Waste Not, Want Not

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wbiz
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Waste Not, Want Not

Post by wbiz »

I run a number of websites of which a small number are on a Raspberry Pi 4 home server. Being a 99.9% empty kind of guy I have a spare RPi4 in case my RPi server self-destructs, I thought it about time I put the spare to good use instead of collecting dust so it is now busy running 4 cores for Rosetta 24/7.

I'm amazed there isn't a Raspberry Pi team but I've done my bit in the past so I'm not daft enough to start one. So here I am with UBT.

Currently running boinc-client 7.14.2 which I guess I should update but as its the first Raspberry Pi I've set up as 64-bit I'll make sure everything runs smoothly before I get ahead of myself.

wbiz
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damienh
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by damienh »

Hi wbiz,

Welcome! I've not tried crunching on a Pi before; best of luck.
Woodles
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by Woodles »

Greetings.

I think the lack of a raspberry Pi team is probably due to their relatively low output, they're not that popular for crunching. It's usually cases like yours, you already have a Pi and decide to use it for Boinc as a second thought.

In my case, I've ran a few Pis a while ago, mainly on Einstein and WCG, but a dual core laptop easily out produced all four of them. Having said that, they were perfectly capable of running the BU ASICs when they were around, technically, I managed to get over a billion credits a day from a Pi model B :lol:

They're not one of the highest credits per hour hosts but they are one of the highest credits per watt hosts.

Mark
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Hi

Nice to have you on board. I was going to say a bit more but Mark said it better!

Mike
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UBT - Timbo
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi wbiz

Welcome to UBT :-)

As far as using a Raspberry Pi for BOINC goes, Mark has pretty much summed it up.

I've had an original Model B since it first came out and I had a play with it, but it's basic processor could not really crunch much on BOINC - it was just a little too under powered to make any significant impact on BOINC - unless you had a couple of hundred of them ;-) .

But over time, things have changed quite a bit and newer Pi's have got half decent processors in them, more RAM and they still run off just a few watts per hour. I've even found some really neat case assemblies you can buy and create a "super-Pi computer" using multiple Pi boards and run it as a "cluster":

https://thepihut.com/products/cluster-c ... 6b91&_ss=r

But, if you really want to make a bit more of a difference, how about a case for 96 Pi nodes making a really big Cluster?:

https://www.hackster.io/news/bitscope-c ... 935888bf25

Or maybe going BIG TIME, try 3000 nodes?

https://www.servethehome.com/bitscope-r ... cores-30u/

regards
Tim
wbiz
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by wbiz »

Wow, thanks for all the responses, I've run forums for a number of years and they are very much a dying breed, its really good to come across ones that aren't dead

Yes, I realised a Pi isn't going to be a big contributor but there are a lot of them out there not doing a lot most of the time. Boinc can only utilise the CPU cores not the GPU.

The Pi4 is in a different league to its predecessors, once I get it settled and stop messing around with it I'm expecting about 1300 credits a day which isn't bad for less than 10W of power plus I have the bonus of a little hand-warmer,.., its running at about 60°C 140°F with 4 cores flat out.

I suspect because of its memory-channel bottleneck it might get the same throughput on three cores instead of four which would make it more efficient, I had a batch of tasks which were very similar, they took 28000 seconds each when running four cores and 21000 seconds each running three cores, which might indicate I might get a very similar throughput on two cores.

Anyway I got my first quadrillion floating point calculations within 24 hours, which was unimaginable a few years ago.

I've got a lot of PC's sitting around but our electricity bill is high enough without running any of them 24/7.

Cheers folks
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homefarm
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by homefarm »

Hi and Welcome

It's a good team, hope you enjoy it.

RE: Currently running boinc-client 7.14.2

I'm pretty sure that it is a 32 bit version, not that it matters too much I suppose.
One of its major uses in Primegrid, or any topic using double checking tasks, is that this version does not preload multiple tasks. It only loads for the next task needed just before current one completes.

