So work is getting rid of a bunch of old Dell machines, Optiplex 990, i7 2600 some with 4GB others with 8GB of RAM, and weak sauce Radeon 6350s. They're mine to take if I want. Clearly they aren't powerhouse machines, and it is against policy for me to sell them, but I'm thinking about crunching with them? They have DVD drives so could also be used for mass ripping optical media for archiving.

Anyway, would they be more efficient if I threw some flavor of Linux on them, or would a different project be better for such an old cpu? Thanks for the input.

Main problem with those old Dell or Optiplex is that they don't allow for big upgrades. Power supplies are around 300-400 Watt range. If you try to swap them out, they tend not to boot. If there is a PCIe slot then usually you are limited to the lower end GPUs 1050, 950, 750 that get all their power from the PCIe slot. You could just run CPU task but give how quickly even a 750 can process a work unit, you'd be better off going that route..

My 2 cents...

Z

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And the i7 2600 would, probably, be OK with the stock applications, but it would definitely need an after market heatsink to cope with the heat produced by the AVX application.
As Zalster suggested, a GTX 1050Ti (no addon power connector required) and use it as a GPU only cruncher, or turn off hyper-threading and just run 3 threads for CPU crunching and the other 1 for the SoG application on the GPU.
The PSU would be able to cope, and it should be good enough to keep the CPU heat down as well.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Thanks to the both of you. In considering your suggestions, I did remember that the GPU in these machines currently is not full height, if that makes sense? Link below to the general size of the card it has now, except they aren't passively cooled. The tower that these use are much thinner than normal, I may be hard pressed to find video cards for them, let alone 15+ of the same thing at a reasonable price. That being said, can a 6350 do anything for me, and is running cpu only kind of pointless?

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-hd-6350.c302

Might also look at low profile nvidia (just a thought).

https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-low-profile

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GTX-1050-TI-4GT/dp/B01N2W8MJ9

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Geforce-Profile-Graphic-GV-N105TOC-4GL/dp/B06WWLWWJM

That being said, can a 6350 do anything for me, and is running cpu only kind of pointless?

The CPU would outperform that video card by a huge margin. From a crunching point of view, i'm afraid those cards are worse than pathetic- they would produce more heat than work. There would be no point in using them to crunch (if they are even able to process work).

Passmark- Compute
Your card scores 80
A GTX 750Ti scores 1886
A GTX 1050Ti scores 3243

The cards Zalster listed would be the way to go. Half height/Low Profile, no need for external power, and still very capable crunchers. As long as you have a spare slot next to the existing video card (the new ones are all double width), you'd be OK.

Without processing on the video card, you could process CPU work on all cores & threads using the stock applications. However- those systems with their small size wouldn't allow for an aftermarket cooler, so the AVX application is well and truly not an option. If you do add a video card, then as I posted before- disable hyper-threading and reserve 1 CPU core to support the GPU, and just use the other 3 for CPU crunching; otherwise heat will be an issue.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Thanks again. I'm going to see if I can find some of this low profile 1050tis second hand. I'd like to repurpose these for crunching but don't feel like spending the money on new cards as I would need a lot of them. If non-AVX cpu crunching doesn't work then they will only stay around until I'm done using Ripbot264 on them. I currently have a project to re-encode my movie collection to h265.

If looking for a CPU intensive project, I think climateprediction might still be something to look at.

> Anyway, would they be more efficient if I threw some flavor of Linux on them, or would a different project be better for such an old cpu? Thanks for the input.

On linux you can crank it to 100% under a "nice" and the PC is still useful (none-sluggish).

> If non-AVX cpu crunching doesn't work...

If you don't have a use for the computers after doing your project, you may want to donate them towards charity.
Around here we have people repurposing PCs (linux) to bootstrap those without resources, something like this: https://www.freegeekvancouver.org/ so there may be similar groups in your area as well. ...spread a little Merry for Christmas :-)

....just passing thru....einstien@home was publishing GDPR updates deadline dec17, so thought I'd check settings on the various projects.

<grin>oldish CPUs<\grin> ;-P

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Thanks again. I'm going to see if I can find some of this low profile 1050tis second hand. I'd like to repurpose these for crunching but don't feel like spending the money on new cards as I would need a lot of them. If non-AVX cpu crunching doesn't work then they will only stay around until I'm done using Ripbot264 on them. I currently have a project to re-encode my movie collection to h265.

Be sure to get a fan cooled 1 as there are passively cooled 1's out there and unless you can mount a good fan over them then they'll just get too hot to work.

Cheers.

If non-AVX cpu crunching doesn't work

They'll do well with the current stock non AVX applications.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Main problem with those old Dell or Optiplex is that they don't allow for big upgrades. Power supplies are around 300-400 Watt range. If you try to swap them out, they tend not to boot. If there is a PCIe slot then usually you are limited to the lower end GPUs 1050, 950, 750 that get all their power from the PCIe slot. You could just run CPU task but give how quickly even a 750 can process a work unit, you'd be better off going that route..

