How to: Arima AMD Opteron Quad Core Socket F 3000 series

[retro77]

Hi there,
you have to be log in as root,but i did the trick by adding the sudo command infront of the instrucions.
retro,please report capability to enter in the bios by hitting the DEL button.
thank you .

I can get into the BIOS no problem. I do see the Obey banner on boot if that changes anything. . .

[mhorgel]

Great thread!

I am now officially addicted to crunching, and I am planning on building a quad opteron 83xx system. I bought a Tyus mb (details here) off the egg yesterday for $199, and I thought I'd look for used processors on ebay. I understand that all 4 processors need to be the same model and stepping, is that correct?

I was planning on a single stick of 4GB RAM for each processor, an inexpensive CPU cooler for each Opteron (I understand that socket 939 hardware will fit socket F boards), a cheap 40 or 80 gig HDD. The board has built-in video.

The one thing I haven't figured out yet is an OS. Windows Server 2008 is wicked expensive, and I lost my Microsoft Company Store contact. Is there a free OS (i.e. Linux) that will work? I have no experience with Linux, so some help here would be appreciated.

Any other places you would look for cheap Opterons besides Ebay?

Mark

[retro77]

Welcome to the addiction mhorgel. I'm using Ubuntu Server 10.10 64-bit. It might be easier to get Ubuntu Desktop up and running. I have a little Linux experience over the years, but not much really. I was able to get the Ubuntu server up and running with just Googling around on how to do stuff. I put up some instructions there on getting it working with the 64-bit OS. Which from what I hear crunches better than a 32-bit OS...As far as CPUs, they need to be the same model. Like all Opteron 8347s. Other correct me if I'm wrong. eBay is probably the best place to look. Set yourself up a search alert.

[mhorgel]

I picked up 2 8358 SE's for $90 yesterday. I will set up a search alert for 2 more. It looks like the bay is a good place to pick up RAM.

[AmiJIm]

If i would be new to 4way quad mobo,i would buy that tyan one.Our board will cost you around 120 us dollars and you could be among the ones who didnt get heirs working.Let alone that you can only use ubuntu and you have to build a custom made case.Save your self a lot of trouble and spent some 80 dollars more.This is my 2 cents.
Also any news on the bios back up file?

[Sparky]

FWIW I have a copy of Server 2008 R2 (got from the dreamspark thing when I was a college student) and I couldn't get it to work on this. So good thing you didn't buy it for this box, Linux seems the only way to go on it. Unless we can get someone who is able to edit the BIOS of the board and give it full ACPI support instead of the partial support it has now.

Something I noticed the other day - I CANNOT get into the bios through my KVM. I must have a keyboard plugged directly into the system for that to work.

[retro77]

I think running Linux on something like this is better anyways. You can get away with a lot less RAM and its more efficient.

[Sparky]

Unless you're a linux idiot like me. It confuses the heck out of me

[shoota]

i think this is a good time to say that i have two boards and four cpus for sale. pm me for the details.

[AmiJIm]

Mr Shoota,
Mr retro,
can you make an image from your bios?Reading bios is a safe procedure.
I am willing to try writting the images using flashrom.
you can upload to megaupload with no registration.
thank you.
also does anyone has a dead board?i need the bios chip for testing.Would anyone be willing to ship me the chip?

[retro77]

I don't have the most recent, but sure I can pull the image.

[shoota]

i'll look into it time permitting

[werdwerdus]

i'm looking forward to receiving my x550 gpu, i really hope it solves my problem of not posting

[retro77]

i'm looking forward to receiving my x550 gpu, i really hope it solves my problem of not posting

It did for me!

[Sparky]

It's on its way - sorry for how long it took, but every day I tried to get off a bit early to make it to the PO in time, I ended up getting held up later than planned.. oh well.

[retro77]

My hard drive died on my Beast. Reloading Ubunut Server 10.10 64-bit onto another drive...I'm thinking about that 32GB SSD I've got...probably some wonkiness with that.

[Sparky]

I think there is an issue with SSDs and BOINC - something about the amount that BOINC writes to the drives.

[shoota]

yeah it can kill them by writing too much. gotta have alot of ram i think

[retro77]

Oh ok cool. Thanks guys

[D_A]

From what I've heard you would "make magic happy" over the performance of your rig running on a SSD, but it'd be wise to install a secondary HDD to run BOINC from and just put your OS on the SSD.

[werdwerdus]

It's on its way - sorry for how long it took, but every day I tried to get off a bit early to make it to the PO in time, I ended up getting held up later than planned.. oh well.

no worries. i worked about 96 hours the past 10 days so I feel for you

[AmiJIm]

Any news from the bios images?
you can grab an image from within ubuntu desktop running a terminal shell.

[shoota]

sorry, i'll try tomorrow.

[shoota]

still have one more board for sale, pm me.

[AmiJIm]

Hello Community.
I would like to report successfull use of the Sapphire Radeon 4850 X2.
You can even crunch using the two GPUs.
Any news on the bios image i need ?
thank you.