Farm photos & discussion thread
 

Okay, for all of those people here who have farms running PrimeNet or anything else, here's your chance to brag a little. :grin: Post pix of your impressive farm here.

I'll get the ball rolling with pix of my currently not-so-impressive one-node farm. Unfortunately all I have right now is a picture of that node; my camera ran out of power after that so I'm recharging the batteries and I'll post some pix of the server and the 'command console' tomorrow.

The server was a Windoze box which was converted to Red Hat Linux 9 for the purpose of running a modded version of LTSP according to Prime Monster's instructions. It runs mprime on a 2GHz Celeron with two HDDs (the second added for backup purposes) and 128MB DDR RAM.

The first node was once the guts of a PC that has been scrapped. AMD Duron 950 OC'd to 1017 with 128MB SDRAM. It boots from a floppy but you can't see the drive in the picture; it's hidden behind the PSU. Boy do I have a lot of pix to take tomorrow...

If the thread gets big enough, maybe I'll compile it all into a webpage with pix and specs like Prime Monster had on his site...

Here is a photo of a linux cluster me and a few of my friends threw together.

The machines are powered by AMD 486, intel pentium, AMD K6, AMD K7, intel William P4, and AMD Athlon XP processors. They are all tied together with Cat5 cables and boot with a PXE boot rom(excluding the 486 which didnt have a PCI slot for our pxe nics, so it is a little more complicated). These machines rarely run; we mainly did it to say, "we have 5ghz+ at our disposal! beat that!" It does come in handy when we have alot of video to encode.

The case on the bottem right of the stack isnt part of the cluster. The 6th machine is not in the stack, its on the side to the bottem left.

This post and next show my farm (I'm limited to one image per post).

The server is running Red Hat Linux 7.3. All of the nodes (except _800A) are network boots using LTSP (Thanks for the instructions, Prime_Monster!)

_800A is running Windows ME. Not shown in either picture are three more Windows machines: two P4 1.8 GHz desktops and a P4 3.06 GHz laptop.

Total throughput: 33.77 GHz. Running doublechecks in the 10-11M range I'm finishing about 40 exponents per week on this setup.

The other half of the farm...

[QUOTE=dswanson]Total throughput: 33.77 GHz. Running doublechecks in the 10-11M range I'm finishing about 40 exponents per week on this setup.[/QUOTE]

:shock:

Impressive! Wish I had that much computing power!

its so shiney and farm like. you are a farmer lol

Show your farm
 

I know theres old thread about this but instead of beating a dead horse. Post your new pics of farms here i want to see them. If you can get 3 or 4 pictures at different angles.

This is my farm (8 computers). Front view.

Rear view.

Do we have to make a separate post for every image, or is it I who just don't understand how to paste the images into the post?

[QUOTE=moo]I know theres old thread about this but instead of beating a dead horse. Post your new pics of farms here i want to see them. If you can get 3 or 4 pictures at different angles.[/QUOTE]I don't think there's any horse abuse occuring if we just post our farm pictures in the other threads.

[QUOTE=patrik]Do we have to make a separate post for every image, or is it I who just don't understand how to paste the images into the post?[/QUOTE]

You can LINK to as many as you want but only one attachment is allowed per post.

I'll take/dig up pix of my largely unimpressive farm when I have a minute...

bump good thread....

I have some good news! I'll probably be getting a new node sometime in the next week. It's currently a PC that doesn't run 24/7; it's a bit old and has a lot of crashing issues etc because it runs Windoze ME, so it'll probably be replaced with some newer system that I can also borg. So new system + old system->new node = more throughput. Maybe I'll finally get out of this treading water thing I've been doing in the stats for a while.

converts machine thats currently p1ing to factoring to catch up to cruncher... or mabey experiment with linx.... mabey not...

Here, guys, is my corner of the living room. Sorry about the mess :w00t:

[QUOTE=leifbk]Here, guys, is my corner of the living room. Sorry about the mess :w00t:[/QUOTE]
Is that really a microfiche viewer there?

Paul

[QUOTE=xilman]Is that really a microfiche viewer there?

