Pics of your FARM!

[fallwind]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I'm glad to finally be here. I'm honored to contribute with such a dedicated group of enthusiasts. I see we're averaging over 2 million points/day now, very impressive considering the size of the team. Methinks Easynews may be in trouble come July 22...lol!

im in Alberta myself

I'm next door in SK.

[Movieman]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I'm glad to finally be here. I'm honored to contribute with such a dedicated group of enthusiasts. I see we're averaging over 2 million points/day now, very impressive considering the size of the team. Methinks Easynews may be in trouble come July 22...lol!

Maybe not in trouble but they will definately start to notice!

[Danger30Q]

Do any companies make something similar to the "box" pictured above?

I know a server rack is similar but I don't want to run any server or server mobo in the rack. Ideally I'd love to have a "box" that can hold 4 mobos and everything that comes along with it (PSU, video card...).

[jspace]

I think you would have to build one of those boxes. You can put a regular ATX mobo in a rackmount case. the biggest limitation in those is height, meaning you wont be able to put one of he high end tower heatsinks in it. But, looking at that box, you couldnt put one in there either. You could build a server rack and watercool it with pretty good success. Just make sure you have a really powerful pump.

[Danger30Q]

I can't believe there are no companies that build a nice looking box to simply lay a couple of mobos in. I do agree watercooling would be the way to go due to lack of space between each level. I know I could get one built but I'm so picky about case appearance and how it fits with the rest of my room (I'll post some pics of my new setup later - it's so clean it will likely scare off some of you

[1badhabit]

Dont mind the Mess.

[G.Foyle]

What mess? from what i've seen here you have one of the cleanest workplaces!

[wysiwyg]

I just found WCG and Boinc. After trying the WCF universal client long enough to discover it was only using one CPU I loaded the BOINC client.

I'm using Boinc 5.8.16 and using BOINCstats as the manager. Originally I joined the Utah team but discovering that it's pretty inactive I switched to Xtreme Systems. Maybe my meager contribution will help.

There isn't much to say yet since I'm just getting started and don't have much experience. However, I have noticed that Xeon processors don't seem to benchmark very well. A Xeon 3.4Ghz processor seems to only get 1674 Whetstone and 2439 Dhrystone per CPU which seems to pretty much stink on ice compared to others I've seen posted. I'm using 5.8.16 since that's the last "recommended" version. I don't want to use development versions since I need the servers to be stable.

I have a Liebert rack in my basement and my office is upstairs. My main PC (QX6700 quad core 4GB Windows XP 64) is currently down due to leaking coolant.

Intel processors are all hyperthreading so they show up as having twice as many processors for Boinc uses if I run them at 100%.

Currenly I'm only running Boinc at about 50% on the servers due to the heat wave and other work in progress. If boinc profiles let you alter cpu usage by time of day I'd do more at night but what can you do, eh?

The rack systems are:
- HP Proliant DL380 dual 3.4Ghz Xeons, 4GB memory, Windows Server 2003 (32 bit)
- HP Proliant DL380 dual 3.0Ghz Xeons, 4GB memory, Windows Server 2003 (32 bit)
- HP Proliant DL580 quad 2.8Ghz Xeons, 8GB memory, Windows Server 2003 (32 bit)

- HP nx9600 laptop (3ghz Intel, 2GB memory)

- temporary workstation ($430.00 to build): AMD Athlon 2.0Ghz dual core, 2GB memory, 512MB video card. Windows XP professional 32 bit.

- Offline dammit - QX6700 quad core @ 3.2ghz, 4GB memory. Windows XP Professional 64 bit. Dual boot into 32 bit for games.

I have some apps that can't support 64 bit still so I'm stuck with 32-bit on the servers for now. Mostly I use the above for VMWare images in Windows software,database work, and web development. Before Boinc they were, alas, idle much of the time.

All servers built courtesy of eBay. The rack was in exchange for work I did but only has 19"x19" shelves and the HP rails won't work. So, basically, it looks like crap. I haven't organized the cables yet.

Anyway, here are my pics!

Here is the rack fully illuminated in lurid detail:



My office looks even more crappy. In the interests of full disclosure I didn't tidy before taking a picture. To the right you see my laptop and cheap temporary workstation I made (newegg.com $430.00 + S&H) because my main pc is down.



Here is my laptop. I don't use it much so it runs 2 Boinc tasks at 100% when not in use.

[sierra_bound]

Thanks for joining for team. That's a lot of hardware you got there. As we like to say here, doesn't matter whether you have one or a hundred machines crunching, we appreciate any and all contributions.

[NickS]

Nice rack

[Martijn]

The best way to bench HT chips is just to disable HT in the Bios. Because they're HT, Boinc will be running two threads whilest it's benching. This will lower your benches.
The best thing is to bench with HT off, then run with HT on.

[wysiwyg]

Good idea, thanks! I figured it'd just rerun the benchmarks if the client saw a change in the number of CPUs but hopefully as long as the Boinc device profile doesn't change the number of CPUs it won't do that.

The best way to bench HT chips is just to disable HT in the Bios. Because they're HT, Boinc will be running two threads whilest it's benching. This will lower your benches.
The best thing is to bench with HT off, then run with HT on.

