Old McWedo built a farm!!!

[Wedo]

Long ago I was inspired to build a farm when I saw Stymee's thread about the Yatta he built. I've finally had the opportunity to fix up my own seven layer version and it has been a hootenanny getting it together.

So without further hoopla, lets get into the pics first since thats what you've probably already scrolled to and then I'll tell you what I used:

The Pics:

The Front:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmfront.jpg

The Back:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmback.jpg

The switch and power strip:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmdlink.jpg

The Parts:

Seven of each unless noted.

M7VKQ mobo's (onboard everything)
XP2100 (six)
XP1800 (one)
Quantum Bigfoot 2.5GB and 2.1GB HD's (five and two, respectively)
Kingston PC133 128MB ValueRam
Generic 400W PSU (Four as three are running two mobo's each)
CoolerMaster HSF (Model CP5-6J31C-01-R)

Other parts I had to buy:
D-Link 8 port switch
Power strip

The frame was built my best friend after I gave him a motherboard with a hsf on it and said, "I want seven of these, vertically placed, in a row with vents on top and on bottom. Have at it." In only a weekend he knocked out the box which included grooves so the mobo's just slide in and out. I have some molding on one side to hold them in place as does the power plug from the psu. I can easily access each layer, shut it down, and pull it out for service if needed.

As I mentioned above, the motherboards have vid/lan onboard which is an absolute requirement for a farm (IMHO). There's no OC'ing, but for a stock clock inexpensive farming board they fit the bill. I bought all seven as refurb's from newegg for only $23 each.

I wanted to run a windows based farm since good 'ol W2K folds so well compared to most other OS's. This created the additional cost of the HD's so after searching around I found these 5.25" Bigfoot drives which worked really well for my farm since they could slide right between the mobo's. They were $19 shipped for each one.

My girlfriend was peeking over my shoulder as I began to place some mobo's and she was the one that came up with the idea of using small L-brackets to hold the HD's in place. I have to give credit where credit is due. I also used the black rubber cushions you put under chairs so they will not scuff flooring on the L-brackets to act as padding for the HD's.

The part that took the longest was stripping and splicing the psu wires. All my voltages look good and the temps are now staying between 36 and 49C at load. The layer on the end stays the coolest with the layer in the middle being the hotest.

When all was said and done I spent somewhere between $800-$1000 for 11.9Ghz of AMD pow-ah.

I am monitoring each layer with VNC and EMIII so I can log into the computer quickly and change anything I need.

*whew*

Wedo

[Wedo]

More Pics:

A close up of two layers:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmcloseup.jpg

A top view (notice the air vent that runs the length of the frame):
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmtop.jpg

A blurry close up of the slots in the frame that the mobo's slide into:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmslot.jpg

A blurry close up of a psu that's been stripped, spliced and now runs two mobo's:
http://www.justa-larrkin.com/images/farmpsu.jpg

[Chris]

w00r thats a sweet farm Wedo, looks real slick.:)

[plext]

Lovely work there Wedo.

Congrats on a top job :D

[I.M.O.G.]

Wow. Nice.

...And it came at a time when I was just beginning to think my sexual penchant for computer pics was subsiding. So much for that. ;)

[OCn00b]

Are these already producing for you or will these be in addition to your current output? If you're adding these, all i can say is :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:

Nice setup :D

[Fever]

Hotdamn, Wedo! Great job man!!! :D Someday I'll build me one of these.. :drool:

[nikhsub1]

Looks nice Wedo... I am now officially PWNED :mad: I was within 500 points of you till that monster came on line. Good job though! Me awaits funding for the 4 mobo 8 CPU yatta churning out 18Ghz of powah.

[Wedo]

Originally posted by OCn00b
Are these already producing for you or will these be in addition to your current output? If you're adding these, all i can say is :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:

Nice setup :D

Six layers have been running since Sunday night. I had to replace a cpu on one layer as a 1400 didn't quite handle the heat. There's an xp2100 sitting on my desk right now that will go in tonight so all seven layers will up and running.

Wedo

[AccordinglyDone]

That's a hell of lot of power for $800-$1000. Nice job.