Paul[/QUOTE]

Yes it is. My other craze is genealogy, I'm doing a one-place study of my ancestors' home parish. I've got a lot of old parish records on microfiche (they're in the red box behind the laptop).

On the desktop, there's an old Dell 266MHz Latitude running Windows 2000, and a HP4M+ Laser printer. Behind the right loudspeaker (Soundblaster i-trigue) you can just glimpse a HP thin client which I'm connecting to work with. The screen is a HP-L 1925 19" LCD. On the floor, from left to right, is my daughter's P-III 1GHz (Win2K, her console is off to the left), a P-II 550MHz (Win2K), a Celeron Coppermine 700MHz (Gentoo Linux), my main workstation P-4 3GHz (Gentoo Linux), a Pentium 133MHz (Debian), and finally an actual Pentium 90 that has been running Windows NT4.0 Server 24/7 since September '98 (I've rebooted it a few times, though).

I haven't thrown out an old computer since my 486. I network them instead, putting them to use as servers.

regards, Leif.

does it ever get hot in that corner of room

[QUOTE=moo]does it ever get hot in that corner of room[/QUOTE]

You bet :grin:

[QUOTE=leifbk] (in response to my microfiche question) Yes it is. My other craze is genealogy, I'm doing a one-place study of my ancestors' home parish. I've got a lot of old parish records on microfiche (they're in the red box behind the laptop).

On the desktop, there's an old Dell 266MHz Latitude running Windows 2000, and a HP4M+ Laser printer. Behind the right loudspeaker (Soundblaster i-trigue) you can just glimpse a HP thin client which I'm connecting to work with. The screen is a HP-L 1925 19" LCD. On the floor, from left to right, is my daughter's P-III 1GHz (Win2K, her console is off to the left), a P-II 550MHz (Win2K), a Celeron Coppermine 700MHz (Gentoo Linux), my main workstation P-4 3GHz (Gentoo Linux), a Pentium 133MHz (Debian), and finally an actual Pentium 90 that has been running Windows NT4.0 Server 24/7 since September '98 (I've rebooted it a few times, though).

I haven't thrown out an old computer since my 486. I network them instead, putting them to use as servers.

regards, Leif.[/QUOTE]I also have a microfiche viewer but have never come across anyone else with one. Mine lives in the loft because there isn't room in my study.

I don't think I've ever thrown out an old computer. I've given a few away to people who can make good use of them, and recycled the parts of several others to make working machines, but I've never thrown away a whole machine. Most of the old machines, some going back to the late 70's and early 80's, live in the loft. The oldest one currently powered up is a PPro-233, though a Gateway2000 desktop machine (originally P75, now a P120) serves as a monitor stand on my desk. It still works, and boots W95, but is too inconvenient to use without a KVM switch. All the other boxes can be driven over the network.

Paul

I wish I could fit all my computers into a single picture. I currently have about 15 or so running, and they're on various shelves and in various areas of the room, depending on their use. Ranging from 486 to AthlonXP2500. I'd have more running, but I lost one of my nortel BPS 2000 in a power outage, and thus have not been running my beowulf cluster. Otherwise I'd probably have another 10-15 or so nodes running.

Still cool to see pictures of other peoples farms

doug take many pics find some free place like imageshack.com and post them there then give us links....

well, I don't have access to a digital camera right now, and I don't feel like spending money developing film for this, so I've looked through the archives of my site to look for older pictures.

the back of some of my beowulf cluster a couple years ago. (there's more when it's all setup, and currently due to the dead bps, my cluster is only one machine, a p4 1.5 ghz. it feels lonely because it can't pass any processes :down: )
[url]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/images/03.04.15/Beowulf2.jpg[/url]

wow, that's it. There aren't any other pictures of my computers on my website.

well, there's one at least. If I get my hands on a digital camera, I'll snap some quick pics.

I got my hands on a digital cam and snapped a couple pics. Doesn't quite show everything, but you'll see the bulk of it. My friends think I'm crazy. I hope you do too after seeing this...

