Where computers go to die

[raxus13]

Hello. I am an ICT student and have been given the green light by my professor to basically go hog-wild with the campus lab as long as what I am doing is sorta educational. There are some 100 optiplex dell 300 and 700 pc's with wildly varying degrees of functionality. In addition to already installing windows 10 onto a 2008 iMac, I would really like to combine all the computers together into some sort of frankenstein-esque behemoth and use it to fold. I seek guidance. Right now my plan is to overclock the CPU's, install Ubuntu, use MPI to somehow use the processing power of the horde to run a fahclient, and maybe put some of that into a docker. I'm thinking if I don't do something unique like make a hive supercomputer or use ai to help manage it all, I wont be able to justify keeping the power switch on. For now I'm just going to try and bring as many computers back to life with ubuntu as I can, until one of you or I finally become insane enough to make this work.

[Joe_H]

Welcome to the folding support forum.

You will be able to run folding on individual machines, but MPI interconnects over ethernet are not fast enough for the folding core processing. The inter-thread data reconciliation would just take too long and slows processing way down. The folding core needs the speed of the hardware connects between processor cores or processors on multi-processor logic boards.

[raxus13]

It'll take me a while until I can solder together sockets into a logic board. I'll put that on the backburner. All I need is to wire them into a switch and remote desktop in. I can just add fahclient to the startup. What's the best way to overclock an old optiplex processor? How do I get the fahcontrol working on Ubuntu?

[bikeaddict]

The low end CPUs in Optiplexes don't support multiple socket configurations. Only higher end Xeons can do that.

The Optiplex BIOS and almost all Dells don't support overclocking.

[raxus13]

I looked into that. The multiplier may be locked, but supposedly the clock speed isnt. I was planning on using SetFSB to crank that up artificially. There was something else which sort of pulled the CPU to work harder by making it think it's too cold. I literally found a CPU loose in a drawer the other day so I'm not too worried about the safety of the hardware. What would happen if I tried to pin in a CPU into a breadboard? Performance aside what's to stop me from connecting a CPU to a motherboard using VGA cables, a soldering iron, and some bits of copper wire? Has anyone used this SetFSB thingy?

[bikeaddict]

Even older Intel core CPUs had over 1,100 pins. A breadboard isn't practical. Then the CPU would still need a cooler/fan securely attached to dissipate heat. Plus, the wire would need to be heavy enough to handle the current draw or it would glow red like a toaster burner and melt. The motherboard VRMs and PSU would need to handle more power.

An awful lot of effort to wire up some potato hardware that's too slow and inefficient to be useful anymore.

[toTOW]

If all the systems are of the same age of the Mac your mentioned, unless you have free power, it's probably not worth bothering with any of these for FAH ...

[BobWilliams757]

IF they will CPU fold and meet deadlines, the best use might be to get a few of them running and let them fold with the viewer running. It might stir up enough curiosity to get people asking questions and maybe get them involved in folding if they have sufficient gear.

If the school would let you sell some systems, you might be able to just build a more modern system to use for folding in the name of the school. Or seek donations for the same.