using an air compressor and an air gun. The air pressure should be 0.7 (+/- 0.05 MPa). Don’t forget to shut down the ASICs before cleaning! As soon as everything is ready, use an air gun to carefully blow the fans a couple of times. Then, put the gun close to the fun (but make sure it doesn’t touch the grille or blades) and blow every gap for a couple of seconds. Repeat this step two or three times. In case the dust is stuck and cannot be blown out, remove the fan and simply brush the dust out. With Hive OS and Hiveon ASIC firmware, your equipment can easily survive the hot summer — just follow our recommendations carefully and get in touch with us in case you have any extra questions regarding your ASICs. If there are also GPU rigs on your farm, take a look at this article to learn how to prepare them for the high temperatures.