XBox?

[Enkidu]

So there I was, contemplating ways to get to 10,000 before BOINC rolls in - I have basically every machine I can think of running seti. Then my eyes wandered to the 2 Xboxs sitting on a nearby table... p3-733 (celeron) each.

Sure they'd only do 2 or 3 per day, but every little bit helps. Has anyone ever heard of a reasonable way to run seti on an XBox? Having done some searching it seems that I could get linux running on the xbox without ever having to open it (and still be able to play games when I want). Anyone ever done this?

I also did my first OC last week and got my p4 2.4c to 3.12ghz (runs at about 52C so I'm not going to push it any more) and am now doing 14 wu/day on it - yay

Enk

 

[TC]

I think this came up before. Have you tried a search yet?

 

[ookabooka]

www.xbox-scene.org

that is the best site for this kinda stuff, I hav two xboxes, one with a modchip, I haven't run linux on it yet, but I have run a bunch of different software. As far as running linux w/o the modchip, there are ways to do it by using special save games that exploit a buffer overflow. There are also ways to patch executables with the security stuff microsoft uses, this however is quite illegal. Once you get linux running, it works just like any pc, the linux client for seti ought to work beautifully.

 

[Greg M]

...but is it worth it for a 700MHz PIII Celeron?

 

[ookabooka]

actually its two 733mhz celerons. Thats 1466mhz of celly, id say its worth it for just a little bit of research.

 

[TC]

Given the xbox architecture it'd be good for about 3-4 work units per day combined. Somebody else tried this and they were getting about 1.5-2 per day from one xbox. Seems the memory performance falls short. Anyway not much production for the power used, but whether it's worth it is a personal call.

 

[ookabooka]

if only there were a way to use the graphics memory instead of system memory, there is probably more bandwidth between the proc and gfx lol.

 

[Mr. Tom]

well most performance in xbox linux is hampered by the 64mb ram, upgrading to 128mb ram is possible, and the only use for 128mb ram is in linux, since all xbox games are written for 64mb ram. its been tested, and there is no noticable improvement (if any at all) during normal gameplay. the only other use for 128mb ram, is if you are running the debug bios & software, but without an official microsoft debug kit, im pretty sure that its illegal :/

 

[Greg M]

actually its two 733mhz celerons. Thats 1466mhz of celly, id say its worth it for just a little bit of research.

They're not using SMP in an Xbox. It's only two Celerons if you have 2 Xboxen.

 

[ookabooka]

i know, he had two xbox's that he was planning on doing this to.
I know about te +64(128total)upgrade, but in order to do this, you have to have a modchip, because you need a different bios to address them. Also you ahve to solder on the actual memory chips to the board, this is quite daunting to someone who just wanted to toss in a cd and crunch. In addidtion to that ordering just 2 or 4 32MB chips can cost up to $75 each since you would have to buy them from Samsung directly, and they don't like selling non-bulk orders.

 

[Enkidu]

I think at this point it probably is not worth the effort. Thanks for all the feedback and resources!