Xueba's computing system

Chapter 41 Old Mining Card

When Lin Yuan was awakened by the noise outside the window, he found himself lying on the table. He didn't know when he fell asleep last night. The laptop screen was still on, with a pop-up window on it, reminding him to log out automatically after the remote login expired.

Regardless of his dizzy head, he remotely logged into the virtual machine assigned to him by the company, which was equipped with an A100 computing card.

"shit!"

Even though the A100’s computing power is much better than most graphics cards on the market, it is still a bit of a pain to use it to train AI models for routing and delivery problems. Lin Yuan only set a very regular training cycle of times, but when he woke up in the morning, he found that there were still more than cycles left to run.

At this training speed, the total number of training cycles that can be run on this A100 within 24 hours will not exceed 1500. However, algorithms need to be continuously iterated, and they are not finished after running thousands or tens of thousands of times.

Therefore, Lin Yuan was faced with an awkward situation: his computing system was powerful, but the computing power was insufficient. The company's A100 was easy to make, but it was not powerful enough.

The problem is now clear, and the next step is to find a targeted solution.

Regarding the first problem: insufficient computing power of the computing system. Lin Yuan could either wait until the school officially starts and the system would settle the enrollment task reward for him, so as to obtain computing power supplement. But in that case, he would probably lose his internship at Haotuan. Since he could not produce impressive work results, Haotuan had no reason to sign a part-time contract with a graduate student.

There is another way, that is: kill everyone.

As long as Lin Yuan can handle it three times a day, computing power shouldn't be a problem.

But this method was naturally the first one that Lin Yuan ruled out.

Then we can only find a solution to the second problem: A100 is not powerful enough.

The second problem is essentially a money problem. If Lin Yuan had enough money in his pocket, he could just spend a million yuan to buy a few H100s. H100s are much better than A100s. But at the moment, Lin Yuan's Alipay balance is not enough to buy even a small portion of H100s.

Find a good company and then apply for computing power equipment? Forget it, it's already good enough to apply for an A100. Computing power cards are so expensive these days, why would they give them to an intern? Tell the head of the technical department that you are helping Haotuan to iterate the food delivery algorithm? Unless Lin Yuan takes out the algorithm now, no one will believe him.

After much thought, Lin Yuan finally thought of his mentor, Professor Zhang.

Lin Yuan did not go directly to Professor Zhang. Although Professor Zhang would occasionally ask about his internship at Haotuan Company, Lin Yuan felt it would be too abrupt, so he went to find Senior Brother Xiao Liu first to quiz him.

After Lin Yuan stated his purpose, "Can you lend me some computing equipment?", Senior Brother Liu readily agreed.

Then Senior Brother Xiao Liu took Lin Yuan to a graduate student laboratory in the computer department and pointed to an iron box and said, "You can use this machine first."

Lin Yuan looked at the machine curiously. It was an iron box similar to a computer case, but it was obvious from the appearance that it was not a computer case.

"Brother, what is this?"

"Computing equipment. Oh, this is definitely different from what you saw at the Good Group. The school has limited funds and can't afford too many advanced computing cards. Usually, we give students some money and let them tinker with it and assemble it themselves."

As he spoke, Lin Yuan had already opened the cover of the iron box.

He saw the structure inside the iron box - a large green PCB board with two main boards inserted vertically.

Lin Yuan had disassembled a computer case before, so he knew what a computer motherboard looked like. There were not many electronic components on the large green PCB in front of him. Compared with the densely packed layout on the computer motherboard, there was a large area of empty space on this PCB.

If the layout of components on a computer motherboard is as crowded as an international metropolis, then the PCB in front of him is a quiet little village, with enough space between components to fit several fingers. Lin Yuan didn't know why the PCB in front of him was like this. However, he recognized the two boards inserted vertically on the PCB.

"If I'm not mistaken, these two... should be... graphics cards."

There are two large fans on the front of the two motherboards, and the words "GTX" can be vaguely seen from the faded silk screen.

"That's right. This one is 1660, and that one is 1060."

Lin Yuan's heart skipped a beat, "Brother, so this is..."

Seeing Lin Yuan hesitant to speak, Senior Brother Liu said calmly, "You guessed right, this is a mining machine."

"Um... okay." Lin Yuan didn't know what to say for a moment.

"Oh, you'll get used to it in the future. The school has limited funds, so we can't be as generous as commercial companies. This is a mining machine motherboard that your seniors found, and a mining card that was discarded in the mine. The performance is a bit worse, but it's cheap. It's enough for you to practice and train."

Lin Yuan stared at the mining machine in a daze.

Judging from the mottled solder marks on the back of the two graphics cards, they must have been through a lot. They have gone through countless fierce battles, run for countless days and nights, soared in the ocean of Bitcoin, and also ran on the Ethereum virtual machine, and may have even had a lingering relationship with the dead Shiba Inu of Dogecoin.

It seems that the limbs (peripheral components) have been replaced many times, and the heart (CUDA core) is probably no longer entirely mine.

Lin Yuan suddenly felt a little emotional.

Ah!
You are used to the rushing water in Shuzhong and the biting cold wind in the north. Some of your companions may still be fighting in the cold Siberia.

(PS: If I remember correctly, the hydropower in Bashu has obvious seasonality, and the wind power in the south of the desert seems to be the same. As for Siberia, there is no need for additional cooling. And what is the most needed for the output of digital currency...)
You are like two indomitable warriors who, even in old age, are still burning with passion for the scientific research of the Republic.

I admire your nobility.

But your computing power is really too poor.

Even if these two graphics cards are brand new, their combined computing power is not enough to rival the A100.

Lin Yuan was not surprised that Senior Brother Liu gave him such a crappy machine, but it was also reasonable. After all, he had not yet officially enrolled, and the other party must have thought that he was just writing some small projects to practice.

Lin Yuan couldn't tell Brother Xiao Liu about his idea of iterating the takeaway algorithm, as he was afraid that he would think he was too shocking. Moreover, after seeing the layout of the computer lab in front of him, looking at the scattered circuit boards and messy network cables, Lin Yuan didn't think Brother Xiao Liu could help him with anything.

If I ask them for help, they will probably just get a few more graphics cards. But even if all eight slots on the big PCB are filled with graphics cards, what will happen? Eight old GTX 6 series graphics cards with 1G memory are still not enough to support the A100.

Unless those eight slots are filled with 4090 graphics cards.

But Lin Yuan obviously didn't dare to say this because he still had to save some face.

(End of this chapter)