First, what you see at my desk:
[URL]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/~doug/MainFront.jpg[/URL]
Wireless keyboards and mice are a necessity, they get sickly tangled otherwise... Also, if you look closely, you'll see a machine between the desk and the wall on the ground. That thar be my router/nat. A $5 p166 deskpro with linux and a couple nics. Works wonders. The mac monitor is propped up on the machine running it because the back of the monitor would hit the bottom of the window cill

Then, what runs the stuff I see at my desk:
[URL]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/~doug/Main.jpg[/URL]
Lots of cables, but nowhere near as bad as my backend shelving... Uhh, note the mission critical A/C and window fan. I like to call those my rooms' water cooling and case fans :grin:
Also, the machine on the right, is at another desk. It is my guest machine. Yes, I have an entire machine that guests can use. It comes in handy for gaming.

Next is the backend unit shelving. I can't stand far enough away from this, so it'll be 2 pictures:
(1) [URL]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/~doug/ShelveBottom.jpg[/URL]
This is the bottom of the shelving and a couple units on the floor. The units on the floor are the core of my beowulf cluster. Any other machines just get setup as dummy processing units. These 2 machines actually contain software that I run on the cluster. (note: as stated above, the cluster does not have any dummy nodes due to a nortel bps that died during a power outage...) The bottom shelf containes various services... IRC, mail... Also note the important SNES on the 2nd shelf! (very important!)
(2) [URL]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/~doug/ShelveTop.jpg[/URL]
Various other machines. Laser printer, another nortel bps...

And lastly, my spare crap downstairs:
[URL]http://www.dougtheslug.ca/~doug/Spares.jpg[/URL]
the leftovers. Some of which would be part of the beowulf cluster if I had a switch to network them in... these hunks of metal range from about 75mhz to 333mhz, pentium, amd, sun, mac (some aren't in this picture). And on the floor, right beside the shelving unit, is the dead bps. yay! 3 cheers for a dead piece of equipment!

as a note. I am not rich. Quite the opposite, I am a broke student. I just manage to find really good deals on junk. one deal managed to get me about 10 pentium 166's for about 5$ a piece. I still have most of them. as for my decent machines, well, that's why I'm broke... I also managed to get all my sun hardware for about 40$ (ultrasparc2, sparc20, sparc10 and a couple huge monitors). I also have a laptop which I got for free. It's hardly worth mentioning. pentium100 with 16M of ram. pitiful.

uhh, a summary (yes, i know this is sad)
6 machines over 1ghz (duron 1.2ghz to athlonxp 2500)
20ish pentiums (p1,p2,p3) 75mhz to 450mhz (some running, some not)
3 macs (75 to 225 mhz)
3 sun (sparc10&20, ultrasparc2)

oh, I run winxp, win2k, debian, macos8.6

so, I now hope you think I'm crazy. :banana: damn, that banana is awesome!

[QUOTE=DougTheSlug]uhh, a summary (yes, i know this is sad)
6 machines over 1ghz (duron 1.2ghz to athlonxp 2500)
20ish pentiums (p1,p2,p3) 75mhz to 450mhz (some running, some not)
3 macs (75 to 225 mhz)
3 sun (sparc10&20, ultrasparc2)

oh, I run winxp, win2k, debian, macos8.6

so, I now hope you think I'm crazy. :banana: damn, that banana is awesome![/QUOTE]
Neither sad nor crazy. It's rather similar to what I have at home, though you have more Suns and I have more DECStations.


Paul

[QUOTE=DougTheSlug]

6 machines over 1ghz (duron 1.2ghz to athlonxp 2500)
20ish pentiums (p1,p2,p3) 75mhz to 450mhz (some running, some not)
3 macs (75 to 225 mhz)
3 sun (sparc10&20, ultrasparc2)

oh, I run winxp, win2k, debian, macos8.6

so, I now hope you think I'm crazy. :banana: damn, that banana is awesome![/QUOTE]
Just one quick question: how many of those machines you use to run Prime95? :whistle:

you may have noticed by the amazingly small number of posts on this forum, that I am new to this program.

I just downloaded the apps, and have been running them in torture test mode for a few days now. I have not registered with the network, and as such I am currently not contributing anything.

