LHC@home

How bad is your boinc farm???

I remember years ago seti farms were cropping up. So I started collecting older systems and mounting them on plywood boards and built a rack system from 2x4 lumber, cabling and power strips and extension cords strung everywhere...the garage was heated thru the winter. 8]
I had nearly 27 systems running. All of them P2/P3 slot 1, K6/K7 systems, a few athlon 1 gig systems. These things did 2 maybe 3 S@H wu a day.

Those are all gone now.

So how bad is your farm ??

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Well, for a long time it was just a P3 500 Mhz desktop and a P2 1.13 GHz laptop. When I got a new P4 3 GHz desktop, I passed the old desktop to Dad. Then for some reason, I needed another laptop, a Pentium M 2 GHz. Around this time was the transition from Classic Seti to BOINC.

Then I found out about building. I built two Athlon 64 2800's and two Athlon XP 2800's and then finally a mobile Athlon 64 3000, which I haven't bothered to put in a case. I got back the old desktop when Dad got a new Dell and a friend passed another old P3 500 to me when he got a new computer. The electric bill is a little alarming now, which has put the brakes on building. When they change SETI BOINC to the longer duration work units, I think I will retire the P3's, and hopefully bring the electric bill down, since SETI is all they do.

I've learned about Linux, so I saved some money on OS's and I've had a lot of fun. Most people don't understand why someone would want or need ten computers and I just say, hey, there's guys with way more computers than me.

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How bad is your boinc farm???

Not THAT bad. Just my no longer used desktops:

- PIII 850
- PIV 1700
- AMD XP 2600+

and my newly acquired AMD X2 3800+ :)

Michael

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Team Linux Users Everywhere

Not THAT bad. Just my no longer used desktops:

That is how I got to ten ... the last time.

Of course I am down to 9 at the moment. As soon as I can afford a new one, well, back to 10 for a bit, even better I will likely put a dual core engine in my oldest 2.8 single threaded P4.

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Not THAT bad. Just my no longer used desktops

sounds strangely familiar.
I just ended up upgrading the oldies as well, so I ended up with:
XP2400+
XP2800+
XP3200+

then I thought it would be fun to run my own gameserver, ended up building a dual MP2400+
by that time I found 2cpu.com, which got me more and more into duallies and overclocking, so I ended up with two dual Xeon systems :(
that makes 6 active computers, 9 physical cpu's (12 logical cpu's dedicated to BOINC and one for me)

[Hall of honor]
P60 (retired, sold)
P166 (recently retired, was my NT4 PDC)
P200 (retired, sold)
P2-400 (retired, sold)
P2-450 (retired, sold)
Athlon 900 (died)
Duron 1200 (retired, sold)
XP1800+ (retired, donated to Dad)
Sempron 2600+ (offline, stripped for parts)

I have no idea how many computers I have gone through. Worse, some of them have had several sets of guts changed in and out ... so how would I count them? :)

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Only two.......

My Dell was free though

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www.chris-kent.co.uk aka Chief.com

Thanks for the responses. Now I dont feel so bad.

Not counting all the friends and family that run Boinc for me !!
My personal dual core 4400
2 Barton 3200's
1 Hp Kayak dual slot 1 933mhz
1 Micron Netframe quad slot 2 xeon 550mhz

I have gone thru countless system upgrades.
Then started picking up older dual and enterprise class quad processor server machines. These things big heavy and most run on 208v power, so I upgraded my breaker panel to run these extra 220 circuits.
Remember...there is difference between voltage and wattage.
The garage had 4 of these big Proliant servers up and running. They were quad proc 550 mhz servers 1 or 2 gig of ram. Also a Micron quad server.
I ran these for a while, it was obvious that basically one of my Barton core 3200's were still more productive than a single server.
I had 3 other dual proc P3 800mhz servers also and a HP Kayak xu800 933mhz dual proc workstation, and a couple of other Athlon systems.

Then the electrical bill came in and the wife dropped the hammer. 8]
We agreed....no more than five systems.

So I sold all the servers and older athlon boxes, and bought my dual core 4400.
I kept the Micron and the Kayak.....they run on standard 120v, host my music server and are fun to play with.

Still trying to figure out if the micron can be upgraded to 900mhz xeons.
Still am thinking of getting just one more older server, like a Proliant 8500 or a PowerEdge 8450 in 900mhz. These are 8 processor xeon servers !!!!!!!!!!!

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Still am thinking of getting just one more older server, like a Proliant 8500 or a PowerEdge 8450 in 900mhz. These are 8 processor xeon servers !!!!!!!!!!!

Not a farm -- just a garden. Using 6 Dell GX 110's running in the 900-1000 meg speed. Works on all the projects I frequent, but not the fastest things around.

At a cost of less than $50USD each, they work for me ...

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If I've lived this long, I've gotta be that old

Thanks for the responses. Now I dont feel so bad.

I usually keep the old ones around till the performance is embarrassing and I can afford to update or replace them. For example the 2.8 GHz P4 is next up. But, I would rather buy a new dual-dual first ...

