27th of June

Farm status
CPU Only
Running Einstein and Milkyway work.

Nvidia GPUs
Off.

Raspberry Pis
Running Einstein@home.

For more information on the Raspberry Pis see Marks Rpi Cluster

Other news
The remaining GPU compute machines have had their hardware upgraded. I still need to install Linux and BOINC on them as well as getting them back into the wire rack that they came out of.

I found a computer shop selling new Ryzen 7900 (non-X) but they won't do delivery and I'd have to drive to Canberra to pick it up. They aren't open on weekends either. I might have to take a day off work and go for a long drive to pick it up. Canberra is around 290 Km away from Sydney.

I returned the faulty 96GB memory kit during the week. Awaiting the supplier to test it. I would prefer a replacement kit but they don't have stock. It cost 1500 AUD at the time so while they might give me a refund if I can't buy a replacement that doesn't help.

I have one support node for the x86_64 machines which I want to look at upgrading, however it turns out its case is designed for (and has) an mATX motherboard so I would need to get a different motherboard for it. It doesn't need much memory or disk space so should be easier to get parts.

 

Hardware revitialisation

Its been about 6 months since the last post but that doesn't mean I haven't been crunching. I've decided to update all the crunchers. I have two standard builds for x86_64 machines, one for CPU compute and the other for GPU compute, but also able to do CPU work if needed. The CPU compute machine were originally using a Ryzen 3900X but had been upgraded to Ryzen 5900X.

 

CPU compute

Motherboard:  ASUS B850-Plus Wifi
CPU:               Ryzen 7900
Memory:         96GB (2 x 48GB) DDR5-5200 MHz
Cooler:            Noctua NH-U9S
SSD:                Crucial P510 (DRAM-less) 2TB 

I opted for 96GB of memory, however one machine locked up so I have put a 64GB kit in temporarily while I return the memory kit. It would boot with a single stick of 48GB memory but as soon as the 2nd stick was added it refused to boot.

 

GPU compute

Motherboard:  ASUS B850-Plus Wifi
CPU:               Ryzen 7600
Memory:         32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-5200 MHz
Cooler:            Noctua NH-U9S
SSD:               Crucial P510 (DRAM-less) 1TB 

I'm reusing the RTX 3060Ti GPU for the time being. The next step up for the GPU looks like an RTX 5070 but I really don't like the 12VHPWR power connector that Nvidia has switched to using.

 

I have one more Ryzen 3600X machine that wasn't being used and might build it as a CPU compute machine if I can find a Ryzen 7900 (non-X) CPU. All the online stores I buy from seem to be selling the X version which has a higher base clock, higher boost clock and higher wattage. I reuse the case, cables and power supplies. The most expensive parts are the memory followed by the SSD's even though they are RAM-less these days.

Another quirk that I had was the new motherboards have a 2.5G network port built in, however when I connect it to a 2.5G switch they drop their network connection. It works fine when plugged into a 1G switch using the same cable. I thought it might be drivers but I have the correct one installed. The old machines all used PCIe add-in cards so I have simply put them in the new machines. Strange thing is most of the PCIe network cards have the same Realtek chipset as the motherboard and they work fine.