[NiTrO bOiE]

Nice farm Wedo. Have you thought of using short Cat 5 cables? Maybe 2 footers? It would increase the airflow a bit.

[Rottys-R-Us]

Shhhweet bro :)

[pik4chu]

Thats totally wicked Wedo. perhaps a small how-to for splicing the PSU's. like if you do all the wires or not, and perhaps sources for extra parts (which were prolly just taken from old PSU's right?) looking

[Ben721]

Simply breathtaking.

It just looks so awesome, and I am so jealous.

I feel like a little kid in a toy store, I just want it so bad.

Good Luck with it!

[Wedo]

Originally posted by NiTrO bOiE
Nice farm Wedo. Have you thought of using short Cat 5 cables? Maybe 2 footers? It would increase the airflow a bit.

There are some cosmetic things that I'll eventually get around to and that's one of them. I have a 1000ft roll of CAT5 and I plan on cutting cables to fit at some point. I'm also going to cut off the wires from the psu's that I don't need like the p4 power cables and one floppy power connector.

I might even buy rounded cables for the HD's at some point, but the flat ribbons came with the mobo's so I was trying to keep my expenses down.

Wedo

[Penguin4x4]

So thats what? Bout 9,500 more PPW? :D

[tread70]

Hey Wedo, I know this great One-Click and reboot install if you need it. I have already edited the client.cfg for ya and everything.:D

Looks great, How do you keep it cool (convection oven comes to mind) or are you planning on closing it in and adding exhaust and intake fans to each side of the mobo's?

Tread

[RoadWarrior]

Nice work Wedo!

Originally posted by Wedo


I might even buy rounded cables for the HD's at some point, but the flat ribbons came with the mobo's so I was trying to keep my expenses down.

Wedo

I'd do my own for that, since the distance from the mobo header to the drive looks short, I'd just cut off the cable at the middle connector, strip the ribbon in 4s or 6s and bind it up with electrical tape.

regards,

Road Warrior

[Crash893]

do you think anyone makes atx spliters?

ive spent most of today looking but cant seem to find any

[bubba gump]

No one makes htem sadly. But instead of hacking off the end of an old psu, people have just been using the atx extender cables from directron...at least thats what someone else said in Wedo's thread ont he subject a long time ago :)

And i like the farm wedo...you should really come to a subteam, ;) j/k w/that much power I'd want it all formyself too :D

But really man, that should help a good amount..24/7 i presume and better be coz if not a flying monkey will come to your doors to take your ears and make a necklace out of that!

Fold and Frag on
Brian

[Crash893]

http://www.cybergames.it/cyb.php?pagid=krk_shw

[Wedo]

Originally posted by Crash893
http://www.cybergames.it/cyb.php?pagid=krk_shw

That is pretty darn nice. If only I had access to machining equipment. Like I mentioned, someday it'll have pretty matching cables and I'll ditch the ribbons for something else, but for now the 11.9Ghz is doing just fine.

Oh, and cooling consists of an 8" fan located above the farm blowing the cool air from the window down onto it. I want to see what the temps do before I go buy something else. There's room for a big 'ol box fan to sit in front or behind the farm.

Wedo

*edit* Forget that, he only has six layers and used six psu's, I'll stick with mine. :D BTW, I chose seven layers only because switches come in 4,8, and 16 ports and you need one port to hook to the router.

[Sterculus]

looks like that farm is coming in with a nice production increase for you wedo, up to 2600 ppd! :clap:
now you just have to catch up to plext :eek:

[scoobiedoo]

Wedo,

Nice farm man. One quick note about the temps, if you want, this is just a suggestion, goto radioshack and get some 110v 8cm fans and mount them ontop of that thing, they come bare wired so that you can just splice them together and then just hook a plug onto the end of that monster :D

Just my two cents as always

scoobs

[RadiationMan]

d00d! That is sooo cool! You rock! I want one too. :drool:

[altec]

Very nice Wedo. :attn:

I wish I had the time and money to do something like that...how much did it cost ya in the end? I also have one question about the whole farm thing...How do you make sure that F@H is running 24/7 on all of that? I mean do you monitor it all through the network?

