1) Message boards : Android : Android hardware for running BOINC? (Message 76725) Posted 23 Mar 2017 by stvv Post: I've been looking into using cheap Androids to run BOINC, since they are extremely power efficient. Any ideas on what devices work the best for this? I started out using cheap $20 quad-core phones since they work out-of-the-box. Gonna try out cheap 8-core tablet as well. But I recently saw that some Android TV boxes with 8 cores can be had for ~$40 as well. Would these work? Not sure if the BOINC Android app is compatible with Android TV (couldn't get it to work on my Shield TV). One issue I've found so far is that these cheap devices usually do not have root access available, which would be really helpful in order to undervolt and underclock the device to keep temperatures down. BOINC's default temp limit for Androids is 40C, but I would like to keep it much lower, maybe 30C or less if possible. This seems to be easier on larger devices with slower CPUs. Anyone have experience with this? I would like to assemble a small collection of devices that together have as much compute power as my old 8-core PC, which is too expensive to run. I saw this thread: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=10988#69385 but have not seen much posted about results using these.

2) Message boards : Questions and problems : Best builds for BOINC machines? How did mine turn out? (Message 55301) Posted 9 Aug 2014 by stvv Post: Very interesting. I think a local pawn shop had some 2006 Mac Pro's, I almost bought one but backed off and built the machine in the OP instead. One was priced at $250, and had a dual Xeon setup, but the included Xeons were only dual-core models. It doesn't seem worth it to have two CPUs but only 4 cores total, I'd really only be interested if I could get two quad cores. I am not sure if its worth dropping $250 to get that machine, and then another ~$80 to get two quad-core Xeons for it. I think I might instead try to get a single quad-core Xeon to upgrade one of my existing machines. These are the two pre-built models that I have: ZT: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883241008 Acer Aspire: http://www.cnet.com/products/acer-aspire-m3641-be4700a-core-2-duo-e4700-2-6-ghz-3-gb-320-gb-lcd-22/specs/ ^This run is running with this replacement board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135248 I think the Acer might be a good candidate for a Xeon upgrade, since its G41 chipset seems to be compatible with the Xeon processors, and it is also the slower of the two. Not sure if its worth replacing the quad-core ZT's CPU, since that would probably require a new motherboard for marginal (?) performance increase.

3) Message boards : Questions and problems : Best builds for BOINC machines? How did mine turn out? (Message 55285) Posted 9 Aug 2014 by stvv Post: Hey Richie now that I saw the prices on the old Xeon CPUs (~$40 each), I really like the idea of running some. I've never been big on overclocking, but I am really interested in running them in a dual-CPU SMP configuration. Any tips on finding boards that can handle that or setting it up?

4) Message boards : Questions and problems : Best builds for BOINC machines? How did mine turn out? (Message 55276) Posted 8 Aug 2014 by stvv Post: Hey thanks for the suggestions. I was thinking of building one more computer at my local MicroCenter. They have AMD FX 6300 for $100, 6200 for $70, and I think they both come with $40 off a motherboard. Would these be better for a sub-$300 machine? The Xeon is a good idea too. I got 8gb more RAM for 8-core machine, 12GB total & it's running well. However I have nothing to compare it's performance to except my other Q6600 and old Core 2 Duo machines.

5) Message boards : Questions and problems : Best builds for BOINC machines? How did mine turn out? (Message 55113) Posted 29 Jul 2014 by stvv Post: Oh yeah that was my thought process, I got the most cores I could for the least amount of $$. I am currently RAM restricted but that should be fixed soon. I run Rosetta, World Community Grid, and POEM, so I dont think a GPU will help me. But are there any recommendations for a cheap one that will run well? And I am wondering if more cores is the best option for BOINC, vs. having fewer faster cores. The 8320 seems to be quite slow compared to some i3/i5's, but I am not sure there is a better option at the <$150 price point right now, since they all have fewer cores.

6) Message boards : Questions and problems : Automatic Temperature regulation (Message 55016) Posted 23 Jul 2014 by stvv Post: Does this work for Linux?

7) Message boards : Questions and problems : Best builds for BOINC machines? How did mine turn out? (Message 55015) Posted 23 Jul 2014 by stvv Post: What would a dedicated BOINC machine look like? I recently built one for $475, using an AMD FX-8320 and 4GB RAM (planning to upgrade later), and it is blowing away all my older computers. I am thinking that more CPU cores would be better? What other considerations should go into it?

8) Message boards : Questions and problems : will boinc work with a home beowulf cluster (Message 55014) Posted 23 Jul 2014 by stvv Post: I had plans to do this with a bunch of old computers. I ended up just building a new machine with better specs instead. However, this was my plan: -Create a custom PXE Ubuntu image, with BOINC already installed and logged into my BOINC account manager (I don't actually know how to do this yet, it was just planned to learn how) -Host custom PXE image on a server, or NAS of some sort -Enable Network boot on machines, route them to boot from the custom PXE image -bonus points if I could do this with the 'dummy' machines being all disk-less and running everything from RAM. Probably would have needed a DD-WRT router for some of this (maybe). In the end it was more trouble than it was worth. But maybe this will give you some ideas.

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