Re: multiple motherboards
eas-lab_at_absamail.co.za
Date: 09/08/03
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Date: 08 Sep 2003 12:44:46 GMT
> ray <pdqxyz@zianet.com> wrote in message news:<3f5bddbe$1@news.zianet.com>...
> > Suppose I wanted to construct a computer with multiple motherboards as
> > opposed to multiple processors on one board. I'm specificaly thinking of
> > several mini-itx boards in one machine. What would be involved and where
> > would I start?
>
Robert E A Harvey wrote:
> I'e built such a device. Each motherboard has 256M of ram, and there
> is a stack of them held up by M4 threaded pillars. I put an
> aluminium plate the same size on the top and added a hard disk and a
> network hub with the plastic case discarded. All of them are joined
> to the network hub using the on-board RJ45 port, and I have a £5
> network card in the top one to connect to the outside world.
>
> I bought some of the PSU plugs from www.farnell.co.uk and made a
> custom wiring loom to run all of them off one 350W PSU. There is a
> small diode (1N4148) in seies with each PSU on line, so that if any
> one motherboard tries to turn on the PSU it works and powers all the
> others up as well. When you shut them down the PSU stays on until the
> last motherboard is powered down. The PSU also powers the network
> hub.
>
> The top one boots normally, and then the others boot by NFS using the
> PXE boot built into the bios. They all boot the same tftp image, but
> with different swap files as set up by thier device name which they
> get by DHCP from the master.
>
> At the moment I have toggle switches on the reset lines, so that I can
> get the top one booted before I release the others, but am working on
> a simple buffer board to control the reset lines on the slaves from
> the printer port on the master.
>
> Next trick would be to put a KVM switch in the box too, but havn't
> bothered with that yet.
>
> The box is a cylendrical stainless wastebin with a black pop-up lid.
> I've put some rubber feet under it so that there is a space underneath
> for the cables to come out and the air to get in, and slotted the edge
> of the lid for the air to get out. The only fan is the one in the
> PSU, which is very quiet. I mounted the whole PSU on rubber washers
> (tap washers actually).
>
> I have to lift the lid to get at the toggle switch array, and may yet
> make a false panel inside with loads of LEDs on it. But I havn't
> bothered yet.
>
This is fascinating.
What's it good for ?
Perhaps an 'ample' server could be built out of a stack of cheap
CPU mother boards ?
I'm guessing that you have documentation to guide you ?
Such a project could even justify it's own mailing-list.
Is this knowledge 'captured' somewhere ?
== Chris Glur.
- Next message: Hagit: "Re: floating point support"
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- Maybe in reply to: ray: "multiple motherboards"
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