Vintage & unusual Computers on Einstein@Home

Stranger7777
Stranger7777
Joined: 17 Mar 05
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So, this is my 2cent in

So, this is my 2cent in vintage computing.

This is my workplace, or, if you wish, my computer lab.
Try to find here 12 computers working hard on E@H 24/7 on 9 square meters.

Main actors (from left to right):
1) (on the table) Core 2 Duo E6550 (2,33 at 2,93 GHz) - my work host
2) (on the 1st) P4-2.0 GHz (Northwood)
3) (behind the 1st) Celeron 2.66 GHz (Prescott) at 3.22 GHz
4) (behind 3rd - you don't see it, because it is laying on the table) - Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz - my older desktop preparing for sale.
5) (on the floor behind this table) Pentium 166-MMX (I promised to try it)
6) (next table behind my under the lamp) Core 2 Duo E6550 @3.2 GHz - my partner's comp
7) (On the right table) - Celeron 1200 (Tualatin)
8) (Behind 7th) - Celeron 2.8 GHz (Northwood) - my workers desktop
9) (Behind 7th, behind monitor) - internet firewall Pentium-75 - sorry, I will not try it, because of its importance.
10) (Under the workers table) - Pentium D 3,0 GHz - build for sale.
11) (you don't see them, because they are right behind right side of the picture, staying on each other) - Pentium 4 2,4 GHz (Northwood)
12) (under the P4 2,4) Celeron 2.13 GHz (Prescott)

P.S. I forgot to say "Thanx" to my old 10Mbits 8-port hub with 1 coaxial line. It works nowadays fine and serves comps on my table (except mine - it is connected to 1 Gbit D-Link) :)

Jim Bailey
Jim Bailey
Joined: 31 Aug 05
Posts: 91
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Thanks for the info! The

Thanks for the info! The first thing I do is go to the OEM site and download every document of interest on a machine. User guides, install manuals, red books, white papers, ..... everything! I spend a lot of time snooping through the IBM site. Downloaded the latest (bootable) version of the Server Guide Install CD last night, along with the install CD for their ServRAID controllers. (In this case it is a 4mx card) The HAL may be on the CD, but I didn't check. If you have the model and/or serial number it's easier to track stuff down. In this case the model number is 8687-5rx, that number gives you the original base configuration of the machine as delivered. It also makes it easier to track down any specific drivers or other related software, upgrades, ...... At other times it's just a matter of going through a long list of entries until you stumble across what you need! IBM has a good site, if they made it, you can find the info you need. It may take a while, but it's there somewhere!

Found the download for the HAL using the model number. Naturally it was on the last page of a list of 299 entries! :) I'll save the page for later download.

If nothing else I do have a copy of 2008 Enterprise on DVD. All I need to install it is a 12.7mm DVD drive out of a notebook. It's either install one of those or take everything apart until you can get to the IDE connector on the controller, plug in a long IDE cable and a extension for the power connector so you can use a 5.25in DVD drive outside of the case.

First WU's should return starting in about 9 hours. They are showing times between 37.5-51.5 hours

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
Bikeman (Heinz-...
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@Jim, IIRC you could buy a

@Jim, IIRC you could buy a second one and connect them via a special high-speed link to have a 16/32 way server :-).

@stranger: thanks for the photo and quiz :-), this really shows a ligh level of dedication to the Einstein@Home project. I really do hope you have some type of air-conditioning in that small room.

I've installed (well, dumped) my two vintage Dual PIII-S 19" servers in a small 2 square meter room and temperature is now around 25 deg Celsius there despite some modest flow of 10 deg Celsius cold air from outside.

CU

H-B

th3
th3
Joined: 24 Aug 06
Posts: 208
Credit: 2208434
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RE: hope you have some type

Quote:
hope you have some type of air-conditioning in that small room.


Was it intel who had researched on aircon power consumption in server rooms? For each watt your servers consume the aircon will consume additional 1.3 watts. 500 watts of computers means well over a kilowatt of total power, that would be an expensive hobby.

I have some personal experience in that area, a Prescott P4 in a airconditioned room had the mainboard dying and was replaced with a Pentium 3, powerbill dropped 25% for one month, the P4 was operational the first part of the month so the drop was actually bigger. I rather have a crunching rig run hot than to pay the aircon for it, as long as its stable, if it aint broken dont fix it =)

Jim Bailey
Jim Bailey
Joined: 31 Aug 05
Posts: 91
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Trust me, I've considered

Trust me, I've considered doing just that. Biggest problem would be to find the cables to connect the two 440's together. It takes the same cable as is used to connect the two SMP modules together, but they are longer. (And way more expensive!!!!!!!!) Anyone who might consider picking one of these up, make sure it has two (2) scalability cables with it. They are also known as SMP cables. Buying two 10 inch cables would cost more than you paid for the 'puter!!!!!! On ebay the 10 inch cables are $200-1500(US), apiece!

This room is 12x14 feet and full of computers and parts. Have no problem heating in the winter. Two box fans in the window for fresh air in, and 2 mounted in the door, one high and one low, to blow the heat out into the rest of the house. When the temp hits 90 F in the room everything is shut down. No AC in the house! :(

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
Bikeman (Heinz-...
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Cost is a different story,

Cost is a different story, but I'm not sure I'd want to be in a 9 square meters room heated up by 12 computers 24/7 :-). I'm not sure tho how literal stranger meant "this is my workplace".

CU
H-B

Donald A. Tevault
Donald A. Tevault
Joined: 17 Feb 06
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I've just found something

I've just found something that's extremely curious, and I'm at a loss on how to explain it.

Here's a guy who's running a fleet of old AMD K-6 machines. Now, I know that the fastest K-6's made were only about 500 MHz or so, yet, the benchmarks for these machines rival those of my K-8 3500+ machine that's clocked at 2.2 GHz.

Either something is very wrong here, or this guy has found a way to do some serious overclocking on these babies. (But, unless he's immersing them in liquid nitrogen, I don't see how he could be overclocking them by that much.)

DanNeely
DanNeely
Joined: 4 Sep 05
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I'm not sure what's going on

I'm not sure what's going on there, but look at the WUs DLed the 27th and returned the 28th on this host:

120hrs of reported work in 32 clock hours.

http://einsteinathome.org/host/1003844/tasks

If the hrs added up I might think it was a rougue optimizer, but those reported results smell of a quadcore to me.

If I had to guess I'd say that the K6 is being used to upload results done on disconnected machines. Spoofing the host hardware because of using engineering sample hardware and are under an NDA is also possible I suppose, but hacking a client to do so seems overkill. Given the very fractured time stamp pattern I have suspect that all 5 hosts are actually the same box.

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
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Sounds logical. It doesn't

Sounds logical. It doesn't even have to be an engineering sample, maybe he is using a company box which is behind a restrictive firewall so it can't upload. Wouldn't be the first time someone tries that.

DanNeely
DanNeely
Joined: 4 Sep 05
Posts: 1364
Credit: 3562358667
RAC: 197

RE: Sounds logical. It

Message 69813 in response to message 69812

Quote:
Sounds logical. It doesn't even have to be an engineering sample, maybe he is using a company box which is behind a restrictive firewall so it can't upload. Wouldn't be the first time someone tries that.

True, whoever it is is probably playing with fire though if true. If I did something like that on one of the disconnected boxes when the weekly audits busted me I'd find myself escorted off the premises immediately.

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