I have been pondering making a SETI farm for some time now. About a week ago I ran across an eBay auction that I could not pass up and will be picking up the components to put together 5 new SETI Crunching servers!

So I started doing a lot of research on what makes a good SETI farm and found that there are really two different types of farms:
* Stack Farms (No cases just Components)
* Case Farms (Entire PC's)

To be honest until I looked into these SETI Farms I did not know you could run a PC outside the case! Learn something new every day!

Anyway, I believe I will build each of mine into their own case, as I am not strapped for room!

What I have so far:
* 5 Socket A Motherboards (Video, LAN)
* 5 Socket A Sempron 2600+ CPU's
* 5 Athlon Approved Heatsink & Fans
* 5 8GB WD HD's (Old but still work and are quiet)
* 4 128MB Kingston PC3200 DDR Sticks
* 5 Light aluminum cases (New Midtowers)
* 5 430W Power Supplies
* Industrial 12 outlet Power strip
* 5 6' RJ45E Network cables
* 5 Power Cables
* Solid Shelving unit able to hold up to 18 PC's
* DSL Connection
* APC 600 UPS (For Main file server only)
* MSDN copy of Win2000 Server with unlimited copies for developemnt (Enterprise Edition Home & Office)

What I still need:
* 24 Port switch (Netgear Maybe???)
* UPS (APC 1500 maybe???)
* Large Quiet fans to circulate air???
* Additional Case Fans???
* More RAM (How much is enough? 128M? 196M?)

Any suggestions would be helpful!

Here is a link to pictures of SETI Farms that I stole of other sites! I am sure you have seen some of them around or may even be some yours? Gallery of SETI Farms

Here are a few of the very good ones!





Please post Pictures or links to your farms!

Thanks,
Chad

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* More RAM (How much is enough? 128M? 196M?)
=========

I wouldn't go with less than 512mb of Ram, 1024 would even be better IMO ... Some of the newer Projects like Rosetta I've heard almost requires you to have at least 512mb...

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* More RAM (How much is enough? 128M? 196M?)
=========

I wouldn't go with less than 512mb of Ram, 1024 would even be better IMO ... Some of the newer Projects like Rosetta I've heard almost requires you to have at least 512mb...

LOL

éh !

http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/rah_requirements.php

:/

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SETI@Home Informational message -9 result_overflow
with a general handicap of 80% and it makes much d' efforts for the community and s' expimer, thank you d' to be understanding.

In my BOINC web site I have a BOINC farm gallery.

There are some BIG and LITTLE farm of some members of my team now.
But the gallery is open to all!
If someome have a farm can send me his photos at the address writed in top of the gallery and I'm happy to insert new farm in the gallery.

Hi! :)

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GHz
BOINC.Italy

I've got what could be termed as a case garden (not enough for a farm)

Four Dell GX110 sff - clock speeds run from 900Meg to 1Gig - 256meg RAM and 10gig drives. I'm using Windows200 Pro for OS.

On these machines, I run a mix of SETIclassic, SETI BOINC, Einstein, Protein Predictor, LHC, PrimeGrid and the Alpha projects Orbit, Lattice and Folding@Home
I've not tried ClimatePrediction

All the machines have small UPS backups (20 min), so I can shut down smoothly during an extended outage (like Katrina). If anyone has similar machines they wish to dispose of, drop me an e-mail, and I'll be glad to discuss terms ...

(edited for syntax)

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* More RAM (How much is enough? 128M? 196M?)
=========

I wouldn't go with less than 512mb of Ram, 1024 would even be better IMO ... Some of the newer Projects like Rosetta I've heard almost requires you to have at least 512mb...

PoorBoy,
I understand these clients that take up 200MB need a lot of ram but the SETI data is only 354K therefore requires much less RAM! I currently only Cruch SETI! (Unless SETI is out of WU's)

I just finished testing my XP2600 with 128MB of ram vs. 512MB or ram on a test work unit!
* 128MB 2.09hrs 7521
* 512MB 1.99hrs 7168

Hmm should have tested DDR (2 Sticks vs 1 Stick) Maybe tomorrow!

