New, well old, Case Project

[bum_jcrules]

I thought that I would share this with you all. It is a project that I am going to undertake.

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/bum_jcrules/ALR-Case-Project.html" target="_new">ALR Revolution Q-SMP Case Project</A>

As you can see I am going to take these two cases and play with them. I would like to get one of the systems up and running. Just to play with. I have about 256MB of 70ns EDO. I am not quite sure what the highest processor it can take. Both cases have a dual boards in them. Crazy inside there. I have 18 sticks of 64MB of ram in the one machine.(256 Odd and 256 Even) It looks like it only registers in even numbers. There are two banks of them. I am going to take all of the other RAM out of the second machine. It shold be a fun history lesson. I'll take some more pictures later. I only got them Saturday and will play with them tomorrow night. I'll update you then.

My buddy and I got a whole bunch of other stuff and will get a few systems running out of those parts.

2 AMD 700 MHz Slot A Athlons and brand new motherboards.

Got a Dual PPro motherboard with ??? how much memory. I haven't counted the chips nor looked online for the specs. It has one PPro 200 in it already. Man does that heatsink stink that is on it. It just pinches the side of the processor substrate. Truely Sad.

We might even set up our own Beowulf Cluster just for kicks. I have never set on up but my friend has. We are definately going to play around with a couple of the systems and make a Honeynet. We have a lot of homework to do, a lot of labor, and I am sure a lot of headaches. But it should be fun.

These projects are the result of our hard earned tax dollars at work. I finally got some of it back. :lol:

<b>"If I melt dry ice in a bathtub, can I take a bath without getting wet?" - Steven Wright</b>

 

[Crashman]

Damn, send me one of those cases and I'll mod it!

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[bum_jcrules]

Each case ahs a double 430W PSU just for redundency. Sick isn't it. It would probably cost a small countries annula income to send you one. They weigh a lot.

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/bum_jcrules/ALR-Cards.html" target="_new">Here is a few more shots of the parts and the inside.</A> Especially look at the memory riser card.

BTW: I was incorrect on the number of 120mm fans. I originally said they had 6 and one 92mm fan in the PSU. It is only 5 and 1. That is still a lot of 120mm fans. hehe

<b>"If I melt dry ice in a bathtub, can I take a bath without getting wet?" - Steven Wright</b>

 

[Crashman]

OK, I'll pick it up then, where do you live?

BTW, that's a standard form factor for servers, it's called a backplane, you could probably get newer processor boards for it.

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[bum_jcrules]

I would love to give it to you once I'm done with the projects. Akron, NY USA. It is just east of Buffalo. Cheap electric... The town buys as a collective. My highest bill was $50.00. Now everything runs on electric. (Heat, Water, etc.) Lowest bill $7.00+. The substation is 5 buildings away. Good stability in the flow of power to my place.

Anyway...

I am going to play with the first case and put dual 120s in it. I bought 4 boards /w 32MB of EDO and processors on EBay Tuesday for $27.99. Not bad for 4 bare systems. (MB, Processor, and Memory)

I am going to switch the 90MHz and the 120s for the first case. The second I am going to put the 4 boards plus a 5th dual PPro server board inside the other case. I garbage picked a monitor and a case with the fixings this morning. I haven't peaked inside it to see what I have to work with yet. I got it on my way to work. If it works cool. If not who cares, I'll throw it out.

So I am hoping to get both up and running. My biggest problem looks to be power supplies, power cables, power for each board from the house wall sockets, and monitor setups.

I might have to get one of those switches so I can toggle to each system (One of the 4) in the one case using one monitor.

Right now I have all of these systems in one small corner of my living room. (Or I will when I'm done.)

1. Celeron 333MHz - Win98SE - 256MB PC133

2. SGI R4k - Irix - ??? (I haven't looked at the guts too much yet.)

3. "Black Beast 1" Dual P120MHz - Win2000 or XP (Not sure yet) - 256MB EDO (Actually 512K but it uses odd and even banks so it only is 256MB)

4. "Black Beast 2" - Probably Win2000 - 32MB each EDO
3 P90MHz, 1 P75MHz, 1 Dual PPro 200MHz

5. PIII 650MHz Laptop - Win98SE - PC133

I might run the second "Black Beast" under Linux but that will be after I get it set up under windows first. We'll see...

When I have it all set up I'll take a picture.

Like I said before, space will be the biggest problem. I will have 3 or 4 monitors and one laptop. Way too much stuff in one corner of a room. But it can be done and I will try my hardest to get it done.

When I am done I should have a cluster in a box, a box, a laptop, a desktop and a SGI machine. I don't know what I am going to use the SGI machine for yet. It is just fun to have.

I'm going to try to document the whole process. Then I will put it together on a website.

Once Hammer comes out I might put one inside one of the cases and take out that the dual P120s. Time will tell what happens.

<b>"If I melt dry ice in a bathtub, can I take a bath without getting wet?" - Steven Wright</b>

 

[Crashman]

A gigabit network would be a great way to link those boards together. Anyway, the boards should support 66MHz bus speeds for 133MHz.

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