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Anyone out there Folding@Home?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Wildkow, Oct 13, 2006.

  1. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    I don't know if many people have even heard of this but it is one of my small contributions to science and a bit of fun to watch as your "numbers" go up and your standing increases. And that is "Folding@Home" Stanford U is trying to understand how to "fold proteins" so that they will gain a better understand of DNA. Folding@home - Main if your puter runs for a proportion of the time or even if it doesn't we should start a "Prius" or "Hybrid" team and fold proteins to not only benefit science but also the people that could be helped from a break through in this field, which is just about everyone BTW. The program runs in the background all the time but it's priority is set to operate only when idle so that when any other program requires CPU time, that other program is given priority. I have had absolutely no troubles running this program and I have been folding proteins from the very beginning and I am closing in on 1500th place out of a field of 68407 different teams. I have about 9 or ten active folders or computers on my team "Wildkow" #304. With the community we have here we could give a big boost to this effort and be a part of this science. What say you? PM me if you would like to start a "Prius" or "Hybrid" team. Just my own puny team has surpassed some colleges and even universities. I am closing in on the University of Georgia as I type this. Think of what an entire community can do!

    I posted this at POL also but I think I will make a poll out of this and if we get enough volunteers I will see if I can change my team name to whatever we decide to call this team and we can start in 1500 place instead of crawling up through all ranks. I'll bet it takes us no time to get to 100th place or better if we get enough volunteers and then we will have one more thing to be inordinately Smug about! Pffffffffftttt. . . sniff, sniff, ahhhhh. :rolleyes: :p

    Wildkow

    p.s. Ok most of the above is immaterial now because I am now on the Priuschat team, read the posts for the story, and now I am in fourth place for our team and having a bit of fun, contributing to a worthy cause and getting a warm fuzzy to boot. :p

    What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

    Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

    You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project -- people from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals.

    Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved.

    Our team stats and list of over 75 members who have Folded for team Priuschat:

    Kakao Stats - Team Members - Priuschat

    Priuschat - Team Summary - EXTREME Overclocking Folding @ Home Stats


    Folding@Home


    Instructions to follow . . .

    Console version, non-intrusive stays in the background and you'll never know its there. . .

    Note: Please read the license agreement (fah504-console -license). Further
    use of this software requires that you have read and accepted this agreement.

    Folding@Home User Configuration

    No directory settings found in registry. Using current directory... [Make sure you put this into a folder of your own choosing]


    --- Opening Log file [current date here]


    # Windows Console Edition #####################################################


    Folding@Home Client Version X.XX [beta]
    Folding@home - Main

    ###############################################################################


    Launch directory:
    Executable: fah504-console

    [10:32:11] Configuring Folding@Home...

    User name [Anonymous] Use your Priuschat user name here or whatever
    Team Number [0] 52533
    Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service (yes/no) [no]? YES

    The program will ocntinue in non-service mode now, working in [your folder/directory here]. The next time the computer is starts up, you should see work automatically continue there. Note that when this sercice is running, you should not try to manually run F@H from that directory at the same time

    Ask before fetching/sending work (no/yes) [no]? NO
    Use Internet Explorer Settings (no/yes) [no]? NO unless you have dialup or otherwise need it, ask if you don’t know.
    Use proxy (yes/no) [no]? NO maybe needed on work or school machines, once again ask if you don’t know.
    Allow receipt of work assignments and return of work results greater than 5MB in size (such work units may have large memory demands) (no/yes) [no]? YES
    Change advanced options (yes/no) [no]? NO, unless you have a multi-core machine once again ask for help.

    Viola your done!

    If you decide to use the Graphical client, it has a cool screen saver, the install of that is even easier! Just use the input above to answer setup questions.

    Got questions? Fire away we gots answers. :lol: :p :rolleyes:
     
  2. galaxee

    galaxee mostly benevolent

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    hey cool!
     
