The Scottish Boinc Team

Posted: **Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:01 pm**

Some news about the future Compute 4 modules https://iot-industrial-devices.com/upco ... ease-date/

Posted: **Thu Jul 02, 2020 12:44 am**

Dirk Broer wrote: ↑Sat Sep 07, 2019 7:02 pm
davidBAM wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2019 4:05 amLooked at the CPU specs on the new Pi4 and didn't see a game-changing leap in performance (at least not on paper)
Benchmarks for the original Raspberry Pi 3 Model B -so not the B+ as used by DavidBAM-, using Raspbian Buster:
1137 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
25507 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Benchmarks for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, using Raspbian Buster:
2076 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
57237 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Benchmarks for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B@1500MHz, using Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit:
2081 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
60385 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

As I bought myself a 52Pi Ice Tower Cooler for the Pi 4, I decided a modest overclock.
Benchmarks for the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B@1800MHz, using Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit:
2511 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
72845 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
The 52Pi Ice Tower Cooler keeps it at 52°C / 125.6°F

I upgraded the firmware, as it promised lower temperatures and overclocked the Pi 4 to 2000 MHz
2771 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
79748 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
The 52Pi Ice Tower Cooler keeps it at 47 to 48°C / 116.6 to 118.4°F....

Posted: **Sun Aug 02, 2020 12:05 am**

It is almost a year later now and the field has changed yet again. Contenders have come and gone.

Biggest game-changer was the bringing out at the almost same time of a 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS and a new 8 GB model of the Pi. On top of that there came more heavy-duty cooling solutions, like shown here

Contender Hardkernel first brought out a 4 GB Odroid-C4, basically a Cortex-A55 equipped improvement of their Cortex-A53 C2 with more (DDR4) RAM, but at the very speed that originally was intended for the C2: 2000 MHz.
The C4, like the C2 and the C1 can be used in open casings that fit the Raspberry, like this

Secondly, Hardkernel brought out an improved version of its Odroid-N2, the Odroid-N2+ where the maximum CPU clock of the Quad-core Cortex-A73 is increased to 2400 Mhz (from 1800 Mhz) and the maximum CPU clock of the Dual-core Cortex-A53 is increased to 2000 Mhz (from 1900 Mhz). The on-board RTC backup battery pin-out is now replaced by a battery holder mounted on the board. The heatsink is not as high as the original and has provision to mount a fan underneath -as had the old N2, but the N2+ needs the fan to maintain the higher speeds. The fan's stand-off screws bring the N2+ up to normal height. We now await a 8 GB model of the N2+.....

Where's the rest of the field? Banana Pi's M4 model already fell short last year and they really should bring out their Banana Pi M5 pretty soon now.
Most of the other contenders seem to have put their money on the Rockchip RK3399, which is sometimes -misleadingly- advertised as an "overclocked Cortex-A72" six-core. It *IS* a six-core chip, but in LITTLE.big format, LITTLE being here four Cortex-A53 cores, and big two Cortex-A72s cores.
You can get RK3399 boards from Rock Pi -the Rock Pi 4 (in three main versions)-, Orange Pi -the Orange Pi 4B being the most interesting model-, Nano Pi - the NanoPi M4B- and loads of other, less known companies.

There is a RK3399Pro as well, with embedded neural processing unit (NPU) delivering up to 3 TOPS for AI acceleration. RockPi has one, the RockPi N10. It is rumoured to outperform the quad-core Cortex-A57 nVidia Jetson Nano in some AI-tasks....though the software you can download at nVidia for the Jetson Nano (the JetPack and Deepstream SDKs) might suit a project like MLC much better. MLC needs to bring out an ARM app though to make use of it.

