Interested In Making A Crack Rack For Myself

[jpeyton]

I'm curious about how to configure power supplies and hard drives.

Is it pretty easy to get a system to boot over LAN using another computers HD; is that even possible? Or should I get several cheap HD for simplicity?

Also, is it possible to use one or two large power supplies to power multiple barebones computers, or should I stick to buying several small mATX PSUs for simplicity?

The parts I have so far are several $40 Duron 1.6GHz/mobo combos from Fry's. Parts I will purchase in the future are some inexpensive 256MB DIMMs, and some hard drives/power supplies from your suggestions above.

I'll try to enclose it all into a custom wooden case with several 120mm fans for good airflow.

I assume that once I get the computers configured to boot up and crack, then I can shut them down, remove components like video cards, optical drives, etc., reboot and keep them going indefinitely.

 

[amdxborg]

There's some cool links here to give you a idea, like this one for the psu.

 

[jpeyton]

Sweet, thanks for the links. There's a lot of material to read that should keep me busy for a few days

 

[amdxborg]

Pleasure mate! Ask again if there's more you wanna know!

 

[jpeyton]

Looks like I need to learn Linux if I want to go diskless.

 

[amdxborg]

What project do you wanna run?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: amdxborg
What project do you wanna run?

SETI Classic is what I'm running now, so probably that.

 

[amdxborg]

Cool! Here (linux) you go and here and here (windows).

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: amdxborg
Cool! Here (linux) you go and here and here (windows).

That first link is excellent. Floppix sounds like the way to go. Thanks again.

 

[amdxborg]

lol Hope you enjoy it! Keep us posted on how it goes!

 

[RaySun2Be]

I'm using the FreSco Seti setup he mentions in the first paragraph of the first link on a dual setup. Very easy to setup and get running. Been running like a champ non-stop for 40 days now. Once in awhile I use the web browser funtion to check in on it.

FCO SETI on floppy:
http://members.shaw.ca/dan.mckay/fscoseti.htm

 

[Silverthorne]

You should try to find some cables like these. They are splitters and allow you to run two computers off of one power supply. I use 300w psu's to power two computers without any problems. They also make splitters for the 12v supply.

 

[jpeyton]

Great link Ray. So far that sounds like the fastest way to get a diskless cruncher going. Thanks!

 

[networkman]

I'm in the process of building a REAL crackrack myself. Through some screw-ups on my part, I failed to follow through on a promise made in 2002. :Q But, I've been fortunate to have been allowed by a fellow TeAmmate to rectify that mistake and make good on my earlier promise.

Great bunch of folks here at TA.. they even forgive you when you fail them.

Anyway, point is, I'm back in the thick of it and making one last stab at finally organizing "the basement" into a proper order. I promise to post pictures once the rack is done!

 

[Wolfsraider]

Wow
Great news can't wait to see it when your done

 

[Silverthorne]

Originally posted by: Silverthorne
You should try to find some cables like these. They are splitters and allow you to run two computers off of one power supply. I use 300w psu's to power two computers without any problems. They also make splitters for the 12v supply.

Just a bump, I'm wondering if anyone else is using these splittters that I show in this picture? I'm looking for some more and am wondering if anyone knows where to find some cheaper than this. They are the ones labled Y2020 and are an atx 20 y splitter. I do realize that the shipping is rather expensive here but gotta get some more FAD crunchers running.

More More More.

 

[networkman]

Thanks for the link -- that's $3.00 cheaper than the place I used last.

 

[Silverthorne]

Your welcome but it's $6.95 for shipping which seems expensive for one cable.:thumbsdown:

 

[kb3edk]

Hi jpeyton, I'm in the process of making a single "crack box" for myself just to try it out as proof-of-concept, here is what I am working on:

Mobo: ASUS A7N8X/VM 400 - $50 used on eBay
CPU: Athlon XP-M 2200+ (one of the very popular unlocked Bartons) - $78 on Newegg
RAM: Kingmax 2x256 PC3200 - $60 on Newegg
Video: none - mobo has it onboard
Case: Antec barebones, no PSU - $25 at CompUSA
PSU: CompUSA generic 400W - way more than is necessary but I upgraded my gaming rig to an Enermax, so this is a spare, and therefore $0.
Fans: Zalman CPU fan - only because I want to OC. $35 at MicroCenter. Two other generic 80mm case fans, $13 at MicroCenter. Asus didn't drill holes on the mobo to mount the Zalman but there are clearly marked foil patches where this should have been done, I'm thinking of having at it with a drill press when I get a chance.
Drives: no hard drive, it will have a CD-ROM and possibly (temporarily) a floppy drive in case I have to flash the BIOS Cost: $0, I have these lying around
OS: I am going to use Overclockix which is a modified version of the popular "Knoppix" Linux LiveCD, it has the Seti@Home and Folding@Home clients built in. The folding client starts on boot - the distro editor put in his own user name and team number for the client so I had to hack the disc image with an ISO editor, now it works fine. Haven't looked into the particulars of Seti on this LiveCD as I am mostly folding nowadays. Cost: $0
CPU/keyboard/monitor: I have these all lying around, I will use them to configure the box but eventually I want to go "headless" and just use VNC to keep an eye on it remotely. Cost: $0

So my overall cost is around $275 + junk to assemble this box, should be a great performer when I finally have time to put it together. If I learn enough in the process I might consider adding additional boxes later this year and start a "farm".

-Adam in Philly

 

[Coquito]

The shuttle an35n is the supreme OC budget socket a board. It retailed for about $50 new, but newegg doesn't seem to carry it. Pick up some cheap Rosewill 512 3200 instead, so you can use it in a future upgrade. I have simple little trident/mx440 video cards in my machines, since I'm not stacking them just yet.

 

[BofRA]

If you need a few A7n8X/VM's let me know I have a couple refurbs sitting around in boxes still. Only thing is there is no Overclock features on them. If you plan on overclocking I agree with Coquito to get some an35n's with pci video cards

 

[kb3edk]

Dangit, you guys are totally right. This A7N8X sucks for OC'ing. I was just thumbing through the manual this morning, and sure enough, there's not even a jumper on the motherboard where I can change the FSB. Time to get one of these Shuttles you're talking about. No matter how much I tried to plan this out I still wind up a n00b. Shoulda downloaded the manual *before* buying the board.

 

[BofRA]

Yeah unfortunately most AMD all-in-one MB's have very limited OC'ing capabilites. I believe there is a pin trick to change the mutliplier but that is about it.

 

[Brucifer]

This is all really interesting. At one point in time I was messing around with linux firewalls on floppies, then to burning them onto bootable cd's. Well the other night I had an unplanned power outtage about 1am, and even though I've got surprotectors on stuff, I lost a couple systems (harddrives). So I'm looking real hard at going either floppy, diskless, or from boot cd's loading into a virtual system in memory for my future crunchers. So hopefully people will continue to post their successes and failures in here so others can learn!

 

[Ken g6]

I used to run SETI on a bunch of hd-less machines off floppies. I still have the system I created. Based on LRP, it used FTP to get the SETI client and back up intermediate results. But it also only worked with certain Compaq network cards, and would probably require some changes to the Bourne shell scripts to make it work for you.

However, in the process, I developed a simple floppy system for HD-less crunching of sneakernetting SETI WUs. You need something to gzip with on your main machine, (7-zip works), and a Linux or Cygwin system would help. But it fits 5 WUs on a floppy, requires no monitor, HD, keyboard, or mouse, and you can rotate results and new WUs in and out of the floppy without shutting down the machine you're sneakernetting.

Anyone who's interested, let me know and I'll send you what I've got.