Building a mainframe

Discussion in 'New Build / Upgrade Advice' started by Markus, Dec 24, 2011.

  1. Markus

    Markus Geek Trainee

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    Hi, I would like to know how to build a mainframe computer from scratch. I know this is a daunting task, but I am well-motivated. I have recently heard from an acquaintance that if you are educated and know where to find cheap parts, you can build a modest mainframe for around 800-1000 dollars. I've got a website he recommended for the cheap parts. And boy howdy are they cheap. Now all I need to know, is how do I build it, what I need and someone to walk me through it step by step. My new friend offered to do this for me, but unfortunately, I lost his contact info. So I'm turning to some rather well-educated and talented people here in this forum.

    I've also already searched the forum to see if there was already a thread about this, so if one exists and I just didn't use the right search terms, forgive me.

    This process may take a while, so anyone I get help from is likely to become a long-term acquaintance.
    It's for science. Yes. Group computing is the shiz, and I want to build a mainframe just to donate the computing resources to some of my BOINC projects. I figure if they can do wonders with lot's of people's personal computers, they'd probably salivate at the mouth for a full-fledged mainframe.

    I'm also a noob, so this will no doubt be a frustrating task for some. But i'm not hopeless, after all, how hard could assembly be? If anyone is interested, please reply to this forum or PM me and I'll give you my Skype contact info.

    You'd be doing the world a lot of good and helping find cures for diseases and all that jazz.

    Markus
    By the way, I'm new to the forums, so nice to meet you all. [​IMG]
     
  2. M_Kincy

    M_Kincy Geek

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    Welcome to the forums,
    I think that unless your looking at something from the last decade (which i don't see being dirt cheap) you can probably get higher MIPS and almost certainly higher FLOPS from a modern desktop. Just being honest I know very little about the subject but deduction and common sence leads me to believe two things.
    one is that the power of desktop computers has grown leaps and bounds over the past 10 years where as to my knowledge there hasn't been any mainframe advancements since the IBM z890 in around 2006. secondly there are alot of brainiacs already doing exactly what you are planing to do, they could all use ancient mainframes if they wanted to, but they choose to use desktops with as much parralel proccessing power as they can afford/fit into the machine. so, your peers seem to be under the impression that a desktop with several hundred GPU cores does the job more efficiently.
     
  3. M_Kincy

    M_Kincy Geek

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    While i was out shopping this morning your mainframe idea popped up in my head a couple of times. Some other things i thought of that you may want to consider. Using an IBM x890 as an example because all of its specification’s are fairly typical. The weight is around 1750 pounds in a 13 sqft footprint, which means you would likely need to reinforce your floor. The power requirement is 2x 240v 30 amps so you will likely need more electric service from the grid, a new breaker box and new wiring ran to the room where you will operate the beast. The heat generated is approximately 16,000 BTU/hour you will need a sufficient cooling and ventilation system to dissipate that heat. Probably a 3 ton central cooling unit depending on the size of the room and the ambient temps in your area. It also will consume 4.7 KVA of electricity at full load, between its own power consumption and the cooling, you're probably looking at a $500-$800 a month increase on your electric bill.
     
  4. Markus

    Markus Geek Trainee

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    Actually maybe I haven't explained well enough. I'd basically like to make a computer, with 8-10 SBC's on it and use it purely for processing batch data. Like I said i'm into group computing. All I really need is processing power. I've heard from some other people that all i'd really need to do is get the SBCs and then hook them up into a backplane. But I don't know what that is really. I gather that an SBC is basically like a motherboard, but smaller and it's plugged into a backplane which is like a main power board that powers all the different SBCs plugged into it. Am I right?
     

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