the ultimate cruncher

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: The Borg
Hi all,

As promised, pics of 'The Borg'. Be warned, they are large files. I have not cut the size down. Each about 1.5 meg. This will allow you to see the details nicely.

During construction of first phase - Rear view.

During construction of first phase - Front view.

Completed fisrt phase. Wiring mostly complete.

From bottom to top is Borg 01 - Borg 07.
Borg 01 - 06: P4 3.0 GHz machines, 256 meg RAM, 80 GB HDD. Intel boards so no OC :disgust:
Borg 07: AMD64 3500+ OC 2.475 GHz, 1G RAM, 80 GB HDD
8 port switch.

During construction of second phase - Rear view.

Completed Crack Rack - View 1.

Currently sitting in my daughter's room, but when she visits me every 2 weeks, she sleeps in my room. She is only 2 years old. Her comments to this monster is - "shoe-shoe"

Completed Crack Rack - View 2.

Close up of Borg 05 - 09, the switches and the wiring.

From bottom to top (of phase 2) is Borg 08 - Borg 12.
8 port switch.
Borg 08 - 12: P4 3.0 GHz machines, 512 meg RAM, 160 GB HDD - SATA. Mostly OC'ed to about 3.25 GHz

I still need to finish off the wiring of the second part, but I am waiting for a 16 prot switch and I need to put the second part on the gound next to the first part. As it is at the moment, the rack stands over 2-m high, so I cannot get it out the door, and it is not that stable.

The LED's and switches are just for ease of use and indication.

Well, that is what a 8000 or so credit's per day supercomputer looks like.

lol, the next time the wife complains about all my computer stuff. I'll show her your rig

 

[The Borg]

Lucky for me there is no longer a wife to complain. I lavish time on my rig.

The way I see it - I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do much else. So this is my hobby, entertainment and all. Why not spend a bit of money on it.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: The Borg
Lucky for me there is no longer a wife to complain. I lavish time on my rig.

The way I see it - I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do much else. So this is my hobby, entertainment and all. Why not spend a bit of money on it.

Absolutely. I drink, but not often (never every night, maybe every other weekend or so), but I don't go out to drink. I don't go places and I don't really do much of anything--I'm either at home or at work. So my entire time not at work is devoted to my machines and sleep (yes, in that order). My philosophy is that if you want something, and the bills are paid, get it.

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: The Borg
Lucky for me there is no longer a wife to complain. I lavish time on my rig.

The way I see it - I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do much else. So this is my hobby, entertainment and all. Why not spend a bit of money on it.

more power to ya..its a fun hobby.
when i look at the threaded rods going throuth the MB's I see tubing above and below
and of course the nuts immediately adjacent to the boards.
What is being used in between the nuts and the MB to insulate and also where the threaded rod itself actually passes through the mb is that insulated somehow?
Is that about 1/4 inch rod?
Are all the units accessed through one terminal/monitor?
how hot do they run open like that?
are the fans being held in by tension only?
not planning on building one just curious...did you follow some how to plan or just do it?

 

[The Borg]

Oh, lots of questions:

more power to ya..its a fun hobby.

Can't agree more!!!

when i look at the threaded rods going throuth the MB's I see tubing above and below

Yes, good old fashioned garden irrigation tubing. About 5-mm inside diameter. Nice insulator.

and of course the nuts immediately adjacent to the boards.

Yes, and washers either side of the boards.

What is being used in between the nuts and the MB to insulate and also where the threaded rod itself actually passes through the mb is that insulated somehow?

There is nothing between the nuts / washers and the board. Also nothing between the threaded rods and the holes. The way I see it, these holes are used (normally ) for mounting the mobo to the inside of the case. So there would be some electrical contact between the various holes and the case, which would also be earthed. So I did not see it being a problem. Proved so as well. These holes usually have a soldered area around them for some form of electrical contact.

However, on the top 5 boards, the 'front' holes (normally where the power, RAM and cables go) there are two holes with no 'land' area around them. On these, I used little fibre washers on the bottom board, and not washers or nut on the others. The are quite a number of tracks that go around these holes and I did not want to damage or short them.

