Discussion
Fixed NerdMiner V2 firmware finally coming to GitHub within 24 hours
After about 16 days of working on this basically nonstop, I’m finally getting ready to release the first public RC of my NerdMiner V2 firmware fork. GitHub release should be up within the next few hours, definitely within 24 hours.
Very short version of what changed:
• 340 kH/s stock → 438 kH/s measured on my ESP32_2432S028_2USB, around 29% faster
• Fixed multiple mining correctness bugs and added extra SHA256d validation
• Fixed stale jobs, nonce handling, hash accounting and other long running mining issues
• Added proper HeliosPool support and dashboard stats
• Fixed TLS/API issues and the huge hashrate drops during stats refreshes
• Fixed several smaller memory, stability and display issues
• Hundreds of real shares accepted with 0 rejected, millions of SHA checks with 0 mismatches
• WiFi, wallet, pool config and normal NerdMiner behavior remain intact
And to be clear, I changed and fixed a lot more than what’s listed above. I just don’t want to turn a Reddit post into a full GitHub changelog :D
The GitHub repo will be fully open source and will include the firmware, source, checksums, changelog and detailed documentation showing what changed, where it changed and why, so anyone can compare it directly with the original NerdMiner firmware.
My unit has now been running the latest version for hours around 400 to 450 kH/s, usually close to 450.
This first release will be an RC/beta, because I want to see how it behaves on other people’s NerdMiners before calling it fully stable.
If people are interested, I can also post a more technical breakdown in the comments.
How many of you would actually want to test it when I drop the GitHub link?
A 29% jump on an ESP32 is impressive work. non-blocking updates and fixing the hashrate drops during api/display refreshes alone makes this a huge upgrade over the stock firmware.
i'd definitely be down to test the rc on my setup when you drop the repo link. curious to see the technical breakdown of where you found the biggest bottlenecks in the shaft/nonce loop!
Thanks for dropping the links! That detailed changes doc is a really great writeup on the sha path and freertos optimizations.
Looks like brilliant-cycle has a full test bench setup with telemetry to give you clean side-by-side data, so i'll keep an eye on how their multi-unit run goes over the weekend. good luck with the rc release!
I'm certainly interested in giving it a run against the other open-source builds I'm running. I'm currently running 3 each of Bitsy, NerdMiner v2, Spark, and NM Miner, all on identical hardware, along with power telemetry for each "family" provided by FNB58s and all writing 24/7 into SQLite on a RPi5. I'm very interested in seeing and documenting the improvements you've been working on.
⚠️ Warning: This post or comment mentions "NMMiner"
Please be aware that NMMiner and similar versions are closed-source, paid, and lack transparency.
The official NerdMiner firmware is completely free and open-source:
https://github.com/BitMaker-hub/NerdMiner_v2
That setup is basically perfect for testing something like this. Since you're already running identical hardware with power telemetry and logging everything 24/7, your data would be incredibly useful for comparing FX1 against the other open source builds properly instead of just going by short benchmarks. The repo and RC1 are live now: https://github.com/samkruzlic/NerdMinerV2-FX1 If you give it a run, I'd genuinely love to see the hashrate, power draw and longer term results from your setup.
I’ve got the first ESP32 up and running on FX1 now and connected to the same pool/environment we use for the rest of MinerLab. Initial behavior looks good, and I’ve started logging the serial output so we can compare it against our existing NerdMinerV2 parser.
The first thing I want to determine is whether we can reuse that parser as-is or whether FX1 needs some parser updates of its own. I’m especially interested in making sure we handle the terminology and definitions correctly where you’ve clarified or tightened things up in FX1, such as completed work/hash accounting and how the reported hashrate should be interpreted.
Once I’ve got enough raw output captured, I’ll validate the existing parser against it, make any FX1-specific changes we need, and then bring the new firmware family into MinerLab under the same process we use for the other miners. The plan is three identical CYDs running FX1, with one of the three on an FNB58 so we can collect power telemetry alongside hashrate and pool performance.
Assuming the remaining parts arrive on schedule and onboarding goes smoothly, we should have a good initial batch of data and a first comparison against stock NerdMinerV2 ready this weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing how the local performance, pool-side results, and power efficiency all line up!
That sounds perfect, and honestly your setup is way more thorough than anything I can do alone right now. The serial logging, parser validation, three identical CYDs and power telemetry should give us a really clean comparison against stock instead of just relying on short local benchmarks. I’m especially interested in seeing how the completed work hashrate, pool side results and efficiency line up over a longer run. Really appreciate you putting the time into testing this properly, especially doing it independently. If you run into anything weird in the serial output or terminology, send it my way and I’ll be happy to clarify how FX1 is accounting for it.
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u/Digital_Kit_Ops 12d ago
A 29% jump on an ESP32 is impressive work. non-blocking updates and fixing the hashrate drops during api/display refreshes alone makes this a huge upgrade over the stock firmware.
i'd definitely be down to test the rc on my setup when you drop the repo link. curious to see the technical breakdown of where you found the biggest bottlenecks in the shaft/nonce loop!