Posted: **Sat Oct 03, 2020 12:09 am**

I'm trying this Pi 4 heatsink. It covers the CPU, memory chip and USB chip. Running 4x WCG OP and WUProp. Temp hasn't gone above 47C so far.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VWM4J4L

Posted: **Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:40 am**

Got any overclocking on that? Should be good for 2ghz or more

Posted: **Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:36 am**

scole of TSBT wrote: ↑Fri Jun 19, 2020 10:16 pm Have you chaps seem the new Raspberry Pi Turing board coming out? Will support 7x Pi 3+ compute modules. The Pi4 compute modules rumored to come out later this year.

https://turingpi.com/

The compute module 4's are out (32 different ones: WiFi/BT vs none; 1, 2, 4 or 8GB of RAM; no eMMC, 8GB eMMC, 16 GB eMMC or 32 GB eMMC+ 2 x 4 x 4 = 32), and: shock!
...gone is the SODIMM format. What does that do for our beloved Turing Pi? Enter the Turing Pi 2.

In its most minimal format a quad-core Cortex-A72 without wifi/bluetooth and 1 GB of RAM, without eMMC,
In its most maximal format a hexadeca-core Cortex-A72 with wifi/bluetooth on all four modules and 32 GB RAM, with 128 GB of eMMC storage space (32 GB for each module).

Posted: **Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:53 am**

Do the RPIs mount in the 4 260 pin DIMM slots?

Posted: **Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:42 pm**

scole of TSBT wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:53 am Do the RPIs mount in the 4 260 pin DIMM slots?

Like this: heatsink, compute module, 260 pin DIMM connector. Briljant!

Now, would seven of those 260 pin DIMM connectors fit in the original Turing Pi? No, that had a 200 pin connector interface. Bummer....

Posted: **Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:59 pm**

Raspberry cooling-wise there has been a nice article on en.itcooky.com, where the two 52Pi solutions outperform the rest by a considerable margin.
#2 in the contest was

but this is the winner:

Results were close though especially at stock speed (1500 MHz), but at 2000 MHz the 'low ice tower' -let's call it 'ice-shield'- is definitely more effective.

Posted: **Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:30 pm**

@Dirk Broer or anyone else

What do I need to do for maximum compatibility of Boinc projects on 64bit raspios please? I want to be able to run the new Rosetta WU but also any of the other projects

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:51 pm**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:30 pm @Dirk Broer or anyone else

What do I need to do for maximum compatibility of Boinc projects on 64bit raspios please? I want to be able to run the new Rosetta WU but also any of the other projects

In case you are running a 64-bit OS on a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 (preferably the latter and 4GB or 8GB in that case), following commands will install the 32-bit libs needed to run most BOINC apps:

Code: Select all

sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libc6:armhf libstdc++6:armhf

Additionally you have to add two alternate platform identifiers to your cc_config.xml file:

Code: Select all

<cc_config>
    <options>
        <alt_platform>arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf</alt_platform>
        <alt_platform>armv7l-unknown-linux-gnueabihf</alt_platform>
    </options>
</cc_config>

If you run a 64-bit OS on a Raspberry Pi 3, or a 4 with 1 or 2 GB of RAM (perhaps even with 4GB), be sure to install ZRAM as well

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2020 3:55 pm**

many thanks @Dirk Broer

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2020 4:00 pm**

And mind you, the same about 32-bit libc, libstdc++6 and ZRAM holds true for Odroids -or any other 64-bit ARM crunching platform, e.g. when you have plans around the new 2GB nVidia Jetson Nano, or even the original 4GB model.

Posted: **Fri Jan 01, 2021 1:47 am**

Dirk Broer wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:42 pm
scole of TSBT wrote: ↑Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:53 am Do the RPIs mount in the 4 260 pin DIMM slots?
Like this: heatsink, compute module, 260 pin DIMM connector. Briljant!

Now, would seven of those 260 pin DIMM connectors fit in the original Turing Pi? No, that had a 200 pin connector interface. Bummer....

Not so bummer after all: Gumstix Introduces CM4 to CM3 Adapter, Carrier Boards for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 They even let you choose between a Pi CM4 Uprev & UprevAI CM3 adapter board.

The AI version also has a Google Coral accelerator module

Note however this remark by Jeff Geerling in his review of the Turing Pi 1 "The CPU is ... constrained by the fact that the Compute Module is clocked at a maximum of 1.2 GHz. And that's not a limitation of the Turing Pi, it's because the DIMM connection can't provide enough power using the Compute Module's current design to support faster clock speeds."
This might let you decide to go for the Turing Pi 2 when using the compute module 4 (CM4). If you already have a running Turing Pi 1 it is a nice experiment though...

