# Crunching on ARM/RPi 3?



## Aquinus (Jun 24, 2017)

Just out of curiosity, has anyone tried crunching with a Rasberry Pi 2 or 3? I know that a single one wouldn't put out a whole lot of PPDs if it evens works but, I'm wondering if it's possible and how efficient it would be from a power perspective since these boards don't use a whole lot of power in the first place. So just one might not do much but, I'm wondering what a small cluster of PIs could do if it's possible.

If no one has tried, maybe I'll get a RPi 3 just to see if it would work and if it does, maybe collect some numbers on how much it can do and how much power it took to do it. If it proves doable and feasible, maybe a small cluster of 4 or 8 of them could be a fun little proof-of-concept project.

Edit: It seems that someone already had done this. I refined my google search by adding a 3 at the end and found this: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-boinc/ I'm still curious as to how much it can do though.


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## therealmeep (Jun 24, 2017)

The difference a pi would make while crunching is pretty much negligible right now because arm is so much of a low power architecture in consumer chips you would be lucky to get maybe 1/10 of a medium end system. That said, people have used them for Bitcoin mining. https://vms.drweb.com/virus/?_is=1&i=15389228 this is a virus sig that runs around in a network logging into pis and starting them mining. Long story short, you could probably with some knowledge hack together an up to date arm based BOINC, but you probably wouldn't see a return on it until you drop money on 10-15 pis.


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## brandonwh64 (Jun 24, 2017)

The Pi has many uses but crunching wouldn't be one of them. The points you would get from one would be very low and a waste of power to point ratio.


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## Aquinus (Jun 24, 2017)

therealmeep said:


> The difference a pi would make while crunching is pretty much negligible right now because arm is so much of a low power architecture in consumer chips you would be lucky to get maybe 1/10 of a medium end system. That said, people have used them for Bitcoin mining. https://vms.drweb.com/virus/?_is=1&i=15389228 this is a virus sig that runs around in a network logging into pis and starting them mining. Long story short, you could probably with some knowledge hack together an up to date arm based BOINC, but you probably wouldn't see a return on it until you drop money on 10-15 pis.


Oh, I know. But considering that 4 PIs would only cost 140 USD, it might be worth while seeing how it fares.


brandonwh64 said:


> The points you would get from one would be very low and a waste of power to point ratio.


It's a low power device. I'm want numbers to confirm that it's not efficient from a power usage perspective. Yes, the number of points would be low but so would be the power to run it. The real question would be for how much power it's consuming, is it at least as efficient as a full blown computer. If you've done it, I would be curious to see what the numbers were.


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## therealmeep (Jun 24, 2017)

A pi runs off of something in the range of maybe 10 watts. If you crunch on a 95 watt cpu and a pi is ~1/10 the performance of such PC you should see returns at about the same rate as a PC.


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## silentbogo (Jun 24, 2017)

I've tried it on several ARM platforms, but there is one downfall - Linux client for ARM is no longer supported (at least it wasn't when I did my little project), so you have to use Android client with it's overhead and instability.
Also, Android client stops working occasionally (you have to reinstall it completely to restore functionality).

Now, in regards to PPD:
- My old Cubietruck did ~250PPD (Allwinner A20, 2c/2t, 1.3GHz). For RPi3 it should be x2 that much, maybe less.
- HTC One M7 did ~700PPD
- Galaxy Note 3 pulls between 900-1000PPD

Crunching on android is very unreliable. Your PPD will vary greatly,  and you will encounter some problems with result confirmations (at least 10% of my crunching jobs on ARM systems were not accepted).

BTW, there are some better options than Pi.
NanoPi, OrangePi, Pine64, Odroid and many other platforms are within the same price range or cost a little extra, already have lightweight Android ports, and give almost twice as much compute power. I'm getting a pair of nanoPi M3's in the next week or so. Gotta try that octa-core samsung madness.
http://www.friendlyarm.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=69&product_id=130

If it can pull at least 1200PPD, you can put x4-5 of those together, add a cheap industrial 5V 7A power supply and get an equivalent performance of a single x5670 in a small, quiet, cold 30W package.


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## blobster21 (Jun 25, 2017)

Keep us posted if you do it


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## silentbogo (Jun 25, 2017)

I think my new OrangePi Win Plus will get here faster than NanoPi M3's. 
If it works, I might give it a whirl one more time. Should be in a ballpark of RaspberryPi 3, but 2GB of faster RAM may benefit a bit more.


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## xvi (Jul 7, 2017)

silentbogo said:


> my new OrangePi Win Plus


I was looking at those pretty heavily for this. I'd be very interested to hear your results.

My little ARM Android TV box set thing set some pretty good perf/watt scores in the "How Efficient Is Your Cruncher" thread over here. Crunching on ARM is a viable option, in my humble opinion. Price per initial cost might not be as good though.


