15th of March

Farm news
Again another hot week so nothing much running. I did leave one of the Intel-GPU machines running for a couple of days. The Raspberry Pi's keep going too.

I am still playing with OpenVMS. I will start another blog for it.

Still waiting for a Parallella (or two) to arrive. The latest update was they produced 800 and had more undergoing testing for the batch of 1000. They are waiting on more PCB's to arrive.


BOINC testing
We got 7.3.11 this week so I have been running it on a couple of the Intel GPU machines. The main change is around the notices handling so it can display video and other content, not just text. This is possible because of the upgrade to the wxWidgets 3.0 library which is used extensively by the manager.

Unfortunately some Linux distributions are still running older versions of wxWidgets so they will have to statically link it into the manager for them. Also the Raspberry Pi which runs a version of Debian is way behind the current release. Its currently got 7.0.27 when the "release" version is currently 7.2.42.

2nd of March

Farm news
Another hot week and then it cooled down in time for the weekend. I have all of the Intel-GPU machines going flat out.

As you would have seen in my previous blog post I have added a fan on the top of the case of one of the Raspberry Pi's. I also increased the overclock a bit so its now the quickest of them. It only seems to make a 1 hour difference on the Einstein BRP4 work units.


BOINC news
7.2.42 was released yesterday. It addresses an HTTP 400 error that seems to effect Yoyo@Home mainly.

This is not to be confused with the 7.3 release that is in alpha testing. Its main change is with wxWidgets and other support libraries that BOINC and the manager use.


OpenVMS
I am also looking at OpenVMS. When I first learnt to program in the 1980's we had a VAX computer which ran VMS. Things have moved on quite a bit since then, there are AlphaServers available fairly cheaply. No need to buy one though, there are a number of freely available Alpha CPU emulators and there is an OpenVMS  hobbyist program where you can get OpenVMS for free (for non-commercial use).

There is also a publicly available OpenVMS cluster called the Deathrow Cluster that you can access for free. You can find it at http://deathrow.vistech.net

Pi Fan

Here is the fan modification that I did to one of the Raspberry Pi's.

Components

60mm 5 volt fan (EverCool EC6015M05CA from FrozenCPU)

60mm rubber fan silencer (from FrozenCPU)

USB to 3 pin molex fan header cable (off eBay)

Here's the fan and silencer. It comes with 4 self-tapping screws

Tools. Yes you'll need something to put a hole through the top of the case. I bought a 60mm drill bit normally used for locksmiths to drill into doors. As you can see it works on plastic Raspberry Pi cases too.

The center drill bit is designed to pull the blue part of the bit into timber, however it got stuck before the blue part had even reached the plastic. I had to drill out the center hole with a normal drill bit so that the blue part can touch the top of the case.

Here is the fan mounted on the top of the case. That is a resistor cable with the blue plug. It came with some 12 volt fans. I was thinking of using them to reduce the fan speed (the fan is rated at 4000 RPM) however they don't work at 5 volts.

Another shot side-on so you can see the fan mounted on the top of the case

A shot from inside the top of the case.

These are the USB to molex fan header cables that I got off eBay.

And here we are fully assembled

Another shot at a different angle of the completed modification

The fan is blowing air into the case. This was because if the fan were turned upside down it doesn't mount properly. The holes on this side of the fan are countersunk. I think it provides more airflow over the 3 main heat producing components on the Pi this way, rather than trying to suck the air out of the case.

The rubber fan silencer is useful. The fan itself isn't exactly 60mm so there is a gap between the hole in the top of the case and the fan if mounted directly. It also cuts out the vibration which was the reason why I got it.

I did buy a couple of chrome fan grills but the screws aren't long enough to hold the fan on as well as the grill. If I can find some longer self-tapping screws I will try and mount the grill later.

Running the fan off the Pi's USB port means the fan doesn't run at full speed which makes it quieter and should help it last a bit longer. Just make sure your power supply can provide extra power to the Pi.

16th of February

Farm news
Again another hot week and then just in time for the weekend showers which cooled things off a bit. I have, for the weekend at least, managed to get the GPUgrid crunchers running and had a few of the Intel GPU machines running too.

Tonight I had one GPUgrid file fail to upload and it refused to budge. Restarting BOINC didn't help. Restarting the PC didn't help. Restarting the proxy server didn't help. Restarting the router didn't help. Not using the proxy server didn't help. In the end I dug out the old proxy server got it on the dial-up and uploaded the offending file. I have no idea why it does this. It even managed to upload all the other files without any issue and then one (usually the biggest) gets stuck.


BOINC testing
7.2.39 was released to the public. Not much change since .33 so I haven't bothered updating machines, although I did have it on a couple for testing.

We're now into another alpha-test cycle with 7.3.2 which is mainly upgraded support libraries such as wxWidgets as they have moved on. There should also be some amendments in the notice handling.

Unfortunately it won't help the Raspberry Pi's as the Debian Wheezy repositories are still stuck at 7.0.27. I am not sure how they get newer versions into the repos as its been stuck at that version for the last year or so.