Few questions regarding 4P setups

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customminer

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Mar 17, 2014
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Hey,

I've got a few questions with regards to 4p setups:

1. Am I right in assuming I've not got enough room on an Supermicro H8QGL-IF motherboard for Noctua G34 120mm cpu heatsinks, but I do have room for 90mm heatsinks? Would I have any similar compatability issues attempting the musky cpu heatsink mod for g34 opteron cpus on this motherboard?

2. Are there very noticable improvements in gpu boinc computing efficiency between opterating systems? I've noticed at least a double efficiency running boinc (milkyway@home) on windows 7 64bit across 4 7950's vs the same hardware on windows 8.1 64bit. Would I see even better improvements when I move to linux for the supermicros?

2.1. Anyone have any tips in increasing RAC for 4*7950's above 200k?

3. Has anyone run into issues running 6 graphics cards on a supermicro H8QGL-IF with powered risers before I attempt it? I'll be using usb riser cables to move the graphics cards above the 48cores.

4. Any tips ahead of building another few 4P builds that I should mainly be aware of? Like ram timings that much of an impact on RAC?

When it comes time to building this behemoth of a boinc machine, i'll post a build log.

In the mean time, here's a quick preview of another system i'm running gridcoin mining/boinc on: http://imgur.com/a/nuYj3/

Cheers :)
 
I don't mine, so can only answer item 1:

I have Noctua G34 120mm cpu heatsinks on my H8QGL-iF+ and you cannot get a fan between the two tightly spaced CPUs. I used higher CFM fans on these two heat sinks to keep temps down.
 
In answer to 2.1, your 200k RAC for Milkyway with 4 x 7950s sseems quite low, I was hitting just over 100k with a mildly overclocked 5850. What sort of GPU usage were you getting on each card?
Oh...unless you meant 200k per card? In which case that seems much more reasonable. Again if your GPU usage is good (read:high), then that's great, if it's low there are some tweaks you can make. Memory clock makes no difference with Milkyway either, I dropped it way down on my 5850 to reduce temps/power usage a little and just OC'd the core, so that's something you could consider.

How you optimise your system will really depend what projects you intend to support. If you're mainly GPU-focused, you don't need all that much CPU grunt, although it's good practice to try and keep one core free per GPU to keep the GPUs fed with work. Again this depends, some projects need this more than others.

I haven't yet run too many machines across different OSes so I can't comment on which OS works best for which. I know some CPU projects are faster on Linux, but that's about all I know on that subject.
 
For question 1:

IMG_20111228_122235.jpg


These are CM 212+ HSFs on an H8QGL board. As you can see, you can get a fan installed correctly between the two tightly spaced heatsinks. The Noctua 120mm heatsinks are significantly thicker, which prevents the fan from fitting as rhavern mentioned.
 
musky said:
For question 1:

IMG_20111228_122235.jpg


These are CM 212+ HSFs on an H8QGL board. As you can see, you can get a fan installed correctly between the two tightly spaced heatsinks. The Noctua 120mm heatsinks are significantly thicker, which prevents the fan from fitting as rhavern mentioned.
Click to expand...

Hey cheers for responding guys :)

By the CM 212+, do you mean this? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooler-Mast...ie=UTF8&qid=1395505592&sr=8-1&keywords=CM+212 It's the CM 212 EVO.

Good to hear the noctuas will work, just that there isn't space for a fan between them.. because I bought 8 of them.. Phew!

The 7950's are only getting 80k RAC between them : /
Should I put the crossfire connectors onto them, or should they work on their own without crossfire?

My two H8QGL-if's just arrived, and i've got the heatsinks, cpus and ram for them! :D

I've just gotta find something to mount the motherboards on, then i'll make the frame for the GPUS to go onto them.

Think i'll also have to order longer usb 3 cables for it to work.

This build is going to be stupid fun; i'll definetley post a build log : D

Edit:
Think it'd be safe to mount the motherboard on wood with standoffs in terms of heat yeah?
Also, if I build it on a wooden base, think it'd be good for the cpus if I cut a hole in the wood below the cpu section to allow it to not build up heat?
 
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Just put 1" or more standoff's on it it will be fine, I have run several of the with 1" standoff's for quite some time, you will need to add some additional cooing to the vrm's around the cpu sockets they can get pretty hot. The ones at the back have heat sinks on them, they still run pretty warm, but the ones on the front by cpu 1 & 2 do not and are usually the weak link on the SM boards.

And yes musky is talking about the Cooler master 212's
 
Grandpa_01 said:
Just put 1" or more standoff's on it it will be fine, I have run several of the with 1" standoff's for quite some time, you will need to add some additional cooing to the vrm's around the cpu sockets they can get pretty hot. The ones at the back have heat sinks on them, they still run pretty warm, but the ones on the front by cpu 1 & 2 do not and are usually the weak link on the SM boards.

And yes musky is talking about the Cooler master 212's
Click to expand...

Think something along the lines of this will work for cooling the vrms?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ALUMINIUM-M...&qid=1395519836&sr=8-2&keywords=ram+heatsinks

edit:
Could you circle what components you're saying can overheat and i should be cooling?
SupermicroHTX.png
 
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customminer said:
Those are perfect!
A tad pricey.. but i guess they're totally worth it considering it'll lengthen the life of my boards eh?

Cheers for the heads up :)
Click to expand...

When I tried to get those heatsinks, no one had them in stock and some of us thought Enzotech was going out of business. I decided to use the larger BMC-C1 heatsinks:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5...14mm_x_14mm_x_14mm_BMR-C1.html?tl=c16s224b111

I ended up using them full size when possible (covering 3-4 VRMs) and I cut a few in half with a dremel. :)

 
brilong said:
When I tried to get those heatsinks, no one had them in stock and some of us thought Enzotech was going out of business. I decided to use the larger BMC-C1 heatsinks:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5...14mm_x_14mm_x_14mm_BMR-C1.html?tl=c16s224b111

I ended up using them full size when possible (covering 3-4 VRMs) and I cut a few in half with a dremel. :)

Click to expand...

Bought a couple of these, and a few packs of the single heatsinks.
I've built the rig and am now looking into operating systems to install. I'll post a video of the rig when it's up and running :)

edit:
I've run into an issue: There's a constant tone being emitted by the motherboard; this isn't documented in any manuals for supermicro.
I'm running memtest, and will then remove some fans as i've got splitters on the fans which i think it might not be happy about.
Other than that.. it might be the cpus? :S

Anyone run into these issues before?

It's able to get past post, and can run the ubuntu live cd setup, and currently is running memtest.

Cheers.

edit2: Yeeah.. it was cpu2 overheating.. i had left the heatsink protective cover on.. no more rig building at 4am for me.. :p
 
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Hey guys, me again - It's time the two naked rigs without gpus get chucked in cases, anyone know of any new cases that these mobos can fit in? The 4P case is US only, and many of the old suggestions are discontinued cases.
 
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