Last updated 2001/05/02 16:00 UTC
1st appeared 2001/01/07 12:00 UTC
OS = Linux (RH6.0)
If you have several home-brew PCs, you might have imagined to use some software beyond the licenses you have. I can write this page without this problem with the favor of free distribution of PC unix, Linux. I cannot afford to use windows for many CETI-machines. Because I planned to make over 10 CETI-machines, cost of OS cannot be ignored. Second reason was , when I was planning this hobby-project, that setiathome clients on linux seemed to be faster than the ones on windows 9x/NT.
I used Linux (a variation of Red Hat 6.0, localized to Japanese and distributed as LASER 5 Linux 6.0) for all CETI-machines. Even if I could afford to use other OS, I would have preferred PC unixs to Windows variations in order to use available shell scripts, crond, ntpdate etc.
Processor = Celeron,etc. , Over Clocked.
Intel's Celeron was cheaper than Pentium and could be over-clocked +50% in average. AMD's processors were good alternative as far as the price was concerned, but they were not attractive because floatingpoint caliculation seemd to be slower than Intel's at the point of year 1999.
Now I have a question it might be better to use faster Pentium II or III for setiathome. With more cache memory on CPU chip, faster the analyser work. Total cost per one work-unit may become lower if I have used Pentium II or III. But, in 1999, I hated SLOT- type processors (like Pentium II) because it has longer signalling path than socket type processors have. Recently, I have less prejudice for Slot-type processors. Yes, they work well.
In Nov. of 1999, I decided to buy 10 Celeron processors and 5 Abit-BP6 mainboards at AKIHABARA(shortly pronounced as AKIBA). This was the start of my CETI-machine hobby project.
Less parts = Disk-less(Etherboot)
Disk-less is not essential to driving many machines for seti@home. I adopted this scheme because I didn't want to buy lot of small disks, I hate disk noise and because I felt wonder with "net-booting".
During 1999 and 1st quarter of 2000, I have been buying "new" processors and "new" mainboards, not a second-hand one. But, I didn't buy "new" hard disk drives. Why? Linux doesn't need big size disk for my purpose. Only 270M bytes disk is sufficient. Even in 1999, most of the new disks exceeded 6G bytes, and I looked for cheaper and smaller disks they were second-hand. But they were not so cheap as I expected. Cost per capacity is worse than new disks even if they were second-hand, I did not like it.At spring of 2000, I planned to remove these small disks from my CETI-machines. This plan has been interesting for me because Network-boot technique needs hardware related (but simple) procedures, and it looked to be a wonderful hobby task for me. In addition, I wanted to buy no more small disks that are useless for any other usage, nor to buy new big disks that are too good for CETI-machines.
If you want to know about disk-less machine and booting via LAN, use web search engines with the keyword "EtherBoot". I am using Etherboot and burned UV-EPROMs for LAN card(NIC). Etherboot images on this EPROM were prepared for some sort of NICs such as NE2000, RTL8139, etc., and available from the Internet. I assembled an UV-PROM burner using a kit from AKIZUKI-DENSI in japan. This kit costs 9000yen(about $82).
Less and less parts = Case-less, VideoCard-less
I am driving CETI-machines without cases. It is good for thermal problems, ease of frequent maintenance ( because of over-clocking) and space saving. But, dust seems to be accumulated easily on their mainboard.
Until I started to assemble CETI-machine with BP6, I have not realized the necessity and cost of video-cards. In 1999, second hand video-card(2MB VRAM) cost me about $20 (2000 yen in japan) in AKIHABARA. Another reason why I wanted to remove this device was the space it occupies. I dreamed a thin CETI-server that has only 7cm(2.7 inch) hight or less. Standard ISA/PCI Video card is 11cm(4.3 inch) high. So I did not want to use them.
Remove input devices = No keyboard, No mouse
Before this hobby project, I have had purchased many cheap keyboards and mice to try their feeling, but they are not only enough in amount for many ceti-machines(over 10), but also they would need wide space if they were connected to each of the CETI-machine.
I needed to remove them, but I had problems on this. Can CETI-machines without keyboard and video-cards work? Can they be maintained? These were resolved fortunate$B#l#y(J by two facts. (1) most of my mainboards has a BIOS option to ignore ALL-ERRORS including absence of video-card and keyboard, (2)Linux (RH.6.0) can boot-up without any video-card nor keyboard without any additional settings. It was lucky.
Yet , if machines require maintenance using BIOS setup, I must connect a video-card and a keyboard.
What remains? = MB,CPU,FAN,Memory,LAN card and Power Supply.
I cannot remove Mainboard, CPU, Memory, and Power Supply. I have no alternative for LAN cards (Network Interface Card) which enable resource sharing and network booting. FAN and heatsink are required for healthy operation of over-clocked CPU. I imagine FAN-less operation, and it will be a silent and nice machine, but it must be a slow one.
Lower cost parts = Second-hand or Junk parts, how they cost?
Collecting cheap parts is an integral part of this hobby project. If you want to race on the seti-rank only and have enough money, it is better to buy 1U-high thin servers racked for ISP or ASP.
My chance to collect cheap parts are, AKIHABARA shops, network-auctions, and big meeting of HAM(amateur radio enthusiast) such like HAM-fair in japan.
