Z68 + 2600K Linux Build Log

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Running four GPU clients does one thing better then almost anything else short of a hair dryer, creates heat! Loads of it, in fact when both rigs were operating the temps in my room have been ridiculous. I was looking for two goals from this build, a reduction in the heat dump and a huge saving on power.

I pulled out the 2xGTX470's that have been the stars of my FAH2 rig for months, Sold them off to a friend which covered a large chuck of this upgrade. I've still got the EVGA 680i + Q6600 if anyone is interested.


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Monday night I pulled the Lian Li C32b out my rack and drained the loop, I was off work Tuesday and wanted to be ready to get the new hardware in, since my RAM went Pop my PPD had taken a huge dip which forced me to watch helplessly as the team members I was in competition with raced off ahead.

It was the great advice I've received in the short time I've been active on the forums that pushed me toward a 2600K Linux build and I was quite excited to give it a go. In fact it was Ph4ZeD that first mentioned the possibility.

Scan as always were great, my gear turned up early afternoon Tuesday. Luckily enough dropping the new CPU, MOBO and RAM into the case and hooking up the EK Supreme HF block into the loop was nice and simple. Took a couple hours to assemble and leak test before I felt confident the case could go back in the rack.


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This was my first time with Ubuntu in years, my Linux skills are basic to say the least and I'd had worries of 10.10 not working with the 2600K IGP, I couldn't find much about folks using the Z68 platform utilizing the IGP with Ubuntu, but I knew if I were to come across any trouble the internet would no doubt hold the answers.


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I downloaded and burnt off the Ubuntu 10.10 ISO and simply followed THIS guide post for post (thanks TaRkA DaHl).


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At first I stopped once Linux was installed and the FAH client set up, It was jondi_hanluc that noticed I was running the wrong kernal, so back to the guide I went and pushed on a little further. He'd mentioned BFS and TPFs, I dont have a clue what those things are but I wanted them..

Anyone wanna shed some light on what BFS and TPFs are/is?

After installing the 'generic-ck' kernel I also installed and set up 'Langouste', again I've really no idea what it does... something about simultaneous upload/downloads when sending results and receiving a new work unit??. . . it was in the guide... so it got installed.

Anyway.. it's set up and folding, It's running Ubuntu 10.10 native with no Windows partition so once I started Overclocking I hit my first problem, how was I meant to test for stability. I took the CPU from stock to 4.5Ghz using this great P67 Sandy Bridge overclocking guide at Clunk.org.

Currently I'm running at 100x45 @1.275v, this is my first use of a uEFI interface, tbh I already miss the bleak raw interactions of the old styled BIOS. I was able to install Phoronix Test Suite minus the GUI and run a few CPU stress tests but wasn't overly fond of it. I'd love to have Intels Linpack up and running..

I installed WINE as I'd heard a few good overclocking tools worked well, namely parts of OCCT. I've not tried OCCT using WINE yet so I cant back that up. I can tell you CPUZ is useless thou. In the end I thought the FAH client will do as a stress test and just monitored to see if it had locked up (which it did, took the vcore from 1.25v to the current level and all has been well).

Overall I found the install process to be exciting and would recommend it to anyone building a 24/7 folding rig. There are still two things I'd like Ubuntu to be able to do easier, show correct CPU frequency when overclocked (currently struggling to get i7z working for this) and for my temps shown in the top bar not to disappear with every reboot, I think that has something to do with adding the sensors to a log file or something.. I'll get there.. with a little help.


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Question to all members folding BigAdv on a 2600K, how long does a work unit take to complete? what sort of performance/time per step are you seeing? So far my new build has completed one BigAdv work unit, it took 23 hours at about 27-32 minutes per step. Is that about par (It was only OC'd for about 2/3 of the unit)?


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With Ubuntu showing my CPU frequency at 3.4Ghz I'm worried its not kicked into turbo mode and so not folding at the full extent of the overclock (4500MHZ), FAHMON shows about 40k PPD is that about right?

Any advice/recommendations?

J.
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The timescales you are seeing there are spot on for it running at 4.5Ghz.

My i7 2600k (@4.5Ghz w/ 1.295V) in windows folding a P6900 nets around 35k PPD, thats about a 26 min TPF (time per frame).

Linux usually nets you about 10% more so 40k seems spot on mate.

With the loop you have you might be able to push more through the chip, try 1.35V @ 4.8Ghz and also lower the VCCIO a smidge, I believe mine sits at 1.050V and keeps my memory (2x4Gb) running at 1600Mhz quite happily, and also knocks about 5 degrees off the temps. Also ensure you have your memory running at the rated voltage and rated speed in the EFI, that can help with your points.

That may get you around and extra 3-5k PPD.

Quite glad to here the points you are getting and that all is working well, as I should be doing the same in a month or two.