Thanks...keep up the good work :attn:.

[Audioaficionado]

Someday I'll put mine together...

Great pics too.

Congrats on a job well done :clap:

[flixotide]

Originally posted by Wedo

I wanted to run a windows based farm since good 'ol W2K folds so well compared to most other OS's. This created the additional cost of the HD's so after searching around I found these 5.25"

Wedo

But what about the cost for 7 W2K licenses Wedo ;) Compared to your average linux, that'd make a big difference...

Hmmmmm..

Cheers, Flix

EDIT: apart from that.. very sweet job dude.

[kajj]

excellent work wedo! congrats on the new output

[gtsimmo]

:drool:

[Jonny 2x4]

Originally posted by flixotide
But what about the cost for 7 W2K licenses Wedo ;) Compared to your average linux, that'd make a big difference...


I'm pretty sure once you have one license of w2k you can install it on as many computers as you want and it's legal. I think that is the only recent version of windows that does that though.

[flixotide]

Thats a big no. :cool:

[Dissolved]

A few things..

VNC usualy will hog some resources.. (a kvm would be ideal, and they Arent TOO costly now and days. altho buying one over 4ports might be in the 500dollar+ range. but its folding, live a lil?)
Linux cluster Might be faster (not sure as im a linux nub)
Not sure, if you oc'd them at all, but a 100-400mhz oc wouold be good. :)


Looks good :)
:) :) :)

[moz_21]

Great job! I'm resisting the temptation, but if people keep putting pics up like this, well :D

I have the fundage but its reserved for some other stuff... But it'll help me get a Tbird 1333 running. :drool:

Fold on!

[Crash893]

i forgot to mention that yours is still a very nice farm

its to bad no body makes atx spliters

when i get my next jameco mag in ill see if i can get my hands on atx ends pins and some wire

make a few y's


the only other problem i see with that dudes ( from the link) is if a layers goes belly up your pretty much screwed


here is another neat set up ( not a farm but still)

www.rocketcalc.com

[Jonny 2x4]

Crash, it says that they're affordable on their site. The titan is around 12,000 :P

[Wedo]

Yeah, I'll have to say that the 20 bright yellow connectors on the three psu's isn't exactly "sano-spec", but it works well. However, I do enjoy the ease of access I have as I can shutdown and pull a whole layer in no time at all.

Oh, and VNC doesn't use squat. I watched the cpu meter in task manager for five minutes and it did nothing, zip, zilch.... a big fat zero. The only time it uses resources beyond a little memory is when you call on the server from a client.

Temps are lower now too. I think the ASIII has broken in and it's been a little cooler in LA these last two days. I have a layer running at 36C at full load. It's the one on the very end with nothing in front of the HS fan.

Wedo

[Crash893]

T4-240 ($11,500) Eight Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz processors
4 GB Total Registered ECC DDR SDRAM (512 MB/processor)
Intel Etherexpress/Pro 1000 Mbps ethernet
8 Gb/s total network bandwidth
128 MB Flash RAM
Four EPS-12V 450W power supplies


T8-240 ($13,750) Eight Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz processors
8 GB Total Registered ECC DDR SDRAM (1 GB/processor)
Intel Etherexpress/Pro 1000 Mbps ethernet
8 Gb/s total network bandwidth
128 MB Flash RAM
Four EPS-12V 450W power supplies



and there lesser model is


Atlas-2 A4-240S ($7,500) Four Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz processors
4 GB Total PC2100 ECC DDR SDRAM (1 GB/processor)
Intel Pro/100 Mbps ethernet
Integrated 3Com network switch
128 MB Flash RAM
1500 W (4x350 W) low-noise power supply


Atlas-2 A4-280S ($10,000)
Available soon Four Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz processors
4 GB Total PC2100 ECC DDR SDRAM (1 GB/processor)
Intel Pro/100 Mbps ethernet
Integrated 3Com network switch
128 MB Flash RAM
1500 W (4x350 W) low-noise power supply

i was just pointing them out as compared to the simmlar model you build for about $1k

its a bit like apples and orranges sicnce these are made to act as one and yours are diffrent layers

[Crash893]

and just when you thought crash was out of links


BAM

http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/flinks.html

you should really summit yours to this

[flixotide]

For folding purposes I'd prefer the redundancy of a Yatta to a 4-way or an 8-way server any day... if the mobo messes up on an 8-way server, you're in tough luck... with Wedo's Yatta it'd be a quick and cheap fix with a minimum loss of time..

