Posts by PorkyPies

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Raspberry Pi Cluster (Message 101868) Posted 21 May 2021 by PorkyPies Post: FYI: I don't have a Threadripper. That was a typo. It's an AMD Ryzen 9 3900X not 3990X. Wish I had the Threadripper though. Well 24 threads of x86_64 architecture versus the Pi's. I would say you need about 12 x Pi4 to be able to get close to it.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Raspberry Pi Cluster (Message 101867) Posted 21 May 2021 by PorkyPies Post: The RPi POE hat fans are really loud. So next modification is to get rid of those. Any comments welcomed. Alternatives are: - Heat sink Pi cases. They can get toasty, but generally do the job with no noise. - A case that holds multiple Pi's (and has reasonable sized fans) eg the Cloudlet Cluster Case from C4labs. - Use decent quality fans. The larger the fan the more air it will move and it can run at a lower speed which reduces the noise I tried the Pimoroni fan shim. The fans seized up on all of them after a couple of months. Don't bother with them. These days I have three support nodes in the Flirc Pi case (its a heatsink case). I have a couple of the Heatsink (black aluminium) cases. However most of my number crunchers have Noctua 40mm fans which are quiet and last. I have some that have been running 24/7 for years. You just need to clean the dust off regularly. I designed and printed off my own case to hold 4 Pi side by side and it has the Noctua fans on top for cooling. i refer to it at the Pi^4 case (Pi to the power of four). See this blog post for a recent photo
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Raspberry Pi Cluster (Message 101776) Posted 9 May 2021 by PorkyPies Post: I think Rosetta is now issuing work units that will run on Raspberry Pi's (correct? or at least some of them). I've been contributing for a while with Mac and AMD Ryzen systems. I am toying with setting up an RPi cluster of RPi-4B's (4 Gb). Yeah, hardware bought. Set-up pains with Ubuntu, etc. Maybe ready to actually start running. I found a post or web page about using Docker to do this. Any comments or suggestions about how to get a cluster up and running in a secure fashion would be appreciated. My idea is to see how many RPi's it takes to make one AMD Ryzen 9 3990X and also to compare them on a work/kW-h basis. My desktop tears through work, but uses about 370 W of power... enough to heat up the office and cause complaints. Can a Pi cluster do close to the amount of work but use less power? Thanks for the kind words Mikey I'm using the Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit version. No need to make work for yourself using Ubuntu and Docker. Given its a BOINC project there is no need to run clustering software, just run BOINC on each node and use BOINCtasks to monitor them. You could use Ansible for maintaining them although I don't. If you want it to be secure I'd suggest using a firewall to close the ports on the Pi. You can allow outgoing connections but only need 2 ports to be open for incoming. You limit them to your BOINCtasks host and the host that will ssh into them for maintenance. In my case its the same machine. I also use a proxy server which is great for times when you have to repeat file transfers (eg OS updates), it doesn't help with downloading work units as each one is unique. My farm is currently 4 x Pi3 which only run Einstein, 8 x Pi4 8GB which run both Einstein and Rosetta in a 50/50 split and a few support nodes. Ryzen 3990X is a Threadripper with 128 threads. ARM cores aren't as fast as the Ryzen cores even if they were clocked at the same speed. The Pi4 model B is clocked at 1.5GHz and Ryzen at 2.9GHz (base), so you would need at least 64 Pi4's to get anywhere near it. There is a lot more effort looking after 64 Pi's compared to one Threadripper. As for wattage 64 Pi4's would use around 128 watts in theory so your power bill and heat would be reduced.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101719) Posted 4 May 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Host 6057423 Mon May 03 12:09:16 CDT 2021\|Rosetta@home\|Message from server: Rosetta needs 1386.40MB more disk space. You currently have 2428.29 MB available and it needs 3814.70 MB. Mon May 03 12:09:16 CDT 2021\|Rosetta@home\|No tasks sent It's already working on a task that's almost finished (24 hour run time selected), so there are files already present.... Its complaining about disk space. the host is running Android. Is it a phone by any chance? Can you free up some space (delete something). If its a phone I don't expect there is much you can do to get more space. Maybe once the current task finishes it will free up some space.
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101574) Posted 28 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: What is the exact free RAM figure you guys have available to Boinc? TIA I would think 3.2Gb would be the ideal. They take up to 800MB when running so 4 x 800 = 3.2Gb. They don’t all use that, but I based it on the largest ones going through at the moment.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101496) Posted 25 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Windows uses 4Go memory with 4Go swap file ... peharps u needs to do https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-swap-file/ increase ;) Indeed Windows and most Linux flavors allocate a swap file the same size as physical memory. For some reason, probably historical, the Raspberry Pi foundation allocate 100MB to this day. Increasing it should allow it to download tasks although I haven't tried it.
7) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101487) Posted 25 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Yet as Kissagogo27 pointed out in his post before yours, Tasks will run on 4GB system, depending on what it is already doing and your available RAM settings in your computing preferences. The Pi4 4GB has 3845MB after setting the video memory to the minimum. That is its total memory on a head-less machine according to top. After counting BOINC, O/S services and so on its got less than 3814MB available.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101486) Posted 25 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: So does that mean the newer 8gb Pi might just work? Yes they do. I have 8 running at the moment.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM: is the restriction really needed? (Message 101475) Posted 24 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Even if the memory requirement drops to 3.75GB free with the later tasks that won't help the Pi4 2GB or 4GB. Looking at a Pi4 4GB it has 3.6GB free memory and its not even running BOINC. The other single board computers like the Pi will have the same issue as they typically come with 2 or 4GB of memory. This means the minimum memory to be able to run Rosetta@home is 8GB.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems and Technical Issues with Rosetta@home (Message 101382) Posted 20 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: I've been in contact with Project admins and this was a deliberate change, not a misconfiguration. It's been looked at more closely and brought down to a figure nearer 4Gb - hopefully we see the result of that soon. I note In Progress tasks are edging up, but let's see how that pans out. There was obviously a need for that change, but I don't know what it is. I've asked if a brief note can be posted to explain what they're working on that requires the increase. No idea when or if that will happen. I noticed the dud tasks have stopped coming down. Well done for getting them removed. I thought the increased memory and disk space requirement was deliberate, The project clearly think they'll have some work that needs that much memory and/or disk space. Pity for the machines that don't have more than 4GB but I guess it can't be helped unless they want to split tasks into small or large types and have different queues of work. Probably a lot of work on the project side to implement for not much gain. I've taken my 4GB Pi4's out of my Pi cluster.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems and Technical Issues with Rosetta@home (Message 101313) Posted 16 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: A new issue. Pi4 8GB running 3 Rosetta and 2 Einstein tasks. It has swapped the 2nd Rosetta and an Einstein out with a message "Waiting for memory". The currently running Rosetta task are using 1746MB and 665MB and the two Einsteins are 205MB each. According to top its still got 3GB of free memory. When I spotted it it was running 1 Rosetta and 2 Einstein with the 2nd Rosetta swapped out. I wonder if its related to their requirement for 6.6GB free memory and BOINC is using that rather than the actual memory usage. Its BOINC 7.16.11 top - 12:21:34 up 12 days, 13:21, 1 user, load average: 3.12, 3.04, 3.01 Tasks: 107 total, 4 running, 103 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 0.0 us, 0.1 sy, 75.0 ni, 25.0 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.0 si, 0.0 st MiB Mem : 7863.2 total, 3338.0 free, 2422.8 used, 2102.4 buff/cache MiB Swap: 100.0 total, 100.0 free, 0.0 used. 5302.1 avail Mem PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 16113 boinc 39 19 205.0m 193.2m 4.9m R 100.0 2.5 121:50.61 einsteinb+ 16093 boinc 39 19 1746.9m 1.6g 113.8m R 99.7 20.8 141:56.59 rosetta_4+ 16262 boinc 39 19 665.5m 547.2m 105.0m R 99.7 7.0 8:20.99 rosetta_4+ 377 boinc 30 10 118.0m 18.9m 11.0m S 0.0 0.2 53:44.23 boinc 16125 boinc 39 19 205.0m 193.2m 5.0m S 0.0 2.5 92:55.58 einsteinb+ Update: A while later and the 1st Rosetta task failed so its back to normal. The Windows host that also ran it errored out so looks like a dud work unit. It was a miniprotein_relax8.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems and Technical Issues with Rosetta@home (Message 101173) Posted 8 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: I'm getting new work. My larger x64 machines are only getting 11 per request so it takes a few goes to get enough for all cores. On the Pi4 4GB I'm still getting; Rosetta@home 9/04/2021 9:16:50 AM Message from server: Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM but only 3460.72 MB is available for use. The 6.6GB free memory requirement hasn't changed.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta work units won't start or run (Message 100964) Posted 1 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Is it possible you could set Boinc to run 75% of cores if your RAM is restricted? I'm not sure if that will make it work, but at least worth a try if the alternative is not running any. Doesn't make any difference. It looks like it comparing the free memory against the 6.6GB project minimum. The stupid thing is they still have a couple of Rosetta tasks running off that are using around 300MB of memory each, nowhere near 6.6GB.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta work units won't start or run (Message 100963) Posted 1 Apr 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Einstein BRP tasks can run on the Pi's you have as they are They were set to run Einstein and Rosetta in a 50/50 split. They'll be doing Einstein once they finish the Rosetta work they have on board. Asteroids have an armhf app but its painfully slow and doesn't use neon that the Pi2's (ARMv7) and later have.
15) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta work units won't start or run (Message 100930) Posted 31 Mar 2021 by PorkyPies Post: Like the others I had errors in the logs for my Pi4's which have been crunching here for a while without any issues. Pi4 4GB Rosetta@home 31/03/2021 10:32:19 PM Message from server: Rosetta needs 6675.72 MB RAM but only 3460.72 MB is available for use. Rosetta@home 31/03/2021 10:32:19 PM Message from server: Rosetta needs 4037.10MB more disk space. You currently have 4545.97 MB available and it needs 8583.07 MB. Pi4 8GB Rosetta@home 31/03/2021 11:29:23 AM Message from server: Rosetta needs 4039.25MB more disk space. You currently have 4543.82 MB available and it needs 8583.07 MB. Clearly the project has upped the requirements because I haven't changed anything on my side. This might be for new work coming, or maybe its a response to previous work failing due to insufficient memory and/or disk space. New requirements are 6.6GB RAM (per work unit?) and 8.5GB of disk space. There isn't anything I can do about the RAM on a Raspberry Pi. BOINC takes the min of the various settings, so simply saying it can use 10GB may not be enough, I also had to set the "Use at most" to 70% of available disk space. I'm currently using 16GB micro SD cards. It looks like I need to start using 32GB ones, at least for the Pi's that can continue running Rosetta, the rest will move to other projects.
16) Message boards : Number crunching : x86 vs Arm Performance (Message 99741) Posted 22 Nov 2020 by PorkyPies Post: Your design sounds decidedly like the Turing Pi which holds 7 Raspberry Pi Compute Modules (up to CM 3+). There is a Turing Pi2 in the works that is going to use the CM 4, although they are dropping down to 4 modules per board. The board is mITX size. It also looks like the are using a standard PC power connector (the original could use it or a 12v barrel connector). See Turing Pi
17) Message boards : Number crunching : Rosetta running on ARM platforms (Message 99728) Posted 21 Nov 2020 by PorkyPies Post: Turing Pi have announced they are working on the Turing Pi2. The original is an mITX board that holds 7 Rpi CM, CM3 or CM3+ modules. The Turing Pi2 is still going to be mITX and will hold 4 CM4 modules. It also provides a layer 2 managed switch, 2 x SATA III and 2 x mini PCI express on the board. See their web site for details. They are targeted as Kubernetes clusters but there should be no reason why you couldn't run them as a BOINC cluster.
18) Message boards : Number crunching : x86 vs Arm Performance (Message 99577) Posted 5 Nov 2020 by PorkyPies Post: One of the things in the ARM's favor is the price. For say $100 USD you can get an 8GB Pi4 up and running compared to the cost of a traditional x64 machine (even though they have higher core counts) and that is before you've factored in the electricity usage. I run a small cluster of Pi's, mostly Pi3's which aren't suitable for Rosetta but I do have 3 x Pi4 8GB which are. What would make things easier for people to do a small scale farm would be: 1. An off the shelf PSU than can handle 4 or 5 Pi at full load and has sockets or is cabled up ready to go. 2. Cases designed to hold multiple Pi's with cooling in mind. I addressed point 2 by designing a case that holds 4 x Pi side by side and has fans on top. I get them 3D printed. C4labs also make a couple of cases that would work.
19) Message boards : Number crunching : Running a BOINC cluster (Message 98446) Posted 9 Aug 2020 by PorkyPies Post: As Grant said you'll need to install BOINC on each node. You can manage them from a single machine using BOINCtasks if you like. Its a windows program. You can download it from efmer.com
20) Message boards : Number crunching : Running on a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 - How to? (Message 97353) Posted 13 Jun 2020 by PorkyPies Post: my Pi4 4gb broke above 50,000 points. Others probably did better as i intermittently stops between blocks of run. i'd probably try out the 64 bit os at some point. are there visible point differences between running on 64 bit os vs the 'old' 32 bit Raspbian? i'd guess it should be 'the same' since r@h bundle all its own libraries Performance wise it seems to be the same, although the optimised Einstein app was about 4 times faster than the stock one. Setup is a lot simpler, simply image the SD card with the Raspberry Pi OS 64 bit and boot up like normal. Run raspi-config to change the password and host name, etc and that’s the OS. Install BOINC, attach to the project and you’re done. No need for a cc_config file any more.

Next 20