  3. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    Ya know, many years ago I used to run the Google Toolbar, and within the toolbar there was an option called "Google Compute" that allowed your machine to become part of distributed computing efforts when your browser was open. I had all of my machines set up to donate cycles to the Folding@Home project. Now that you mention this project, I now notice that this option does not exist anymore on my machines nor is is available from Google.... Wonder what happened.

    Sign me up for a PC group. I've 4 machines running and available to help out on a 24x7 basis, and another laptop that is available whenever it is on and near a network.
     
  4. dreichla

    dreichla New Member

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    I've been doing distributed computing through Berkeley in a program called BOINC for several years now.

    I subscribe to several projects through the BOINC interface - including BBC Climate Change Experiment, Climate prediction.net, Einstein@Home (searching for spinning neutron star?), Seti@Home(where's ET?), Rosetta@home (protein analysis), and Predictor@home (more protein analysis)

    Distributed computing is a great thing and I would encourage it for all who have a lot of unused computing time with idle computers.
     
  5. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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  6. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    I just set up 2 of my machines, donating anonymously at the moment. Give me a priuschat team number and I'll configure appropriately....
     
  7. DocVijay

    DocVijay Active Member

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    I'm on the Maximum PC magazine team.

    Once the PS3 comes out, I'll have another machine running it. Sony worked out a deal with the guy at Stanford, and there will be a folding@home client for the PS3. There's a lot of power in those boxes, and if a good number of PS3 owners run it, it's good for everyone.
     
  8. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Oct 16 2006, 03:23 PM) [snapback]333747[/snapback]</div>
    I need some input into what the name should be. I yhought I could just change the name of my team "Wildkow" to the new name, presently in 1540, place with 200,000+ points but I don't see or can't figure out a way to do that.

    Wildkow
     
  9. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Oct 17 2006, 02:08 PM) [snapback]334012[/snapback]</div>
    How about PriusChat.com or Team Prius or Hybrid Hackers, etc...

    Looks like you can edit team info here if you want to change your name. http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/changeteam.pl

    However, I'd recommend you starting a new team, just in case you want to fire the lot of us one day when you buy that hummer or insight or something else and switch over to Xchat.com. That way, you'd get to keep your points without having us usurp them.

    Speaking of Hybrids, looks like the project has a beta that capitalizes on ATI graphics processing units as well as CPUs. Looks like a roughly 50x increase (SWAG) in performance over CPU-only solutions. That'd be the way to really boost our scores....
     
  10. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Oct 17 2006, 11:25 AM) [snapback]334020[/snapback]</div>
    OK how about HybridFolders or some other play on that line. The reason I haven't just used prisuchat in the name is because I am trying to spark some interest over on PriusOnLine and maybe form a joint folding team. But instead of joint cooperation maybe I should be more confrontational and spark some competition? After all I am rather good at that. :p It all goes to F@H and finding a cure for some truly horrible diseases.

    Thanks for that change name link, the trouble is that I don’t think the points go with you and that would defeat the whole purpose.

    Wildkow

    p.s. I also have to check with Danny as to any objections with using the PriusChat name.
     
  11. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    Ok I just created a Priuschat team, with Danny's permission, called, what else, Priuschat! The team number is 52533 make sure you enter that when you first start/install F@H client. Ok now here is the rub, Pete at PriusOnLine has started a team which is number 52509 I know for a fact that they have a jump on us, so do the right thing and get to folding@home right away, pwease.
    Once again let me point out that this is a install and forget about it program. There are two types/versions one is a graphical client with a pretty cool screen saver the other is a no nonsense, no frills stay completely in the background text-only console version. I use the text-only console version and I have had no problems whatsoever with it in over three plus years of folding. The competition is fun and if by chance you have a dual core you can fold twice as many in the same amount or time or if you have one of the ATI X1900 class video cards/GPU's you can fold as fast as some of the best supercomputers or 20 to 30X faster than the fastest CPU on the market today. See this FAQ http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/f...ng/FAQ-ATI.html. I will try to post a FAQ by this weekend.

