Cheap rack setup, help

I have a bunch of motherboard/cpu's laying around (from 1.6 celerons to 2+ghz AMD's) i think the power supplies work, and all have network cards.

Question is, what is the cheapest way to get these folding machine, just thinking a building a wooden rack to set the motherboards and so in. Do I need hard drives, floppies . . . what. Just thought I need to put these junkers to a good cause.

This is how you do it without hard drives:
http://overclockix.octeams.com/How_to_setup_a_Folding_Farm.htm

Perhaps someone else can chime in with a more updated guide.

Other than that you would need a hard drive for each machine I think.

nice guide, i think i can do

either with:
the network boot
floppy boot
or usb drive boot(if the mobos support it)

anyone else have any creative ideas?

If you do the network boot, you dont need a head or a disk (Diskless/Headless rigs), no monitor and no harddrive. They all use the server computers HDD...pretty cool, I've never done it, but some day I might.

I have a small farm that works this way. I use Overclockix...it basicaly is set up specifiacally to do this. I can help you if you have questions, but Arkaine who wrote Overclockix is the real expert.

Test if you can PXE boot your boards (this can be workwed around but is harder). You do not need to have video carsds, but I do run thenm along with a couple of KVM (makes upkeep easier)

Sometimes, you get a board that does not want to be part of the team...slap a small (1gig or more) HDD on it, install overclockix (regular or poorman style for really small HDDs) and away you go.

Good luck!

Junebug