[Bioclusters] problems with AMD Athlon 2000+ MP

[William Park]

On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 08:01:02PM -0600, BHurwitz@twt.com wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> We have a 20 CPU cluster which has AMD Athlon 2000+ MP processors.  The
> cluster is relatively new and almost every week we loose one or two nodes
> due to the processors failing.  I think the issue may be heat related, so
> we tried separating the nodes, increasing the airflow with a fan, and
> dropping the temp in the server room.  None of these attempts have helped.
> We have also tried to replace the fans.  Has anyone ever had a similar
> problem?  How did you resolve it?  Are pentium III more stable?
> 
> Thank you in advance!
> Bonnie

- Check that CPU fan are making good contact with CPU.  Use heatsink
  compound, if you have to.

- I think your culprit may be power supply.  Good case and power
  supply cannot be over-emphasized.  I recommend Antec or Enlight.

- Intel runs a lot cooler.  P3 is more stable, but don't have the
  crunching power of AMD 2000+.  If you have the money, go for
  quad-Xeon.

-- 
William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <opengeometry@yahoo.ca>
Linux solution for data management and processing.