Return of the 4p

[jimh425]

My luck is getting somewhat better...that's good. The RMA return board from Tyan was tested by their support before sending to me. It works! I have ubuntu 10.10 installed and running as of last night with 2 additional 6272-16 cores on the way. Those should be here early next week. There doesn't seem to be any points uploading yet. It has completed WUs. No Kraken yet. It's currently drawing about 320 watts which is about what each of my quads use.

For those keeping score, I have a SuperMicro 4p that's not working that I've had for about a week. It worked a few hours. I will do more troubleshooting after I finish making my bench testing board. I did notice that it has two burned chips near where the front case fan was plugged in, but I noticed after I pulled from my case. There are two very small chips that look smoked. There appears to be nothing on the bottom of the board, and no contact with anything on the bottom of the section of the board. I suspect the huge case fan on the Enermax Fullmo GT.

I'm still waiting on the return board from Asus. They received it 3-9. Yes, I've spoken to them twice since then. They say they will call me back and don't. Still, no board. I guess another call is required Today.

I have 2 - 6128s that aren't doing work, so it isn't that bad for now compared to being completely down with no 4p and 2p since Jan. Maybe my luck has turned the corner.

[Maniac]

Grats... glad things are going a bit better!

[jimh425]

Another 4p is folding for 11314 now! I'll post some times in a while after it gets a little farther along. Curiously, it's hard to see if I have 64 cores or not. Top isn't big enough to display all cores, System Monitor only shows 32, but fah spawned 64 threads, so I'd say it is going ok with 64 cores.

Additional Comment:

I'm doing a 6900 which doesn't seem to be listed in the Folding@Home bonus calculator. Using 6901, at 7:22 per frame gives total points of 151K and a ppd of about 295K and I should complete in 12 hours total. So, I guess I'll find out how close that is to accurate in the AM. My guess is that it will be a little less than that.

For those curious, I'm using 590 watts based on the Kill-a-watt meter for this system with 4 6272s.

[Maniac]

590 watts? I think Jmossman said he pulls 810... if so, 590 is nice.

[jimh425]

590 is what the Kill-a-watt meter says. I haven't gone in to disable other components not being used like serial ports, extra nics, ipmi, etc., so I might be able to save a few more.

[PatonB]

No, I think jmon has to be pulling less than 800. The 62xx draw more power.

[Maniac]

Originally Posted by PatonB

No, I think jmon has to be pulling less than 800. The 62xx draw more power.

That's what I thought too....

[jimh425]

I've read that 62xx's draw more power. I was expecting 700 watts. It seems that some of the initial numbers for 62xx seem to be suspect given my results. I don't believe I've read a report yet that had a 61xx that was less than 600 watts for 4p, so the numbers reported seem to disagree with what I'm seeing.

Perhaps, the MB manufacturers have made some bios changes that helped deliver what AMD was describing as less power for 62xx compared to 61xx.

Additional Comment:

This article from Anandtech suggests that enabling cstates helps the 62xx procs which is why I'm probably seeing a little less power usage.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5058/a...erlagos-6200/8

"After some tinkering, the Opteron 6276 does quite a bit better and saves 17W (10%). The Xeon reduces power consumption by 3W, and the Opteron 6174's less advanced power management is not able to save any more power. So enabling the C-states is an important way to improve the power consumption of the Opteron "Interlagos" with ESXi 5."

[jmossman]

Yeah I'm pulling 620W or so using a kill-a-watt meter too. Nice to see the 62xx are doing so well on power. It's very strange to me that you would be getting a 6900. The 6900 and the 6901 are the same WU but the 6900 was the old -bigadv and the 6901 was the new version which gives more points. I can't think of exact numbers, never been too good with them, but you will likely get 15% or so less points than what it lists a 6901 at.

In fact the only time I ever got a 6900 on the 4p was when I was having trouble with my router blocking port 8080. Once that was cleared up it started picking up all 6901/6903/6904.

[jimh425]

Mine is back to 6904.