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:59 pm**

Introducing my new machine : Rosetta Stone, because the plan is to add to it until it weighs 14lbs & run Rosetta

20 pi4 8Gb machines. One serves as a network boot server / NFS server for all the others so no fiddly SD cards or USB sticks.

Server has one 128Gb SSD on USB3. No boinc on that guy
Clients have no media whatsoever.
three 8-port hubs
trays are free from local mushroom wholesaler

End result is 80 cores (76 set-and-forget on Rosetta), 160Gb RAM. Total power draw is only 145W

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:29 pm**

I do not understand some of it, lol, but it sounds like a one hack of a computing power.

Posted: **Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:46 pm**

It is a fair bit of RAM which will suit Rosetta 64bit and the big WCG project (Open Pandemics?). Overclocked to 2GHz - not monsters but would maybe give an old Xeon a good race.

Definitely good in WCG time challenges

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:26 am**

This would take five Turing Pi 2's and but one 8-port switch, as a 5-port switch would be one port short.
It would take three Turing Pi 1's (with 21 CM4 to CM3 adapters, or just plain 21 CM3's) - but a 4-port switch would already be enough.

And that is all without consideration for the network boot server / NFS server module. You'll need another Turing Pi 2 to get a decent amount of cores dedicated to crunching:
6x (4-1) = 18
The Turing Pi 1 would do: 3x (7-1) = 18 too, but the CM3 is limited to 1200MHz -and I don't know if the same applies for the CM4 to CM3 adapter.

Cooling-wise you'll have to look out for a bitcoin miner that wants to get rid of a 6x 120mm bitcoin rack casing because the increased power consumption of the newest video cards needs him/her to look out for bigger cases and dito fans/radiators.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:43 am**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:59 pm trays are free from local mushroom wholesaler

Mushroom pi

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:02 am**

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:40 pm**

@davidBAM How long does a Pi4 take to crunch each Rosetta WU?

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:48 pm**

Rosetta works differently from other projects. You set the run-time yourself in project preferences and you get paid based on how much work it gets through.

So far, it has to be said, I am a bit underwhelmed by the points earned. The jury is still out but I might try Africa Rainfall on WCG to see how that goes

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:04 pm**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:48 pm Rosetta works differently from other projects. You set the run-time yourself in project preferences and you get paid based on how much work it gets through.

So far, it has to be said, I am a bit underwhelmed by the points earned. The jury is still out but I might try Africa Rainfall on WCG to see how that goes

It won't, OpenPandemics is all that lands on my ARM fleet -only my Android-running Odroid-N2+ also gets MCM, but no Africa Rainfall either.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:35 pm**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:48 pm Rosetta works differently from other projects. You set the run-time yourself in project preferences and you get paid based on how much work it gets through.

Huh. I didn't realize that was the case! I've been using the default setting of 8 hours uptime and just assumed my CPU was 'slow' at doing them.

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 8:54 pm**

I think I've sussed it. Rosetta WU read from a huge input file so are putting a heavy burden on file system reads. A pi4 booted from SD card or USB3 stick will die - my 76 WU using a network file system puts a huge load on the NFS server and also saturates the network.

This could even be why some of my main crunchers struggle under a full load of Rosetta

Run from an SSD and limit WU count, I think

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:10 pm**

Am now running 1 WU of Rosetta and 3 of WCG Pandemics & expect to earn the same amount on Rosetta as 4 wu

Posted: **Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:34 pm**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 8:54 pmmy main crunchers struggle under a full load of Rosetta

Hear, hear, hear...I build my Ryzen 7 1700 (16-thread) with just 16 GB of RAM, due to budget reasons....must buy 64 GB soon.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:27 pm**

Well I purchased a Pi4 (2GB) today to try out. Went with the 2GB model since I intend to run WCG Pandemics on it primarily and that doesn't seem to use as much RAM as Rosetta. Got it in a case with a fan attached, just waiting on a mini HDMI to HDMI cable to arrive now so I can connect it to my monitor to set it up.