    Wildkow
     
  12. geologyrox

    geologyrox New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Oct 20 2006, 04:56 AM) [snapback]335436[/snapback]</div>
    Just signed up - hopefully I didn't mangle the install. I'll install them on the rest of the computers within my control this weekend. Most are older, but they run quite a few hours of the day anyway - I'd like to feel like I'm doing some good while burning that electicity =)

    Oh, I'm bummed - my 'supercomputer' that I bought last year (most expensive computer I've owned since the 80's) doesn't have a recent enough video card - guess it's time to upgrade =)

    ...anyone looking to buy a 2.8GHz Pentium D with 2gigs of RAM and a 256mb video card? =P
     
  13. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    I just pointed one of the machines to that team. Will move other computers over as I come by them. I'm the bwie.... team member that you will see eventually.
     
  14. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    Here is a great page on how to install the Folding@Home client.

    The Ultimate FAH Install Guide - Overclockers Forums
    DON'T DO THIS! - CLIENT.CFG IS NOW A BINARY FILE AND CAN'T BE EDITED!
    Just remember to edit the client.cfg file with Notepad or Wordpad to change the team number to 52533 for priuschat.

    Hey Danny if this really takes off can we have our own section in the forums?

    Wildkow
     
  15. DocVijay

    DocVijay Active Member

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    SInce it's all for a good cause, and we all win regardless of teams, you can also join the Maximum PC team. We are team # 11108. THis team is currently 6th out of 46,132 teams.
     
  16. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Oct 20 2006, 04:56 AM) [snapback]335436[/snapback]</div>
    They may have had the jump, but team Priuschat has just pulled into the lead by posting the 1st workunit by either of the 2 teams! 153 points and the lead go to Priuschat!

    Let the competition begin!

    [edit] I think I'll hop over there and taunt them....
     
  17. Wildkow

    Wildkow New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DocVijay @ Oct 20 2006, 11:45 AM) [snapback]335691[/snapback]</div>
    Booo hissss, no way dude! Nice try though. LOL :lol:

    Wildkow


    psssst. . . How do you expect me to instigate these people into a folding competition with POL if you give them an easy out like that?!? ;)
     
  18. Renocat

    Renocat Member

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    How come only one person is listed as a team member on the priuschat fah link? I added myself, or so I thought. Did I do something wrong when I installed the program?
     
  19. Sufferin' Prius Envy

    Sufferin' Prius Envy Platinum Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Renocat @ Oct 21 2006, 07:09 AM) [snapback]336068[/snapback]</div>
    Your computer needs to crunch a Work Unit (WU) and then send in the information to Stanford before you and your results will show on the team stats page.<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Oct 20 2006, 09:26 AM) [snapback]335604[/snapback]</div>
    If you are running the graphics version like I am, it is very easy to join the team . . . just right click on the FAH icon in the tray, click configure, then add the number 52533 to the Team Box then hit OK.
    Now if only I could get off my lazy butt and actually do it. I have been folding for a couple of years as “abode†and am ranked around 500 on the “anonymous†team (current team rank #1). The “anonymous team†is where folders are placed if they don't join a team. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ Oct 20 2006, 05:57 AM) [snapback]335483[/snapback]</div>
    During the winter heating months, Folding At Home is 100% energy efficient as the waste heat is heating the room and lowering the heating load. Some winter days I needn't turn on the central heat because my office room is warm enough due to FAH crunching away.

    I know what you mean about the newish top end computer no longer being top end. My newish AMD 64 with one gig of ram, and raid-0 hard drives can't support an ATI X1900 class video card . . . the mother board needs to support a PCI Express slot. DANG!!! :(
    At least I can take some solace in knowing I can download and return results quicker with my 10Mbps fiber optic internet access. :rolleyes: But if I had an ATI X1900 too . . . I think my internet provider would be wondering about my bandwidth usage. :eek: 30 times more than what I am doing now? BOY! That would be one cozy warm room. :D
     
  20. Sufferin' Prius Envy

    Sufferin' Prius Envy Platinum Member

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