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Distributed Folding Farm (my baby cluster)

Discussion in 'Software' started by Zidane, 6 Jan 2005.

  1. Zidane

    Zidane What's a Dremel?

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    okies.... this isnt anything more than a place for me to post updates on my folding farm progress, it isnt a worklog just yet, and i dont want to clutter up the folding team thread with discussions on it.

    okies, for a start, some crappy quality piccies of some bits.

    [​IMG]

    the initial design, subject to modification as i go along (i.e. that shows two psu's, after some testing, i only need 1 psu per node)

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    the left-side and the front-side of my current dry-fit. there are four mobo's on there (there will actually be 5, but i have one offline to compile the OS on, create a master disk image, and measure for sketchup and whatnot)

    [​IMG]
    that £$%%£ing powercable! this psu has cause more burnt fingers and jewellers-screwdriver-stabbing-into-fingers injurys than anything i have ever done, so its worth a crappy piccy ;)

    the power cable has also raised a few questions, i'll try and give a better explanation of my answers later on.


    as for now, this isnt a worklog, the only real stuff ive done is a dry-fit of 4 mobo's to make sure everything will actually work, and ive put together the software and operating system (the software alone has taken me three weeks to produce, but now its running like a dream)

    this is the current result (four machines and a lot of work so far)

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    thats four machines, running from a single 250W power supply, and 4 HDD's too.

    thats all for now, its stupid'o'clock here, and i need to be up early in the morning. if oyu have any questions, please post, but hopefully this will be the first of many folding farms for the Bit-Tech Folding@Home team.

    oh, and if your building a folding farm (or just interested in how or why), just drop a msg, and im sure peeps will help as they can.
     
  2. sinizterguy

    sinizterguy Dark & Sinizter

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    What are the specs of each machine ...
     
  3. LAGMonkey

    LAGMonkey Group 7 error

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    Zid...is that pic at the end of your post a pic of the GUI or just somthing that youve knocked up elseware?
     
  4. Herbicide

    Herbicide Lurktacular

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    Are they ATs?

    - H.
     
  5. D4VID

    D4VID What's a Dremel?

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    that would be a little design I knocked up when I joined :D

    see the links at the bottom of my sig:
     
  6. LAGMonkey

    LAGMonkey Group 7 error

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    oooOOOOOOOOooooo :D ta very much
    edit: eeerm...i cant get it to work :waah:
    edit: ooo i think i got it to work
     
    Last edited: 6 Jan 2005
  7. Zidane

    Zidane What's a Dremel?

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    they are low-spec machines (i got 15 of them free from T2K when they upgraded :) ), each mobo has a cyrix MII processor, there are three 333's, and 12 300's. and each board so far has 96 megs of ram (three sticks of 32 megs, pc100/pc166). each one has onboard sound, graphics, usb and the usual ports, but none of that is used (or even has drivers for it installed), as all the machines are headless drones. each machine has either an isa or pci 10m/sec network card (they dont need any major networking, the traffic is minimal). the five for this node each have a Seagate Medalist 3210 3gig hdd as i dont want to pay for netboot cards when i have the hdd's. and the entire node runs off a single 250w.

    and yes, i do now have 15 monitors for sale, lol.

    they are just low-power drones, each one crunching a timeless WU (f@h actually has units it likes to run on farms like this).


    hmmm, yes and no ;) . The boards have AT *and* ATX power sockets. my choice to use AT power supplies was made simply because the cases they came in all had AT power supplies, and it means i dont have to mess around too much with the ATX's soft-power-on line (i dont know how that will handle having 5 machines trying to control one power supply). i just have one mains AC switch to control the whole node.

    LM, as D4VID rightly says, its his skin for EMIII (and a very good skin too :) ), at the moment i havent finished my UI for the node controller software, so im using samba to share the client folders, and EMIII to keep an eye on them, make sure they are all folding etc. if your running a console version of F@H i would strongly reccomend EMIII and D4VID's skin, cause its awesome :) once ive worked some more on the software, i wont be using samba to share the drives (i want to maximise the machines for crunching data), and will just copy the files EMIII needs over the network once an hour or something.

    thats all for now, the system is up and running, and im in Sketchup figuring out how to put them all in a shiny box..... and trying my hand making a nice logo for the box in photoshop.... D4VID, i might be picking your graphics brain before long, lol

    have fun, and Happy Folding. updates as they come, and questions welcomed :)
     
  8. K.I.T.T.

    K.I.T.T. Hasselhoff™ Inside

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    hmmmm......i have three comps in the corner of my room....now if my memory serves me correct they are a P3 500Mhz, a P2 300 or 400 Mhz and another P2 of about the same spec.......that wouldn't be a bad folding farm only prob is i would have to put win98 on them cause of the levels of ram avalible and then i would have to find drivers for all the NIC's......but still it could be done

    p.s soon i will have a athalon XP 3200+ folding for bit-tech 5 1/2 out of 7 days a week
     
  9. D4VID

    D4VID What's a Dremel?