Is that about 1/4 inch rod?

4-mm. They are 1-m long and I used about 100 washers and 100 nuts to build the first stack of 7 machines

Are all the units accessed through one terminal/monitor?

Yes. All networked - static IP addresses. I use VNC to access and monitor them. Works like a dream - never had any problems. I just have batch files on my main machine and run that to open VNC for that specific machine.

how hot do they run open like that?

The Intel monitoring program I ran on them a while ago indicated that the CPU fan seemed to be controlling the temperature at 64°C or there about. So if the ambient is low, the fans are very quiet, but if the ambient goes up, say 30° - 35°C, then it is quite a screamer. The original 6 P4's are 630's, the newer 5 P4's are 530's and they run a lot quieter and cooler. As long as there is air movement, it runs quite well. I have had no problems with the P4's. Then again, they are not overclocked (except the 530's). The AMD64 3500+ is overclocked about 14.5% and that gets a bit hot. Too hot and it stops.

Overall, you can feel the heat in the room when you walk in. Not uncomfotable, then noticable. Hey, it is a 1000W+ heater. Great for winter.

are the fans being held in by tension only?

They are held in place using cable ties around some of the threaded rods. I am busy sorting out a wood frame to put on the side where the hard drives are that will hold two 80-mm fans to blow in from the side. Fans bolted to the wood, wood tied to the threaded rods using cable ties.

not planning on building one just curious...did you follow some how to plan or just do it?

Here is the good question!!! No actual plans, just a good visualisation mind. I got to think about this many years ago when I was this site: SETI Stack and farm systems. I think some of you may have seen it. Got some ideas from there. The old machines I had where actually hanging under desks and the like. I love seeing things open.

It started off going to be 6 (top) and 6 (bottom) boards laying on their side - very compact. I check the specs for clearances above the CPU fan. If I remember, there was going to be about 90-mm between boards. I built the box and started with the boards. Then realised two things. It was very cramped. Almost no space to work, and it was HOT. Then after looking at the above site, I got the idea of the threaded rods. Started with that. Finally on the 3rd build, I got the layout and spacing as you see it. The boards are 120-mm apart - fan size, and I can get 8 on a 1-m rod. The plan is for it to be a double stack - 7 and 8 to give a total of 15, plus one spare outgoing spot on a 16 port switch, so all self contained.

Hope that answered your questions. Always find it difficult to explain my passion for this. Not many people understand the passion for the madness.:thumbsup:

 

[Hyperlite]

Awesome borg!

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: The Borg
Hope that answered your questions. Always find it difficult to explain my passion for this. Not many people understand the passion for the madness.:thumbsup:[/b]

hehehehe. No kidding. I'm glad I married someone who understands. Hell, Liz is the one that got me into this. It is hard explaining this to others sometimes though.

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: The Borg
Oh, lots of questions:

more power to ya..its a fun hobby.

Can't agree more!!!

when i look at the threaded rods going throuth the MB's I see tubing above and below

Yes, good old fashioned garden irrigation tubing. About 5-mm inside diameter. Nice insulator.

and of course the nuts immediately adjacent to the boards.

Yes, and washers either side of the boards.

What is being used in between the nuts and the MB to insulate and also where the threaded rod itself actually passes through the mb is that insulated somehow?

There is nothing between the nuts / washers and the board. Also nothing between the threaded rods and the holes. The way I see it, these holes are used (normally ) for mounting the mobo to the inside of the case. So there would be some electrical contact between the various holes and the case, which would also be earthed. So I did not see it being a problem. Proved so as well. These holes usually have a soldered area around them for some form of electrical contact.

However, on the top 5 boards, the 'front' holes (normally where the power, RAM and cables go) there are two holes with no 'land' area around them. On these, I used little fibre washers on the bottom board, and not washers or nut on the others. The are quite a number of tracks that go around these holes and I did not want to damage or short them.

Is that about 1/4 inch rod?

4-mm. They are 1-m long and I used about 100 washers and 100 nuts to build the first stack of 7 machines

Are all the units accessed through one terminal/monitor?

