03 January 2009

New year plans

Just some plans for this year, so far:

  1. Install nVIDIA 9800GT cards in all the crunchers to allow them to do CUDA work
  2. Rebuild the KFSN4 machine and put at least 2 nVIDIA cards in it (possibly GTX260-216's)
Currently I have the one machine (Qui-Gon) running a 9800GT card - See prior posts regarding it. I have replacement power supplies for 3 of the 4 crunchers. I have another 3 graphics cards on order as well. So this should get point one completed fairly soon.

Qui-Gon has a "development" version of BOINC on it (6.5.0) which has a few issues, but at least the CUDA side of things behave. Its currently running GPUGRID in addition to its normal CPU-based projects.

Given my past experiences with the KFSN4 I will simply take the parts down to one of the computer shops and get them to rebuild it. It will probably become a Core 2 Duo or Quad machine who's main purpose will be to feed the graphics cards. Graphics cards use a fair bit of power and generate a lot of heat and therefore need lots of airflow (fans) to keep them cool which also means a lot of noise. This will get addressed once the other 3 crunchers have been upgraded.

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