Legacy Miners (S9 / S17)

Why you still meet them

Older units get redeployed to cheap-power sites, sold second-hand, or kept as space heaters. A tech should recognize their quirks - but the diagnostic playbook (read log -> isolate chain -> cable/power/firmware/airflow -> swap+RMA) is unchanged.

S9 / S9j (BM1387, 16 nm)

• Among the most-deployed miners ever; fixed-frequency with coarse tuning.
• Life-limiters: dried thermal paste (re-paste = -10-15 °C), fan bearings (12-24 mo), degraded 6-pin PCIe connectors (heat-cycle -> intermittent/no-post), heatsink adhesive letting go (2-4 yr).
• The PIC must be programmed correctly for a board to run.
• Keep firmware current; otherwise same field flow as newer units.

S17 / T17 (BM1397, 7 nm)

• A later generation but NOTABLY less reliable than S9 or S19.
• Voltage/ripple sensitive - weak DC-DC converters drop chips, throw 0-asic, or CRC errors.
• Solder-ball/thermal-cycle board failures are common (field response = swap + RMA, never solder).
• Counterfeit-chip risk on the used market. Expect a higher swap rate per rack.

Same playbook, different chips

• Fewer/coarser diagnostics than S19, worse 17-series reliability - but you still read the log, isolate the chain, check cable/power/firmware/airflow, then swap + RMA.
• Chips and boards are NOT interchangeable across BM1387 (S9), BM1397 (S17), and BM1398 (S19) - match the exact board.
• 'no beeper' on these is a cosmetic self-test note, not a hashing fault - don't RMA over it alone.