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## silentbogo (Jul 7, 2017)

xvi said:


> I was looking at those pretty heavily for this. I'd be very interested to hear your results.
> 
> My little ARM Android TV box set thing set some pretty good perf/watt scores in the "How Efficient Is Your Cruncher" thread over here. Crunching on ARM is a viable option, in my humble opinion. Price per initial cost might not be as good though.


I'm still waiting on my order to arrive. According to tracking it left China last week, so it should arrive to Ukrainian customs any day now.
Pricewise that OrangePi is probably the best bang for the buck on the market. Even the cheapest STB with an older 32 bit quad-core SoC will cost near double of this thing.
There are even more bad-ass options, but too expensive for me. I was looking at Helio X20 dev board, but it is still so expensive that it's probably cheaper to buy a ready-to-go UMI Plus E (it's a friggin' laptop in the pocket).

I've cancelled my NanoPi order, but I'm hoping to re-order soon.


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## silentbogo (Jul 26, 2017)

Finally! It arrived!

    

It's about as big as RPi3, but has a lot more features(1Gbe, 2GB RAM, WiFi, LVDS interface). On the last photo it is pictured next to a pack of cigarettes and my 5V 7A power supply.
It's almost maxed out, so all I have left is transplant a 32GB eMMC from one of my tablets, attempt to clone an SPI flash with bootloader from a 16Mbit Macronix to one of my 128Mbit Winbond chips, and maybe add a decent WiFi antenna.
At first I was scared by A64 datasheet, which mentioned only 8GB eMMC support, but there were some people who successfully upgraded stock flash to 64GB on similar A64-powered BananaPi.

I'm already downloading Android distro for it, so hopefully soon I can start crunching.


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## Boatvan (Jul 26, 2017)

Let me know how it goes. I have a Pi with RetroPi installed collecting dust on my mantle. Perhaps I can put it to good use.


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## silentbogo (Jul 27, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> Let me know how it goes. I have a Pi with RetroPi installed collecting dust on my mantle. Perhaps I can put it to good use.


Well, so far it goes badly. 
Android does not work at all, and there is no Android-based OrangeOS for my device. Support is also kinda quiet and sneaky.
Even Ubuntu Server is having some issues, but at least it runs.

I'm gonna try some third-party distros, maybe at least one of them will come to life....


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## Boatvan (Jul 27, 2017)

silentbogo said:


> Well, so far it goes badly.
> Android does not work at all, and there is no Android-based OrangeOS for my device. Support is also kinda quiet and sneaky.
> Even Ubuntu Server is having some issues, but at least it runs.
> 
> I'm gonna try some third-party distros, maybe at least one of them will come to life....


Thanks for the update! So even lightweight linux distros don't play nice? Dang. I can also mess around tonight with different distros.


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## silentbogo (Jul 27, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> Thanks for the update! So even lightweight linux distros don't play nice? Dang. I can also mess around tonight with different distros.


It should work. I just need to find the right one.
Android 7.1 port from Pine64 did start, but it does not see my KB/mouse so I can't do anything really. I'm going to try Pine64 RemixOS on it. If it works - it's gonna be even better.
At least I got as far as seeing an actual desktop, rather than blank screen or dmesg blabble.


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## Boatvan (Jul 30, 2017)

Throwing fresh Raspbian on my pi. I am putting on the lite version because I'll usually just SSH into it anyway. I will update you guys when it is all set up. I have a case with an external fan too! @silentbogo how goes it with yours?


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## silentbogo (Jul 30, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> Throwing fresh Raspbian on my pi. I am putting on the lite version because I'll usually just SSH into it anyway. I will update you guys when it is all set up. I have a case with an external fan too! @silentbogo how goes it with yours?


Got Android 7.1.1 running, but it was a Pine A64 distro.  So, unfortunately none of my USB devices are working. It has a built-in USB 2.0 hub, and Pine does not, so I'm trying to get an answer from OrangePi devs on how to get USB hub running at boot, so I can hook up my KB/Mouse.
BTW, RemixOS for ARM is also working, but also has this issue.

Still no BOINC....

Linux is working, but unfortunately there is no more BOINC Linux client for ARM.


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## Boatvan (Jul 31, 2017)

So I'm an idiot. I read what you said about linux ARM support, but either didn't comprehend or was in denial.


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## silentbogo (Jul 31, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> So I'm an idiot. I read what you said about linux ARM support, but either didn't comprehend or was in denial.


No reason to panic! 
There are still ways to get it crunching.

If you have RPi3, you can try this:
https://rtandroid.embedded.rwth-aachen.de/downloads/raspberry-pi/

There are some Gingerbread and Jellybean ports for RPi2, but those are unstable community builds (usually done by 1-2 guys as a weekend project). 
You can try them out and see if it's stable enough to run BOINC. Usually there is no GPU acceleration in these Android distros, but who needs this stuff anyway


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## Boatvan (Jul 31, 2017)

silentbogo said:


> No reason to panic!
> There are still ways to get it crunching.
> 
> If you have RPi3, you can try this:
> ...


