Reaper The Super Computer

[knowledgegranted]

Well as you have seen my other two mods were put on hold because of money problems, so I decided to open up this handy dandy new mod! This can never be put on hold because everything I need is right here in my house!

Its time for my attic of Pentium III computers to come and :fight:! I will be constructing a small army of Pentium III computers to become a cluster computing machine!

I have 4 dell L933r systems that will become peons to the actual head of the system which will be a server motherboard with dual P3 933MHz CPU's. Total cost of project so far $0.

So far I haven't even thought about the case the entire mess will be in but w/e its taken a couple of hours to install the OS's alone... That leads me to something else, it will be a windows XP Pro cluster, with MPICH2 as its MPI.

http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/002.jpg
http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/003.jpg


Day 1

Today, all OS's were installed except for the server motherboard which is still currently being pieced together. My mobile command center, which was my dining room tables is currently filled with computer parts.

http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/006.jpg
http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/012.jpg

The Server Motherboard:

http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/015.jpg

[chaksq]

I love the slot-type PIIIs on the server board! Good luck, keep us informed of your progress and let us know how you setup your cluster.

[knowledgegranted]

I would like to give some people thanks for the help with the build:

-Philippe Deslauriers
-Shane Farris
-NeverMind1534

Philippe gave me the idea by bringing and showing me the NASA cluster computer foundation.

Shane Farris, great with clustering with Linux and windows 2000, helped with a little research and basic questions.

Nevermind1534, spent his afternoon answering usless questions that helped me out but probably seemed stupid to him, and probably getting frustrated with me! :bash::lick:

[nevermind1534]

Nevermind1534, spent his afternoon answering usless questions that helped me out but probably seemed stupid to him, and probably getting frustrated with me! :bash::lick:

lol thanks

[knowledgegranted]

Day 2

I set-up two of the machines on a router and got the MPI on both of them, although it is not full configured yet I feel it is ready for a simple test. When I get the full computer going i'm gonna run it on some benchmarking program.

http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/018.jpg
http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/019.jpg
http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/020.jpg

Small Vid (http://gamerzrevolution.net/pics/021.AVI)

[The boy 4rm oz]

This is going to be awesome. I had an old slot load PIII laying around the place but I think I threw it out :(.

[tk421storm]

UNLIMITED POWER!

Impressive! I have no idea how you'll do it.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

So is this going to go together Tranquillity (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=717)-style? Looking forward to it - anything using P3s for a greater purpose is all good in my book.

[knowledgegranted]

Well actually I guess it will be, never seen that computer until you showed me that link, great pc though!:lick:

[h3moglobe0]

Hmmm Ok. I trolled around and question comes to my mind.
"What for?" It's somewhat linked to GRZ project I guess. I remember Helmer was used to render some gfx very well.

Good luck anyway. I wonder how much power it will eat up compared to FLOPS it offers.

[The boy 4rm oz]

In the very first post he says he is doing it so he can link the PCs into a cluster machine.

[cynosis]

Now I really want to build something like this despite having no practical use for it.

Awesome work though!

[knowledgegranted]

Tons and Tons of updates!

Well first I found a file cabinet in the attic I didn't used and decided that was going to be the housing for my cluster and so I got to work.

Many hours of cutting and measuring and re drilling later and you get this!
http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll86/kamoki11a/P6100012.jpg



As you can see there is another PSU and Harddrive in there, a metal plate will be layed over this and another motherboard will hang upside down.

The Actual cabinet itself:

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll86/kamoki11a/P6100015-1.jpg

Its definitely beat to Sh*t, but I guess a new paint job can fix the millions of scratches found upon its body. Also, I'm thinking of taking my first stab at air brushing on this one.

[The boy 4rm oz]

That is looking very cool.

[DonT-FeaR]

/\ ditto looks really cool

[madd0ct0r]

yummy. What are you going to do with the extra space in the cabinent?

Slide out monitor

[knowledgegranted]

yummy. What are you going to do with the extra space in the cabinent?

Slide out monitor

That brings on some good ideas, and the slide out monitor would be a good choice so I could access the different nodes without having to hook up a whole monitor to them.

For the extra spaces int he bottom draw, there will be the 25 port gigabyte hub and a cooling system that I will be putting in.

[Airbozo]

My question is "Why windows?"

For some good cluster info using Linux check out the ROCKS (http://www.rocksclusters.org/wordpress/) cluster home page.

I setup a 10 node cluster in less than 2 hours (minus of course the HW builds).

[knowledgegranted]

I have a telescope and the program that it uses to render the images only works on windows...I could do parallels, but it would dramatically take down the performance of the cluster.

I have built a Linux cluster before, yes , very easy. most compatibility too, but I need that program to run smooth.

[Airbozo]

I have a telescope and the program that it uses to render the images only works on windows...I could do parallels, but it would dramatically take down the performance of the cluster.

I have built a Linux cluster before, yes , very easy. most compatibility too, but I need that program to run smooth.

I knew there was a reason. I would be interested in seeing the cluster info for windows. I did it years ago for an SGI project but have not touched it since.

[knowledgegranted]

I'll get the info for the cluster sometime this weekend.


For now I painted it matte black cause the thing looked like sh*t, and I'm working on cleaning and installing the networking system.


http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll86/kamoki11a/P6110018.jpg

These motherboards are diiiiiiiirty!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll86/kamoki11a/P6110017.jpg

[The boy 4rm oz]

Looks much better painted ;).

[Airbozo]

Hehe, that last photo could bring a whole new meaning to computer farm...

[Axis Machine]

This looks like an awsome project I cant wait till its done I have been waiting for something like this keep up the good work. :banana:

[DonT-FeaR]

much better with the paint!

[nevermind1534]

These motherboards are diiiiiiiirty!

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll86/kamoki11a/P6110017.jpg

I've seen far worse than that.

[DonT-FeaR]

lol yeah same..
but still..

lots a dirt

[Mark_Hardware]

Love the idea of using a filing cabinet! way too cool