4P Socket f (1207) Folding

B

Brother John

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 30, 2012
Messages
283
First off I want to thank tear and the others on IRC for the help I needed to get running.
Thanks for the [H]ard love.

I recently acquired a SuperMicro 1U Server H8QME-2+ Quad Opteron 8222 3GHz Dual Core 32GB server.
It was dead but after a lot of tinkering I finally brought it to life.
I ran it with the quad dual cores for a base line test.
I had bought 4 new Opteron 8376 he for it but they weren't recognized in BIOS so I DL'd the latest bios from SM, dragged out a spare floppy and hooked it up.
I ran the update and got a wrong ROM ID message. :(
After making sure I had the right BIOS, tear helped me to force the BIOS to load, success! :D
I installed all the quads and found zero loving when I booted up.
Finally after tinkering around some more she booted so I went to the task at hand, folding.

Results:

4 Opteron 8222 DC @ 3.0Ghz about 17k ppd @ 530 watts at the wall.

4 Opteron 8376 he quads @ 2.3Ghz about 38k ppd @ 415 watts at the wall.

Next move when the cash magically appears in my pocket or I find a sweetheart deal is to move up to 4 six cores.

Thanks for looking, your name and address have been noted and added to the homeland security watch list. :p
 
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You're most welcome.


BTW, weren't 8376 the quads... ?
 
Really shows how far CPU performance has come, a single i5-2600k oc'd to 4.5ghz+ will do 35-40k ppd. Congrats on the old school 4P build :)
 
You should hit up 'freeloader1969' as he does a bit of Socket-F folding. Good to hear you got things working.
 
If you upgrade to 4x 2.4Ghz hexacores, your PPD on smp will go up to about 70K PPD, but more importantly, you will be able to do 8101 bigadv. Your PPD on 8101 with 4 x 2.4Ghz hexacores would be about 123K PPD.

I am basing this off of TPF's from my 8P socket F loaded with 8 x 8431 2.4Ghz hexacores. I get about 42 second TPF on SMP for 196K PPD, 13:30 TPF 8101 for 350K PPD, and 9:52 TPF 8102 for 560K PPD. This is at 850W power draw at the wall.

The Motherboard pulls about 425W at the wall with the 8431's.
The Daughterboard pulls about 400W at the wall with the 8431's
 
Brother John said:
It was dead but after a lot of tinkering I finally brought it to life.
After making sure I had the right BIOS, tear helped me to forcethe BIOS to load, success! :D
Finally after tinkering around some more she booted so I went to the task at hand, folding.
Click to expand...

Entirely too much black magic you have with getting things to work! xD

What kind of tinkering and forcing are we talking about? :p
 
colinstu said:
Entirely too much black magic you have with getting things to work! xD

What kind of tinkering and forcing are we talking about? :p
Click to expand...

Often 'tinkering' is either swearing or threats of physical violence... at least for myself.
 
Actually I found that the MB had been splattered with some form of liquid that was spread around by the server fans.
So a lot of cleaning was involved and a lot of re-cleaning.
Then a bit of swapping ram around until they seem to find a slot they were happy with and pass the mem test.
Then I folded with the quad duals to see if it would blow up.

Then came time for the quads.
Fortunately I had only installed 1 of the quads when I discovered (suspected) BIOS might be an issue.
The new BIOS didn't want to install because of a wrong ROM ID during install.
It was the only BIOS that SM had for it so tear gave me the command to run the flash without it going through the ID check.
The worst that would have happened would mean buying a new chip.

I installed all the quads and had issues booting up once again so out came parts, some more cleaning and swapping ram around till it was happy once again.

In the mean time I wasn't all that worried as the replacement server will be here tomorrow.
Getting this one working is like getting a prize because all it cost me is time, cussing and knowing that it can fail anytime because it is hard to thoroughly clean anything with smd's.

Now I need some good CPUs for the second server. ;)
 
You have had this system for a few days.... we need pics!
 
Kendrak said:
You have had this system for a few days.... we need pics!
Click to expand...
Will these do? :p

5-20-10-7.jpg

2-28-11-1.jpg


You didn't say what kind of pics. :D:p
I'll take some later but it is stock not modified.
 
Socket F Folding is still pretty decent. My 24 core Socket F system was pulling anywhere from 120K to 140K PPD depending on the WU's and I basically put that system together for $600 (mobo/CPU's and ram). I'm moving on to Socket 2011 right now and sold my Socket F system :(
 
Sexy... and hot (literally) :p

8376's? Those aren't hex cores ;)

I'd be scared to see how those heatsinks would handle 4x 8439's :D (looks like ebay will get ya four of them for $400+ish)

Or you going to go the 8425 route?
 
Undecided at this point.
If I go 8439se 2.8Ghz I will definitely be changing the HSF.
I wonder what kind of points that would make.
The 8425he 2.1Ghz has great wattage but won't do bigad.
8431 2.4Ghz wattage is between the 2 and will do bigad.

I'll figure something out.
I have a twin of that server coming and will be here tomorrow.
I need to sell my HP dual quad that is in that last pic.
 
sweet jesus

stacked 40 MM fans...wow

I take it this beast does not live near people?
 
Brother John said:
If I go 8439se 2.8Ghz I will definitely be changing the HSF.
Click to expand...

Might wanna check out this and dig around this thread if you haven't already for Socket F + HSF modding ideas/techniques.

Brother John said:
I have a twin of that server coming and will be here tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Goodie!

