Building a BOINC farm for a beginner.

I am interested in trying to build a BOINC farm, as in cannibalizing processors from old computers and putting them to work on crunching numbers for various projects. However I've never done anything like this before, so I really have no idea where to start. Does anyone know where I could find a guide or directions for how to do this? Would this even be possible for someone at my level of computer knowledge (very low) or would I need to get to know computers and their components a lot better before I could even attempt something like this?

Thanks for any answers!

Have you read this?

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=69909&sort_style=6&start=0

BOINC farm = Big Electricity Bill :(

BOINC farm = Big Electricity Bill :(

BUT at the moment I live in a dorm, so I don't directly pay an electricity bill. So that's not a problem for me atm. And I'm not talking about putting a ton of processors in there...maybe like 2 or three, mostly to learn how to do it and for fun.

Tell us what you were thinking more specifically and let's see if we can help you make the most of your time/money/energy.

Basically what I'm getting from this thread is that this idea I've been having is way beyond my skill level.

Basically what I'm getting from this thread is that this idea I've been having is way beyond my skill level.

Basically what I'm getting from this thread is that this idea I've been having is way beyond my skill level.

You've got to start somewhere and if you've got an interest, but made it to university age without sticking your head into a computer to see how it ticks, there's no time like the present.

These things are stuck together on assembly lines. It isn't hard to stick all the parts in a box and make it work. Making the parts is beyond any of us. So you have to acquire the parts and assemble it like a kit.

Do you have any easily available source for an old computer? (old, but probably not older than a Pentium 4). How much room do you have for all of this? A desktop? A bookshelf?

Basically what I'm getting from this thread is that this idea I've been having is way beyond my skill level.

Maybe you should start reading here.

http://techreport.com/review/13671/how-to-build-a-pc

If that doesn't work I could buy a cheap used computer like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Dell-GX620-Interlaced-Intregrated-Professional/dp/B003KJ04TA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352869855&sr=8-1&keywords=computer+under+100 and I'm sure I could find other similar deals on Amazon or Ebay.[/quote]

I finally clicked that link.

Something like that would be a good idea BUT, and this is good for you to know and remember, if you want to crunch for SETI in a large way, you will have to use video cards (GPUs). GPUs need space for cooling and power.

Many really inexpensive used computers have "non-standard" cases. Some of the cases require that you use cards that are called "half-high." The skinny cases usually do.

Half-high video cards are few and far between.

Also, the power supplies in these computers are often non-standard physical sizes, so they are not easily or cheaply replaced, and they are mostly inadequate to run a power-hungry video card.

When you are looking for cheap, you probably want to concentrate on "standard" ATX dimensions for the motherboard, case, and power supply.

However, you might find a non-standard computer that is such a deal (free) that it is worth disassembling it to salvage the motherboard and all of its parts, the hard drive, any optical drive, the Operating System, etc.

The only reason to do what would be if the motherboard had an available PCIe (not PCI, not AGP, not VLB) slot and you were planning on sticking a more modern video card in it. That way you let the old CPU (that won't crunch much) feed the GPU (which will).

Now "cannibalize" makes some sense in that context.

You wouldn't want to pay very much (or anything) for this.

The idea is that you're going to have to spend some money on a standard ATX power supply and probably pay something for a video card capable of crunching for SETI.

Now it becomes a matter of how much can you, or do you want-to, spend? How much crunching do you expect the computer to do? What would satisfy you that you've done what you set-out to do? How would you measure that?

I'm not suggesting that you do anything I've done, or that you let me influence what you want to do. I'm just trying to give you perspective. I've got an old P4 that I was given, with an operating system I was given, RAM I was given, hard drive I was given, etc. I had to add a $45 power supply and a $120 video card (refurbished, two generations old), and it is capable of about a 20,000 RAC.

Again, I'm not suggesting you do what I've done.

I've got another computer with a $59.95 motherboard, a reclaimed CPU from a junked computer, RAM I traded-for, a case I bought for $25, a $80 power supply, and a $250 GPU I bought new years ago, and a reused OS/HDD that I traded-for; that system does about 25,000 RAC.

I definitely like the price of the first system a lot better.

If you take your time and hunt as much free stuff as you can, you can build a very respectable crunching machine for very little money, maybe even entirely free if you can just find a source for parts nobody wants, or are too much trouble to put on eBay. You might find such things at garage sales or even on the curb to go to the garbage (people throw away strange things) or the local recycling collection depot.

It'll be a learning experience in every way.

Go for it. You'll learn a lot of things along the way.

"If that doesn't work I could buy a cheap used computer like this one:"

Don't buy that as a cruncher.
The small form factor and puny power supply means you can't fit a high end Graphics card in there, and that's what gives you a serious cruncher. Using only an old CPU like that just gives you a small space heater. Useful if the weather gets cold, but that's about it.

Now buying a $100 refurb PC like that, but with a mini-tower case and a beefier 450w power supply, and then spending another $100 on a CUDA capable graphic card would get you something useful. Also makes a passable game machine for lan parties etc.

To make a "farm", just keep stacking them up. You can run them without screens and keyboards etc, just a lan connection and use remote desktop to sign in to the individual machines.

Once you get familiar with the innards of PCs you will know what you can mix and match to rebuild old machines. Often 3 dead PC's can be mixed n matched to get 2 working ones. You get a feel for the ones that are easy to rebuild.
No power at all? - Probably PSU, easy fix
Boots but comes up with a disk error? - Probably dead hard disk - relatively easy fix
Powers up but no picture - Who knows? But chances are you can recover a good PSU and HDD to fix the other 2....

Doesn't take long to build up a "farm", and if they can take CUDA cards, you can build something useful, without spending 1,000s of $$ on hardware.

Ian