HP Superdome SX2000 Itanium 2 - Bitcoin or litecoin mining?

[AndrewHenson]

Hello,

Does anyone know if it is possible to run bitcoin or litecoin mining software on a HP Superdome computer with Itanium processors?

I have been offered two fully loaded units at scrap value because they have been superseded by quad core versions, if anyone has any experience with these machines your advice would be appreciated.

thanks


Andrew

[Bitweasil]

It's entirely possible, though you'd likely have to write your own software for it (if you wanted anything resembling optimized code for Itanium).

There's no way it would be worth the power needed to run those, though.

You're probably better off eBaying it to some sort of enthusiast.

[Graet]

It's entirely possible, though you'd likely have to write your own software for it (if you wanted anything resembling optimized code for Itanium).

There's no way it would be worth the power needed to run those, though.

You're probably better off eBaying it to some sort of enthusiast.

and buying Bitcoin with the proceeds

[Trillium]

It's one of those "if you have to ask the question, you probably can't do it" kind of things. Itanium systems are highly specialized, you'd have to develop the code for mining from the ground up in order to get proper performance from the CPUs. And the power to run these things is just outrageous, and you could never break even against electricity costs. If you were going to try and mine anything with such a system it would be XPM, YAC, or another CPU-only coin. The electricity rate where I live is $0.30/kWh and at current XPM prices I cannot break with my systems that are mostly based on 4-5 year old CPUs (both desktop PC cpus - core 2 duo and quads - and Xeon CPUs of that time).

You are going to have a really hard time selling these on eBay too. I have monitored quite a few such systems as their sellers try to get rid of them for huge prices (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars). The simple fact of the matter is that no one wants an old Itanium server/cluster/supercomputer. There are plenty of uses for old desktop PC, laptops, and old servers, but the only good an Itanium is for is i. Spare parts. ii. Collectors items / museum pieces or iii. the hyper-rich enthusiast who wants to tinker with it in their spare time. As you can imagine a sale for the later two wouldn't happen very often.

My only advice I can give is to compare what you have to other listings and then list at 50% or lower than the others. Or else you will just sit there waiting and relisting it for months with nil interest from buyers. Also be sure to include the 'best offer' option on the listing. Depending on your location, eBay may or may not offer free relisting of unsold items.

[AndrewHenson]

Hello,

Thanks for the advice, I will leave this alone as it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

I have a few Jupiters on order for September, its been a long wait since June.  The next couple of weeks are going to drag...

Happy mining :-)


Andrew

[Trillium]

Hello,

Thanks for the advice, I will leave this alone as it doesn't seem worth the trouble.

I have a few Jupiters on order for September, its been a long wait since June.  The next couple of weeks are going to drag...

Happy mining :-)


Andrew

While I wouldn't encourage mining on it, how much is 'scrap value' that you have to pay? You may still be able to sell it and make some money, but be prepared to keep in storage for a long time. So you'd need a lot of space, a vehicle to move such large equipment, and probably at least two people to move it around on the ground even!

As always with eBay you can get a lot more interest if you can show it at least powers up, do you have the necessary infrastructure to power it? The power requirements should be on the HP site, they have very detailed planning and installation papers for their large systems like these.

[milkbottlec]

What hash rate could it get? Just wonder

[polarhei]

I think, Bitcoin would do bad with this one but not litecoin due to connection and the processing issues.

However the Itanium series becomes obsolete as the real business is powered by ARM, RISC (Which is mainly PRC operated, just time issues, perhaps three years later?) or X86 based (Including x86) for the time being.

I think the construction is little trickier than I thought even I have read how to mine with cpuminer. It looks like I have to rewrite completely to suit that machine.

[AndrewHenson]

Hello,

I can get two fully loaded units for 2k euros for the pair.  It needs a special phase 2 electricity supply.  So I guess I could get that installed if required, or find a datacentre locally to house it.

If your interested in re-writing CGMiner to mine litecoins on a Superdone what would you charge me for writing that?

I have five jupiters on order for September delivery, all hosted so at the moment I will have 2 terra hash, however as the machines are slightly faster I could have 2.5 or even 3 terra hash.  WOW I am going to clean up baby :-)


rgds



Andrew

[Trillium]

Hello,

I can get two fully loaded units for 2k euros for the pair.  It needs a special phase 2 electricity supply.  So I guess I could get that installed if required, or find a datacentre locally to house it.

If your interested in re-writing CGMiner to mine litecoins on a Superdone what would you charge me for writing that?

I have five jupiters on order for September delivery, all hosted so at the moment I will have 2 terra hash, however as the machines are slightly faster I could have 2.5 or even 3 terra hash.  WOW I am going to clean up baby :-)


rgds

Andrew

I highly doubt the entire system would make more MH/s or KH/s (depending on algo in use) than a single Radeon 7950. You would be mining on a lot of highly inefficient (by todays standard) CPUs. It would be no better or worse than running out and buying a huge pallet of Pentium 3 and 4 based desktop PCs: completely useless when GPU/ASIC are available for scrypt mining and very poorly performing for CPU coins compared to today's i7/i5/xeon and AMD equivalents. Even mining XPM / YAC / other CPU coins you would most likely not break-even unless you had free power. Even then it would take a very long time to make back your $2000 investment + infrastructure installation costs. It might sound appealing to  run your own quasi-supercomputer however these systems are just too dated now to compete. If you somehow got your hands on a sparkling new new set of super computer server racks from 2012-2013 then you might be able to reach break even with a CPU coin like XPM (if the market were to improve, too).