My 2 cents...

Z

I was able to get a gtx 1060 3GB to run on a 240 watt PSU for "several" months. The trick was to use adapters off one of the HD cables to drive the 6-8 pin power plug on top. The kiliwatt (sp) meter showed steady power draws below the PSU rating. Yes it could peak but that was usually during startup.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Might also look at low profile nvidia (just a thought).

https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphics_card/zotac-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-low-profile

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GTX-1050-TI-4GT/dp/B01N2W8MJ9

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Geforce-Profile-Graphic-GV-N105TOC-4GL/dp/B06WWLWWJM

I have a low profile gtx 750ti that is still in production too.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

If you don't have a use for the computers after doing your project, you may want to donate them towards charity.
Around here we have people repurposing PCs (linux) to bootstrap those without resources, something like this: https://www.freegeekvancouver.org/ so there may be similar groups in your area as well. ...spread a little Merry for Christmas

I would really love to do this, and plan to talk to my boss about it. The university I work for has a policy that is kind of like "we don't want any liability, and don't want anything to do with these machines once they leave here". Seems like a waste because there are also a lot of underprivileged schools in the area.

And thanks, I will also check out the climateprediction project as well.

Just talk to your Public School Board and I'm sure they would openly accept anything over a XXXX.

Our Government Policy here is that all computer equipment that is of use to the SB automatically goes to them.
Just slap a label on it with the specs on it, pull the drive(s), and over it goes ...

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"old?" Dang, my unit workhorse here is a I5 (optiplex 3020/geforce GT730) from a demolished casino. I7's sound like a speed upgrade!

Picture old and i'm thinking of a ancient dell in the shed here with a HT P4 in it

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Historian for the Defunct Riviera Hotel and Casino, Former Classic Seti@home user for Team Art Bell. Greetings from the High Desert!

Thanks again. I'm going to see if I can find some of this low profile 1050tis second hand. I'd like to repurpose these for crunching but don't feel like spending the money on new cards as I would need a lot of them. If non-AVX cpu crunching doesn't work then they will only stay around until I'm done using Ripbot264 on them. I currently have a project to re-encode my movie collection to h265.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8222433

. . I have a HP small form factor PC but I have added a GTX1050ti and I am running Linux. Check out the productivity.

. . The CPU is a truly old Core2 Duo with 6GB Ram and the GPU is the MSI GTX1050ti that Zalster linked in. Even with a tiny 240W PSU it is only drawing about 120w from the wall at full crunch, and when I occassionally do crunch on the CPU (rarely) it is running SSSE3 and does OK. And the dual fan GPU manages to keep its cool too.

. . Since there are VERY few cards that will fit into SFF cases most people do not upgrade them, and since the 1050/1050ti is about the most powerful card in this format you will probably not find many (or even any) available second hand.

. . But there may be some GTX750/750ti or GTX950 cards on the SH market where people have upgraded to the 1050/1050ti cards. Even the GTX950 is VERY rare in low profile, Galax did make one but I was unable to source a unit in Australia hence the long wait for the 1050ti. So Low Profile 750/750ti would probably be your best bet, but I doubt they will be available in sufficient numbers to upgrade all your machines. But even if you can only find a few of them they will be very productive running CUDA80 or CUDA91 under Linux.

Stephen

:)

Actually I took an old case with a 220W power supply and put in a AMD Ryzen 5 2400G.
Power only goes to 30 Watts without the graphics card fully load with setiathome.
temps are 70-80C.
Cost $860 for all parts with os.
Can run AC odyssey smoothly.

Actually I took an old case with a 220W power supply and put in a AMD Ryzen 5 2400G.
Power only goes to 30 Watts without the graphics card fully load with setiathome.
temps are 70-80C.
Cost $860 for all parts with os.
Can run AC odyssey smoothly.

I see you just joined and this is your first post. Welcome to the project and forums!

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8222433

. . I have a HP small form factor PC but I have added a GTX1050ti and I am running Linux. Check out the productivity.

Could you tell me the settings you are running? I have a 1070 rig but its taking ~700 sec per WU running two at a time.

You appear to be running the "stock" applications, and haven't actually completed many of them yet. There are two things to consider, first, let it run a few more, and allow BOINC to sort out which application is going to be the most productive. This may take a couple of weeks to do, and it should settle on the "SoG" application. Or you can run the "Lunatic's Installer" and select the SoG application for nVidia GPUs. I would warn you that if you run the Lunatic's installer you have to do a bit more monitoring of applications to make sure that you are running the current one, and not an out-dated one (It is possible that in the next 12 months there will be a new application coupled with the arrival of work from the Parkes telescope).
The SoG application is the fastest available for windows, and should be about twice as fast as the Windows CUDA application.

Edit to add link to Mike's World
Here's a link to one of the sites for the Lunatics Installer http://mikesworld.eu/download.html

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?