Brother John said:
I need to sell my HP dual quad that is in that last pic.
Click to expand...

Yeah you do ;) I was gonna ask what that machine was rocking but saw all the drive bays... figured it wasn't going to be strong in the CPU department (not 4p).

Brother John said:
I'll figure something out.
Click to expand...
Can't wait to see what you come up with!
 
jojo69 said:
sweet jesus

stacked 40 MM fans...wow

I take it this beast does not live near people?
Click to expand...
Not in any room I hang out in unless it is to tinker with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

colinstu, I put dual Xeon 2.66Ghz CPUs in it and upgraded to 8 gig of new ram.

When I got it, it had a single quad and 4 gig of mismatched ram.
The VR was there for a second CPU but no heatsink.

It has 5 73 gig hdd and dual power supplies.
I'm sure I will turn a profit on Craigslist seeing some that offer less for more money have been selling lately.

I followed the Arima quad threads for awhile but decided against it, something that can run Windoze has better resale value.
I really wanted to go SuperMicro.
I had just missed that deal on the dual socket that had processors and ram for about $50 by just a few minutes.
But my heart was really set on 4P anyway.
 
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Brother John said:
I followed the Arima quad threads for awhile but decided against it.
I really wanted to go SuperMicro.
Click to expand...

Decided against what? Buying an Arima? For the love of god do not touch those boards, they sound like a pain in the ass and can only support Barcelona 8300's... no thanks :eek: It's very good you went with SM, much better board!

I only gave ya those links because of the guides for getting better heatsinks on your board. 4x CM 212's or similar are going to be handling those hot SE chips much better than the fanciest legit Socket F heatsink you can find.
 
I keep an eye on Geeks for HSFs and I can machine brackets for the 212 series.
I plan on modding sometime to quiet the systems down so I can move them where I can enjoy the heat.
I may even move them into open frame cases.

Thanks for pointing out the HSF mods but I already have it covered.
I even enjoyed seeing the musky mod for G34.

That Arima is junk for modding.
The guys have had issues with ram, CPUs etc.
But the threads about them on various forums were good reading.
 
Brother John said:
That Arima is junk for modding.
The guys have had issues with ram, CPUs etc.
But the threads about them on various forums were good reading.
Click to expand...

I was *this* close to buying an Arima off ebay. Made an offer, seller counter offered with $40 (and 15 for shipping). Very very tempting, and the CPUs can be had for cheap too (considering they're dustiest of the quad cores, but at least the B3 stepping fixes the TLB bug)... but the PPD just wouldn't be there, especially considering the power it would take.

The better chips you got running right now (and will be able to run in the future) make the 4P Socket F platform much more palatable! Plus, build guides are always fun :p

That Arima board had a couple big deal killers for me.

1) It can't run windows. So for the hot parts of the year where I'm not folding, I can't monkey around with Windows and all those cores... it would be limited to only linux. Whilst still functional, just not as fun imo.

2) Since it can't run windows, I couldn't appeal to the home/gamer market on craigslist if I ever wanted to sell that machine. I'm sure somebody would've bought that rig for fun. (and yes I know much better gaming systems could be had for cheaper, but still, it's a novel setup).

3) It's an annoying size and wouldn't able to fit it in a regular case. Again, hurts the sellability in ways and I personally like to have my rigs concealed and hidden away when I don't want to look at them.

4) Doesn't support 6 core chips. Nail in the coffin. :p

If a 850-1250w power supply fell from the sky and I could get good deals on the rest of the parts, maybe I could justify the adventure, but for now I'll just enjoy watching you! :)

(edit: what's your folding name?)
 
Brother John said:
freeloader, what CPUs where you using?
And do you remember the wattage used.
Click to expand...

I was using 8431's. The system used 470 watts from the wall.

I used the onboard graphics, a SSD and 8 x 800mhz ECC reg. memory sticks.

The biggest factor was my PSU for keeping the power draw low. I used a Corsair AX 850 PSU. With these 4 and 8 way servers, it's best to use a gold or platinum PSU for efficiency.
 
Brother John said:
If I go 8439se 2.8Ghz I will definitely be changing the HSF.
I wonder what kind of points that would make.
Click to expand...
Some 4 x 8439SE figures for you...

P6901: Avg. Time / Frame : 00:10:32 - 172,950 PPD
P8101: Avg. Time / Frame : 00:22:24 - 163,848 PPD
P8102: Avg. Time / Frame : 00:16:28 - 259,958 PPD

AC at wall on 80+ Bronze PSU ~ 540-560W.
 
Thanks for the input, Dead Things.
I like all sorts of info from varied sources.
I usually take my time to sift through all of it while hunting down good deals on parts.
It took me several months of reading before I even settled on the boxen I have.
Price usually dictates the direction I go otherwise I would have gone G34 but it would take me about a year to gather all the parts with my budget and I wanted to get going now instead of a year down the road.

I have turned off my other boxens for awhile to save on the power bill, need $$ for parts. :D
My former best boxen is a FX-4100 with a GTX-460 and is good for only about 20-22k ppd @ 320W.
 
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Well, my other server arrived and a quick look over looks good.
It doesn't look like it had anything spilled/sprayed in to it like the other one.
The handle is bent but an easy fix.
I'll hook it up tonight or tomorrow and make sure it boots in to BIOS.

11-01-12-1.jpg


The inside by the fans looks great compared to the other one and I didn't notice anything unwanted on the MB.

11-01-12-2.jpg


You can see the stain in front of the fans in this one.

10-31-12-1.jpg
 
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