The circuit that runs my network is a dedicated 15 Amp, 4 outlet branch, using quality outlets. That will provide a max power draw of 1800 Watts. I installed it about a year ago. A brand new 1500VA UPS backs up the router, LAN switch, NAS, and the server. Total power draw is 450 Watts max, or about 3.7 Amps. The outlets are rated for 20 Amps. All the network equipment is on a high shelf with the outlets up above the shelf. No tripping hazards at all. The UPS gives me about 11 minutes of runtime, more than enough for an orderly shutdown. It is currently slaved to the NAS, I'll need another USB cable to tie in the server.
When outlets start getting mushy, that is, not holding a plug in place, I replace them. 3 years ago, the entire upper level of my home had all the outlets and switches replaced.
I configured the server with some headroom, although I would install the second power supply if I wanted to increase the throughput. Too bad there is only room for a single graphics card in this box, a 1U blade. :)
The circuit that runs my network is a dedicated 15 Amp, 4 outlet branch, using quality outlets. That will provide a max power draw of 1800 Watts.
I used to have that at my old house, it would run 6 normal pc's but when I'd plug in a 7th pc the circuit would pop, that was with a gaming level gpu in each pc. When my new house was built I specified 20 amp circuits everywhere but the electrician said NO and only did a few places, like 4 outlets in my computer room. each with a 4 outlet plug, and then some where I plug in my laptops and in the kitchen. I'm guessing the electrician didn't want to upgrade the panel but I am not sure, he wouldn't even discuss it with me. I bought a home in a neighborhood but since I bought the lot before it had a home on it I was able to change alot of things inside the home before it was actually built. One thing I did get was a whole house surge suppressor inside the main electrical panel, that helped eliminate all the individual surge suppressor strips everywhere. Lightening hit my neighbors house and a few neighbors said they got big surges and lost a few things, I didn't even have a circuit or pc go out at all and I'm the closest house to the one that got hit. I had one retrofitted into my last house and it worked great as well.
I got my first electric bill today, since adding the server to my "fleet" and I was pleasantly surprised to only see a $30 USD increase in my energy bill. I was expecting a much larger number, especially considering the string of hot days we had. We have 4 window mounted AC units running full out during the recent heat wave, keeping the house at a dry comfortable 74 F.
This winter, when the temperature in the laundry room drops to the low 60's, I'll push the throttles up on the server to get a few more tasks running. At 55%, it can run 14 consecutive tasks (12 CPU, 2 GPU). Theoretically, I should be able to get ten more, although my initial tests at full throttle were less than successful. I'll need to monitor power consumption and validation results as I slowly increase CPU utilization. I added a processor and removed one of the redundant power supplies so the box might not have the power capacity to fully utilize all the cores.
I also want to reconfigure the RAID array on that box. It has 4 300GB drives in what looks like a RAID 5 configuration, with about 830GB of usable space. I'd like to convert that to RAID 10, sacrificing disk space for speed. (I'm only using about 100GB.)
I have run a number of servers over the years and ran into some of the exact problems you are seeing. As mentioned by Gary, there is a learning curve switching to Linux and you will loose tthrottle and possibly other win apps that have no equivalent.
power: If you have a 220 outlet available it can make a difference in efficiency as I discovered here
win7: you can still do the free upgrade to 10 if you want. Micro$oft pretty much takes over your systems if you do that but the drivers are better plus the antivirus / security is fully supported else I would revert back to 7 on older systems.
Heat: I would enable hyperthread and use as many as possible. If overheating then downclock. I found that a change from 3.06 to 2.667 made an incredible difference in temps. This can be done with %processor power in the windows power/sleep app. Check using cpuz and adjust 1 step down at a time while watching temps at full load.
GPU: your system has a pair of gen-2 PCIe slot. With older graphic boards you should be able to use a 4-in-1 riser adapter and run a pair of gpu on each slot using risers. Einstein and SETI work nicely with x1 risers as it seems the entire work-unit can be kept on the video board and not paged in and out constantly. The risers can get their power from the 12v SATA supply so nothing is pulled from the motherboard. If you click on that link above and scroll down you will see a plot of 7 gpu where I used a single 4-in-1 splitter to add additional gpus.
Adding a 220 circuit would be very simple as the breaker box is only a few feet from the server shelf. Unfortunaltly, it would require ugrading my brand new UPS to a (much more expensive) 220 version.
I'll probably migrate to LINUX before upgrading to Win 10 on my Boinc fleet. I have LINUX running on my other box using Boinc Tasks to administer both machines. If this desktop I'm using now gets upgraded, I'll need to move to Win 10 Pro, but this machine isn't part of my fleet.
Heat doesn't seem to be an issue with the DL360. It's a 1U blade which is staying within temperature specs, the cooling fans running at about 54%. HT is enabled and the OS is set for optimization of processes, rather than programs. I'm currently running with a processor utilization of 55% giving me 12 concurrent CPU tasks, and 2 additional GPU tasks. The processors are a pair of XEON X5650's running at 2.66 GHz.
The server currently employs one NVIDIA GT1030 graphics card, which is a single slot, physically and electrically. I suppose I could put another card on the other side of the riser, but there is less real estate on that side. Leaving the cover off is not recommended by HP, so for now, I'll live with a single card. Unfortunately, the two cards which do fit inside, are on the slow side (the GT710 was painfully slow). NVIDIA has a card which looks like it would be ideal, however, it is only being released to the Japanese market.
I may have an opportunity to acquire a DL380 Gen 8 in the near future. That box has much more room (3U) to add a nice fast graphics card(s).
Good points. The circuit
)
Good points.
