I downloaded and installed the firmware from the first link in the first post. I wanted to test and try it out so I didn't care about the dev fee. I didn't plan to run it long term. I tried to reinstall the firmware backup I had and although it said "successed" it would not revert back to the original firmware. This is something a virus would do and I now consider it to be a virus because of that. Something else people should be aware of when using this firmware.
If anyone can help me wipe this stubborn firmware off it would be greatly appreciated. The way I see it is I have 3 choices, either live with it, or swap out the control board with a known good one from ebay, or send this one back to bitmain and hope they will flash it back.
Are you sure? I installed it on 5 S9's and reverted back with no problem whatsoever. Maybe try installing the official firmware from the bitmain website instead of using the firmware backup you have? That's what I did and I faced no issues.
The one thing I did do before reinstalling the firmware from bitmain was to reset frequency and voltage to defaults. Maybe that has something to do with it?
Also you can't directly install the Asicboost Bitmain firmware over this firmware. You have to first install the autofrequency or the 650m firmware and then update it to the Asicboost one.
Hope that helps.