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:53 pm**

How do you overclock a Pi4?

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:55 pm**

edit /boot/config.txt and reboot e.g. to run at 2GHz

Code: Select all

over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2000

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:07 pm**

Saetia wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:27 pm just waiting on a mini HDMI to HDMI cable to arrive now so I can connect it to my monitor to set it up.

I think we all get bitten with that one

Posted: **Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:29 pm**

Done. Running rosetta on all 4 cores with temps staying 55-57

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:08 am**

Hope you have ssd on that. I reckon rosetta will kill sd or usb3 stick within months

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:04 am**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:07 pm
Saetia wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:27 pm just waiting on a mini HDMI to HDMI cable to arrive now so I can connect it to my monitor to set it up.
I think we all get bitten with that one

mini HDMI? micro HDMI you mean I think....

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:06 am**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:08 am Hope you have ssd on that. I reckon rosetta will kill sd or usb3 stick within months

Rosetta is not for the faint of heart, no...
Be sure to install and configure ZRAM as well when you have a 2GB Pi 4. Even a 4GB Pi 4 benefits from it.

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2021 6:21 am**

Dirk Broer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:04 am mini HDMI? micro HDMI you mean I think....

good spy

Posted: **Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:57 am**

Dirk Broer wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:04 am
davidBAM wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 10:07 pm
Saetia wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 7:27 pm just waiting on a mini HDMI to HDMI cable to arrive now so I can connect it to my monitor to set it up.
I think we all get bitten with that one
mini HDMI? micro HDMI you mean I think....

Yeah I meant micro! I'm getting the right one

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2021 2:08 pm**

Had it running for a day so far. Takes about 8 hours to complete each WCG Pandemic WU. With little heatsinks attached to each chip and a 5v fan blowing over the CPU it's at a steady 50°C

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2021 2:10 pm**

How is the RAM usage per WU? ISTR it was quite low

Posted: **Sat Jan 16, 2021 4:03 pm**

davidBAM wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 2:10 pm How is the RAM usage per WU? ISTR it was quite low

I think it's around 75-80MB per thread, since BOINC is using ~350MB in total

Posted: **Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:26 pm**

New batch of Turing Pi 1 on sale pretty soon, you can pre-order here

Posted: **Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:46 pm**

scole of TSBT wrote: ↑Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:53 pmHow do you overclock a Pi4?

Though the answer by DavidBAM is not wrong, it is not complete either.

The proper way to overclock a Pi4 is

Step 1: Update the firmware

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt update --fix-missing
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt install rpi-eeprom

to see the current status

Code: Select all

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update

to actually update the firmware

Code: Select all

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
$ sudo reboot

See this article on the effect of up-to-date Raspberry Pi4 firmware

Step 2. Set the overvoltage, and set CPU and GPU speeds

$ sudo nano /boot/config.txt
# Add these lines:
over_voltage = 6
arm_freq = 2000
gpu_freq = 750
# Ctrl+X, Y, Enter to save the session
$ sudo reboot

See this article if you want to push it to 2147 MHz

The best overclocking results can be obtained with the 8GB SBC, the Pi400 and the 8GB CM4s, as the rumours go -up to 2300 MHz, i've read....

Posted: **Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:57 pm**

My pi farm.

One is the boot server for all the others so a single 256Gb SSD is shared. The clients have no media whatsoever. The boot requires its own dedicated LAN and DHCP server so that's a £20 48-port switch underneath it all. I do plan to add a USB3 stick for DATA only on instances b1 and up so that when they die (and they do when acting as Linux boot devices) all I do is mount another one. Clients talk to the outside world over WLAN

Posted: **Tue Aug 17, 2021 11:40 pm**

I am in the midst a reorganization of my ARM department (they will go to the other side of my man cave, to spread the heat emission). As soon as I am finished I'll take some pictures. May have to buy a better webcam -or use my phone. My setup differs wildly from that of DavidBAM, I can promise you. More variety in ARM boards and their OS-es, and a different approach as to how to run and administer them too, involving much SD-cards, eMMC disks, network switches, various casings, more extreme cooling solutions, etc.

The Scottish Boinc Team

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