The table shown below contains example price at which I bought the parts and tools for CETI-client in AKIHABARA(japan) or Yahoo auction japan. Prices in $ are simply converted values(110yen=1$). Prices I wrote may hardly be found even in AKIHABARA unless you search cheap one carefully.
# Parts Name New product price in AKIBA Second hand price Auction price Example or size, etc
Notes 1 PC Main board
(Uni-processor)
$70..130,
7000..13000 yen
$50..65,
5500..8000 yen
$55..100,
6000..11000 yen
Abit BM6
AOpen MX3ZA
I choose MB using Intel's 440BX or ZX chipset for socket 370 2 PC Main board (BP6 for Dual celeron) $123,
13500 yen(1999,Oct)
$90,
10000 yen(2000,May)
$80..100,
9000..11000 yen
Abit BP6 Slot1 Dual cpu mainboard will cost more. 3 PC Main board
(Uni-processor)
- - $36
4000yen
ZM6 It is old, but can run FCPGA cpu 4 CPU Celeron 366MHz $55,
5700yen(1999 Nov.)
$33..36,
3600..4000yen(2000 Oct.)
$33..36,
3600..4000yen(2000 Oct.)
- most of 366 or 333 MHz can run on 100MHz FSB. 5 CPU Celeron 466MHz
$82,
9200yen (2000 May)
- - - Celeron 466 Mhz is hard to use on higher FSB than 80MHz 6 CPU Celeron 533A MHz
$85,
12000yen (2000 June)
$72,
8000yen (2000 Dec.)
$81,
9000yen (2000 Dec.)
- It works on 822Mhz on Tyan S1846 MB with CPU converter card. Only 1 sample. 7 CPU Celeron 566 MHz
$46
5000yen (2001 April)
-
- - 8 FAN and Heatsink for P54C - $1,
100yen
-
for classic Pentium CETI-machine will not work with such a small fan and heatsink in summer 9 FAN and Heatsink for PPGA CPU $10,
900..1000yen
$3.5 .. 4.5,
380..500yen(2000 Dec.)
$3.5 .. 4.5,
380..500yen(2000 Dec.)
for Cel. 360,466 Recently, FAN + Heatsink in Intel's CPU retail package can be found as second hand. 10 FAN 8cm square $5,
600yen
- - FAN for case I use this with the big heatsink shown below for BP6. 11 big heatsink $9,
1000yen(1999,Nov)
- - 1.8-3-3(inch),
4.5-7.5-7.5(cm)
With this heatsink, uni-processor machine may work without FAN in winter. 12 32M DIMM - $22,
2500yen(2000,Nov)
- SDRAM PC100
enough for uni-processor CETI-machine using Linux. 13 32M DIMM - $12
1280yen (2001,May)
- SDRAM PC100
Prices still go down
14 64M DIMM -
$36,
4000yen(2000,Oct)
- SDRAM PC100 enough for dual processor CETI-machine using Linux. 15 128M DIMM $44,
4800yen(2000,Dec)
$43,
4700yen(2000,Dec)
- SDRAM PC100 I use this for Windows machine. In Dec, 2000 the price came down to this level. 16 LAN card 10baseT, ISA
$7,
780yen(2000,June)
$4.5,
500yen
$4.5,
500yen
NE2000 compatible I found junk ones at 1$(100yen) in HAM fair in japan. 17 LAN card 10/100baseT, PCI
$20
2000yen (2000,Dec.)
$11,
1200yen(2000,Dec.)
- using RTL8139 chip If you want to boot via LAN, BootROM socket is required. 18
Power Supply, 250W for ATX $27,
3000yen
$14.. 24,
1500..2600yen
$9
1000yen
- 250W P.S. has big footprint. 19 Power Supply, 90W for ATX - $18,
2000yen
- - 90W P.S. is enough for my purpose and has nice small footprint 20 Junk 200W PS (ATX1.0) - $45,
500yen
- - only 1 of 3 I bought was operational. Other 2 PS didn't work. 21 Video-card S3 Virge PCI
- $14,
1500yen
- Diamond Stealth3D I use this only for BIOS setting 22 Junk Video-card PCI (1MB) - $1
100yen
- GA-DPCA
using CL-GD5434 chip
This card is used with Tyan S1846 that doesn't boot without video-card. 23 420M Disk - $14,
1500yen(2000,Feb.)
- WD AC1425 - 24
1.2G Disk - $39,
4300yen(1999,Dec.)
- WD AC11200 - 25 10baseT
HUB 16port
- $9,
1000yen(2000,Nov)
- Fujitsu, DH-16P2 10 base is enough for my purpose. 26 10baseT
HUB 8port
- $4,
500yen
- NEC, N4680-95
- 27 LAN cable (UTP 5) 1m $3,
300yen
$2,
200yen
- - - 28 UV-PROM Writer Kit $82,
9000yen
- - Kit from AKIZUKI DENSI You may be able to find a company that burn EPROMs instead of you. 29 UV-PROM chip $6,
600yen (2000..2001May)
- - 27256 I recommend UV-EPROM chips faster than 130ns. You can get 27256s from junk PCBs (eg. VL-bus Video cards) and they should have enough speed. But, be careful for access speed, if you got them from PCBs not for AT-PC card.
Thermal problems in summer = Big cooling fan for people
In last summer and also in this summer, I use big cooling fan for human (SENPUUKI in Japanese) to cool my CETI-machines. It's great!