SM25 gets an upgrade??? Yesss.....

FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
edited December 2006 in Folding@Home
In light of the SMX project being so down and out lately, I have decided to give SM25 a little upgrade. The 1900+ Athlon XP that she was running is just too pathetic when it comes to processing Gromacs work units. So!

Meet SM25's new system specs!

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz (no overclock, stability required)
ECS P4M890T-M2
Muskin PC-3200 DDR RAM
80GB WD Caviar HD

Prof...let me know what I need to do with the old clunker SM25 parts. :)

~FA
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Comments

  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    Annnnnnnnnnd the FARM. Enjoy :)

    ~FA

    p6vpg2y.jpg
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    :wow:
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    eep....

    i fear that with an e6300, sm25 will be the top producer :eek3:

    *big brother SM18 has cpu-ness envy
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    SM19 is VERY angry with me this morning. I guess she read this thread and she emailed me some nasty messages.... I'll have to look into making her happy again. :(
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    That's an awesome donation, FoldingAddict. I'm very impressed!
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    Jeeminy Criminy! :wow2:
    FoldingAddict wrote:
    ...Prof...let me know what I need to do with the old clunker SM25 parts...
    If we have a Host with a lesser rig who would like an upgrade, we could save a few bucks from the SMx Fund by having you ship the stuff directly to them.

    Speak up, fellows. ;)
    primesuspect wrote:
    ...*big brother SM18 has cpu-ness envy
    ;D;D;D

    Maybe buying a fancy sports car would make him feel better.
  • Sledgehammer70Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    hmmm.. SMx 33 is feeling a bit shoddy with its AMD Athlon 3500+ I think It is time to look into an upgrade path :)
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    !!!HOLY COW!!! SM19 just emailed me again... She is adding my email address to every spam companies database!!!! STOP WITH THE UPGRADES.... SM19 may start appling for credit cards under my name and buy parts herself!!!
  • Buddha16Buddha16 Austin, Tx Member
    edited October 2006
    QCH2002 wrote:
    !!!HOLY COW!!! SM19 just emailed me again... She is adding my email address to every spam companies database!!!! STOP WITH THE UPGRADES.... SM19 may start appling for credit cards under my name and buy parts herself!!!

    Haha....SM36 just tried the exact same thing, but with the condition my credit is in she was only approved for spare parts from a 486/66, two 4mb and three 8mb sticks of ram....

    ....which i got in the mail today.
    memory.jpg
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Heh, I think I have a dozen or so of those around. All you need is about 32 memory slots, and you'd be in business!
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    That is a great upgrade, FA :thumbsup:

    I'll be curious to see what kind of production she will turn in. Be sure to post up some results on her folding prowness, because I have an e6300 just sitting in plastic at the house myself. If that rig does well with a mobo that uses regualr DDR, then that would be a cheap upgrade path for one of my old P4 machines I presently have folding.:)
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    the_technocrat wrote:
    ...All you need is about 32 memory slots, and you'd be in business!
    I have just the board for you! :D
  • the_technocratthe_technocrat IC-MotY1 Indy Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    profdlp wrote:
    I have just the board for you! :D

    LOL
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited October 2006
    Wow, what an upgrade. SM25 is going to be crunching wu's like no other soon. I love the pic also, very nice farm you have there.
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    Here's a question. What would make a machine barf up all the 2414s that it receives after only a couple of frames, but give it an 18xx series WU and it works fine? That's what I'm seeing out of this new hardware. I get early_unit_ends out of all the 2414s it receives. All other units seem to be fine though.

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    Damn, that's a strange one. Have you run memtest86 on it? Maybe it's accessing the memory differently than the 18xx series and encountering a problem in the ram.
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    That was my thought too Mudd...crappy RAM...I'll run memtest.

    ~FA
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    Wow....friggin errors all over the damn place! I am going to swap out her current RAM for something else and see if she'll take 2414s now. Course I'll have to wait for her to get one. This really bites though! I only ran it up to 35% and got 5 errors.

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    I've run into the crappy ram problem myself, FA. It really can get you to scratching your head because you are able to process some wu's and then others crap out. It's gotten to the point when I run into a problem with a rig that the first thing I do is run memtest on it now.
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    Well right now I am just trying a DIFFERENT stick of the same exact Mushkin PC-3200. If that doesn't work, I have some other Corsair or Kingston PC-3200 I can try, and if THAT doesn't work, I can switch over to some A-Data DDR2 that I also have.

