monster farms for F@H & SETI

[elrado1]

That is a nice setup. Any info available?

[waynebot]

heres what i copy and pasted off Monsters and Monster Farms...

Configuration
Mainly XP1900+ on M814LR mobos, 128M DDR.


Comments
This is the Monster that generates most views and is also the most copied image of all the monsters on this site

The Rack
This came from RS - search for 519-087 and then navigate up a level to see the range of bits available. It's not cheap but is incredibly rigid and looks the biz. Sort of the Coolermaster ATCS of shelving. The best bit it that you get to assemble it by hitting stuff VERY VERY HARD with a rubber mallet. The adjustable feet worked very well.

The Power
I've been running one 8-layer module for a while so I know the power consumption. Yes, this sort of thing will always be expensive to run. I'm not short of money and have good reasons for wanting to do something rather self indulgent right now. I've always liked building complicated-looking things. I'd prefer to spend the money on this sort of craziness rather than e.g. a flashier car. Wealth warning - work out how much each WU costs and be honest with youself about how much you're prepared to spend on this 'hobby.' Don't spend more than you can afford just to keep up in the stats.
I'll be putting in a ring main in the garage, because things are close to the limit right now!
They don't auto power-on. However the power-on pins are wired to those panels of tiny push switches (bottom front of each block (apart from one I haven't done yet)). Connection is standard push-on molex sockets so something clever could be done later with relays if I felt like it. Woouldn't want everything powering-up at once, anyway.

Cooling
It's in a double length-garage - plenty of air volume but ventilation is poor. I currently use a pedestal and a desk fan. With the recent hot weather it's clear that I need to exhaust the hot air. I'm about to buy an extractor fan. Fortunately there's a window which is by a shady corner at the back of the house, so that should be a source of cooler air.
The CPU coolers are cheap but under specced for the processors. I've not had any problems yet, though.

OS and Boot
I had planned to go netboot, NFS etc. but impatience got the better of me. I managed to get a load of old IDE disks and NT4 licenses, so they're mainly Windows on local disk. The disks are in a 'cage' (ally angle) at the back between each block of 4 PSUs. I plan to experiment with Linux/WINE and NFS, if only to reduce the power consumption. Interestingly the M841LR mobos have an 'F12 for network boot' feature built into the BIOS.

Network
The two hubs at the bottom are cheapo Scan offers of the day: 16 port 10MBps hubs 18 quid inc VAT. The one at the top is a 10/100 MBps switch which is uplinked to a similar switch which the rest of my stuff uses. Internet connection is an ntl cable modem on a NAT router. I use SetiQueue on a UPS-protected PC.



:cheers:

[elrado1]

Thanks WB. Didn't realize it was from the Monster Farms site.