Hi all

I've recently built what I beleive is the first Windows MCE PC that runs on flash memory (CompactFlash), and that can still record TV (onto my server) :D. Because of that, I've done quite a lot of work on running XP from compactflash and I think it's a great way to go for dedicated crunchers - it's silent, uses a tiny amount of power (and also therefore produces practically no heat), seek times are tiny, it's very cheap when compared to a HD and it's reliable.

If anyone's interested I'll write a simple how-to (the Flash write limitation is taken care of!). It'd be quite quick and easy to set up Rosetta running on XP on a 256MB compactflash - once setup it could even be cloned for different machines (licencing permitting!). Rosetta would have to be running from a mapped drive on a server machine, but you only need one server for as many crunchers as you like.

Network booting (PXE?) would be cheaper still, but my Linux knowledge isn't the best.

Also, I don't have time now, but I think it'd be useful if we had a thread on other suggestions for reducing the costs of DC, and if it looks useful it can be incorporated into the wiki.

The costs associated with crunching are generally small if running on existing hardware that would be running anyway, but are worth reducing if possible and we might well be able to help people to reduce their costs to lower than they would have been previously even without DC. The costs of running dedicated hardware are obviously unlimited.

I mean suggestions such as:

keep everything as cool as possible - especially the CPU - resulting in reduced electrical consumption.

When buying, consider the power consumption of the components - it's quite easy now as the consumption of most components is listed.

Items such as good thermal compound and good heatsinks have an initial cost but will pay for themselves over time.

cheers
Danny

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I posted this in the Science thread by mistake - replies copied over:

Tribaal:

Please, do write the simple howto, I'm definately building such a crunsher.

A simple question comes to mind: does your machine make the deadlines? I'm not really sure I understand where the processing power comes from...

- trib'
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dcdc:

Please, do write the simple howto, I'm definately building such a crunsher.

A simple question comes to mind: does your machine make the deadlines? I'm not really sure I understand where the processing power comes from...

- trib'

Sorry - wasn't clear - the compactflash is just a replacement for the hard drive (using an IDE to CF converter for ~£5 on ebay). Everything else is as standard.
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AMD_is_logical

What power supply did you use? I've found that Seasonic power supplies use less power at the wall than the others I've checked. (They have supplies claiming "up to 85%" efficient at Newegg.) But lately new power supplies have appeared that also claim high efficiency, sometimes including the "80 plus" certification.

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dcdc:

What power supply did you use? I've found that Seasonic power supplies use less power at the wall than the others I've checked. (They have supplies claiming "up to 85%" efficient at Newegg.) But lately new power supplies have appeared that also claim high efficiency, sometimes including the "80 plus" certification.

I'm going to put an order through on a Seasonic S12-430 tonight (would be quite happy with a lower power one but ebuyer only have that one) - I got the recommendation here:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article28-page1.html

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keep everything as cool as possible - especially the CPU - resulting in reduced electrical consumption.

Yes and no.

The increase in energy loss caused by the higher temperatures should be very little. Especially as their is a larger increase in the use of electircity to keep these things cooler in the first place.

So keep every thing to passively cooled hardware where required.
Drop the graphics card if your not using it (and the motherboard supports booting from it) else get teh graphics card to underclock and or drop the voltage and lower the rpm of the fans if it is capable.
Remove any speed/voltage tweeks that do not benefit your crunching time. (though it may have effects on you everyday gaming ;-))

Getting an extra 5% CPU speed increase doesn't really matter anymore with the newer credit system (though if you still look at or use other projects it does) since the variation of credit awarding if far wider than that.

Disable ALL unused onboard devices (such as network adaptors, floppy, serial/sound etc)

A dual core setup is more power efficient than a similar 2x computer setup with single cores.

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Team mauisun.org

There may be credit variance, but a 5% faster CPU will generally yield 5% more credit, under both the new and old credit system.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

There may be credit variance, but a 5% faster CPU will generally yield 5% more credit, under both the new and old credit system.

It should but the variation is that much you shouldn't (statistically) be able to notice.

Of course until they release the distribution histograms or curve fits we'll not know where the percentile ends up and how flat a top it is near the top at the middle of the distribution (that's if it does fit to a typical normal/gaussian/... distribution. hey I have no real idea of the shape other than from what I've sent in on Ralph)

P.S. I'm talking pure credit throughput here, not actual work done. Actual work done will be 5% faster than it would have been at a 5% slower crunching speed.

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Team mauisun.org