Last November, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan supercomputer was named the fastest in the world. But it turns out that a few tests were skipped along the way — and now too much gold on its motherboards means it can’t run at full tilt.
The computer made it to the top of the list despite the fact that acceptance testing was never formally completed. But tests run in February revealed that the computer is actually too unstable to run at full speed — and the culprit is connectors on its exotic motherboards, reports Slashdot.
Currently the connectors affect the ability of the GPUs to communicate with the main processors. That’s a result of too much gold mixed in with the solder to create the connections — which renders them brittle and liable to fail. Oops. The motherboards are currently back with Cray, the manufacturers, for repairs.
It’s hoped that the new components will be ready by April, and that Titan will be running at full speed not too long after. [Slashdot]
Picture: Oak Ridge National Laboratory