Mini Itx Machine

[drezha]

Any interest in a mini-itx VIA machine?

A Via Epia 5000AG mobo with attached Via 533Mhz CPU,512Mb SDRAM (2 x 256Mb),CF to IDE adapter with 4GB CF card, 40GB 2.5" laptop hard drive with adapter, USB2 PCI card in a black Morex Venus 669 case. Running Ubuntu sever. Ideal as a home server and file server. Draws 30W at load. Open to offers.

Can throw in a 40Gb 3.5" HD (noisy!) and a (white) CD drive if wanted.

[Brucifer]

Just out of curiosity Drezha, were or have you done any crunching with that system? Perchance did you try any d2ol on it? I have often wondered if it would be worthwhile from generated heat and power consumption aspect to use some of those rather than the higher power heat producing systems for crunching.

[drezha]

I have done some crunching. It struggled to attach to any BOINC projects as the benchmarks told the unit it wouldn't finish in time.

It did however run Malaria Control. It would also run the other projects nicely if they'd just let it crunch the units but it wouldn't run. (Is there a flag to ignore deadlines?)


Stats- http://www.malariacontrol.net/show_host_detail.php?hostid=64493

TBH, I wouldn't run the old C3 I have as a cruncher replacement (though I am going to get it back crunching this weekend) but an army of the newer C7 VIA CPU units maybe good. It's my aim when I get a job to try and build a mini-itx cluster (like on the mini-itx site) as I want to see how much power etc a few of them could do.

D2OL I've not crunched on it. Might be worth a try possibly, espcially as IIRC, it doesn't have deadlines?

[Brucifer]

d2ol has deadlines, like 30 days.... :icon_mrgreen:

So you just set the queue size at 25, and let it go, and it will run and download new ones when it needs to. And then after it runs for a week or so, you can look up the node number and see what the average time is for a work unit.

I've also thought about trying a small low-power cluster to see what it would do. The less heat generated for me the better. :) Within reason of course. :) Still needs to crunch...

[sentient_life]

D2OL I've not crunched on it. Might be worth a try possibly, espcially as IIRC, it doesn't have deadlines?

According to an information page in the client, the workunits become invalid after 30 days, so I would set it up with a reasonably small cache.

EDIT: Bruce beat me to it.

[Frederic Brillouet]

d2ol has deadlines, like 30 days.... :icon_mrgreen:

So you just set the queue size at 25, and let it go, and it will run and download new ones when it needs to. And then after it runs for a week or so, you can look up the node number and see what the average time is for a work unit.

I've also thought about trying a small low-power cluster to see what it would do. The less heat generated for me the better. :) Within reason of course. :) Still needs to crunch...
Huh? I've crunched d2ol that was older than 30 days and the things just crunched and validated:icon_neutral:

[drezha]

I'll have a go tomorrow. Been to busy playing CSS, COD4 and the like today now I got my gaming rig back :D

[Brucifer]

Huh? I've crunched d2ol that was older than 30 days and the things just crunched and validated:icon_neutral:

yeah cause you aren't running the beta client. But before long here, all the work units will have a 30 life on them as that's the goal for this beta series that they are working on.

[Frederic Brillouet]

crap. why do that when everything's just doing fine now? I dont always use d2ol, only as a backup!

[sentient_life]

crap. why do that when everything's just doing fine now? I dont always use d2ol, only as a backup!

Eventually, they've moved on to different drug candidates, and the ones you're working on may be obsolete. I'll be firing up my D2OL and TSC clients pretty soon, because I think it's been at least 3 weeks since they were last run.

[drezha]

Currently it's giving folding a run.

It's got a workunit and crunching away. p892 unit.
Taken over an hour a frame so far...

[drezha]

BTW, Folding took over 2 hours and didn't complete a frame so it's back on Malaria control.

I'll see what kind of RAC/points it generates then possibly turn it off.

[Brucifer]

:icon_mrgreen:

Well look at the bright side, at least it's faster than a pentium 200. :icon_rolleyes:

[vaughan]

BTW, Folding took over 2 hours and didn't complete a frame so it's back on Malaria control.

I'll see what kind of RAC/points it generates then possibly turn it off.
Why not try it on something with smaller tasks
eg Gerasim or MilkyWay or Chess960.

[drezha]

Might do.

Malaria Control it seems to like at the minute so it's crunching away on that for the minute. The trouble is not with how long it actually takes to do a unit but how long BOINC THINKS it'll take to do a unit.

It's 50% faster to do a MC unit than BOINC think it would take. Unfortunately, it doesn't figure this out until ait's run a few units. Some of the projects with the lesser deadlines download a unit, think it wont finish so deletes a unit. If I could get it to just run the unit, I'm sure it would be able to make it easy.