[Jaco]

Welcome to the team !
nice rack

about running BOINC at night : that is possible with a scheduled task i think. Meshmesh will chime in here

[wysiwyg]

Thanks Jaco. I can suspend to stop Boinc completely but I'd really like a way to run different profiles at different times of day. If there's a way to use a local profile instead of the WCG/account manager profiles then that'd help. I'll ask about this in a new thread.

about running BOINC at night : that is possible with a scheduled task i think. Meshmesh will chime in here

[rcofell]

Nice rack, maybe one of these days when I stop moving my stuff around so much(in college) I'll get one.

When I was back at home over the holiday I stopped by our state surplus and noticed they had two quality compaq racks for only $40 each! Too bad it was 15mins to closing time on a friday, so now I'm some 8 hours away again. I would've loved to buy them, but they were full height(42u I assume) and looked solid, so I couldn't break them down for long distance transportation

[wysiwyg]

Rcofell, I definitely wish I could find an auction like that! That's probably how lots of eBay sellers get stock. You can generally take the sides, shelves, and casters off of a rack and but you still have the 4 post core with any fans, etc. on the top.

[[XC] MarioMaster]

Nice rack, maybe one of these days when I stop moving my stuff around so much(in college) I'll get one.

When I was back at home over the holiday I stopped by our state surplus and noticed they had two quality compaq racks for only $40 each! Too bad it was 15mins to closing time on a friday, so now I'm some 8 hours away again. I would've loved to buy them, but they were full height(42u I assume) and looked solid, so I couldn't break them down for long distance transportation

pfft strap it to the roof of your car no way i'd pass that up

[[XC] riptide]

Dont mind the Mess.

Wow! I found my twin brother. I have the reserator, plus fan kit (cooling X1900XT), and that darn printer looks a lot like mine!!!


And i have the Armour.. silver. Is that an armour black?!

[1badhabit]

Wow! I found my twin brother. I have the reserator, plus fan kit (cooling X1900XT), and that darn printer looks a lot like mine!!!


And i have the Armour.. silver. Is that an armour black?!

haha!! I just use the reserator as a resevoir (Was hoping for better cooling), and that printer....Sure do love it.

And my case is black, but close enough!

[rcofell]

pfft strap it to the roof of your car no way i'd pass that up

The thing is I'm now 8 hours away from the matter :-/
If I was there say thursday or a few hours earlier, I could've borrowed a truck from my dad's business to move it and store it at his shop until I was back from my summer internship. Now the question is do I dare put effort into finding out if they still have them, and if I could get someone to pick em up... I just don't think I'd want to keep one around until I'm in a more permanent residence(which includes a personal datacenter ), while I'd rather want something around 27u that comes apart and is alot easier to move. Now if someone would be interested in one even with the cost of freight(not sure myself how much that'd entail), I'd consider pursueing them.
They looked pretty similar to the ones here

[Danger30Q]

Go to Advance > Preferences. The preferences set are unique to your PC, not all of them. You can then select the time of the day you want to work done. In your case, just have it start at night and end in the morning.

[wysiwyg]

Actually, I'd like to reduce activity instead of stopping it completely. Instead of a schedule for suspending all activity I'd prefer a way to change the number of processors / maximum number of active tasks at different times of the day. That way I can run at 100% overnight but still run one or two processes when I'm using the server for something else during the day.

Go to Advance > Preferences. The preferences set are unique to your PC, not all of them. You can then select the time of the day you want to work done. In your case, just have it start at night and end in the morning.

[Funky]

SOrry for intrusion in this thread.

I was looking at this whole day yesterday ( Thanks to my 256k connection ) And i must say, you guys have some great systems there for the great cause.
Here is my mini farm.
Its nothing compared to some of the machines here but here goes.

The stacker houses Q6600 Go @ 3.55Ghz, 4Gigs of PDP, OCZ gamexstream 700W.
The laptop is HP DV2500t with T7100 and 2Gigs of DDR2 667
The dusty chieftec cabinet houses poor old P5N-E with E6750 @ 3.2Ghz and 1GB Kingston.
The setup is good for around 30k a day. Not much but all 3 are crunching 24x7. Laptop stops crunching only when it leaves home

[[XC] serlv]

SOrry for intrusion in this thread.

I was looking at this whole day yesterday ( Thanks to my 256k connection ) And i must say, you guys have some great systems there for the great cause.
Here is my mini farm.
Its nothing compared to some of the machines here but here goes.

The stacker houses Q6600 Go @ 3.55Ghz, 4Gigs of PDP, OCZ gamexstream 700W.
The laptop is HP DV2500t with T7100 and 2Gigs of DDR2 667
The dusty chieftec cabinet houses poor old P5N-E with E6750 @ 3.2Ghz and 1GB Kingston.
The setup is good for around 30k a day. Not much but all 3 are crunching 24x7. Laptop stops crunching only when it leaves home

As has been said so many times before, any contribution is welcome. Big or small. It is the joining in, the contributing, the being a part of this.

Having said that; 30K/day is nothing to sneeze at. Nice mini-farm. Strong output.

[[XC] mysticmerlin]

I was going to say ONLY 30k a day???

(we really need a voice icon with Borrat saying "Is Nice!!" here)