The circuit that runs my network is a dedicated 15 Amp, 4 outlet branch, using quality outlets. That will provide a max power draw of 1800 Watts. I installed it about a year ago. A brand new 1500VA UPS backs up the router, LAN switch, NAS, and the server. Total power draw is 450 Watts max, or about 3.7 Amps. The outlets are rated for 20 Amps. All the network equipment is on a high shelf with the outlets up above the shelf. No tripping hazards at all. The UPS gives me about 11 minutes of runtime, more than enough for an orderly shutdown. It is currently slaved to the NAS, I'll need another USB cable to tie in the server.
When outlets start getting mushy, that is, not holding a plug in place, I replace them. 3 years ago, the entire upper level of my home had all the outlets and switches replaced.
I configured the server with some headroom, although I would install the second power supply if I wanted to increase the throughput. Too bad there is only room for a single graphics card in this box, a 1U blade. :)
Matt White wrote:Good
)
I used to have that at my old house, it would run 6 normal pc's but when I'd plug in a 7th pc the circuit would pop, that was with a gaming level gpu in each pc. When my new house was built I specified 20 amp circuits everywhere but the electrician said NO and only did a few places, like 4 outlets in my computer room. each with a 4 outlet plug, and then some where I plug in my laptops and in the kitchen. I'm guessing the electrician didn't want to upgrade the panel but I am not sure, he wouldn't even discuss it with me. I bought a home in a neighborhood but since I bought the lot before it had a home on it I was able to change alot of things inside the home before it was actually built. One thing I did get was a whole house surge suppressor inside the main electrical panel, that helped eliminate all the individual surge suppressor strips everywhere. Lightening hit my neighbors house and a few neighbors said they got big surges and lost a few things, I didn't even have a circuit or pc go out at all and I'm the closest house to the one that got hit. I had one retrofitted into my last house and it worked great as well.
I am winning!!!
mikey wrote:... I am
)
I think you might need a new GPS. Your current one seems to have lost track of where you are! :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
Gary Roberts wrote:mikey
)
I think you are right!!
I got my first electric bill
)
I got my first electric bill today, since adding the server to my "fleet" and I was pleasantly surprised to only see a $30 USD increase in my energy bill. I was expecting a much larger number, especially considering the string of hot days we had. We have 4 window mounted AC units running full out during the recent heat wave, keeping the house at a dry comfortable 74 F.
This winter, when the temperature in the laundry room drops to the low 60's, I'll push the throttles up on the server to get a few more tasks running. At 55%, it can run 14 consecutive tasks (12 CPU, 2 GPU). Theoretically, I should be able to get ten more, although my initial tests at full throttle were less than successful. I'll need to monitor power consumption and validation results as I slowly increase CPU utilization. I added a processor and removed one of the redundant power supplies so the box might not have the power capacity to fully utilize all the cores.
I also want to reconfigure the RAID array on that box. It has 4 300GB drives in what looks like a RAID 5 configuration, with about 830GB of usable space. I'd like to convert that to RAID 10, sacrificing disk space for speed. (I'm only using about 100GB.)
It gives me something to play with this winter.
I have run a number of
)
I have run a number of servers over the years and ran into some of the exact problems you are seeing. As mentioned by Gary, there is a learning curve switching to Linux and you will loose tthrottle and possibly other win apps that have no equivalent.
power: If you have a 220 outlet available it can make a difference in efficiency as I discovered here
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=84265
win7: you can still do the free upgrade to 10 if you want. Micro$oft pretty much takes over your systems if you do that but the drivers are better plus the antivirus / security is fully supported else I would revert back to 7 on older systems.
Heat: I would enable hyperthread and use as many as possible. If overheating then downclock. I found that a change from 3.06 to 2.667 made an incredible difference in temps. This can be done with %processor power in the windows power/sleep app. Check using cpuz and adjust 1 step down at a time while watching temps at full load.
GPU: your system has a pair of gen-2 PCIe slot. With older graphic boards you should be able to use a 4-in-1 riser adapter and run a pair of gpu on each slot using risers. Einstein and SETI work nicely with x1 risers as it seems the entire work-unit can be kept on the video board and not paged in and out constantly. The risers can get their power from the 12v SATA supply so nothing is pulled from the motherboard. If you click on that link above and scroll down you will see a plot of 7 gpu where I used a single 4-in-1 splitter to add additional gpus.
Good tips, thanks for
)
Good tips, thanks for that.
Adding a 220 circuit would be very simple as the breaker box is only a few feet from the server shelf. Unfortunaltly, it would require ugrading my brand new UPS to a (much more expensive) 220 version.
I'll probably migrate to LINUX before upgrading to Win 10 on my Boinc fleet. I have LINUX running on my other box using Boinc Tasks to administer both machines. If this desktop I'm using now gets upgraded, I'll need to move to Win 10 Pro, but this machine isn't part of my fleet.
Heat doesn't seem to be an issue with the DL360. It's a 1U blade which is staying within temperature specs, the cooling fans running at about 54%. HT is enabled and the OS is set for optimization of processes, rather than programs. I'm currently running with a processor utilization of 55% giving me 12 concurrent CPU tasks, and 2 additional GPU tasks. The processors are a pair of XEON X5650's running at 2.66 GHz.
The server currently employs one NVIDIA GT1030 graphics card, which is a single slot, physically and electrically. I suppose I could put another card on the other side of the riser, but there is less real estate on that side. Leaving the cover off is not recommended by HP, so for now, I'll live with a single card. Unfortunately, the two cards which do fit inside, are on the slow side (the GT710 was painfully slow). NVIDIA has a card which looks like it would be ideal, however, it is only being released to the Japanese market.
I may have an opportunity to acquire a DL380 Gen 8 in the near future. That box has much more room (3U) to add a nice fast graphics card(s).