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dual dual opty or dual dual xeon ?

me dreaming of quad dually.....muuhahahhah!

I priced out a few of these setups, runz aboot $10k+ !!!!

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dual-dual PowerMac or "Quad" as they are calling it.

I already have a pair of dual Xeons going.

I looked at what should be the Xeon equivelent of the "Quad" and it was about $1,200 more. Though it would give 8 WU in progress (assuming the dual-core Xeons are still hyper-threaded).

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Well...
I have 222 pentium III xeon processors around 1 GHz. :)

They are old machines in the computer center that have been retired from normal use. Before they are scrapped completely they are running LHC@home.

You can see the machines under the user Juan.lopez. He is the guy who installed the client on all the machines.

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Chrulle
Research Assistant & Ex-LHC@home developer
Niels Bohr Institute

Well...
I have 222 pentium III xeon processors around 1 GHz. :)

They are old machines in the computer center that have been retired from normal use. Before they are scrapped completely they are running LHC@home.

You can see the machines under the user Juan.lopez. He is the guy who installed the client on all the machines.

At first I thought this thread can be closed, because we obviously have a winner :)
But juan.lopez is not #1!

Who is this "ksba"?

Michael

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Team Linux Users Everywhere

                                               MHz
1x 200MHz Celeron laptop ....................  200
1x Dell Optiplex 700MHz Celeron .............  700
2x 500MHz P3 compaq small form factor (sff).. 1000
1x 600MHz P3 Compaq sff .....................  600
1x 733MHz P3 compaq sff .....................  733
3x 866MHz P3 compaq sff ..................... 2600
2x twin 665MHz P3 HP Kayak servers .......... 2660
                                              ----
                                              8493

Total 8.5 GHz

Total speed 10 boxes excluding laptop 8.3 GHz
Total cost 10 boxes excluding laptop under £250

Where can you get an 8 Gig box for that sort of money, eh?
You can't get 3pence/MHz when buying new kit ;-)

The laptop cost £1400, but then I did buy it when DVD drives were considered state of the art... and it is the only item not bought specifically for BOINC

All the boxes apart from the laptop are networked together with BNC and I have not had to pay a penny for any of the network cards, cables, -- just mention you are after BNC equipment and people thrust it at you for nothihg! With it being a coax network I don't even need a hub.

I am using a mix of operating systems, win2k & winme cos that is what was licenced on the CoA on the boxes, and about half of them I've converted to Linux, one CentOS and rest Debian.

All running in my lounge, keeping it nice and warm 24/7 why heat the garage Perle? I only put the heating on when I need hot water. (typical power drain 550W)

Do I get the prize for being state of the ark?


(btw, if you look at my computers you will also see some 2.8GHz boxes - they aren't really mine honest - I can't afford anything that new)

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Nice setup River. Thats like what I had piled up in my garage with seti@home.
So much of the PC hardware like P3's and early athlon schtuff can be for free or for $20 us for complete running system.
It is amazing how disposable PC's have become.
Our local community college was selling their complete Optiplex systems for $50.
Most of them were all 700-900mhz and a few over 1ghz.
Many of the machines Boincing for me are from friends and family nice enough to run it for me.
My tech friend is upgrading to dual core 3800...that should produce some nice results. This is in a water cooled case.

My 4400 and the Barton 3200's are all in water cooled Koolance cases.
They all run about 80-85 degrees F. in the house.
One of the Bartons is in the garage. Our daily temps have been 30-40 degrees....so that cpu has been at 50-60 degrees!!!

I wish there was some form of "boinc remote access" so I could manage projects and attach machines to projects remotely. Many of these machines are across town or out of state. Calling up Grandpa and trying to walk him through the process is futile, working the email is the limit of his PC prowess.

There is that number again "8" !!
Its all I can do to resist picking up one of those 8 proc xeon servers.
Well....pickup is a relative term, those things weigh about 130 lbs.

You get a cookie for being state of the ark !

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I wish there was some form of "boinc remote access" so I could manage projects and attach machines to projects remotely. Many of these machines are across town or out of state. Calling up Grandpa and trying to walk him through the process is futile, working the email is the limit of his PC prowess.

Visit the Unofficial Boinc Wiki .. or just click here for a link to the article that answers your wish.

I realize your setup will indeed be more complicated than the article describes as it doesn't go into what's necessary to connect to your machines across state. Hint: You'll need to register with a dynamic DNS and installa monitoring client amongst other things. Good Luck. It's not impossible if you have the right information.

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While the farm isn't entirly mine, here is what I have:

Home:
P4 3GHz with HT
Celeron 2GHz
Celeron 2.2GHz Laptop
Pentium D 2.8GHz

Work:
Pentium M 2GHz Laptop
Pentium 4 2.2GHz
8 - Xeon 2.66GHz Workstations with HT

I'll be losing the Workstations in January.

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Yup....that would work.

Problem is once again, I would need to be at the client machine to change the remote host file and restart Boinc.

Then I should have access to boinc from 'my' computer.

*sigh*

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