Yes. All networked - static IP addresses. I use VNC to access and monitor them. Works like a dream - never had any problems. I just have batch files on my main machine and run that to open VNC for that specific machine.

how hot do they run open like that?

The Intel monitoring program I ran on them a while ago indicated that the CPU fan seemed to be controlling the temperature at 64°C or there about. So if the ambient is low, the fans are very quiet, but if the ambient goes up, say 30° - 35°C, then it is quite a screamer. The original 6 P4's are 630's, the newer 5 P4's are 530's and they run a lot quieter and cooler. As long as there is air movement, it runs quite well. I have had no problems with the P4's. Then again, they are not overclocked (except the 530's). The AMD64 3500+ is overclocked about 14.5% and that gets a bit hot. Too hot and it stops.

Overall, you can feel the heat in the room when you walk in. Not uncomfotable, then noticable. Hey, it is a 1000W+ heater. Great for winter.

are the fans being held in by tension only?

They are held in place using cable ties around some of the threaded rods. I am busy sorting out a wood frame to put on the side where the hard drives are that will hold two 80-mm fans to blow in from the side. Fans bolted to the wood, wood tied to the threaded rods using cable ties.

not planning on building one just curious...did you follow some how to plan or just do it?

Here is the good question!!! No actual plans, just a good visualisation mind. I got to think about this many years ago when I was this site: SETI Stack and farm systems. I think some of you may have seen it. Got some ideas from there. The old machines I had where actually hanging under desks and the like. I love seeing things open.

It started off going to be 6 (top) and 6 (bottom) boards laying on their side - very compact. I check the specs for clearances above the CPU fan. If I remember, there was going to be about 90-mm between boards. I built the box and started with the boards. Then realised two things. It was very cramped. Almost no space to work, and it was HOT. Then after looking at the above site, I got the idea of the threaded rods. Started with that. Finally on the 3rd build, I got the layout and spacing as you see it. The boards are 120-mm apart - fan size, and I can get 8 on a 1-m rod. The plan is for it to be a double stack - 7 and 8 to give a total of 15, plus one spare outgoing spot on a 16 port switch, so all self contained.

Hope that answered your questions. Always find it difficult to explain my passion for this. Not many people understand the passion for the madness.:thumbsup:

thx for the info.
yes i understand your passion, its just plain fun to do!
If electricity wasn't so darned expensive here, I might be tempted to do the same.
but i figure my next build will most likely just be a quadcore...not a stack

 

[Ausm]

Holycrap your power meter must be going into orbit Nice rack!


Ausm

 

[Net]

Intel: 38.57 GHz
AMD: 8.22 GHz
Total: 46.79 GHz of pure CPU power

wow borg!

you should really look at http://www.mersenne.org/

"$100,000 to the first individual or group who discovers
a prime number with at least 10,000,000 decimal digits"

 

[Skip Da Shu]

Originally posted by: BlackMountainCow
@ The Borg: Any pics?

My 'cases' come from 'The Container Store'.

BTW, I've been the PIII for cheap route and my Texas summer A/C bill killed me. What's the best crunch for the $$$ changes every couple months at least. Back awhile ago it was 754 socket Semprons, IMHO. As soon as the X2 prices started dropping it was hard to beat them. Right now it's probably the C2D but the mobos that OC them well are still much higher than some of the cheaper AM2/939 mobos.

Now lemme see how I can link to a pick here...

basket stack

 

[petrusbroder]

Nice stack - and a good idea!

 

[The Borg]

The basket stack will be damn good for cooling.

I am waiting for the quad cores to drop in price. As I have mentioned before (maybe?) the more cores you have, the cheaper the setup - less mobo's, PSU, etc per core. Yes, the power usage goes up, but for the same number crunching ability, the cost is cheaper.

Thanks for the compliments guys.

It is amazing what you learn from building these monsters. I have never really put much into what people say about the importance of PSU's, especially since the babies in 'The Borg' should not be using much power (CPU, hard drive and not much else). However, I have had to replace about 5 or 6 PSU's because they have cause problems - machine constantly rebooting for no reason, tripping out the earth leakage, etc.