Anyone out there Folding@Home?

been doing this for years.. first for Seti and now with BOINC on three computers in 5 projects..

 

Just discovered that NVIDIA GPU and AMD GPU folding is available now. Folding with GPU seems to be the best now.

Yesterday, I installed the latest SMP client and AMD GPU client on my HTPC. My HTPC has a AMD HD3850 video card and a newly upgraded Q6600 CPU.

I'm back again again. I'm hoping to get all my machines rebuild and running by end of the week. Let's get our team rank into the high 100's.

 

Thank you, thank you!

 

I tried for a short time but system got uncomfortably hot so I had to give it up

 

I just started a month or so ago. I need to get it going on the laptop at home too - right now it's only on at work.

 

for those of you that tried it and your system got hot, fine, dont run it all the times. run it when you are on PC... turn it off when done, only takes a second.

i also had the same issues with one machine, but it only does it in summer. i am in an upstairs study facing the afternoon sun, so it does get warm up here... in the winter i am fine though...but a little is better than nothing

 

My experience is laptops only take 15-20 minutes to get way too hot for my liking. The processor will throttle if temperatures get too high but the cooling systems are just barely designed to squeak by at 100% load, and dust reduces cooling efficiency from there. For Intel chips I recommend using RightMark to dial back processing power to a level that puts less strain on the CPU, or even undervolt to keep it at full speed with lower temps. Then you can run 24/7 without issue.

 

edit...

ooops didnt see that laptop part... was gonna suggest ways to cool it off. not as easy with laptop... mine gets warm, but have never had issues with it. i have things i do on mine that use just as much processing power and can last up to 2 hours at a time...in fact, my powerbook is in the middle of processing video from my trip... should take probably total of 2 hours for processing and then the burn to DVD.

 

If you're running a console client, as opposed to the old 'screensaver' type client, you can configure your system to only use a portion of your CPU. Many people find out that by limiting Folding to use only 95% of your CPU is often enough to keep the CPU in the right temperature range. Of course, you can use less than 95% - you can experiment with that parameter.

To change your settings, run your console client with the flag -configonly. When it comes to the question "Change advanced settings options <yes/no>" answer yes
then when it comes to the question "CPU usage requested <5 - 100>" answer with your number

Then run your console client with your normal settings, and see if your computer seems to be cooler.

One of my clients is a laptop, and I'm letting it run 100% CPU usage. The laptop gets fairly warm, but I use a program to monitor the CPU temperature, which is about 70, but the spec for the processor allows up to 100 for temperature.

Of course, I'm not holding my laptop on my lap - I have it on a desk on top of one of those 'cooler' laptop pads that pulls more air through the laptop base to help keep it cooler. But the core temperature monitor only showed a minimal drop in temperature of the core once I started using the 'cooler' pad, although the case temperature is considerably cooler than without the pad.

If you have questions about configuring your console client, refer to articles in FAH WIki Main Page - FaHWiki or post a question here in this thread, or post a question in the FAH Community Forum at Folding Forum &bull; Index page

 

Here's a link I found for the temperature specs on different processors - it seemed up to date the last time I really looked at it in October 2008 when I was buying a machine with an Intel Quad-core 6600.
http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm#intel

 

I just got another Nitro Boost to my PPD . I should be able to hit an average of 10K PPD soon .

BTW, CPU or PS3 folding is no longer produce the best PPD . If you like to produce more PPD, GPU folding is the way to go (especially using Nvidia GPU).

Here is a sample of my computer spec,

Computer 1
Vista x64
Q6600 CPU (overclocked to 3.0 Ghz)
Asus Maximus Formula X38 MB
2 GB DDR2 Memory (will be upgraded to 4 GB soon)
EVGA GeForce GTX 260 (overclocked to 700 Mhz core clock)
400 GB SATA Hard drive
850 Watts PS

Computer 2
Vista x32
Q6600 CPU (overclocked to 3.0 Ghz)
Asus P5K Deluxe P35 MB
4 GB DDR2 Memory
2 @ ATI Radeon HD3870 (overclocked to 875 Mhz Core Clock)
400 GB SATA Hard drive
750 Watts PS

2 Q6600 CPU SMP folding will only net 3500+ PPD. If I enable 1 Nvidia GPU folding + 1 SMP CPU, I'm able to get ~10K PPD. My Nvidia video card (computer 1) alone can output 7000+ PPD .

With 2 ATI/AMD GPU folding (computer 2), I'm only produce ~ 4000 PPD. CPU SMP folding is not available as the GPU folding took about 75% of the Quad CPU cycle . At this moment, there are more Cons than Pros on folding with AMD/ATI GPU.

I'm thinking to get 1~2 more GTX 260 and hope to break the 20K PPD. I will need to upgrade my motherboard to support 3 PCIe x16 slot and a 1000+ Watt PS.

Start boosting your PPD now by upgrading your video card with any Nvidia GeForce 8 series, 9 series or GTX 200 series. To view the output of overall Nvidia card, click here. i.e. GeForce 8800 GT (cost ~ $130) can produce about 5000+ PPD .

Based on the info, did I convinced you to switch to the Dark Side? :fear:

 

Congrats to all of us, thanks to all of us <g>

And Chinaflr, when I look at Kako Stats (Kakao Stats - Team Members - Priuschat) I see you're earning us about 65,000 points a WEEK - talk about a Nitro-Boost!

 

Yay!

Now the bad news. I was using the beta F@H on my Mac Pro and forgot that it expired this past weekend. I didn't really notice until yesterday when I saw my daily points had dropped off. I got the old installation cleaned up. But, now the only version available for the xeon processors is the console version and so far I'm clueless on how to get it working. The instructions are terrible. But, I'm reading up on it, so hopefully, I'll get that machine back to folding soon. I've still got the PS3 going and my iMac, too, when not playing games.

Everyone else, keep on going!

 

The FAH-WIKI has a lot of articles on how to do things in Windows, but not on a Mac. But this article should at least tell you what the flags mean for the client:
How do I know what the client flags (-switches) are and what they do? - FaHWiki

The most useful flags are (IMHO):
-configonly
because that lets you run the client so that it asks the questions to configure your client. In Windows, you do this by going into Command Prompt (the old DOS-style window), navigating to the directory where your client is installed, then typing in FAH -configonly (substitute the name of your executable for 'FAH')

-verbosity 9
because that means your log file will show the most information, useful when you're havihg a problem and need help from someone in the FAH community forum to help debug it.

I don't know if this helps. You might try the FAH community forum at Folding Forum &bull; Index page since they have forums for MAC OSX and MAC OSX beta clients. In fact, this post over there talks about problems getting the new client to run: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4414 Hope that helps some!

 

well i am happy for our 10,000,000th point... its more satisfying knowing that without my 200 points per day, you would not have had a chance of such a lofty accomplishment.