Latest BOINCs all suffer from over pre-loading, and it certainly is difficult to prevent using other methods. This results in potentially losing a first claim result, which in Primegrid and a prime number, is vitally important. I recently reverted to 7.14.2 from 7.16 series purely for this reason. My "first" percentages rose markedly. :D

Regards

Richard
wbiz
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by wbiz »

homefarm wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:08 am Hi and Welcome

It's a good team, hope you enjoy it.

RE: Currently running boinc-client 7.14.2

I'm pretty sure that it is a 32 bit version, not that it matters too much I suppose.
One of its major uses in Primegrid, or any topic using double checking tasks, is that this version does not preload multiple tasks. It only loads for the next task needed just before current one completes.

Latest BOINCs all suffer from over pre-loading, and it certainly is difficult to prevent using other methods. This results in potentially losing a first claim result, which in Primegrid and a prime number, is vitally important. I recently reverted to 7.14.2 from 7.16 series purely for this reason. My "first" percentages rose markedly. :D

Regards

Richard
I installed 64-bit RPiOS(beta) because I "was told" rosetta didn't have any 32 bit tasks, I'll check if my boinc-client is 32 or 64 bit - I never thought of questioning that. I know boinctui and boinc-manager run happily on 32-bit as I have used them to remotely access my boinc machine.

I have two other RPi4's running 24/7 on 32-bit RPiOS, I guess if there are 32-bit tasks and a 32-bit boinc-client I could donate a core or two from them as well.

Fine on primegrid, my degree is in maths so I have an interest in supporting those type of tasks however for the moment my target is to do anything I can to support Covid related tasks and I'm kicking myself for not rosetta months ago.

My prediction of 1300 credits a day has been hit by lack of memory, I had a lucky spree of four cores running when I made that prediction but the current tasks take more memory. I have swap very limited intentionally because its running off a HDD at the moment and swap would be a performance hit, I have an SSD winging its way towards me and when I install that I will experiment with increased swap settings.

Thanks for your input.

Andy
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homefarm
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by homefarm »

I installed 64-bit RPiOS(beta) because I "was told" rosetta didn't have any 32 bit tasks, I'll check if my boinc-client is 32 or 64 bit - I never thought of questioning that. I know boinctui and boinc-manager run happily on 32-bit as I have used them to remotely access my boinc machine.

I have two other RPi4's running 24/7 on 32-bit RPiOS, I guess if there are 32-bit tasks and a 32-bit boinc-client I could donate a core or two from them as well.

Fine on primegrid, my degree is in maths so I have an interest in supporting those type of tasks however for the moment my target is to do anything I can to support Covid related tasks and I'm kicking myself for not rosetta months ago.

My prediction of 1300 credits a day has been hit by lack of memory, I had a lucky spree of four cores running when I made that prediction but the current tasks take more memory. I have swap very limited intentionally because its running off a HDD at the moment and swap would be a performance hit, I have an SSD winging its way towards me and when I install that I will experiment with increased swap settings.

Thanks for your input.

Andy
Hi Andy

SSD will be a nice jump in performance. What do the Rasps use, Sata or Pcie, or either?
wbiz
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by wbiz »

homefarm wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 2:08 pm Hi Andy

SSD will be a nice jump in performance. What do the Rasps use, Sata or Pcie, or either?
We normally use SATA over USB3 for the RPI4 but there is a bottleneck in the architecture which limits speed to around 380MB/s, still hugely faster than HDD or the default SD cards. For the same reason it is pointless using NVMe SSD's as you get near enough the same speed but with a lot more electricity and money wasted.

Kingston A400's are my SSD's of choice, very cheap and ultra-reliable, they work well in PC's as well but there are much faster options for PC's. On the RPi4 we have a limit of 1.2A load on the USB ports (total), I can have two Kingston A400's connected with a keyboard and mouse and stay under that power limit so there is no need for another power supply.

We have a lot of problems with non-UASP compatible USB3-SATA adaptors (most Jmicron chipsets), which not only slows down SSDs to USB2 speeds but also stops the ability to use TRIM to enable full wear levelling on the SSD's. Most adaptors with Asmedia chipsets work ok. Unfortunately these items are often badged and you can never guarantee a particular model will always have the same chipset inside. Eluteng used to be my favourites but reports of bad batches have pushed me onto Ugreen ones.