So about 4.8% difference... For $30 more per machine I will stick with 128MB for now! Maybe more RAM can be my christmas present to myself!

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I don't see any provision for monitors, keyboards or mice. You may wish to consider a KVM switch - ebay advertises some very cheap ones shipped from Hong Kong, I had wondered about buying one myself...

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I don't see any provision for monitors, keyboards or mice. You may wish to consider a KVM switch - ebay advertises some very cheap ones shipped from Hong Kong, I had wondered about buying one myself...

Using Windows 2000 Server allows me to use Terminal Server so I have no need for Mice, keyboards or monitors. I can manage all of the clients from anywhere in the world as long as they keep their network connection. And now that BONIC runs as a service, if for some reason they auto-reboot, BIONIC starts right back up again as a service!

I do have a few spare mice, keyboards, CD-Rom's, Floppies, Monitors for when I install. But I will build one PC and then ghost it to an image & put that image on the rest of them. That way if I loose a Hard Drive, I just reghost a new one!

Thanks for your feedback,
Chad

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How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

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- cJ

I don't see any provision for monitors, keyboards or mice. You may wish to consider a KVM switch - ebay advertises some very cheap ones shipped from Hong Kong, I had wondered about buying one myself...

Using Windows 2000 Server allows me to use Terminal Server so I have no need for Mice, keyboards or monitors. I can manage all of the clients from anywhere in the world as long as they keep their network connection. And now that BONIC runs as a service, if for some reason they auto-reboot, BIONIC starts right back up again as a service!

I do have a few spare mice, keyboards, CD-Rom's, Floppies, Monitors for when I install. But I will build one PC and then ghost it to an image & put that image on the rest of them. That way if I loose a Hard Drive, I just reghost a new one!

Thanks for your feedback,
Chad

If you need to change a setting in BIOS on the remotes, you'll be glad to have them connected to a KVM.

How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

I use cases - cheap cases don't cost much more than power supplies, and I don't really care what they look like. The case provides instant stacking capability, active cooling, and racking for the other components. I know some use wooden shelves, plastic baskets and cable ties........... the case route suits me.

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Seti likes fast memory-speed, so if mainboard can work in dual-channel-mode using 2 memory-sticks is highly recommended. Also, the faster the memory can run and the lower the cas-times and so on, the faster you'll crunch.

Seti_enhanced is using 31MB memory, since beta this can of course change but still, and coupled with win2k also wanting lots of memory would recommend 2x128MB. If you adds other projects except Einstein@home adding even more memory can be an option.

How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

I mount some of my mobos on fiber board (like peg board with no holes), then you can set the mobo on any kind of shelving. I acquired some push-button switches and connected them to power and reset, so you don't have to find them everytime to use a shorting device to start the mobo.

Having at least one mobo like this makes testing peripherals, CPUs and RAM a much easier task than fighting a case install.

Using Windows 2000 Server allows me to use Terminal Server so I have no need for Mice, keyboards or monitors. I can manage all of the clients from anywhere in the world as long as they keep their network connection. And now that BONIC runs as a service, if for some reason they auto-reboot, BIONIC starts right back up again as a service!

I do have a few spare mice, keyboards, CD-Rom's, Floppies, Monitors for when I install. But I will build one PC and then ghost it to an image & put that image on the rest of them. That way if I loose a Hard Drive, I just reghost a new one!

Thanks for your feedback,
Chad

If you went the Linux diskless workstation route you wouldn't need any HDDs, CDs, mice, keyboards, monitors - sometimes not even a floppy or graphics card. Less heat, less power usage, less components to fail.

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Using Windows 2000 Server allows me to use Terminal Server so I have no need for Mice, keyboards or monitors. I can manage all of the clients from anywhere in the world as long as they keep their network connection. And now that BONIC runs as a service, if for some reason they auto-reboot, BIONIC starts right back up again as a service!