[AndrewHenson]

ok, before I completely give up on this idea of mining litecoins or any other CPU based coin.  Here are the specs of the Superdome, I can get two of these.  They went end of line on the 4th June 2013 so I would imagine they must still be relatively current, or maybe not see what you think.

Prod Nbr   Description (EN)   Qty
A5200A   HP Superdome Server Solution   1
A9834A   HP Superdome 32/64 Core Chassis   1
A9834A#429   HP 32p Chassis,Hardware Only   1
A5800A   PDCA Redundant Power Source   1
A6440A   SuperDome in-line power connector   2
A6440A#501   In-line connector for 5 wire power   2
A9837A   HP Superdome sx2000 Cell Board   8
AD371A   HP Superdome dual core 1.6/18M processor   16
AD372A   HP Superdome iCAP 1.6/18M processor 2c   16
A9857A   HP SD 512GB(128x4GB) PC2-4200 R Memory   2
AB405A   HP Superdome PCIe/PCI-X 6/6 I/O chassis   4
AB545A   HP PCI-X 4-port 1000Base-T Gigabit Adptr   16
AB290A   HP PCI-X 2p 1000BT, 2p U320 SCSI Adptr   2
AH403A   HP PCIe 2-port 8Gb FC SR (Emulex) HBA   16
A9835A   HP Superdome 32/64 Core Addon Chassis   1
A9835A#429   HP 32p Add On Chassis, Hardware Only   1
A5800A   PDCA Redundant Power Source   1
A6440A   SuperDome in-line power connector   2
A6440A#501   In-line connector for 5 wire power   2
A9837A   HP Superdome sx2000 Cell Board   8
AD371A   HP Superdome dual core 1.6/18M processor   16
AD372A   HP Superdome iCAP 1.6/18M processor 2c   16
A9857A   HP SD 512GB(128x4GB) PC2-4200 R Memory   2
AB405A   HP Superdome PCIe/PCI-X 6/6 I/O chassis   4
AB545A   HP PCI-X 4-port 1000Base-T Gigabit Adptr   16
AB290A   HP PCI-X 2p 1000BT, 2p U320 SCSI Adptr   2
AH403A   HP PCIe 2-port 8Gb FC SR (Emulex) HBA   16
BA931AA   HP-UX 11i v3 DC-OE Media   4
BA931AA#AJR   DVD media   4
BA931AC   HP-UX 11i v3 Data Center OE LTU   4
BA931AC#055   PCL HP-UX 11i v3 DCOE IPF 16+Skt LTU   64
AF034A   HP 10642G2 200mm Extn Shock Rack   1
AF034A#001   Factory Express Base Racking   1
C7508BZ   HP Tape Array 5300 Factory Rack   2
Q1592B   HP DVD + RW Array Field Module   4
Q1575A   HP DAT 160 Array Module   4
C2364A   SCSI Terminator LVD/SE HDTS68 Multimd   8
C2363B   SCSI Cable 10m VHDTS68/HDTS68 M/M Multimd   8
AF074A   HP Rack Grounding Kit   1
AF062A   HP 10K G2 600mm Stabilizer Kit   1
AF054A   HP 10642 G2 Sidepanel Kit   1
252663-B24   HP 16A High Voltage Modular PDU   2
AF581A   HP 3.6m 16A C19 IEC309 Pwr Cord   2
AD277A   HP GiCAP Sharing Right   64
      
A9802D   HP Superdome SMS PC Solution   1
AG066A   HP TFT7600 Rckmnt Kybd 17in Intl Monitor   1
J9085A   HP 2610-24 Switch   1
508783-B21   HP 2610 series Rail Kit   1


thanks


Andrew

[polarhei]

Hello,

I can get two fully loaded units for 2k euros for the pair.  It needs a special phase 2 electricity supply.  So I guess I could get that installed if required, or find a datacentre locally to house it.

If your interested in re-writing CGMiner to mine litecoins on a Superdone what would you charge me for writing that?

I have five jupiters on order for September delivery, all hosted so at the moment I will have 2 terra hash, however as the machines are slightly faster I could have 2.5 or even 3 terra hash.  WOW I am going to clean up baby :-)


rgds



Andrew

Andrew, The simple way should be, you will need to find C/c++ compiler for Itanium , Then go to sourceforge to search the cpuminer, You will need to do from starch. It is just some c code. Your OS should contain the needed. You may take a try

http://noggin.intel.com/content/programming-itanium-based-systems-intro (Accessed on 7 September 2013, I think I do no need to rewrite the code, just need to compile from zero)

[Trillium]

I reckon its a trap. It'll cost thousands to buy and then thousands more to either install power infrastructure or find a datacenter to host it (which can be both difficult to arrange and expensive). This doesn't even consider the efficiency of the CPU nor that SHA-256 and scrypt are two hardware generations ahead already. This will be my last post advising you of how terrible this idea is. Best of luck.

[polarhei]

however, this may be used as people dislike to face the coding hell so they throw away. if for me thus may be interesting.