ASCI Q, the world's #2 supercomputer in 2002, crashed every 6.5 hours and took 8 hours to reboot
lauriewired · x · 2026-09-29
Security researcher lauriewired shared a 31-slide 2003 internal presentation on Los Alamos' ASCI Q supercomputer. Despite ranking #2 worldwide with 7.727 TeraOps Linpack (>75% efficiency), it failed every 6.5 hours — an MTTF shorter than its 8-hour full reboot time. The flaky filesystem kept utilization near 60%, with only occasional "good weeks" above 85%. A fascinating first-hand record of early supercomputing ops pain.
Related event: ASCI Q Supercomputer Crashed Every 6.5 Hours(2 posts)→
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