Monitoring ASIC Miners and Choosing a Power Mode: Low, Normal and High Compared

Two questions come up in almost every site call: how do I keep an eye on all of these machines, and should I be running them in Low, Normal or High power mode. The first has a short answer. The second depends on the machine, and the only honest way to answer it is with numbers off the bench. Both are below.

Finding your miners on the network

Before you can monitor anything you need each miner's IP address. Free scanners do the job: IP Monitor, Angry IP Scanner and Nmap are the usual choices, and the manufacturers' own tools will scan a range as well.

Stock monitoring tools

WhatsMinerTool

MicroBT's WhatsMinerTool is on the Tools Download tab of the Whatsminer download page, alongside an operating guide and a teaching video. Newer Whatsminers need it for monitoring and firmware upgrades; some functions only work with newer firmware. The main grid shows, per miner: IP, status, miner type, power-supply version, MAC address, error code, uptime and elapsed time, real-time and average TH/s, efficiency in W/T, power draw, and the power limit set. From the Remote Ctrl dialog you can reboot, control the LEDs, switch the miner API, restore the miner, export logs, switch pools, set the NTP server and time zone, and adjust the mining side: protection mode, upfreq speed, frequency, power limit, performance mode, power fast boot and power adjustment.

It also reads PSU temperature, and the newer versions add multi-DNS proxy support — useful on sites that sit behind a management network.

BTC Tools

BTC Tools scans one or more IP ranges and lists Whatsminers and Antminers side by side: type, working mode, real-time and average hash rate, board temperatures, fan speeds and elapsed time. It can push pool settings, reboot, upgrade firmware and set overclock or underclock profiles across selected miners. Rows that come back login failed are Antminers with a custom web password; the miner is fine, the tool simply cannot read it until you give it the credentials.

Fleet management software

WhatsMinerTool and BTC Tools are the two you will see most, but for more than a handful of racks there are better site views: Foreman, Lincoin, Braiins Toolbox, Hashcore Toolkit and Luxor Commander. They lay the site out physically, add alerting and reporting the stock tools do not have, and are updated continuously. Whatever you pick, the point is the same: consistent monitoring catches problems before they escalate — a board a few percent low today is a dead board next month if nobody is looking.

Power modes: what actually changes

Whatsminer firmware offers Low, Normal and High power modes. Each is a different frequency and voltage target for the hash boards; the firmware autotunes to it (see the UpfreqCompleted notes in our firmware guide). Switching modes forces a retune, so give the machine 10 minutes to an hour before judging the result.

We ran the same three-board test on three generations of Whatsminer, reading the miner's own status page in each mode. Voltage is the PSU output, power is total draw in watts, GHSav is the average hash rate, temperature is the average of the three boards, and efficiency is watts per terahash — lower is better.

M30S

• Low vs Normal: 19.8% less power for 12.4% less hash rate — an 8.5% efficiency gain and boards 4% cooler.
• High vs Normal: 1.9% more power for 1.8% more hash rate. Efficiency is essentially unchanged.

On this older M3X-series machine, Low mode is a real trade: you give up an eighth of the hash rate and get back a fifth of the power bill.

M50S+

• Low vs Normal: 11.2% less power for 9.9% less hash rate — only a 1.5% efficiency gain, though boards run 4.4% cooler.
• High vs Normal: 5.7% more power for 4.7% more hash rate, costing 1% in efficiency.

M60 (VL50)

The M60 test adds a fourth column: a 1900 W custom power limit, set through WhatsMinerTool rather than one of the three stock modes.

• Low vs Normal: 7.8% less power for 6.7% less hash rate — a 1.2% efficiency gain, boards 5.5% cooler.
• High vs Normal: 11.2% more power for 9.5% more hash rate, costing 1.6% in efficiency.
• High vs 1900 W: twice the power for twice the hash rate — and High is actually 1% more efficient than the deep underclock.

What the numbers say

• Low, Normal and High mean different things on different machines. On the M30S, Low mode buys 8.5% efficiency. On the M50S+ and M60 it buys 1–1.5%. Newer ASICs do not get materially more efficient when downclocked.
• Older M3X-series machines benefit most from Low mode and will see improvement across every metric; on newer machines it is mostly a way to shed load.
• High mode unlocks roughly 120–220 W of additional usable power, depending on the machine, up to a 3720 W limit. It is worth it when power is cheap and the site has thermal headroom — on all three machines the efficiency cost was under 2%.
• Normal-mode power limits changed with firmware. As of firmware 20240712.14 on the CB6_V10 control board, and 20241011.12 on CB4_V10, the Normal-mode power limit is 3600 W. If a machine's Normal-mode draw looks different after an upgrade, that is why.
• High mode needs the input voltage. MicroBT's tool notes list High mode as supported on M3X and M5X series and requiring more than 230 V AC input. On a 208 V site, do not expect it.

Antminer: Normal vs Low on an L7

Antminer firmware has the same idea with fewer knobs. On an Antminer L7 (Scrypt), Low Power Mode dropped the average hash rate from 9,299 MH/s to 6,557 MH/s — about 29.5% — with the pool rejection rate steady at 0.17–0.22%. Bitmain's dashboard does not show power draw, so measure at the PDU if you need the watts.

Choosing a mode

• Power is expensive or capped: Low mode, especially on M3X-series machines. On newer machines, expect to lose almost as much hash rate as power.
• Power is cheap and cooling is fine: High mode. Check input voltage first.
• You need to shed load fast for a demand-response event: a custom power limit through WhatsMinerTool. Just do not mistake it for an efficiency setting.
• Everything else: Normal. It is the mode the warranty, the autotune and the thermal design were built around.

Boards not tuning, or a mode that will not stick?

A machine that never reaches UpfreqCompleted = 1, or that drops back out of High mode on its own, usually has a board or PSU problem underneath. Send us the model, firmware version and the status-page readings and we will tell you whether it is a settings issue or a bench job. We repair Whatsminer and Antminer hash boards and PSUs in Chicago — contact us.