Motherboards for Diskless Folding
A few people on the TR Folding@home team are into "diskless folding". This allows additional compute power to be brought online with minimal investment in additional hardware and space. Suitable older motherboards can often be found quite inexpensively as clearance items, or as used/refurb boards.
A detailed description of how to set up diskless folding systems is beyond the scope of this post, and will be covered in a separate article. The purpose of this post is to document the suitability of various motherboards for diskless folding use.
The ideal motherboard for diskless folding has integrated video, integrated LAN, and an onboard network boot ROM; this allows the node to boot <a href="http://www.ltsp.org">LTSP</a> with no additional hardware beyond a CPU and stick of RAM. Micro-ATX form factor is also helpful if you are interested in setting up a high-density caseless farm (e.g. mounting the boards in milk crates or something similar).
If there is a board which you think should be included, send me the information via PM or e-mail and I will add it to the list.
Additional notes are at the bottom of the list.
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Board: DFI AM-33EL
Type: Socket A
Max FSB: 266MHz
RAM type & max speed: SDRAM (PC-133)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: 1
Comments: Have 2 of these; trouble-free in over a year of continuous operation.
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Board: DFI KM400-MLV
Type: Socket A
Max FSB: 333MHz
RAM type & max speed: DDR-333 (PC-2700)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: 2
Comments: There is also a MK400A-MLV version -- which I did not test -- which supports 400MHz FSB and DDR-400 RAM. Overall this board is a disappointment as a diskless folder. The lack of an onboard boot ROM for the integrated NIC is annoying (strike 1); the fact that you can't reduce the shared video RAM below 16MB means you need more than 256MB of RAM to accept large WUs (strike 2); and the VCore regulators make an intermittent whining sound when the CPU is under heavy load (strike 3). I would avoid this board for diskless folding.
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Board: FIC AM-37
Type: Socket A
Max FSB: 266MHz
RAM type & max speed: DDR-266 (PC-2100)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: 1
Comments: Have one of these; has been trouble-free in over a year of continuous operation.
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Board: MSI KM2M Combo-L
Type: Socket A
Max FSB: 266MHz
RAM type & max speed: SDRAM (PC-133) -or- DDR-266 (PC-2100)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: 1, 3
Comments: Have 2 of these; trouble-free in over a year of continuous operation. The dual SDRAM/DDR capability gives you some flexibility in using up any old RAM you may have laying around, and the large passive heatsinks on the voltage regulators may help with stability in cramped quarters (like my crate farm).
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Board: DFI K8M800-MLVF
Type: Socket 754
Max FSB: 800MHz HT
RAM type & max speed: DDR-400 (PC-3200)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: none
Comments: Bringing this node up couldn't have been smoother. POSTed successfully the first time, and passed Memtest86. Added it to the config on my LTSP server, and LTSP came up on the first attempt. Total time from taking the mobo out of the box to starting its first WU: under an hour, including the time to run Memtest86! My only minor gripe is that you can't reduce the shared RAM below 16MB (so no large WUs unless you install more than 256MB of RAM).
Additional comments (Sep '05): Just discovered that this board does not play nice with the "soft reboot" feature of LTSP 4.1.1; for some reason, network boot does not work right unless you physically power cycle the board.
Even more additional comments (Oct '05): Board does not recognize Palermo core Sempron64 chips (will not POST), even with latest BIOS. Have opened an issue with DFI tech support, requesting that they update their BIOS to fix Sempron64 recognition.
Update (Dec '05): Turns out the board is compatible with the Sempron64 after all. But for some reason, it won't POST when a 90nm Sempron64 is used in combination with certain PSUs. I have no idea WTF is up with that; it does not exhibit this issue when used with older 130nm Athlon64 CPUs (which actually use more power).
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Board: MSI K8MM-V
Type: Socket 754
Max FSB: 800MHz HT
RAM type & max speed: DDR-400 (PC-3200)
Form factor: Micro-ATX
Additional notes: none
Comments: Looks decent. Had to flash to BIOS v1.3 for proper Sempron64 recognition. Temperature controlled CPU fan header. Heatsinks on the VCore regulators.
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Additional Notes
1. Shared video RAM can be reduced to 8MB, allowing the system to accept large WUs even if only 256MB of RAM is installed.
2. No on-board network boot ROM. Diskless (no hard drive) operation is still possible via the onboard NIC, but requires at least a CD-ROM or floppy drive to provide a network bootloader.
3. No link/activity LEDs for onboard NIC.