Folding Farm
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Between the noise (these are not silent PCs), the electric demand (I had to split them among 3 separate circuits), and the heat production I think your college would expell you Zhentar.
The heat is the most unexpected side effect. If you combine the wattage from 15 machines, 6 monitors, and the required hubs, routers, and switches you get alot of heat. It's like running a space heater inside your apartment 24 hours a day. Not a bad thing if it were cold here, but it's been in the 90's for the last 3 weeks.
So the electrical cost of running a farm is almost double what you'd expect it to be. Add to the cost of the wattage for the actual machines the cost of removing that heat from the building.
The heat is the most unexpected side effect. If you combine the wattage from 15 machines, 6 monitors, and the required hubs, routers, and switches you get alot of heat. It's like running a space heater inside your apartment 24 hours a day. Not a bad thing if it were cold here, but it's been in the 90's for the last 3 weeks.
So the electrical cost of running a farm is almost double what you'd expect it to be. Add to the cost of the wattage for the actual machines the cost of removing that heat from the building.
rusty, I'm going to be in madison, wisconsin, and I understand it can get a little cool up there.... don't think I'll have to worry too much, especially since my main power consumption will (hopefully) have its radiator outside the window....
my power consumption estimates are like this...
2 nodes-
2*(65 watt processor + 15(pulled that out of my ass) mobo, + 15 RAM)
My laptop's power brick can deliver up to 70 watts; the other one will probably be similar; and once I get my folding farm set up I won't leave them off folding wich means the two combined propably won't ever break 30 watts;
then there's my current computer, I'd guess 150 watts or less, based on what I've read here; and my next computer probably will generate considerable heat; with overclocking and watercooling and maybe even peltiers...... but I'll be scheming how to use the outside air to fix that problem
and the noise? a SPCR member will be sleeping 5 (or less) feet from them; no one else will be able to hear them, though the noise will probably drive me crazy....
but of course, they'll just be thankful that they have such an uber, dedicated computer science student!
so thankful that they'll load up a few uber-labs/servers with F@H just for Zhentar! (at least, in my dream last night they did..... )
my power consumption estimates are like this...
2 nodes-
2*(65 watt processor + 15(pulled that out of my ass) mobo, + 15 RAM)
My laptop's power brick can deliver up to 70 watts; the other one will probably be similar; and once I get my folding farm set up I won't leave them off folding wich means the two combined propably won't ever break 30 watts;
then there's my current computer, I'd guess 150 watts or less, based on what I've read here; and my next computer probably will generate considerable heat; with overclocking and watercooling and maybe even peltiers...... but I'll be scheming how to use the outside air to fix that problem
and the noise? a SPCR member will be sleeping 5 (or less) feet from them; no one else will be able to hear them, though the noise will probably drive me crazy....
but of course, they'll just be thankful that they have such an uber, dedicated computer science student!
so thankful that they'll load up a few uber-labs/servers with F@H just for Zhentar! (at least, in my dream last night they did..... )
okay, an update.... I'm only gonna buy 1 node like that set up earlier, and get it a 180 Watt fortron PSU for $20.... for the other node, I'm going to use my current computers mobo, etc, plus the 180 watt PSU, then I'll upgrade my current computer with a 2400+ ($80 now) and some full size nForce2 mobo, dunno which yet, but it will be a little more expensive than the mn31n, plus I'll have to dig up a cheap vid card.... once I pick a mobo and add it all up, it will be a bit more expensive than just 2 nodes like I planned, but I'll get a rather nice upgrade out of it too.
Probably be about $525 instead of $460 I think; since I'll have to get new PC2700 RAM.
Probably be about $525 instead of $460 I think; since I'll have to get new PC2700 RAM.
okay an updated price list:
$95 Shuttle MN31N
$23 128Mb PC2700 cheap generic
$73 Athlon XP 2100+
$20 180w Fortron w/ Noise Killer
$20 AX-7+ NMB
$231 Total
and the other one
$85 Epox 8RDA+
$19 128mb cheap generic PC2100
$60 512mb Corsair PC2700
$73 Athlon XP 2100+
$20 180 Watt Fortron PSU
$19 Ridiculously cheap and ridiculously crappy video card
$20 AX-7+NMB
$296 Total
Grand Total: $527 w/o shipping. I'll probably recover $30 or $40 from my parents+the old 512mb PC 2100 stick.
So, two questions- first, what do you guys think, and second, who wants to make a donation for the good of the team?
$95 Shuttle MN31N
$23 128Mb PC2700 cheap generic
$73 Athlon XP 2100+
$20 180w Fortron w/ Noise Killer
$20 AX-7+ NMB
$231 Total
and the other one
$85 Epox 8RDA+
$19 128mb cheap generic PC2100
$60 512mb Corsair PC2700
$73 Athlon XP 2100+
$20 180 Watt Fortron PSU
$19 Ridiculously cheap and ridiculously crappy video card
$20 AX-7+NMB
$296 Total
Grand Total: $527 w/o shipping. I'll probably recover $30 or $40 from my parents+the old 512mb PC 2100 stick.
So, two questions- first, what do you guys think, and second, who wants to make a donation for the good of the team?
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- Posts: 539
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:35 am
- Location: Cambridgeshire, England
not bad setup there, dunno how it will do though, but at that price the two combined would have to beat just an athlon XP 2100+ (oc'ed to whatever)
Does anyone know a program to benchmark F@H? I'd like to benchmark a few combos, to test how each factor affects everything (Chipset, RAM speed/timings, CPU core, and Clock vs. FSB) with the two mobos/procs I'll have....
Does anyone know a program to benchmark F@H? I'd like to benchmark a few combos, to test how each factor affects everything (Chipset, RAM speed/timings, CPU core, and Clock vs. FSB) with the two mobos/procs I'll have....
update: I found one here: http://www.alistairbraidwood.com/html/utilities.html
I'll be testing it now to see if it will work for my purposes....
I'll be testing it now to see if it will work for my purposes....
Allrighty, I got it working. I got some errormsg about not being able to start the client. A little searching through the exe reveales that for some reason it assumes that the console client is called "fah.exe". I renamed the fah3console.exe file to fah.exe and seems to work now. I see in the taskmanager that a fahcore is running. (so quit all clients before you run this benching thing)