Re:Let's Build a 28-Core Raspberry Pi Cluster
by ryall on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @06:55AM
(#24130628)
To help with the noise try replacing the fans with high quality ones. I threw some nocturnas into an old managed dell switch and it quieted down immensely.
Just be aware that sometimes they change the pins around from the standard pinout, I blew out one of the fans before discovering this. Fan still works, just lost the rpm monitoring :(
Re:Let's Build a 28-Core Raspberry Pi Cluster
by justinclift on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @08:23AM
(#24131297)
Thanks, very much agree.
I took a naive approach to it before having any clue about electronics, just replacing one of the (3) internal fans with a quieter one of the same voltage. Mostly to see if that would work.
While it functioned, the "fan warning" light was then permanently on (with the replacement fan in).
If I still had the gear and were to do it again, I'd investigate properly and figure out a real solution. :)
Mellanox cards and related cabling is generally still pretty good (in UK and Australia anyway).
A few years ago I obtained a few 24 port HP Procurve switches (3400cl-24G), with 10GbE (CX4 connectors) on the back.
Those worked pretty well, though turned out to be slightly too noisy for use as desktop switches. ;)
Taking a quick look on US Ebay now, something like this (US$39) might have been workable:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-J9145A-ProCurve-2910al-24G-Ether...
I don't know that seller at all, but ex-enterprise HP Procurve gear should generally be pretty safe. From reputable vendors anyway. :)
For Singapore, I'm not sure. Might have needed to get something from the US shipped over. This one seems like it'd be ~US$80 including shipping, which was probably too much:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProCurve-Switch-1800-24G-switch-...