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WARNING: Overclocking a Bitmain Antminer L3+ invalidates the 6 month warranty!
Overclocking is pushing your computing components over the designed clock speed to achieve a faster rating. In the case of over clocking a miner you will increase the hashing speed of the L3+ miner from 504MH/s to what ever the frequency ceiling is of the unit. All computer components have a limit and this limit can vary from unit to unit. This is called the Silicon Lottery, some Bitmain L3+ will just be better than others, even in the same production batch.
Caution: Overclocking processing components increase risk of component failure, increases power usage and in some cases, if pushed too far, will reduce the life of the component.
WARNING: Did I mention that changing the frequency settings of a Bitmain Antminer L3+ invalidates the Bitmain 6 month warranty! But I am sure you know that, just watch the tempratures and keep them as low possible.
Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk, I am in no way responsible for any damage you may cause to your miner during overclocking.
Overclocking the Bitmain Antminer L3+
Things you need before starting the overclock:
- Watt meter – measure the power usage
- Patience – Do not rush Overclocking
- Something to do – You will have a lot of 15min blocks of time to do something else, read a blog, watch a movie etc
- Coffee and a snack – this may take a while
Step 1 – Create a base line or reference point
At the standard stock speed, reboot the miner and wait 15mins. Record the first set of results as the base settings. Record the ones you are most interested in, but the essentials will be:
- Frequency
- MH/s
- Power
- Temps
- Hardware Errors after 15mins
This is a L3+ that’s been running for 2 days at stock and is in a very cool environment. As you can see, one of the boards it getting hardware errors even when at stock frequency settings, over all this wont be a great unit to over clock as one of the boards will hold the rest back. Ideal units for overclocking will all have low errors even after a few days and all error equally. Maybe in later firmware revisions we can change the frequency settings on individual boards, this would be a great feature.
If you have a lots of Bitmain Antminers you could go as far as swapping all the Mining bourds around and placing the good, low error boards into one sold, high hashrate miner.
Step 2 – Start Overclocking the Bitmain Antminer L3+
Now that you have your reference point start to overclock one frequency setting at a time.
Change frequency settings here: Miner Configuration > Advanced Settings. Click Save&Apply in the bottom right to apply and reboot.
Once the new frequency setting is applied the miner will reboot and start hashing again within about 2mins.
Watch the stats on: Miner Status
If you have less that 15 hardware errors in 15mins and the temps are below 60c I would rate that as safe and move to the next frequency. I say 60c as I like to have some head room to allow the ambient temperature to rise and not create any issues. After a while the ambient temp is going to rise anyway as the miner will start to heat the room. If you have multiple miners its going to get HOT HOT HOT and you may want to leave it longer than 15mins for the temperatures to stabilise before moving on.
Ventilation is key when you have multiply miner in one room, tempratures cabn riase rapidly in poorly ventilated areas like loft spaces.
Step 3 – When to stop changing the Frequency Settings on the L3+
As soon as the miner starts getting 10-15 Hardware errors inside the 15min test period and the temps are no more than 60c I would stop at this point. I would not take it any further than this as you defiantly run the risk of damaging the unit permanently. To be as safe as possible reduce the clock speed by 2 settings and run at a slightly reduced speed, just to be on the safe side.
Step 4 – Monitoring the Hardware Error and Temps on the L3+
Now you have found the miners sweet spot, you should still keep a close watch on it. As its running hotter than normal its going to start to heat up the surrounding area/room as well. What you don’t want is for the local area to get so hot that it affects the miner and after 6-8 hours or so your temps start to creeping over 60c and you get hardware errors all the time.
I target 60c as the fans will start to go to work over this temprature and start to get real loud!! A 6000rpm fan if so loud, over 90dB and that’s Helicopter loud and ideally you don’t want that.
Happy Overclocking and always be safe and take it slow. Any questions please drop a comment below
Overclocking the Bitmain Antminer L3+ 504Mh/s Miner – Part 1
If you want to check out my Overclocking results I have a full break down on the Part 1 page.
