How do you guys get all those b0xes?

Z

Zxcs

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 11, 2004
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I was wondering, how do you all manage to afford (and keep running) all those DC boxes you have in your bedroom/living room/basement/kitchen??
Getting cheap computers here in the UK is pretty hard with some of the cheapest starting at 200GBP (~$350).
I recently bought a dual opty rig (with all the extras n such) for just over 3300 GBP (~$6000), and then I see people with 10+ dual and quad CPU boxes. Are you all loaded or are you onto some secret goldmine (like "borrowing" some from work)? =D
 
mostly for services.

I do alot of trading and combing.


You ask how we can afford them... I ask you how the human race can afford for us not to.
 
gettin a $6000 box to me seems like someone else might be a tad loaded too.... :p

what ive done is get all the 'broken' or 'its not working' parts i can find, put em all together, and hope it works. i think ive spent maybe $2000 on parts total. (that includes the first pc i ever built)
 
Some people never throw anything away...present company suspected. ;)
 
Not to mention donations and leftovers from business and school mass computer upgrades...kinda low, i know, but just imagine a school that wnats to get rid of 20+ computers cause they get new IBM's for their computer lab....they all go to the dump...unless u get to them first
 
The word "BORG" comes immediately to mind. Check around for bulk lot sales, auctions, or any source possible. I'm trying to get more info now, on some of these sales. 20 busted rigs could possibly yield 5-10 functional systems, with no additional cost. Still trying to work out a deal to get my hands on 2 of the 8, dual xeon server boards, my company plans to dump. IT's got dibs, but a few of them would like to be taught video encoding, maybe we can work out a deal ;) .
 
I get most of my parts from from leftovers from doing upgrades for people. Also from my own upgrades. Of course it helps to have other sources as well. I recently picked up about a dozen of the slim 3/4" thick 40 gig Maxtor drives from a hospital that had them on hand as spare parts and no longer had a use for them. Now that was a nice freebie.
 
Basically, you work with what you have got. I have a pair of Bartons, a Pentium 3, and a Dual Pentium II rig. That's all I've got, that's all I have to work with.

Now, if a friend wanted to dispose of a damaged or non-working computer, I might get enough parts to get my 400 mhz Celeron working again. Or I could replace the dodgy hard drives in my Dual rig.

I'm saving up for a Dual Opty rig that will double as a folding harem and a gaming rig. BTW, Dual Opterons + Dual cores = :eek: Throw in NUMAs and maybe a cheap or free mainboard + RAM + Hard drive and I can add another ghz to my farm (mobile Duron).

BTW, converting to Rackmount will save me space, but still... My power bill is still going to kill me. :( Plus, it's so expensive!

Ah, oh well. Maybe I can write off the power bill as a charitable donation? I mean, that's what it really is! :p
 
Build them slowly as you can afford them, if you have to buy. When you're known as the computer guy to your friends and family and when you are the entire IT dept. at your company you tend to get a lot of freebies. The trick is to keep your eye out for anything useable that people you know are getting rid of, and then look for good deals on things you have to buy. Also, don't go overboard on things that aren't needed for a dc box. In other words don't buy an agp card when you've got a perfectly good isa video card laying around not being used. Most of us run folding so the main thing is to have a fast, stable cpu, the rest really doesn't matter. In fact you don't even need a case for a farm box, a naked rig folds just as well as a rig in a pimped out Lian Li.
 
pageian said:
Build them slowly as you can afford them, if you have to buy. When you're known as the computer guy to your friends and family and when you are the entire IT dept. at your company you tend to get a lot of freebies. The trick is to keep your eye out for anything useable that people you know are getting rid of, and then look for good deals on things you have to buy. Also, don't go overboard on things that aren't needed for a dc box. In other words don't buy an agp card when you've got a perfectly good isa video card laying around not being used. Most of us run folding so the main thing is to have a fast, stable cpu, the rest really doesn't matter. In fact you don't even need a case for a farm box, a naked rig folds just as well as a rig in a pimped out Lian Li.
Click to expand...

That's true (naked vs Lian Li), but some of us live with other people. :p Cases can occasionally cut down on DB levels, especially when the only HSF combo you have is setup for a high GHZ processor, even though it's on a P3 800. ;)

That's a good point about going overboard. Everything uses electricity. It's also nice if you only have a handfull of boxen if you can multi-task them. For example, I have the Dual PII machine running a JBOD array, with the drives shared. It's basically a fileserver as well as a F@H box.
 
well I can install fah on boxes at work if I have the users permission, but I take it a step further and only install the screen saver and it only runs when no one is loged on.
 
I have one computer. It is of course running folding...
BUT look at my CPU count at stanford... and my average PPB (points per boxen :D )
... MOST of them are not fast (only 27 of 47 reported within a week.. the rest within 50 days)... but they do work, and I didn't have to pay for them. BORG.

Borg friends, family, work, and slow moving strangers. BORG.

cheers,

sharp

 
Folding can also become a very addicting hobby, pastime, sport, part time non-paying job etc…and trust me, there is no cure, until we find the cure :D
 
I work for a little company called Sealed Air, which is the company that invented bubble wrap. they sometimes require me to work 84 hour weeks, but thats being paid manager's rate + time and a half for overtime (anything over 40 hours). much like homer simpson and the nuclear plant i just showed up one day and they gave me a job. i also live with a roomate to split the cost of living, so i save my money but i also have a sectioned off portion of my income which i call "disposable income" which is money i can safely spend on folding (computers, electricity, fans/ air conditioners to keep the cool during the summer). i also fix computers on the side which helps me rake in an extra 60-200$ a week. and yes, i have giant rolls of bubble wrap for my own personal popping pleasure :D
 
Hmm, friends have a couple of useless computers they dont need, time to go get them. Never realised how "easy" it is to get working/semi-working old computers for nothing/next to nothing.
This just fills my head with ideas, since the company is planning a tech upgrade soon :D
 
Don't be shy about posting here if you need an old vid card or NIC to get a computer up and running. We'll usually make stuff available for the cost of postage, or even spot you for that as well. Anything that runs the client is useful, but be sure and ask for timeless units if its a real dog. Also, those machines you can't get running are still useful for contributing standoffs, LED's, switches, screws, etc.

The hard part sometimes is knowing when its OK to simply throw away that old 75 MHz CPU and mobo.
I may still find a use for that AT power supply!
 
yeah i know i for one have a lot of unused parts here, there was a thread not too long ago about people making trades and giving away free hardware to those who need it to get computers up and folding. hell if my apartment was bigger or i had a house i would have a [H]ard swapmeet. people could just bring boxes of extra 3parts and trade with each other to save on shipping.
 
One word, Ebay. I bought a lot of 12 sticks of sdram, a lot of 2 dual PII Mobo's, and a lot of 9 PII procs, all for about 60$ total. And that is to add to the 7 comps in my room already (Plus my families comps :D ). All I need is GFX cards and Hd's for em. ( If you got any PM me :D). Plus a lot of my friends and family have given me computers through out the years.
 
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