Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, farmpuma, just brew it!
AntiMagicMan wrote:Thinking for a minute about completely diskless folding farms, how many parts on a motherboard are completely useless. AGP slots, PCI slots, USB ports, PS2 ports, Video out ports etc.
What someone needs to design is a motherboard that simply contains a cpu slot, a memory slot and an ethernet port. That way you simply plug them in and they run using LTSP. Maybe some kind of general purpose diagnostics port would be useful for accessing the bios, but other than that I can't see what else would need to be on the motherboard.
just brew it! wrote:"Integrated everything" micro-ATX boards are dirt cheap if you buy last year's model. I seriously doubt that someone would be able to build a product like you're describing, and sell it for less... especially given that it would be a low-volume "specialty" item.
AntiMagicMan wrote:Does anyone have any ideas about the algorithms used in folding and what particular bit of the cpu does folding use?
AntiMagicMan wrote:Thinking for a minute about completely diskless folding farms, how many parts on a motherboard are completely useless. AGP slots, PCI slots, USB ports, PS2 ports, Video out ports etc.
derFunkenstein wrote:That's amazing, really...I'm quite envious.
Do the fans on the shelf actually move any air that really helps cool the crate down?
Haggis! wrote:Hey JBI, what if you moved the crate up onto the wire shelving where you have the fans? Your airflow is currently occluded on three sides, but by getting some space under the crate you might be able to get enough natural airflow up and through to eliminate the need for the fans.
TheDVDMan wrote:Would there be anyway to do this w/o a PSU for each mobo? Say, splitting the power connectors?
Haggis! wrote:TheDVDMan wrote:Would there be anyway to do this w/o a PSU for each mobo? Say, splitting the power connectors?
Yes. In fact my two SY7ISA+ boards are running off the same PSU. Depending on whether you have more time than money, or money than time, you can either build your own or order them prebuilt.
I'd be very, very careful about the PS you use. You're going to want to calculate what your load is going to be, and make sure you're not overtaxing it. I also wouldn't drive more than two MB's off a single PS.
TheDVDMan wrote:Could a system such as this be used to (very) quickly encode DVD->DivX? Are there distributed divx encoders?
Would there be anyway to do this w/o a PSU for each mobo? Say, splitting the power connectors?
Tell you what, you write that article, and I will build my own crate farm dedicated entirely to folding for team 2630.
wolfsonbr wrote:I have several spare systems that have parts missing sitting around that will network boot so this is a good use for them.
Dirge wrote:Do you have to worry about grounding these things.. lol
what kind of fire hazard do they pose not being secured in a metal case
pmeysemb wrote:I just ordered a couple super cheap motherboards from compgeeks.com to go with a couple unused tbird processors I have laying around here at work. My plan is a tad different since I seem to be blessed(?) with numerous small HD's and other junk.