I do have a few spare mice, keyboards, CD-Rom's, Floppies, Monitors for when I install. But I will build one PC and then ghost it to an image & put that image on the rest of them. That way if I loose a Hard Drive, I just reghost a new one!

Thanks for your feedback,
Chad

If you went the Linux diskless workstation route you wouldn't need any HDDs, CDs, mice, keyboards, monitors - sometimes not even a floppy or graphics card. Less heat, less power usage, less components to fail.

Or you can do Windows and use something like pcAnywhere. I do need a HDD that way, but no CD, mouse, kbd, monitor or video card.

How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

The server motherboards I'm using currently have a dedicated "turn on" jumper.

Most of the others will work with a regular jumper on the power switch -- same kind of jumper you can find on a hard drive.

It is entirely possible to do this "diskless" -- use a motherboard with ethernet and video on-board. Use PXE and boot from the network. You can do this with either Windows or Linux.

I generally test motherboards before mounting them in the case.

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Using Windows 2000 Server allows me to use Terminal Server so I have no need for Mice, keyboards or monitors. I can manage all of the clients from anywhere in the world as long as they keep their network connection. And now that BONIC runs as a service, if for some reason they auto-reboot, BIONIC starts right back up again as a service!

I do have a few spare mice, keyboards, CD-Rom's, Floppies, Monitors for when I install. But I will build one PC and then ghost it to an image & put that image on the rest of them. That way if I loose a Hard Drive, I just reghost a new one!

Thanks for your feedback,
Chad

If you went the Linux diskless workstation route you wouldn't need any HDDs, CDs, mice, keyboards, monitors - sometimes not even a floppy or graphics card. Less heat, less power usage, less components to fail.

Or you can do Windows and use something like pcAnywhere. I do need a HDD that way, but no CD, mouse, kbd, monitor or video card.

I use a KVM for those instances when I need to re-install the operating system, or fool around with the BIOS. Normally, however, I use TightVNC. It's a TOTALLY FREE remote-control system that works like PCAnywhere. With it, I can manage my entire farm (out in the garage) from my home system. I only go back there once every month or so for a quick look-around. Very handy.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

I'm probably too lazy to find out myself, but if you have 2^5 such motherboards in a wooden box, and so forth, how do you load boinc? Is it node by node or is there a better way.

I would love to see boinc give us the ability to give our computing monsters a star topology. We had that in setiClassic. Is this possible in boinc?

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May this Farce be with You

How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

If you take the motherboard out of the case and then just put it on a non conductive surface, plywood etc., then put the power supply next to it and then plug in the nic and video card, you can then either use a small on off mini switch or the end of a pen to short the 2 pins and trun them on. No case needed. If you need a harddrive or floyy just plug them in too and lay them alongside. A case just makes it nice and tidy but no case gives you more freedom.
here is just one of the links I got when I put seti farms into a Yahoo search:
http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/farms.htm
He has helped me in the past with a harddrive less SCOLinux setup.

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How do those of you who run seti/boinc farms power them without cases? (Looking for suggestions..) I currently have 8 computers running (all in cases and 2 are laptops) and I have another 10 that I am slowly building. (Need to get off my butt and do it is all.) But for space, it would be easier to do some of the other ideas.

If you take the motherboard out of the case and then just put it on a non conductive surface, plywood etc., then put the power supply next to it and then plug in the nic and video card, you can then either use a small on off mini switch or the end of a pen to short the 2 pins and trun them on. No case needed. If you need a harddrive or floyy just plug them in too and lay them alongside. A case just makes it nice and tidy but no case gives you more freedom.
here is just one of the links I got when I put seti farms into a Yahoo search:
http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/farms.htm
He has helped me in the past with a harddrive less SCOLinux setup.

Don't even bother with a switch. A pair of tweezers works just fine. :)

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!