Updates 2021
Grid
Published: 2021-11-04

2021-11-04: More power

With temps continuing to drop outside, I’ve bumped the PPT on the 3950Xs to 80W, so they’re now sitting right at 60C with average clocks around 2.7GHz.

2021-10-20: node01 GPU upgrade

The GTX 1650 that I snagged arrived today and has been slotted into node01. That bumps its FAH EPPD from the range of 50-100k to 500k+.

Also, while node05’s 750 Ti is soldiering on, it’s become apparent that it should be upgraded as well. That’ll happen at some point after node04 gets taken care of.

Past that, I don’t think there’s any point to further upgrades until some new 75W cards come onto the market – assuming that they ever do. I guess we’ll see if the 3050 materializes, and what it looks like if it does.

2021-10-17: node03 memory upgrade / cooler news

Way back during the last machine upgrade cycle (which would have been the 3950Xs), all nodes were brought up to 32G of RAM – except for node03. I had always planned to upgrade it, either with a new 2x16 kit, or by using a spare 2x8 kit to bump it up to 4x8.

Somehow, that never happened until just now. The entire fleet is now at 32G of RAM, which is nice because it might not be too much longer before the 3900Xs get upgraded to 5950Xs.

Also, it’s very good news that it was announced this week that the AM5 socket will be cooler-compatible with AM4. Our NH-C14Ses will survive into the next generation of motherboards.

2021-10-15: Folding update

All nodes now have a GPU again. We’ve got 3 generations of Nvidia GPUs and a single type of AMD in play. Unfortunately the truth of Folding is that AMD cards are second-class citizens, and distant ones at that. Here’s what points-per-day looks like:

GPU EPPD Perf
WX 3200 102137 1.00
GTX 750 Ti 208602 2.04
GTX 1050 Ti 393550 3.85
GTX 1650 681477 6.67

So now that all nodes have a GPU of some sort, it’s time to do some upgrades and get the WX 3200s out of there. They’re really good workstation-class display drivers, but they simply aren’t great for the kind of compute Folding demands.

A replacement for one is already on the way: another 1650. It remains to be seen what the other one will be replaced with – but it’ll either be one more 1650 or one more 1050 Ti, depending on cost and supply on Ebay.

Current aggregate EPPD: 1.73M

2021-10-12: Winter is coming

And with it we have cranked our CPU wattage again. Currently we’re sitting on 65W for the 5900Xs and 75W for the 5950Xs. That’s getting us some nicely improved clocks.

Still need to figure out a better (physical) arrangement for the farm though. They simply seem to need more horizontal space; the nodes on the left end of each row run cooler and faster than their two row-mates.

2021-10-07: Tricentennial; Folding

Today we ticked over 300 years of compute for WCG.

Also, in the past month we’ve switched our GPUs from WCG to Folding@Home. OPNG WUs had been in scarce supply, but Folding always has work. We’re also starting a partial GPU upgrade cycle to get better efficiency. More on that later.

2021-08-15: node02 and OPN

Finally diagnosed and repaired node02 today. The problem: faulty SSD.

Since 02 is powered by a 3900X, that brings another 24 threads online. It also returns us to full strength crunching.

Coincidentally, today we hit 50 years of crunching for OpenPandemics.

2021-07-16: Back online

After a nearly two month hiatus (our longest break from crunching since 2017), we are back at almost 100% strength.

node02 is having issues, but we’re working on it.

2021-05-10: Sesquicentennial and more

In the past month, we have hit two major milestones: 250 years of compute, and one million WUs returned, both for WCG.

Also since the last update, all x86 nodes have been outfitted with GPUs as a result of WCG and the OPN team introducing a GPU-enabled version of AutoDock and thus GPU-enabling OPN.

As a result of that, we have halted work on all BOINC projects other than WCG, except that our GPUs are still crunching Einstein WUs when no OPNG work is available.