If you want to see what is happening in a little more detail, and you have a second windows PC you use. Download HFM.net and set the work folder on the linux machine to shared, and then view it over your network. HFM.net shows a lot more information about what is happening than FAHmon.

 

Check out what HFM is saying..



Why would it report a lower PPD then FAHMON? What is the credit column about too?

I'm happy at 4.5ghz for now, the heat dump has gone... completely! the only heat you can feel seems to be from the PSU.. it's great! I have a third LIAN LI C32B now and just about all the cooling minus a RAD, so FAH3 will be another 2600K for sure.

I'd like to push that 40k closer to 50k if I can, I wonder if 5GHZ is a bit much for 24/7 use?

J.

 

In a word - Yes!!

My 2600K @ 4.5 GHz on Linux is giving approx 43K PPD on a 6900 which is fairly typical of the current diet or 38K PPD on one of the dreaded 2684s.

What program are you using to display the core temps ?

Quality build and photos BTW

 

Cheers,

The core temps were funny a one, I installed PSensors and Xsensors neither of which gave me anything.

I do this every time I reboot:

Code:

sudo -i
modprobe coretemp
sensors

Then PSsensors and Xsensors works, I don't really like either so I use the Hardware Sensors Monitor instead. If you can tell me how to keep it there that would be awesome.


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J.​

 

Thanks for that, will have a tinker later today.

I'm sure there must be a way of auto starting the Linux equivalent of a batch file but I'm afraid I don't know how to do it either - sorry. It's something I need to learn though, anyone out there familiar with Linux ?

I use HFM.net these days but only as a guide. (I've found the actual figure given by Stanford to be approx. 500 points/WU less for -bigadv.)

 

Just run

Code:

sudo sensors-detect

and answer it's questions.
When done, this script will offer to add the appropriate module names to /etc/modules.
Then they'll load automatically when you reboot.

 

I tried that originally, says no sensors found... odd huh..

Code:

joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~$ sudo sensors-detect
[sudo] password for joey: 
# sensors-detect revision 5818 (2010-01-18 17:22:07 +0100)
# System: System manufacturer System Product Name
# Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. Maximus IV GENE-Z

This program will help you determine which kernel modules you need
to load to use lm_sensors most effectively. It is generally safe
and recommended to accept the default answers to all questions,
unless you know what you're doing.

Some south bridges, CPUs or memory controllers contain embedded sensors.
Do you want to scan for them? This is totally safe. (YES/no): y
Silicon Integrated Systems SIS5595...                       No
VIA VT82C686 Integrated Sensors...                          No
VIA VT8231 Integrated Sensors...                            No
AMD K8 thermal sensors...                                   No
AMD Family 10h thermal sensors...                           No
AMD Family 11h thermal sensors...                           No
Intel Core family thermal sensor...                         No
Intel Atom thermal sensor...                                No
Intel AMB FB-DIMM thermal sensor...                         No
VIA C7 thermal sensor...                                    No
VIA Nano thermal sensor...                                  No

Some Super I/O chips contain embedded sensors. We have to write to
standard I/O ports to probe them. This is usually safe.
Do you want to scan for Super I/O sensors? (YES/no): y
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x2e/0x2f
Trying family `National Semiconductor'...                   No
Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               Yes
Found unknown chip with ID 0xc333
    (logical device B has address 0x290, could be sensors)
Probing for Super-I/O at 0x4e/0x4f
Trying family `National Semiconductor'...                   No
Trying family `SMSC'...                                     No
Trying family `VIA/Winbond/Nuvoton/Fintek'...               No
Trying family `ITE'...                                      No

Some systems (mainly servers) implement IPMI, a set of common interfaces
through which system health data may be retrieved, amongst other things.
We first try to get the information from SMBIOS. If we don't find it
there, we have to read from arbitrary I/O ports to probe for such
interfaces. This is normally safe. Do you want to scan for IPMI
interfaces? (YES/no): y
Probing for `IPMI BMC KCS' at 0xca0...                      No
Probing for `IPMI BMC SMIC' at 0xca8...                     No

Some hardware monitoring chips are accessible through the ISA I/O ports.
We have to write to arbitrary I/O ports to probe them. This is usually
safe though. Yes, you do have ISA I/O ports even if you do not have any
ISA slots! Do you want to scan the ISA I/O ports? (YES/no): y
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM78' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM79' at 0x290...       No
Probing for `Winbond W83781D' at 0x290...                   No
Probing for `Winbond W83782D' at 0x290...                   No

Lastly, we can probe the I2C/SMBus adapters for connected hardware
monitoring devices. This is the most risky part, and while it works
reasonably well on most systems, it has been reported to cause trouble
on some systems.
Do you want to probe the I2C/SMBus adapters now? (YES/no): y
Found unknown SMBus adapter 8086:1c22 at 0000:00:1f.3.
Sorry, no supported PCI bus adapters found.
Module i2c-dev loaded successfully.

