Progress as of 31 March

Einstein@home progress as of 31 March 2019:

This last fortnight the cluster has been on and off. There were a few warm days where it was off but for the most part its been running 24/7.

The 12 Pi3B+ nodes have been running Einstein BRP4 work and the 4 Pi3B nodes have been doing a mix of both Seti and Einstein. They are currently back on Seti.

Einstein@home added a new beta app which confused their scheduler so all the Pis were requesting work and getting told there wasn't any - Even though the server status page said there were 10,000 work units available. I hadn't changed anything so I assumed it was a project issue. I set the Pi3B+ nodes to No New Work overnight and allowed the Pi3B's to do Seti work. The following day I enabled work fetch on the Pi3B+ nodes and they all managed to pick up work.

Add some older Pis

Adding some more nodes
Now that I have a bit of room I have added the prototype Pi^4 case back into the cluster. Its got 4 x Pi3B's which are a little slower than the 3B+ but can still crunch numbers. It took a little time to get them updated to the latest Raspbian and to reconfigure the router.

At the moment I have it running Seti work which I might leave it on for a week or so before moving it back to Einstein. The first batch of Seti multi-beam work units took 20 hours to complete.

That brings the cluster up to:
4 x Pi3B nodes
12 x Pi3B+ nodes


Other news
I was hoping the Raspberry Pi foundation might announce a new model Pi but it seems they just rounded out the existing models and it will probably be next year before we see a new model. That means I might as well order the additional 12 Pi3B+'s that I need to complete the Bitscope Blade Rack.

A casualty

I had the cluster running Einstein BRP4 work on the weekend because it was cooler. At the moment it consists of 12 nodes. I have 4 nodes in each of my Pi^4 cases and I have 3 cases.

I checked up on the running tasks using BOINCtasks and most of the tasks were nearing 90% completed after 10 hours, but 4 nodes seemed to be a lot slower as their tasks were only 40% done. Then I looked at the Pi^4 case that the 4 nodes were in and noticed that the red power LED on all four were off, but they were still running and doing regular disk access. The red LED is normally on constantly. If its blinking or off then the Pi thinks there is a problem with the power supply. If all 4 of them are off and they are plugged into the same USB charger then its probably the USB charger.

Fortunately I had a spare 5 port charger and swapped it out which got them going again and proved that it was indeed the charger. Even though the blue LED on the charger was on, indicating it was working, it obviously wasn't. I don't blame the charger really - Its not rated to run 4 Raspberry Pi3B+ (which in theory can pull between 8 and 10 amps) and a couple of 60mm fans constantly. The tasks have since validated despite this.

Not dead, just idle

Idling along
Due to the weather Marks Rpi Cluster has been processing Einstein work in bursts overnight. I've been leaving them idle during the day thanks to the high temperatures.

I run them with a minimal cache setting so they download just enough work to keep each CPU core busy for about 11 hours and then they idle during the hottest part of the day. Normally I run them 24/7 but it doesn't do much for their life span so have been doing this for the summer months.


New Pi?
The Raspberry Pi foundation usually announce new Pis in February so if there is likely to be a new Rpi it will probably get announced next month. Here's hoping.