This equipment is funded by research grants from the Carnegie Foundation and South Africa's National Research Foundation (NRF) .......................................... For more on high performance computing in SA, visit www.chpc.ac.za or School of computational and applied math (CAM) @ wits: http://www.wits.ac.za/academic/science/cam/6327/staff.html . . A light introduction to parallelisation was presented in a couple of seminars. Here are some slides: http://www.dianewilcox.net/GPUFinance_Wilcox_April2011.pdf

Saturday, October 27, 2012

A lego diversion...


building with bricks - instructions for this recreation of a mars rover was posted on : lego.cuusoo.com

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Cyberella runs

Since the machine was first assembled, we had added a couple more Tesla GPU's.

Cyberella is now being used in a research programme on computational solutions to research questions in quantitative finance.

For more on high performance computing in SA, visit
A light introduction to parallelisation was presented in a couple of seminars. Here are some slides:
http://www.dianewilcox.net/GPUFinance_Wilcox_April2011.pdf



Sunday, January 16, 2011

Step 11: Updating the BIOS

Borrowed i7-950 from a nearby mail server

The i7-980x is removed and the i7-950 installed

The thermal surfaces were all cleaned, this can be done with cleaning detergent and alcohol.

The 8-pin BIOS PDIP was shipped with the 0504 BIOS which did not support the i7-980x (Gulftown). If no additional CPU's are avaliable to update the BIOS this PDIP can be popped out with a  hair-clip and then replaced with one with the updated BIOS. 

The CMOS battery was removed and replaced along with the use of the BIOS reset pin (the little blue rectangles next to the green power diode. The ASUS Q-connector can be seen in lower right.


The BIOS is updated from 0504 to 0904 using EZ Flash

The i7-980x is re-installed and the machines boots up correctly.

The machine is now ready for the OS installation and the additional 2 Tesla GPU cards.

Step 10: First power

and the BIOS errors...


BIOS pre-POST error B9 on ASUS diagnostic card

BIO pre-POST error 69 on ASUS diagnostic card


ASUS mobo with 2 green power diodes on the C2050.
Tthe green mobo boot diode next to the front panel connectors and the blue PSU and RAM diodes.

The hardware is correctly powered up but the BIOS has apparently FAILED!

*The BUILD*

[Going ahead with posting the first draft... ]


Summary:
GPU: Nvidia Tesla C2050
CPU: Intel Core i7-980X (Gulftown architecture)
Motherboard: Asus P6T7
RAM: 6x4GB DDR3 1066MHz
Memory: 2x1.5TB
Graphics card: Nvidia Quadro NVS295
Case/Cooling: Coolermaster HAFX
Power: 1200W


Step 1: Get the case onto your work surface.


HAF-X chassis (ATX/EATX)




(16kg case)



Step 2: The Silent Pro-Gold 1200W PSU is installed

Needed big power supply - one C2050 GPU munched ~250W and 2 more are planned for later addition - sinc the P6T7 supported up to 4 cards.





Step 3: Asus P6T7 motherboard (CEB form factor!) motherboard is mounted







Step 4: Chassis fans are connected. The HAF-X comes with 4 chassis fans and the ASUS P6T7 has 4 chassis fan connectors. The top, back and front panel fans were connect to the mobo using the 3-pin mobo connectors, the side panel fan was connected directly to the PSU using the 4-pin PSU connectors.
Chassis fan wires with 4-pin PSU connectors
3-pin Chassis fan connector on mobo
3-pin chassis fan wire
PSU power connectors for the side panel fan
Side panel chassis fan ready to connect...


Step 5: Front panel connections



Chassis front panel connectors
Mobo front panel connection pins (white plastic with metal pins) just below 6x SATA sockets (blue) and 2x SAS sockets for RAID drives 
Front panel connected to mobo using the Asus-Q Connector the speaker is in the foreground
USB, Firewire and Asus Diagnostic card in the background.





