On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 05:18:04PM +0530, arjuna wrote: > Hello All, > > Thank you for your detailed responses. Following your line of thought, > advice and web links, it seems that it is not difficult to build a small > cluster to get started. I explored the photos of the various clusters that > have been posted and it seems quite straightforward. > The easiest/most straightforward way, if you have PC's in mini-tower / tower cases.
Get some strong wood / steel shelving (English trade name Dexion for steel shelving. Place your PCs four to a shelf. Route cables etc. down the back of the shelf. Allow plenty of space for circulating air. Add an Ethernet switch or two if needed. [Andy - who has four computers at his feet connected to a cheap KVM (Keyboard/video/mouse) switch and one Ethernet switch. > > The plan is first to simply create one using the old computers i have...This > can be an experimental one to get going...Thereafter it would make sense to > research the right mother boards, cooling and so on... > > It seems that I am going to take the plunge next week and wire these three > computers on a home grown rack... See above. > > A simple question though...Aluminum plates are used because aluminum is does > not conduct electricity. Is this correct? > No - for God's sake, if you don't know _this_ much, DON'T try and wire your own solution but leave your PCs in their cases. Jim Lux's solution uses baking tray-size aluminium sheets in a commercial kitchen trolley. Air cooled - but you need to be extremely careful about how you mount the motherboards on standoffs / insulate etc. and how you mount PSUs. > Also for future reference, I saw a reference to dc-dc converters for power > supply. Is it possible to use motherboards that do not guzzle electricity > and generate a lot of heat and are yet powerful. It seems that not much more > is needed that motherboards, CPUs, memory, harddrives and an ethernet card. > For a low energy system, has any one explored ultra low energy consuming and > heat generating power solutions that maybe use low wattage DC? > A lot of telecoms racks are wired for 48V DC - but by the time you've gone from AC - 48V DC + DC voltage drop + conversion the other way for anything that requires AC it's massively inefficient :( Car / lorry mobile equipment runs on 12 or 24V - but anything larger than a laptop usually needs a DC -> AC inverter and 110/240V AC out. Something like the Intel Atom dual core would work well - but it's limited in memory and I/O. The "Beowulf in a lunch box" used 12 Via mini-ITX boards - but it was designed as a fun project. > On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Mark Hahn <h...@mcmaster.ca> wrote: > > > What is 1u? > >> > > > -- > Best regards, > arjuna > http://www.brahmaforces.com Best regards, AndyC > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
