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Forum: Hardware Chat Room
Thread: experience with compute stick crunching |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 14
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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So, someone on Amazon was selling a brand new 1st Generation Compute Stick (8GB eMMC, 1GB RAM, Ubuntu 14) for only $37! So I picked it up and it's working great so far. If youre planning on using a compute stick for yourself, this is what I observed.
----------------------------------------Specs: 8GB eMMC (~1.5GB Recovery, ~980MB Swap, ~5.6GB for user+OS) 1GB Ram, probably DDR3 1333 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 Bit Intel Atom Z3735F @1.33GHz (Turbo Boost to 1.83) Observations: -Starting the unit headless won't work unless you upgrade the BIOS to version 31 (mine shipped with 25, and I upgraded it to 35; the latest and final version) -Chromium didn't work (was preinstalled); assuming this was due to lack of RAM. -Removing it alongside "cheese" and a few other apps saved nearly 1GB of space! The unit has less than 1GB of space for the user after the OS configures itself, so you need to clear space for BOINC to store the project files. -Setting the stick to never sleep or "turn off the monitor" let's it stay on 24/7 -Unlike most Bay Trail tablets, the Compute Stick has a very small fan on it. -To flash the BIOS, you need to move the update file to the root of the recovery partition; BIOS can only read FAT32 filesystems it looks like -Connecting with TeamViewer sometimes 'crahses' the stick (AKA the keyboard stops responding, it shows as offline in the app) I use it just to see if it's online by pinging it (adding it to my account) -Setting your "swappiness" should help in keeping your eMMC wear levels down quite a bit -Setting your GRUB menu to timeout also helps out a bunch when starting headless -My temps are in the high 50 degree range, which is OK (60% all cores) -BIOS only supports Win8.1 32Bit or Linux 64bit, and 32bit Linux if you use the bootia32.efi file -The default CPU governer was set to Power Saver Most Compute Sticks now have 16-32GB of storage, so that won't be an issue. The windows version would obviously be easier to configure (at least for me), but this little guy I picked up is doing pretty well so far.  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
So exciting, EMB9000! Looked up the thing.
Pardon me for asking so stupidly: It is something you stuff into a PC because it needs some space, right?  |
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mmonnin
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Jul 20, 2016 Post Count: 148 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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It is a whole guts of a computer. Plug it into a monitor and you've got a computer with video output.
----------------------------------------https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2482326,00.asp  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Oh, really! Could it turn my TV set into a computer? And how would I manage that?
Proud - and still shaking - from recently having mastered installation of a mobile wi-fi router and a Chromecast (kind of indicating my level), not to mention turning my old smartphone into a one-WU-a-day-cruncher, I now realize there are several reasons why I'm sort of a software person. However, your information has stuck in my head against my will, EMB9000 and mmonnin, even though the link only led to a picture and a promise of four reasons for getting the thing in my end - but sometimes things get censored when crossing borders. |
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mmonnin
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Jul 20, 2016 Post Count: 148 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Oh, really! Could it turn my TV set into a computer? And how would I manage that? Proud - and still shaking - from recently having mastered installation of a mobile wi-fi router and a Chromecast (kind of indicating my level), not to mention turning my old smartphone into a one-WU-a-day-cruncher, I now realize there are several reasons why I'm sort of a software person. However, your information has stuck in my head against my will, EMB9000 and mmonnin, even though the link only led to a picture and a promise of four reasons for getting the thing in my end - but sometimes things get censored when crossing borders. Yes, it does pretty much that. I don't have one but I understand it has all the guts a computer in it. There is a USB port for your Mouse/Keyboard and it has a the HDMI port for video out. Plug in some external power and it can turn your regular TV into a Smart TV to stream video or crunch BOINC I guess. I think it would be a better Toy then BOINC cruncher though. I've bought several Android phones off eBay for some low power crunchers for $15 each. |
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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With Android I found it's better to just 100% one or two cores on an Octa Core phone than run them all really low; gets results in faster and not a lot of heat.
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I have the stick sitting on top of the dorm's AC vent so whenever it kicks on it cools it, It's one of those units that goes across half the room so it's not blocking anything
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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One thing I did notice was that (after updates broke it and required a factory reset to get working again), the stick kept crashing. I lowered ram allocation and CPU usage, suspecting the USB PSU couldn't keep up. I also watched from TeamViewer to vnc over USB tether to manage it; it's working good now. I'll keep an eye on it.
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wolfman1360
Senior Cruncher Canada Joined: Jan 17, 2016 Post Count: 176 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi,
----------------------------------------This looks interesting. I actually had a notion to find a few of these on the cheap and make a little army boinc station with a laptop cooler. Speaking of this - how is fan noise? Do clock speeds remain consistent at 1.83 ghz? I have a similar processor - z3735G and it underclocks to 1.6 ghz - actually never reaches 1.8 - but is in a dell venue 8 pro. My x5 z8500 in my Kangaroo is even worse, not coming remotely close to hitting 2.2 ghz though I suspect there's something weird going on with power usage, it rarely gets above 2.9 wats and is also fanless to boot. How do WUs look on this guy? I'm sure it's no speed demon but I'd honestly be curious with how the z3735 compares to something like the z8300 or z8350.
Crunching for the betterment of human kind and the canines who will always be our best friends.
AWOU! |
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I solved the shutting down problem; more than likely it was too much power draw. I have it set to all cores at 60% still, but lowered the allocated memory a bunch. Only one task runs at a time now (mostly), and they take a long time. The past 5 days, in fact, it's pushed exactly 5 tasks per day. Now, for the compute stick, you can't hear it at all unless you put your ear next to it. So that's nice.
----------------------------------------[Edit 1 times, last edit by EBM9000 at Oct 19, 2017 4:26:14 AM] |
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