In the investigation of creating a folding farm, I'm trying to figure out what a good cost per node should be. Obviously, the optimal cost is zero, which can be accomplished by borging other people's computers, but I'm interested in cobbling together old parts and folding on them, partially as a research project and partially for fun.

Low-end commercial products, (eMachines, Lindows boxen, etc.), run around $300 or so. I figure that I should be able to do better than that. A folding box doesn't need a keyboard, mouse, display, or even a CD-ROM. On pricewatch, there are systems which are under $200 including shipping, but these include the unnecessary stuff.

I would want system(s) which cost under $.10 per megahertz or PR factor, including shipping.

I wonder if people have been able to find systems with only case, power supply, motherboard, processor, HSF, video, memory, hard disk, and NIC for 1) under $200 including shipping, and 2) less than 10 cents a MHz/PR. (The video and NIC can be integrated on the motherboard)

Maybe the best action would be to buy people's old PCs from them for $.10 a megahertz, I've seen some decent deals on Ebay.

Quieting these PCs wouldn't be an issue, since the farm will go in a closet.

TIA,
Buddabing

I think my farm was something around $.10 a PR if you look at my thread. I don't think I made the best choice for mobo though.

Here's everything from newegg I'd do:
$76 Soltek SL-NV400-L64. the new single channel nForce2.
$42 Athlon XP 1700+.
$27 Fortron 120mm
$28 128mb PC2700
$22 Generic SIS video card. mobility radeon is cheaper, but its AGP 2x and may not work with the mobo, won't with my 8rda+.
$20 Thermalright AX-7 + NMB/panaflo L1A
This comes to $215 and an overclock to at least 2100+ level will be ridiculously easy. Even an overclock to 2 ghz shouldn't be hard, meeting your $.10.

The problem is the hard drive. I couldn't get the diskless boot to work, but I think thats a problem with my network setup.

I learned a few things from my farm; for starters I should've checked reviews on the MN31N, no CPU voltage adjustments!

Hello:

My two variations on a node:

Athlon XP 2100+ (T'Bred 'B'): $67
Chaintech 7NIF2-Summit (nForce2 IGP): $89
(2) Crucial PC3200 128MB ($30 each): $60
Fortron P300XFPN 300watt PS: $27
Seagate 40GB 7200RPM 2MB cache HD: $61
Speeze FalconRock aluminum HS w/copper "plug" and 26.5dBa 80mm fan: $9
shipping to Massachusetts: $10 (gotta luv New Egg!)
Total: $313

The northbridge fan would have to be dealt with...
IMO, if you are springing for an nForce2 motherboard, use both memory channels -- hence the two sticks of PC3200 RAM. The T'Bred 'B' runs cooler even than the T'Bred, and so, you could easily get to 2500+ range, and probably 2700+ or so on stock voltage.

Athlon XP 1700+ (T'Bred): $42
AsRock K7-VM2 Via KT266 w/ ProSavage8 video
Crucial PC3200 128MB: $30
Maxtor 30GB 7200RPM 2MB cache HD: $54
Sparkle ATX-250GT 250watt PS (undervolt the fan): $17
Speeze FalconRock aluminum HS w/copper "plug" and 26.5dBa 80mm fan: $9
shipping to Massachusetts: $16
Total: $219

Passive northbrdge, super low price -- Wow!

[Edit]: The other big savings if you can boot from floppies/CD-ROM/network is less noise! Of course, a network boot requires that the on-board NIC support it...

Are you guys suggesting that each node be caseless? Although it wouldn't be too hard to make a simple case out of a cardboard box and duct tape, (gotta love that duct tape) , I think it might be better to put the stuff in a case. Now, if I was to share two nodes across one power supply, I might try building a cardboard case, but from what I have read on the subject, sharing a power supply across two nodes is at best dodgy and at worst can ruin a perfectly good power supply.

Here's what I get from Newegg.com: (caseless)
Power Supply: Sparkle model ATX-250GT - 250 WATTS OEM - 21.00
Motherboard: ASROCK Model K7-VM2 - RETAIL - 51.00
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 1700+ Thoroughbred 1.47GHz -OEM - 42.00
HSF: Speeze FalconRock CPU Fan Model 5F286B - 9.00
Memory: Crucial 128MB PC-2700 DDR RAM, Model CT1664Z335 - 27.99
HDD: MAXTOR 30GB 7200RPM Model # 6E030L0 OEM - 54.00
Shipping (to Houston) 16.00
Total: 216.99

To get the cost down to $.10 per MHz I'd have to overclock the CPU to 2170 MHz, which is doable, my JIUHB stepping 1700 can do it, but not certain.

Getting a case with a power supply adds about $20 including shipping. That may put the $.10 per MHz out of reach, but $.10 per PR is still doable.

The biggest chunk of cash outlay (more than 25%) is for the HDD. If you substitute floppies for each HDD, boot each node into *nix off the floppy, and put one shared HDD in a "master" node, that would cut node cost substantially. I believe that's what Zhentar was trying to do. An easier way would be to buy 1-2 GB drives on Ebay.

Getting my two goals of sub-$200 cost and $.10 per MHz (alternatively $.10 per PR) may not be doable at Newegg.

You could also use those old 4x CD-ROM drives you probably already have and boot into Knoppix, then run F@H from a network share. It would require nearly no configuration. Plug-and-fold.

You save 54$ if you already have the drives, and maybe 44$ if you have to buy them (I'm sure you can find them very cheap on ebay).

You could also save some money by running two nodes with a single PSU, but it can be tricky.

Look at this:

http://ws9.jobnegotiator.com/html/flinks.html
http://www.talix.com/Folding/Folding_Farm.html