[Seervan]

Hey guys
I'm struggling on how can I make my laptop(s) and my PC to work with each other on a particular CFD problem to reduce runtime and improving computational strength. I have no access to cloud computing services and work stations and all the works are home based. It's rather important to me to do the job so plz if anyone knows how it works, help me.

P.S: I am new to networks and clustering and problems like this

[me3840]

You need to give more information. What machines do you have? What OS? What networking hardware?

[Seervan]

Thanks for your reply me3840
I have my laptop and pc both run on windows 7 ultimate version. And I have an ADSL modem (so no individual router) which is connected to the pc via LAN cable and to the laptop via WiFi
My PC is as follows:
CPU: Intel Pentium G3220
Motherboard: ASUS B75M-A
RAM: 12GBDDR3

and my laptop is a HP ProBook 4540s

And I have no experience in network. Only thing that I have found out a bit, is that I should use Telnet using softwares like PuTTTy and WinSCP which I have downloaded them already. Also I have made a home network and shared some folders/drives through it. Just that. On the further steps I have been stuck.

[trampoCFD]

Hey Seervan, I can help if you want.
I have an unlimited parallel licence expiring soon that I need to use. I have an 8 cores and a 24 cores machine.

Gui @ trampoCFD.com

+61 4 77 22 1702

[trampoCFD]

Also, I think you're waisting your time trying to connect your laptop to you PC:
1/ Your laptop core speed probably seriously drops when you use all the cores. That's an issue because the slowest cores in your cluster are the ones that will drive its compute speed.
2/Networking is not trivial. By the time you work everything out, (and it's going to be painfull, I've been there before) you could have run everything on your PC. If you have really long simulations to run (weeks of run time), then go an buy a secondhand server or gamers PC with a good multicore processor in it.

[me3840]

It's more difficult to use Windows with multiple machines like this but possible. The user guide has details on configuring and registering the MPI.

You will also need to set up a network folder between the machines that both have read/write access. You can install the STAR-CCM+ binary there if you want and have both machines point to it, or install the code in the same location on each machine.

You will not need PuTTy or WinSCP, those are only useful to interface with Linux machines.

Definitely do not use your wireless connection. You will need to buy at least a gigabit router and connect the laptop via ethernet.

However like Guiliaume, I would say this setup will certainly stress your laptop a lot and is completely sub-optimal. It'll work, yes, and if that's what you have to do to get results fine, but do not be surprised at poor performance.

[Seervan]

Hey Trampo
Thanks a lot for your information that really helped. Almost in every way I look, I realize that handling the problem this way will take much time, so I think I better invest on some second hand hardware.

By the way I really appreciate your offer for that license, I will definitely get into it.

[Seervan]

Tnx me3840, It helped me to make a more rational decision
Actually there was this second hand machine which someone offered me which is as follows:
CPU: Xeon X3440
Motherboard: H55-UD3H
Ram: 4X4GB 1600MHz

The Xeon thing is really tempting but when I compare the benchmarks in sites like cpuboss.com , there is not much score difference between this and my dual core Pentium G3220. Especially the clock speed is ...meh...
So what do you suggest? does it worth for this job?

P.S: My setup takes 10 days to run and combining it with some issues like divergence in 5th day, problem solving and remesh, repeat, getting nonsense results and working on such stuff is really time consuming

[trampoCFD]

Hi seervan,
You'll find trampo's 24cores is at least 6 times faster than the Xeon box you got offered. I am happy to do a quick benchmark if you want.