I think I'm right in saying all previous Pi's would be connected over USB2 so you end up at around 50MB/s max.
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homefarm
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by homefarm »

HI Andy

Fascinating, as I have no experience of your systems. It takes me back to early micro days with Z80s, BBC etc. I go back a long way LoL.

I'm running homebuilds under W10, pretty simple straightforward stuff these days. Primegrid is my thing, with some support for WCG.
Currently hunting primes in the February Tour de Primes challenge, and getting my badges. As I'm a "vulnerable", I have loads of time to indulge, and it keeps my brain active.

BFN

Richard

PS Sorry for late reply as I wasn't logged in.
wbiz
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by wbiz »

homefarm wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:53 am HI Andy

Fascinating, as I have no experience of your systems. It takes me back to early micro days with Z80s, BBC etc. I go back a long way LoL.

I'm running homebuilds under W10, pretty simple straightforward stuff these days. Primegrid is my thing, with some support for WCG.
Currently hunting primes in the February Tour de Primes challenge, and getting my badges. As I'm a "vulnerable", I have loads of time to indulge, and it keeps my brain active.

BFN

Richard

PS Sorry for late reply as I wasn't logged in.
Same here, my first computer was a SInclair/Science of Cambridge Mk14, then a ZX80, my fingers couldn't take the pain of either so I got a Ohio Superboard II (6502 based) which is still working and highly modified. Then I moved on to a 8" floppy disc Z80 CP/M terminal based system which was bodged together from various parts - I think last time I switched that on the power-on reset circuitry was a bit temperamental but I'm too scared to switch the bulky power supplies on now, I can imagine a big bang.

I loved assembly on the 6502 and Z80 then everything got a bit too complicated for me so I abused higher level languages instead. Brain is pretty frazzled now so I only program in freebasic or php.

Its my second time with Linux, hated it the first time with Ubuntu but RPiOS (debian) makes a lot more sense and I have a nice little network going. Loads of people on the Raspberry Pi forum are old school from the PDP-11 era and the Pi has captured their hearts.
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Re: Waste Not, Want Not

Post by UBT - Timbo »

wbiz wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 12:54 am Same here, my first computer was a SInclair/Science of Cambridge Mk14, then a ZX80, my fingers couldn't take the pain of either so I got a Ohio Superboard II (6502 based) which is still working and highly modified. Then I moved on to a 8" floppy disc Z80 CP/M terminal based system which was bodged together from various parts - I think last time I switched that on the power-on reset circuitry was a bit temperamental but I'm too scared to switch the bulky power supplies on now, I can imagine a big bang.
HI Andy

hehehe - sounds like there's a few of us of a certain vintage ;-)

My first "computer" was a Sinclair ZX81, bought from WH Smiths for £49 and I soon lashed out another £19 for the 16k RAM pack, which came with a free extra function called "wobble" ;-).

My brothers 48K Spectrum followed along with a "proper keyboard" (that replaced the speccy top panel) and VTX5000 modem and a Prestel account.
wbiz wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 12:54 am I loved assembly on the 6502 and Z80 then everything got a bit too complicated for me so I abused higher level languages instead. Brain is pretty frazzled now so I only program in freebasic or php.

Its my second time with Linux, hated it the first time with Ubuntu but RPiOS (debian) makes a lot more sense and I have a nice little network going. Loads of people on the Raspberry Pi forum are old school from the PDP-11 era and the Pi has captured their hearts.
But then I got into PC's and was running 4DOS (as command com replacement) on top of DOS 5 and then from there on, it's been WIndows mostly, though I tried some very early versions of Linux (RedHat, Caldera, Turbolinux, Debian, Slackware etc), some of which were given away free on CD cover mounts and some I actually paid for in the good old days of shareware outlets and then downloads...BUT despite a grounding in DOS, some of the ways that command-line Linux worked just seemed far too difficult for me to embrace...I tried again recently with the GUI based Mint, but it was awful and kludgy...

I got a couple of R Pi's to try again with various distro's but again, it seems like trying to have to step through so many hoops in order to get the damn thing to work...I guess I've just most of my patience with devices that need to be almost "forced" to work together...

regards
Tim
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