And as you know my folding friends, time equals wu's :D

Cheers, Flix

[Wedo]

Originally posted by Crash893
and just when you thought crash was out of links


BAM

http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/flinks.html

you should really summit yours to this

Sweet Crash, thanks for the link. I remebered that page from long ago and was going to scrounge it up myself to submit the farm to it's pages.

I'll do that when I get home, thanks.

Wedo

[diggingforgold]

Awesome wedo. It's a work of art! Origami art! :D :D :D

[Im a dork :)]

[Cowboy X]

I'm definitely impressed , good work :clap:

[AmigoThree]

I am impressed, and I like the title of the thread too!

[Wedo]

Ok, layer #7 is up and running. Oh, and I named my network "Galaxy" so the farm is Apollo-1 thru 7. :D Too much Discovery channel I guess.

Wedo

[Dissolved]

whats the PPW on them?

[Audioaficionado]

11.9GHz of SSE AMD folding power should be around 2850ppw with normal gromacs. Those p910s would make it even higher.

[altec]

:drool::drool::attn:

[belorsch]

Great Job Wedo. I wanna set one of these up in my unfinished basement. Would definitely help with the gas bill next winter.

[stymee]

YOU DA MAN!!!

You kept us all in suspense for so long, but it was WELL worth the wait.

Helluva job, Wedo. Once again, I must say that you are an inspiration to us all -- A Master Borger and Master Farmer!

Glad to know that running XP's with the spliced PSU's is ok. I'm planning on replacing my Duron's with XP2100's. One down so far, 5 more to go.


P.S. You can never watch too much Discovery Channel ;)

[Cowboy X]

Originally posted by Wedo
Ok, layer #7 is up and running. Oh, and I named my network "Galaxy" so the farm is Apollo-1 thru 7. :D Too much Discovery channel I guess.

Wedo

Just beware Apololo 13 :p

[ElroyCarbon]

Dang Wedo I didn't even know you put one of these monsters together. Looks very good and is obviously performing well. Your my inspiration!!!!!!!!!!!:D

[SpeeDj]

Uhm, :eek: :eek: :eek: Is all I can say (http://www.talix.com/Folding/Folding_Farm.html)

A good readme for those who want to give LTSP a shot : http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/netboot.html

J :cool:

[DF]

For shame. Anybody got a mirror of those pics?

[Fast420A]

Just look here, they pretty much look like these.

http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/farms.htm

[L337 M33P]

Wow is this thread OOOOLLLLD :eek:

Anyway I was thinking about clustering recently, and how suited something like Mosix is to this sort of work. Essentially Mosix is an extension to the Linux kernel that makes individual networked machines look like one single large SMP machine. As they are only networked through 100MBit connections it would be silly to split up all tasks in a true SMP fashion, so what Mosix does is assign long-term threads to different CPUs.

Each layer only needs a bit of code to work the network interface and it boots straight off the master machine, so it can essentially run diskless. What I am thinking this would be ideal for is a pile of mATX motherboards with onboard vid, LAN and like 1 PCI slot. When you add a layer, all you do is boot off a USB pendrive :)

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/openmosix-howto.xml

[LiGhTBoY]

Pics are not showing up for me

[PornStar]

nice! Cant get the pics but sounds awsome!

[Wedo]

Links uploaded again. My bad, server went down and I forgot these were on there.

Since these pics were taken I've done some upgrades:

1. Installed 12" rounded blue cables for all HD's
2. Upgraded three mobo's to Gigabyte GA-7VM266's
3. Custom fit all Cat5 cable to it's not such a mess.
4. Replaced three dead PSU's with 400W units

Wedo