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    no problem mate, I always enjoy a bit of graphical design :)
    ...especially when its as an excuse to put off some PROPER work for a little while :hehe:
     
  10. Dr_Frankenstein

    Dr_Frankenstein What's a Dremel?

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    well zidane you have inspired me to build my own folding farm not as many systems as you but 5 slightly faster ones ranging from 700mhz - 1ghz p3's

    i am currently fishing my way through ebay for cheap parts,

    my biggest Q is with the PSU

    1. How Did you mod the PSU Cable ?
     
  11. Zidane

    Zidane What's a Dremel?

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    with lots of screaming and stabbing-of-the-fingers-with-jewellers-screwdrivers until i found an easy way to get the damn plugs off! lol


    it was actually pretty easy once i thought about it. i got the pc's as complete units, so each one had its own psu. basicly, i just cut off the ATX connector on each PSU, and ended up with 7 lengths of cable with the ATX plugs on the end.

    once you have the cables, its easy. i just took the pins out of the plug, pried open the little clampy bit holding the cable in, then stuck in the tail-end of the next length, and crimped the connector closed again with my pliers.

    the best example i can give without piccies (its late here and i cant find my webcam, lol) is the molex plug on your psu. you know those molexes that go wire-plug-wire-plug? well, thats exactly how my psu cable is. its just a case of carefully taking each pin out, and attatching the cable from the next plug.

    its slow dull work, and you really do need to check and make sure you have *every* cable correct, but its well worth it, atm i have 6 machines running off a single power supply. much easier in the long run than having 6 psu's there and the assorted spaghetti junction of cables.

    i also made a molex chain in exactly the same way. i'll take some piccies in the morning and post them so you can see what i mean :)


    as a word of caution.....

    i used the ATX plugs on the mobo's, but they also have AT plugs. if you use an AT psu , you might want to disconnect the soft-power-on/off lead (usually the green wire), otherwise if one machine turns off, it will also turn off the psu, and turn off the entire array, lol.
     
  12. TMM

    TMM Modder

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    You mean you used AT plugs, but if you used and ATX you'd have to remove the green cable from all but one mobo (and thus that would be the master mobo to shut down/start the whole array ;))

    or, you can wire a manual switch to turn the whole array on/off but i think having a pc control it is easier, and a better idea too.
     
  13. Zidane

    Zidane What's a Dremel?

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    @TMM origonally i just used the AT plugs, simply because all the machines came with an ATX psu. thus i had one switch to power on/off the entire array.

    however...... since then, ive added an ATX PSU to the "master" node, and i whipped up a lil relay card that can turn the AT psu on and off. atm its still a bunch of compenents stuck on a breadboard, im attempting to make a power controller, so i can plug it into the paralell port, and switch 8 relays, this turning power on and off to each machine individually, and the master node can controll its own power with its ATX soft on/off and wake-on-lan functions.

    ideally i want the master node to wake on lan when i bring the array up, then turn on the first machine, wait for it to check in over the network to say its fully booted, them start the next machine, etc. kind of a staggered starting system.

    atm, it can wait, i can flick them all on and off with one switch, so i can live with that whilst i work on a better power controll system :)
     
  14. Dr_Frankenstein

    Dr_Frankenstein What's a Dremel?

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    righty gotta get myself some cheap psu's i can cut to bits then

    i got all my cpu's, hard drives, ram and cooling off ebay
    at the moment i have
    5 p3's from 600-900 mhz
    picked up a box of tiny slimline HSF's
    5 HD's from 3.2gb to 16gb
    tons of ram
    and one motherboard

    i just gotta sort out 4 more motherboards, the power and then build a nice unit for them to sit on

    i am off to china in 3 weeks so i may see what i can pick up over there

    also i have made a section on my website for the farm keeping updates and so on

    www.drfrankenstein.co.uk
     
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