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Too Darn Cute - An Ode to Apollo

T

Tobit

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - March 2010/May 2011
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
Messages
5,145
Welp, here is my current project.

Apollo is a long time contributor to the [H]orde, one of the original members, who scaled back his farm a bit this past year after attaining 100 million points. I always considered him to be a friend and we used to chat frequently, mostly via PM, on a variety of FAH topics. When it came to socket 771 systems, I think he was one of the most experienced with the architecture. I always wanted to build a socket 771 system for running multiple classic clients in a single box provided I could find decently clocked CPUs, with a low TDP at a nice price. I have finally found some nice CPUs and thus the Apollo Project can begin.

Specs:

2x L5420 - 2.5 GHz Quad Cores, 1333 MHz Bus, 12MB L2, only 50W TDP! $20 for the pair!
Supermicro X7DCA Motherboard - Almost mATX in size at 10"x10"! - $40
2x 2GB Registered ECC DDR2-533 - FREE courtesy of Tear

I have some copper Intel heat-sinks on the way and hoping to get this build online soon. This board is too damn cute.

e0rjmt.jpg
 
looking good all you need is heatsinks and more RAM, keep the classics alive !
 
Nice! I hope APOLLO stops by to say hi
 
My LGA771 system is the complete opposite of that. Dual QX9775's @3.6GHz. Their TDP is listed as 150watts each in Intel's spec sheets. :eek:
 
Dan_D said:
My LGA771 system is the complete opposite of that. Dual QX9775's @3.6GHz. Their TDP is listed as 150watts each in Intel's spec sheets. :eek:
Click to expand...
what are you using it for? You might get some interest from folders looking for heaters this winter :)
 
How did you get this stuff for so cheap?!

Anyways, neat little build! Wanna hear how it goes

 
Adzsask said:
looking good all you need is heatsinks and more RAM, keep the classics alive !
Click to expand...
Well, I have 4GB now which should be plenty for 8 classic clients on Linux. They don't use much memory. Eventually, I want to collect around 12GB or so of DDR2-667 in case I ever want to run BOINC on this box.

colinstu said:
How did you get this stuff for so cheap?!
Click to expand...
Carefully searching eBay.
 
Nice setup, I've been thinking about buying one of those boards and using it as a lower power file server (than my G34 box).
 
That is a nice little folder. My old 771 socket setup is still chugging along nicely working on SMP WUs.
 
This project has been dusted off and will be folding by end of day. I just got the board to post and the free memory from tear is testing well. I need to fetch a hard drive from the gear closet and get Linux installed.

1pbg51.jpg
 
Good stuff! A fella on my team has a pair of boxen both with 2 x L5420's on a X7DWE. He performed the BSEL mod to get them running at 3.0 GHz. Folding SMP units, he says they pull about 200w AC apiece and get about 75-150 PPD/W depending on the WU.
 
Unfortunately, I am having problems. It will only post if I clear the CMOS but if I save even the default config to CMOS, it doesn't post. I can watch the keyboard and monitor initialize and then it reboots itself.

Scratching my head at this point.
 
Dead Things said:
Good stuff! A fella on my team has a pair of boxen both with 2 x L5420's on a X7DWE. He performed the BSEL mod to get them running at 3.0 GHz. Folding SMP units, he says they pull about 200w AC apiece and get about 75-150 PPD/W depending on the WU.
Click to expand...

I try BSEL modding those same chips on the board Tobit has... no go.

Heatsinks I have for them are a royal pain in the ass to remove/put on... been too lazy to take them back off, remove the tape, reinstall the chips and heatsinks.. and hopefully everything works still.

Darn chipset not being happy with a 1333 FSB :( (or DDR2 800 ram for that matter.. which I don't have).
 
Nice. I'm going to need to build an atx sized box to use as a heater this winter. Something like that might work.
 
Tobit said:
Unfortunately, I am having problems. It will only post if I clear the CMOS but if I save even the default config to CMOS, it doesn't post. I can watch the keyboard and monitor initialize and then it reboots itself.
Click to expand...
I think I fixed it, I had to clear the ESCD area and was able to boot a USB stick with DOS on it. CMOS configuration appears to be holding now but I am also going to flash the latest and final BIOS for it.
 
jebo_4jc said:
Nice. I'm going to need to build an atx sized box to use as a heater this winter. Something like that might work.
Click to expand...

