19th of July

Farm status
CPU Only
Two idle and one running a mix of Asteroids & Einstein work.

Nvidia GPUs
Off

Raspberry Pis
Running Einstein BRP4 work

For more information on the Raspberry Pis see Marks Rpi Cluster

Other news
When I upgraded to the Ryzen 7900 machines one of them kept its old id at Einstein and so inherited 850,000 credits. For the other two Ryzen 7900's I have been playing catch-up to get them up to the same number of credits. I've done that for the second machine, however the last one I built being more recent isn't there yet. Its up to 337k with over a hundred work units in pending status. Its been getting their Gamma-ray pulsar search #5 work. This is a good burn-in test for it.

I need to chase up the 96GB memory kit that I returned. The PC shop sent it back to the distributor a couple of weeks ago but I haven't heard anything further. The price for them is now 50% more than what I paid for it so I would really like a replacement rather than a store credit.

The other upgrade I am looking at currently is for the support node for the x86_64 machines. It a mATX based motherboard and doesn't need much in the way of memory and storage although will benefit from getting a couple of PCIe gen 4 slots.

 

5th of July

Farm status
CPU Only
Running Einstein work.

Nvidia GPUs
Running Einstein work.

Raspberry Pis
Most running Einstein with one doing Asteroids.

For more information on the Raspberry Pis see Marks Rpi Cluster

Other news
I ended up driving to Canberra to pickup a new Ryzen 7900 CPU as there were no new ones for sale in Sydney. I can get the Ryzen 7900X CPU but not the non-X version. There are plenty of second-hand ones but you never know if they'll work or for how long. I've now ordered another motherboard, SSD and cooler. This should join the CPU compute nodes.

The two GPU compute nodes had Linux installed, are back on the wire rack and running now. I have 4 of these at the moment.

Einstein@home implemented https traffic for their uploads and downloads so no more caching of files. Its also prevented a bunch of people still running Windows 7 from uploading. We're not sure if it because Win7 doesn't support TLS 1.3 or certificate issues.

 

 

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.