I have been running a dnetc client on my cluster for quite some time now, and last summer, I managed to be the largest contributor for a 3ish month photon rendering project using my top 5 machines.
[url]http://www.cpjava.net/photonproj.html[/url]
That was definitely pretty cool.

Once I get settled in with this, I will likely install and run a registered client for this on one of my machines. maybe even run it on the cluster. Give it a process and see what it does as it bounces around from machine to machine.

[url=http://www.geocities.com/g_w_reynolds/files/farm.jpg]Here[/url] is my little farm. The five small-form-factor computers range from P2/400 to P3/600, and are mainly used for NFS sieving. The tower in the middle is a Celeron 2.4 which mainly does stage one ECM with mprime. The tower on the right is a P4 2.4C (HT) with 1GB DDR500, it is the file and boot server, and does sieving and linear algebra for NFS and stage two ECM.

Nice farm.... Mine currently has a 1.8 ghz duron and 500 mhz p3 running plus regular machines but those are my farm really

Geoff, you just need the image to be under 100K.

1 - Opteron 170 is on the speaker (2.6GHz)
2 - Opteron 165s are on the floor. (2.5 GHz)
4 - X2-3800s are located in the black case and on the table (2.4 GHz)
1 - X2-4400 is in the silver case (2.4 GHz)
~40 gigglehurtz in a ~4'x4' foot print that gets fresh air from the window.
Runs on 2 dedicated 20 amp circuits. :showoff:
Out of the picture is a Mac-Mini (1.47 GHz) and an AMD64 laptop (2 GHz)

thats so wrong...

One question for every one having a farm in his living room:
Is the noise bearable?

Because of the HSFs that I use, I don't even notice them.
If you use those 7,000 rpm fans, you could here them next door ;)
Of course if you have children or pets (dogs, cats etc.) then, obviously running caseless like I do is not a choice.

Noise
 

[QUOTE=nngs]One question for every one having a farm in his living room:
Is the noise bearable?[/QUOTE]

LOL my farm is in the dining room.

But I *SLEEP* in the bedroom, so the noise does not disturb me.

[QUOTE=moo]thats so wrong...[/QUOTE]

I too feel something a little incongruous with that picture.

Surely a desk is for sitting at to use the computer and screen?

Ironbits why don't you take things vertically like in a rack then you will take less surface area and be less affected by dust.

If you can't afford a rack, drill holes in the wall and screw your motherboard risers directly into it LOL.

I used to have a PXE booting rack in my bedroom with 2 per shelf, using them 7,000 rpm rigs which eventually drove me nuts.

Here's a close up of what was on each shelf. Note the y-splitter. Thanks to swatkins idea and directions and my brother TeeJay and his eagle eyes who made them up for me. :smile: Each one was an XP2600.
I'll get around to dragging that rack back up out of the garage soon.
That's just the way it is currently.
My chair, where I sit in front of a 23" widescreen LCD for all my work and gaming pleasure, is just to the right out of the picture.
All I have to do is turn around and roll two feet.
I only use VNC to manage the pharm.
That 19" LCD is a spare which allows me, when the occasion presents itself, to physically bang on them with that KVM under the monitor.
I think that rack would look great up against the window tho, don't you?

if you dont want to drill holes in the wall then may i susgest
[url]http://metku.net/modgallery/detail.php?id=716[/url]
[ATTACH]1055[/ATTACH]

That's the best wall art I have ever seen! :grin:
That's PERFECT! :showoff:

found that pic a few years ago on the net....

[QUOTE=IronBits]That's the best wall art I have ever seen! :grin:
That's PERFECT! :showoff:[/QUOTE]

LOL I never thought of using duct tape like that!

You can also get it in say yellow and black stripes, or written on like "police crime scene do not cross" or "biohazard: dispose by incineration only".

Must admit, I'd feel safer with screws and rawlplugs in holes.

Imagine if one slowly came away and dropped on your head.

THAT is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time.

Welcome to my living room.

Nothing special here, just 10 P4s doing what they do 24/7/365.

I count 7 cases + 4 case-less PCs. :unsure:

[QUOTE=outlnder]Welcome to my living room.