Next adapter: intel drm CRTDDC_A (i2c-0)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Next adapter: intel drm HDMIB (i2c-1)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Next adapter: DPDDC-B (i2c-2)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Next adapter: intel drm HDMIC (i2c-3)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Next adapter: intel drm HDMID (i2c-4)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y
Client found at address 0x49
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM75'...                No
Probing for `Dallas Semiconductor DS75'...                  No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM77'...                No
Probing for `Dallas Semiconductor DS1621/DS1631'...         No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM73'...                No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM92'...                No
Probing for `National Semiconductor LM76'...                No
Probing for `Maxim MAX6633/MAX6634/MAX6635'...              No
Client found at address 0x50
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1033'...                     No
Probing for `Analog Devices ADM1034'...                     No
Probing for `SPD EEPROM'...                                 No
Probing for `EDID EEPROM'...                                Yes
    (confidence 8, not a hardware monitoring chip)

Next adapter: DPDDC-C (i2c-5)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Next adapter: DPDDC-D (i2c-6)
Do you want to scan it? (YES/no/selectively): y

Sorry, no sensors were detected.
Either your system has no sensors, or they are not supported, or
they are connected to an I2C or SMBus adapter that is not
supported. If you find out what chips are on your board, check
http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Devices for driver status.
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~$ 

J.

 

I just updated FAHMON, now it reflects a simaliar PPD to HFM. I'm not convinced Linux knows how to click into turbo mode.


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Can you forced the OC freq which Sandy Bridge?

J.

 

Nice post Joe, I love posts like this showing a build come together, and then put to good use.

TPF (don't know why I added an s) stands for Time Per Frame, you can see the TPF column in HFM, you referred to it as steps, how long it takes to perform each percent.

BFS is explained here It's a type of CPU scheduler, they assign work to the CPU, and BFS does it more efficiently when folding than the default one, it will give you a lower TPF, and therefore more points.

i7z is pretty easy to set up, see here

 

Indeed. It may be that your mobo is so new that it uses a sensor that lm-sensors isn't coded for yet.
(Or, more likely, the version of lm-sensors in Ubuntu is an older one).
lm-sensors version 3.1.2 seems to be working fine for me on the rig in my sig, but 11.04 & 11.10 have version 3.2.0.

You could always add the needed modules to /etc/modules yourself.

 

Thanks for that, I followed the install instructions that came in the read me. pretty much the same information.

But this is what happens when I do it.

Code:

joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~$ ls
client.cfg                                          examples.desktop  Public
Desktop                                             fah               Templates
Documents                                           FAHlog.txt        Videos
do_download.php?download_file=php-gtk-2.0.1.tar.gz  Music
Downloads                                           Pictures
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~$ cd Desktop/
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~/Desktop$ cd i7z-0.26/
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~/Desktop/i7z-0.26$ sudo make install
[sudo] password for joey: 
rm -f *.o i7z
If the compilation complains about not finding ncurses.h, install ncurses (libncurses5-dev on ubuntu/debian)
gcc  -g -O0 -fomit-frame-pointer -D_GNU_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -DBUILD_MAIN -Wall -Dx64_BIT -lncurses -lpthread  i7z.c helper_functions.c i7z_Single_Socket.c i7z_Dual_Socket.c -o i7z
install -m 755 i7z /usr/sbin
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~/Desktop/i7z-0.26$ sudo ./i7z
i7z DEBUG: i7z version: svn-r43-(31-may-2010)
i7z DEBUG: Found Intel Processor
i7z DEBUG:    Stepping 7
i7z DEBUG:    Model a
i7z DEBUG:    Family 6
i7z DEBUG:    Processor Type 0
i7z DEBUG:    Extended Model 2
i7z DEBUG: msr = Model Specific Register
i7z DEBUG: Unknown processor, not exactly based on Nehalem
joey@JOEY-FOLDING2:~/Desktop/i7z-0.26$ 

Maybe someone can steer me in the correct direction. when I run it, its says debug... and I get a weird error when trying to get the GUI working.

I'm pretty poor with Linux so these questions may seem rather noobish. How do I work out which version of lm-sensors I'm using and if needs be how would I add the needed modules?

Thanks for the help.

J.

 

Don't know about the Z68 chipset mobos but my P8P67 definitely runs at 4.5GHz when folding under Linux.

Re temps, tried Hardware Sensors Monitor and Psensors neither of which appear to be part of 11.04.

I got Xsensors working OK and I think this will suit my needs - thanks.

 

It says here for you to use the snv source and not the one you downloaded.

 

@Joe, I sent you a PM re this yesterday.

 

Really nice log and tread, lost a few folder recently, so to see the want is still out there is great!

 

Thanks for that, a very useful tip for Linux noobs like me

 

One thing... do you have a power meter? If so I am interested in how much is being pulled at the plug.

 

I've ordered a couple from Amazon, Are they safe to use 24/7?

J.

 

Yes I have mine on 24/7, never had a problem.