Supermicro does have atx sized 2P lga2011 boards :D
 
Still having problems, it's now rebooting itself everytime I press the DEL key to enter BIOS setup. I don't understand why it would pass memory and CPU checks and do this.
 
Tried replacing the CMOS battery?
Seems it is finding some fault with the information stored (or missing) there.
 
Long CMOS clear maybe?

- Power down
- Remove AC
- Press power button to drain power from board
- Clear CMOS
- Remove CMOS battery
- Remove RAM
- Drink a beer and have a sandwich
- Replace CMOS battery
- Replace RAM
- Clear CMOS again
- Power on
- Knock on wood
 
Success! One of the DIMMs I got from tear is bad, it's working fine now with only one stick. Now to see if it will fold.

callisto ~ # uname -a
Linux callisto 3.1.0 #2 SMP Mon Nov 14 15:34:22 EST 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU L5420 @ 2.50GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Click to expand...
 
Ok, it is folding a newer A3 unit just fine. I am currently at 13%.

Stats:

Work Unit: p7512
Power Draw: 147W
Temps: 66-70C
TPF / PPD: 4:33 / 16,708
PP/Watt: 113.6

Little higher power drawn than I had hoped but I can probably drop a few more watts by switching to a small SSD vs. this WD HDD I am using now.
 
Dead Things said:
Good stuff! A fella on my team has a pair of boxen both with 2 x L5420's on a X7DWE. He performed the BSEL mod to get them running at 3.0 GHz. Folding SMP units, he says they pull about 200w AC apiece and get about 75-150 PPD/W depending on the WU.
Click to expand...

hey, that's me...

I have needed to remove the BSEL mod for now until I can do some testing to sort out why it's not stable any more (it was originally) Currently working on a P8049 getting a tpf of 1:08 (21,714 PPD) and pulling 170W from the wall. not bad at 127 PPD/W. It's a nice little system and the X7DWE is an ATX board too so it's easy to find a case for it.
 
Dropped the temps, noise, and watts. Yanked the 3x80mm case fans and replaced them with a single 120mm on top of the sinks. Now at 143W from the wall and 62C on all cores. 116 points per watt.
 
you sure got yourself a great deal on that setup, I can find the cpu's dirt cheap but that mobo is another story. Great setup. I wonder if it can fit in a micro case?
 
BLACK@BLUE said:
I wonder if it can fit in a micro case?
Click to expand...
Would depend on the case, some dremel work may be needed on it. The board is 10"x10" square which is just a tad larger than mATX spec.

I want to do another low TDP setup soon, stay tuned. :D

edit: I'd like to play with this cheap board on eBay. Just needs some custom PSU wiring done but it's no big deal and fully documented in the manual.
 
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Unius Legionis said:
Is this more PPD than you would see from a 2600k?
Click to expand...

Depends on the WU, and what OC you got on the 2600k, but I'd safely say "no" to it being higher w/ a dual L5420 setup.

IIRC, I was getting 30-36k ppd on my 4.4GHz i7-3820 which would be similar to a 2600k at the same clock.
 
Unius Legionis said:
Is this more PPD than you would see from a 2600k?
Click to expand...
If you are OC'd and running Windows, it'd be about the same PPD but you'd be consuming a lot more electricity. The 2600K can do twice this amount, however, but you'd have to run use Linux as your operating system.
 
Yeah, Linux in general, whether it is via the vmware image or actual install, nets so much more PPD compared to native Windows, it's ridiculous.
 
New memory has arrived from freeloader but my problems continue. Regardless of slot, I can't run two sticks in dual-channel mode. I can only get the system to boot with one DIMM. With two DIMMs installed, the system will post and pass memory checks but then automatically reboot itself as soon as memory checks complete. I don't understand. One DIMM works fine and the system is extremely stable when folding.
 
Ok, it's a memory rank issue. All the memory I've been trying to use is 4-rank. It appears this motherboard is only compatible, mostly, with 2-rank modules (with some 1-rank). Gotta love server hardware. *bangs head against wall*
 
I don't think ranks are problem.
My running with a least 6-ranks per channel (24GB total) :
IMAG0120.jpg
]
 
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