Nothing special here, just 10 P4s doing what they do 24/7/365.[/QUOTE]

Do you still need a heater during the Winter?
What is the total power? 1.5 kW? over $100 on your monthly power bill, I guess :shock:

Just wondering: Are you guys actually buying these computers to create your farms?

I guess that is smarter than borging old machines, because of the performance per watt ratio.

do any of these farms span multiple circuit breakers:smile: ?

my 7+ computers (dont fell like counting) are on a shared 20 amp breaker i share it with my parents bedroom -_-
also a note dont buy a ceiling fan for your computer room unless you open the windows a lot... good for spring and fall -_-

Sorry for the delay in answering some questions.

1. Yep, counted wrong. There are 11 pictured. I have my main system in the dining room, for a total of twelve.

2. No, I do not need any type of heating at anytime. I leave my patio sliding glass door open all the time. Sometimes, like now, only open a few inches, but still open. I believe my last electrical bill was $105. But it does go into the $150s when I run the A/C in the summer.

3. Yes, I bought all of these systems used just to build a GIMPS farm. I am a member of the Ars Technica team, presently in 12th place there. I believe I would be in the top 102 if I was on my own.

4. Yes, these machines are on 2 different breakers, both 15 Amp. I am sure I am overloading them. I had to move the farm into the living room from the dining room due to the failure of the 20 Amp breaker there. My landlord was not pleased when the electrician came to replace the breaker and was informed of the reason of it's failure. I was told to remove it, so I removed it from the dining area into the living area.

what you do is put 2 or 3 in each room -_- that way theres minimal load on breaker.

i would put them in a noise proof room and import power from other circuits if necessary

Once there was a power failure in the middle of the night and I woke for no reason. Then I figured out it was too quiet. The pharm was down. I couldn't get back to sleep for quite awhile.

No noise.

[QUOTE=outlnder]Once there was a power failure in the middle of the night and I woke for no reason. Then I figured out it was too quiet. The pharm was down. I couldn't get back to sleep for quite awhile.

No noise.[/QUOTE]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

This is so called addictive.

I have only 4 machines running Prime95/mprime, and all of them are protected by UPS, so short-time power outages never stop them making noise :banana: :banana:

WHEN YOUR LIVING ROOM IS GETTING CROWDED, TRY THIS....

ELSEWHERE, Moo wrote

[QUOTE=moo]now you tell me but i dont worry about it because of a school computer lab is way overkill i mean each row of 6 computers has 2 20 amp breakers.... so your surge is more of a little draw.... the building is 50 years old at least and has been renovated beyond belif the incomeing power is quite intresting i have been to one of the transformer rooms, and i have to say when you have a transformer thats the size of a generator you think its funny but what really makes it funny is it powers a 6th of the building....

[ATTACH]1074[/ATTACH]

so thats a pic of the main campus so when you worry about power draw think of the a building with the equivilent of a substation in it.......
-_- its a big place[/QUOTE]



Moo, speaking of "it's a big place...."

I found a nice site for my new "farm".

It's only about a mile from my house which is convenient.

This building was built recently by LG Electronics as a production and distribution centre but they moved out and its now vacant.

[url]http://www.vigo250.com/location_aerial.htm[/url]

Checkout the pics and specs. 250,000 sq ft is a LOT of space.

Particularly useful is....

• 1000 Kva electrical supply with potential for much more

LOL "for MUCH more!"

• 40KN/m2 floor loading

needed to stack PCs up to

• 9.6m apex (5.4m eaves)

ALTERNATIVELY, I found something else. The interior looks a bit like some google headquarters. Actually the previous tenant was a dot com business.

[url]http://www.sandersonweatherall.com/main/propsearch.aspx[/url]

Select TOWN as "Newcastle upon Tyne"

In additional search details type "Victoria" short for victoria house.

That will bring up the property using some Javascript form.

Click on the link to the PDF of FULL details.

Sorry their javascript does not supply a no-hassle direct link to the pdf for you.

Very nice place, but then I wondered, would only 10,000 sq ft really be ENOUGH?

