Installation of Hive OS on an L3+

So after learning a thing or two about the stock Bitmain firmware I quickly realized that to continue running these in my home, and remain somewhat profitable given electricity costs, I had to get a better return on each kWH I consumed. I spent a fair amount of time searching the Internet, from one end to the other, and settled on Hive OS. Hive OS has a simple fee structure for ASICS (they essentially blindly use some of your L3+ hashing power to take a ~2% dev fee) and a great management interface.

Installation of Hive OS, a lesson in patience

OK, easy enough, let’s get this Hive OS loaded and see the money rolling in. I went to the website and created my account, downloaded the Hive OS firmware, even read their Hive OS install page. But wait, it’s never that easy, what’s this error, “Cannot Find Signature!!!” Well, roughly back in late 2018 Bitmain added a security feature to its firmware so that you could not load unauthorized (i.e. anything not Bitmain) onto the L3+. As with anything, a work around was quickly found.

I quickly referenced my handy dandy Hive OS install guide and shortly thereafter learned that just because you can figure out a problem, and come up with a solution, doesn’t mean you can properly write that solution down in a format that someone can understand and replicate. While I kept getting the, “Cannot Find Signature!!!” error, for the life of me I couldn’t understand how their remsig firmware was to be loaded and that would fix my entire life? I racked my brain, and the Internet, for a while before finally figuring it out. Here’s the process for anyone going down that route:

  1. Download the latest Hive OS firmware and the remsig firmware to your computer you connect to the L3+ from.
  2. Go to the System – Upgrade tab of your L3+ web interface.
  3. Under FLASH NEW FIRMWARE IMAGE choose your remsig file, click “Flash Image”
  4. ***IMPORTANT*** Once you flash this, generally within a few seconds this will finish however YOU MUST only click the “back” arrow on your web browser to put you right back at the same page when you first flashed the remsig firmware.
  5. Now under FLASH NEW FIRMWARE IMAGE choose the latest Hive OS firmware, click “Flash Image”
  6. This process should take a few minutes and you should be up and running on Hive OS. You may have to flush your browser cache if the original Bitmain web interface shows up.
  7. Go to the System – Hive OS tab of your L3+ web interface.
  8. Enter your FARM_HASH to properly attach your L3+ to your Hive OS account.
  9. Enjoy!

They also offer the option of copying the Hive OS firmware to an SD Card and flashing the L3+ that way, however I’ve never had much luck with this so I go with what I know.

Update December 4, 2021

Make sure to keep your L3+ up to date with the firmware revisions as well. As of 12/4/2021 they were up to 1.04 (released 12/2/2021) Recently I had a problem with some L3+ units dropping off the Hive OS app, thereby removing one of my biggest reasons for choosing Hive OS, the remote management. It could be anywhere from 4 hours to 7 days, but they would all drop off at one point. I’ve been running the latest firmware for 48 hours now and so far all units have stayed on my farm list (Hive OS calls your list a farm) so hopefully they’ve worked out their API issues permanently.

5 thoughts on “Installation of Hive OS on an L3+”

  1. im having issues with it saying signature not found when trying to install the remsig firmware. it seems that all of the ones that do this are running this version.
    Kernel Version Linux 3.8.13 #22 SMP Tue Dec 2 15:26:11 CST 2014
    File System Version Fri Jun 28 12:02:49 CST 2019
    CGminer Version 4.9.0

    1. That’s normal, are you loading the remsig version first, then clicking the back button on your browser after “signature not found” then loading the actual hiveos at that point? It seems strange but that’s the way you have to do it. Remsig tricks the firmware so even though it says it fails, you have to click the browser back button to get it to work properly.

  2. Thank you for the instructions. I was able to smoothly upgrade to Hive OS. My question is do you see a net increase in cash using better effiency Hive but the 2% fee?
    The reason I ask is the Prohasing hash rate has only peeked at 488MH/s after a bit over 3hrs. Before using Bitmain stock I would see a absolute low of 480s a couple times a week, to highs in the 700s but avg about the L3++ 570HH/s.
    Thanks again for the instructions.

    1. I definitely find paying the extra couple % is worth it. This is due to the tuning functionality mainly. You’re able to easily get 10-20% more performance and also cut down the voltage, saving even more. They also allow tuning individual asics so one bad chip doesn’t take out an entire board.

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