Step 6: SATA drives
2x SATA removable drive mounting and the power connector
The internal HD rack. 2x SATA HD are installed with SATA
connectors to the mobo and power to the PSU.
SATA HDx2

CD/DVD RW x1 installed


Step 7: Installing the CPU
The mobo is ready for the CPU and memory
The LGA1366 CPU socket

Intel i7-980x CPU is dropped into position into the LGA1366 socket, aligning the little triangle in the lower right guided by the two positioning grooves
The CPU cooling fan and back mountng
The CPU back-mounting is put in place
The thread for the back mount clips into the mobo
Thermal grease is applied to the centre of the CPU
The cooling fan is mounted and the PSU connected to the CPU
the motherboard is connected to the PSU

The CPU fan is connected to the mobo


Step 8: The 24 GB  RAM was installed next
Kingston  DD3 (1066 MHz max supported by the 980X) -

Step 9: The GPU's are installed into the PCIe slots (blue 1,3,5,7)

The QNVS 295 is installed into PCIe slot 1
The first PNY Nvidia Tesla C2050 is intalled into PCIe slot 3. The remaining two will be installed into slots 5 and 7.
The C2050 is connected to the PSU with a 1x8pin and a 1x6pin power connector. The cooling duct was first placed over the cards before the power was connected. A fan can be installed in the cooling duct. This can be installed at a latter stage. 


Step 8: Chassis is completed and closed.

Chassis wheels were mounted to support cooling of the PSU since its external fan is downward facing. It's a bit like high-end lego afterall...

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Bella born on 7 Jan 2010

The assembly of Bella was completed on 7 Jan with OS successfully installed. All the homework on specifications paid off - no mismatched components. Minor glitch encountered (it would have been odd to have no hiccups!):  the bios had to be updated with an older chip on board first (solution to the mysterious ERROR 69). The motherboard was manufactued before the chip (an intel Core i7-980X ... eat your heart out ;). We sourced an i7-950, thanks to Brian Maistry of Wits CNS. Thanks Brian! Some fun was had putting in and taking out CPU's. The GPU installed without a glitch. Now to make her sing.

Blog to be updated with further details and pics.

meanwhile her is a quick aside on her name: She's called Bella simply because my laptops are called Ella (which was going to be my daughter's name if i had one... i have boys so its up to my computers to defend out gender;)... pics to follow.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Waiting for bits of Bella

It took some time to try to line up the desired and compatible components. Many specs and discussion forums were consulted as homework - now to see if all will fit! All the parts have been ordered and we're waiting for components to arrive. Already have the motherboard and CPU (and of course the Tesla).

What a beautiful mobo (= motherboard :)  : ASUS P6T7

 

From i4u.com:
Asus launched the ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer motherboard for CUDA Parallel Programming. The Asus P6T7 is equipped with 7 PCI-E Gen2 x16 slots supporting up to three NVIDIA Tesla cards and one NVIDIA Quadro card.
It is certified for NVIDIA Tesla GPU computing, based on the NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing architecture that supports up to three NVIDIA Tesla cards and one NVIDIA Quadro card. Each GPU delivers 240 CUDA parallel processing cores, producing 1 teraflop of processing power simultaneously. This adds up to a total of 960 parallel processing cores, delivering 4 teraflops of processing power.
Capable of supercomputer performance 250 times faster than that of a standard PC, the P6T7 WS SuperComputer is an efficient solution for highly computational applications in the fields of life science, engineering science, financial modeling, electronic design automation and virtualization.

http://www.i4u.com/28315/new-asus-p6t7-cuda-motherboard-gives-you-4-teraflops


From bit-tech.net:
ASUS, the leading producer and innovator of motherboards, today has launched the most revolutionary and powerful Parallel Computing solution available to date: the ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer motherboard. Equipped with 7 PCI-E Gen2 x16 slots, the P6T7 WS Supercomputer has been certified for NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPU computing which is based on the NVIDIA® CUDA™ parallel computing architecture, supporting up to three NVIDIA Tesla cards and one NVIDIA Quadro card. This amounts to a total of 960 parallel processing cores providing a massive 4 teraflops of processing power—delivering 250* times faster computing and graphics processing performance. The ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer also provides users with flexible high speed I/O, graphics and computing options.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/industry/2009/05/14/asus-p6t7-ws-supercomputer-workstation-moth/1

 More Asus P6T7 revierws:
http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/motherboards/1913_1.html
http://hothardware.com/News/Asus-Debuts-P6T7-WS-SuperComputer-Motherboard/
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Asus-supercomputer-motherboard-P6T7,7720.html


Trivia: Asus makes laptops for  Apple, Dell, Falcon Northwest and Hewlett-Packard. This OEM manufacturing may be taken over by Pegatron in the companies restructuring - In January 2007, ASUS split into three distinct operational units: ASUS, Pegatron and Unihan).


More about the CPU chip in the next post...