Nice place.... Wonder what power vault looks like.... The one from my school we kinda keep away from for the good sence that is a thousand years old and odds are it will blow up -_-

Switchgear
 

[QUOTE=moo]Nice place.... Wonder what power vault looks like.... The one from my school we kinda keep away from for the good sence that is a thousand years old and odds are it will blow up -_-[/QUOTE]

What you mean your building power system looks like this?

[url]http://www.alliedpaper.org/powerhouse3.html[/url]

This one is much neater.

[url]http://www.winona.edu/facilities/Switchgear.htm[/url]


And Moo I also think you will find "Subterranea Britannica" an interesting organisation. They go visiting many places underground, many of them secret installations ;-)

eg

[url]http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/s/swynnerton/[/url]

shows some switchgear.

Also browse ALL their adventures on the site ;-)

[url]http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/[/url]

I am sure at least some of these would make a very nice datacentre for a farm.

Here is another of their trips to an underground hydro power station ....

[url]http://www.corestore.org/cullswitch.htm[/url]

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_(UK[/url])

[url]http://www.freewebs.com/corshamsecrets/index.html[/url]

120ft below ground. 35 acres. 4000 people used to work there.

The best photos (from the MOD itself) can be found here:

[url]http://www.chocolatechipdesign.co.uk/nettleden/burlington/photos.shtml[/url]

[EDIT] Much more info at the BBC Wiltshire site:-

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/11/22/underground_city_interactive_map_feature.shtml[/url]

[QUOTE=Greenbank][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington_(UK[/url])

[url]http://www.freewebs.com/corshamsecrets/index.html[/url]

120ft below ground. 35 acres. 4000 people used to work there.

The best photos (from the MOD itself) can be found here:

[url]http://www.chocolatechipdesign.co.uk/nettleden/burlington/photos.shtml[/url]

[EDIT] Much more info at the BBC Wiltshire site:-

[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/11/22/underground_city_interactive_map_feature.shtml[/url][/QUOTE]

Thanks Greenbank, yes "Burlington" is a very nice site. I have known of it for a long time and been to that location personally, and we have discussed it even on mersenneforum :-)

Nice photos, but that fisheye lens really does my head in.

wow i love that lock me down there for a few months and throw away the key -_-
[url]http://www.chocolatechipdesign.co.uk/nettleden/burlington/photos/site3_49.jpg[/url]
that place is just cool and those venting ducts are massive see the little guy next to the fan ;)

Would be great if it ran GIMPS : [url]http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/messiest-datacenter-ever[/url] :D

[QUOTE=victor]Would be great if it ran GIMPS : [url]http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/messiest-datacenter-ever[/url] :D[/QUOTE]

Yes, a pity it runs SETI at home currently.

Although I think the nice shelving disqualifies it from "most messy farm".

That was Shady Seti's farm, from Overclockers UK. It's been broken up now, though at one point it did consist of 50+ machines.

I don't have any pics, although I built a shelf/rack thing that houses 5 caseless machines. Will take some pics.

INVASION
 

Does this seem familiar to anyone here?

[url]www.ibm.com/takebackcontrol[/url]

Not that I'm a big fan of Xeon (rather have Opteron) but thought it was funny like a growing gimps farm.

Anyway, when someone consolidates where do all these servers go? Good for gimps?

[QUOTE=Peter Nelson]Anyway, when someone consolidates where do all these servers go? Good for gimps?[/QUOTE]They go to places like this - check the photos down the page.
[URL="http://stores.ebay.com.au/Reboot-PC-Logistics"]http://stores.ebay.com.au/Reboot-PC-Logistics[/URL]

[QUOTE=markr]They go to places like this - check the photos down the page.
[URL="http://stores.ebay.com.au/Reboot-PC-Logistics"]http://stores.ebay.com.au/Reboot-PC-Logistics[/URL][/QUOTE]

LOL that's probably where IBM got their servers for the ad. There are places like that in the UK too.

Just substitute (prime) "crunchers" for "servers". Like Help crunchers are taking over my dining room, and the garage. And they're in the bedroom! Oh no I can't find a spare power socket!