Official AMD Users team SuperComputer

[Brucifer]

BUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMPPPPPPPPP

While this is a real old thread, is there still any interest in this effort? There has got to be a lot of socket A athlon XP's laying around. And stuff like XP1800+ cpu's still do a good job sieving or prp for stuff like the PSP project.

Myself, I have basically run out of room to put computers and have to stoop to the level begging extended family to allow me to hide a couple systems at their places. My neighbor also works for a computer salvage place so I do have some access to some things like floppy's, cdrom drives, power supplies, etc. What they don't get in is many athlon/P4 systems, and those they sell.

A problem I see though is that this team is scattered all over the planet. And trying to ship things to another country can get pricey in a hurry due to customs fees, etc. Thoughts, comments??????? How many members reside in the US?

Bruce

[mitro]

I've got a barely used Duron (1800+ I think) and a 256MB stick of generic PC2100 I'd gladly donate. I also have a stock heatsink for socket A (the larger one from later models) and I have many fans I need to get rid of in various sizes.

[BlackAdder]

I have a IBM 16 port ethernet hub I no longer use that I can donate...let the team know what is needed and where it is going to be set up and I'll see what else I have laying around. :D

[Brucifer]

I've got a couple systems I can donate to it. What we need is someone that has space/facilities to set this up. Unfortunately since it appears from the posts a year or two ago here that the person that was supposed to do it evidently took a powder.... at least so the posts say. And if so, then that has undoubtedly turned some people sour on the idea. However another big team set up their "Crunchenstein" project. They limited the number of hosts that could be sent to any one place, and had a board of directors and all that. And the US-Distributed Team also set up a project for getting some mini-farms out to a few hosts. The people that contributed the money/parts were the ones that formed to committee for that farm to determine the projects it crunched on and all.

At the other end of the stick, do we have any members that could host a few systems for the team?

[Nflight]

This is an interesting read - has anyone ever heard of Freecycle ?
This is used widely where I live and across the country as people get rid of uneeded equipment for free, most times people come to a persons house and retreive the items in question. Other times people have the person who has the item they want removed for whatever reason ship the item to them at a fair and reasonable price.

So what if we start a Computer Freecycle club where everyone who has old antiquated equipment can donate it to people who can use the bits and peices to build items like Beowulf Clusters or Grid Computers. I looked this up on Yahoo Groups - there are 190 clubs who have wording in there description that pertains to computers but there are no direct Naming of Computers and Freecycle. I did a web search and again there is no listing of any web name with Computers and Free Cycle together.. This leaves an opportunity up to those who wish to start something new in the realm of Free Stuff about computers changing hands around the world.

And of course there is the effort to maintain this continuation of operation once you start off. How does the effort pay for the web space, how about google ads? There are a few other items you can do but this would be one way to get your business involved with something good for the whole planet, instaed of throwing all this unused stuff away, find people who would want such stuff. I am a gatherer of stuff myself, and would be willing to get rid of stuff if someone in the team effort would want to enter the AMDusers Computer Freecycle operation leadership!

Your opinions everyone?

[bwhite]

I have a fair amount of socket A stuff that I can donate if anyone wants to do something for the team with it. I lost most of my "farm" in a weather incident last summer...so have all the salvaged parts that are still good. Have since moved into the house with my remaining computers and converted my office into an appartment so don't have the room to setup a large farm right now

[daddygeek]

Hopefully, if God is willing and the creek don't rise, sometime in April I will find a new house here in Central Ohio. I would be willing to house AMD user's supercomputer. I don't believe my wife would mind another rack, and she has gotten used to the noise that my servers make.

[Brucifer]

Hopefully, if God is willing and the creek don't rise, sometime in April I will find a new house here in Central Ohio. I would be willing to house AMD user's supercomputer. I don't believe my wife would mind another rack, and she has gotten used to the noise that my servers make.

That's good!!! One issue out of the way for the first mini-farm. How many systems could you host? We need to get worked out too how we would govern the mini-farm, like what projects for instance. Who gets to vote. Can people donate systems for specific projects, as long as the points go to the team account? etc..... How much will the electric be a month? How do we cover that? and so forth.

[daddygeek]

How many systems could you host?

I have no idea how much space that will have in my new house :-k

We need to get worked out too how we would govern the mini-farm, like what projects for instance. Who gets to vote. Can people donate systems for specific projects, as long as the points go to the team account? etc.....

This is were the fun comes in #-o the only idea I am coming up with now. is kind of a stock market approach.

1. Every donation gets a dollar amount attached to it.
2. The dollar amount is then turned into a percentage of the total system.
3. Then that percentage is then the strength of their vote.

There are many problems with this concept, but they can all be worked out. Like setting up the price list. I think I would use
http://www.pricewatch.com/ to get the base prices, but those change constantly , and so I would have to update the vote percentage after any major change to keep current. This would be OK for small amount equipment, but 100 pieces would take quite a while to update the spreadsheet :cry:

How would we work out if someone donated 50ea 100W power supplies. Pricewatch has the price at $25 each, which would be $1250 towards the vote percentage, but what would I do with 50 power supplies , that are too small for today's processors? and on that topic, A farm of 30 386's or 486's is way too much work and to low of output to keep running. so maybe we need to set up a minimum donation list.

[Brucifer]

I agree with the donation issue. Should probably keep things within the late model Celeron/P4, and say XP1700/1800 or above.