    I appreciate the advice though Mudd! :)

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    I want to see what that puppy can do with ddr, FA. If it looks like that Allendale doesn't lose much with using ddr instead of ddr2, then I have a viable, cheap upgrade path for my presently unused Allendale at the house. I'm thinking that it should do well since ddr can run tighter ram timings than ddr2 and C2D doesn't seem to be nearly as bandwidth sensitive as netburst.

    If that works out, I can buy a board based on i865 that is C2D capable and still overclock it a little bit too.
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    I am looking at 41 minutes per frame on a 2133. If I could get off these stupid Amber units, I could tell if there is any difference between DDR and DDR2 with this particular board.

    41 m/pf doesn't seem that hot to me.

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    Those are some crappy point wu's, FA, but she is still averaging 133+ ppd on them. I figure that it's equivalent to at least a P-D 805-820 in speed with that production, but with much lower power requirements and heat output. Plus, that is totally unoverclocked too, from what you posted.

    I'm thinking of buying the ASRock 775i65G, which is based on the i865G chipset. You need to have a dedicated AGP card for 1066 fsb operation since the onboard video won't work at that speed, but that's no problem for the rig I'm thinking of upgrading. The system I'm thinking of upgrading has an AIW9800 Pro in it, along with some PC3200 OCZ Rev 2 Plats that are good for 2-2-2-5 timings up to around 220-225 MHz.

    I bet I can get to at least 310-320 fsb with that Asrock board and even if it can't, it should still fold better than the present setup, which is a Northwood 2.4 at 3.1. And all for around $50 for the mobo upgrade.:woowoo:
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    Yeah Mudd, SM25 is bone stock speeds. I can't get it to overclock at all, maybe I'm just not doing something right. I try bumping the FSB in the BIOS but it doesn't do anything to the clock of the CPU. I'll set it to 270 just to test, reboot, go into the BIOS, and it'll say 270, but below that it will say FSB: 266. I hate ECS haha.

    I'll have to wait for a 2414 to be assigned, right now SM25 is crunching two 1809s I believe. We'll see if it dumps the next units it gets. Also I might try some A-Data DDR2 533 RAM just to see if that effects folding at all. I doubt it will but it's worth a look since it's so easy to switch RAM out.

    Mudd do you know anything about overclocking ECS boards? It has onboard everything, and I'm using the IGP for video. But all that doesn't matter if I can't get the FSB to clock higher.

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    No, I've never owned an ECS board so I really don't know about overclocking them. Have you checked around at the OCF in the Intel mobo forums? Maybe someone there can fill you in on some ECS overclocking goodness.
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    I am beginning to think it's not the RAM Mudd. I have a machine with similar specs to SM25 (same motherboard/psu/ram/cpu combo) and when I VNCed into it today, I saw it had dumped 4 2414s in similar fashion to SM25. However, I am posting this on a 3400+ Sempron that is using the stick of DDR that came right out of SM25, and it's folding a 2414 without a problem (15% complete.)

    It seems like so far the only units SM25 and my other similar machine will fold are Ambers. :(:(:(

    ~FA
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    Try shutting down Folding, then deleting all the cores. FAH will automatically download new ones as needed. :)
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    I've already done that. Plus it's two machines with the same hardware doing it, I highly doubt it's software related.

    SM25 still hasn't gotten any 2414s since I swapped the Mushkin RAM with another stick of Mushkin of the same type. If it still doesn't work, I'll change to DDR2. If THAT doesn't work...well....something really weird is wrong.

    ~FA
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2006
    Any other odd happening going on with SM25, FA? Like any other kind of instabilities? Or odd crashes or lockups when installing the OS or drivers or anything else?
  • FoldingAddictFoldingAddict Montgomery, AL
    edited October 2006
    No that's the thing. Both SM25 and her sister computer with similar hardware are rock stable apart from them dumping 2414s over and over after about 1 to 4% completion.

    There is one oddity though. About 1 in 20 boots, the machine locks up on the Windows 2000 start screen. I would assume there might be a driver issue going on, but it's pretty rare, and once windows is loaded, it's stable in every other way. Never had it crash.

    ~FA
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