I am trying a mod of Lineage OS which in my opinion so far is buggy and sketchy. Couldn't install the official BOINC, so I went with an .apk that I found. It seems to be running, but we will see if it actually returns results. I feel your pain, they didn't make this easy... If this doesn't work I'll try your suggestion.


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## Boatvan (Aug 1, 2017)

Huzzah! It wasn't doing anything all day, but after adjusting the max temp., it is working on tasks! Was it worth all the trouble? Probably not... But, Proof of concept yay!


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## silentbogo (Aug 1, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> Huzzah! It wasn't doing anything all day, but after adjusting the max temp., it is working on tasks! Was it worth all the trouble? Probably not... But, Proof of concept yay!


Just wait a couple of days until you see the numbers. I wasn't expecting much when I ran experiment on my phones, but at the end PPD/W was a lot more than I expected. 
I only had to stop crunching on my HTC One M7 after a month, only because of heat and battery degradation (lost >25% of capacity, but fortunately it came back to normal after a few cycles).

Also, did you enable the "desktop" mode  in BIONC? Can't remember what exactly this option is called, but it disables CPU power saving features and runs crunching tasks at 100% load all the time.


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## Boatvan (Aug 3, 2017)

First few days crunching on the Pi 3. I have it set to 100% utilization max and no time restrictions. The first day obviously was null because it only got a couple of hours in if that.


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## silentbogo (Aug 3, 2017)

There you go. That's already some good results.
You'll see some fluctuations day-to-day, but still - that's not bad at all.


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## Boatvan (Aug 3, 2017)

silentbogo said:


> There you go. That's already some good results.
> You'll see some fluctuations day-to-day, but still - that's not bad at all.


I am pleasantly surprised. I thought the jenkiness of my setup (old BOINC client on a mod of jailbroken Android OS) would adversely affect my numbers. I'll take an extra 3k points every day lol. Better than collecting dust.

Any luck with yours?


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## silentbogo (Aug 3, 2017)

Boatvan said:


> I am pleasantly surprised. I thought the jenkiness of my setup (old BOINC client on a mod of jailbroken Android OS) would adversely affect my numbers. I'll take an extra 3k points every day lol. Better than collecting dust.
> 
> Any luck with yours?


Not so much... That stupid USB hub causes all kinds of trouble with 3rd pary distros. Official Android still does not work and no response on official forum.
So, I guess my updated verdict: don't buy OrangePi - just get Pine A64.
I think it's time to give up and start another project with it....


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## The Data Master (Aug 3, 2017)

Anyone try or thinking of trying to crunch on Parallella?


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## silentbogo (Aug 3, 2017)

The Data Master said:


> Anyone try or thinking of trying to crunch on Parallella?


I don't think you can.


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## Boatvan (Aug 5, 2017)

So after a few more days, I can definitively say, crunching on a Pi 3 at 100% CPU will net me 2,000 to 4,000 PPD. There are indeed other variables, such as cooling (I have a case for it that includes a fan) and work unit variance, but this is what I am seeing with mine.


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## silentbogo (Aug 24, 2017)

Well, I finally gave up on Orange Pi, but found some spare parts around the house to build a Nexus 7.
It's already up and running BIONC client, but I can only start a full-fledged experiment after I come back from vacation next week... 

P.S. OrangePi is crap. Don't buy OrangePi. There is no cake.


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## Dirk_P_Broer (May 28, 2018)

silentbogo said:


> Still no BOINC....
> Linux is working, but unfortunately there is no more BOINC Linux client for ARM.



I've been crunching BOINC on ARM for years, what do you do to get BOINC running on a Linux/ARM distro? 
I am running Raspbian on my Pi 2's, Armbian on my Banana Pro and Ubuntu Mate  and Lubuntu on my Pi 3's. Used to run Linaro on my Cubieboard 4 until the PSU blew itself up.


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## Solaris17 (May 28, 2018)

Dirk_P_Broer said:


> I've been crunching BOINC on ARM for years, what do you do to get BOINC running on a Linux/ARM distro?
> I am running Raspbian on my Pi 2's, Armbian on my Banana Pro and Ubuntu Mate  and Lubuntu on my Pi 3's. Used to run Linaro on my Cubieboard 4 until the PSU blew itself up.



Which one net'd you the most PPD?


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## silentbogo (May 29, 2018)

Dirk_P_Broer said:


> 've been crunching BOINC on ARM for years, what do you do to get BOINC running on a Linux/ARM distro?


That's the dilemma.... I can get BOINC running on Linux, but if connected to WCG, I get a message saying that AARCH64 not supported.
While running WCG on Android with the same architecture(or the same device) I get no errors/warnings and plenty of WUs.

Just re-tried setting up my OPi Win+ and it's the same ordeal - the client is working, the remote connection is working, but no tasks in the queue.




BTW, the only distro that 100% works on my OPi is that third-party Armbian(forked form Pine64). Neither of the official distributions works or has been updated since the date of purchase.
Even their automated build toolkit does not work without issues. Had to tweak it manually for several hours at least to compile U-boot and kernel.


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