Folding@Home

CougTek

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Browsing the results of our team on both Statsman and Stanford's stats page, I see that both Tea and Groltz (Mourn) achieve impressive results, despite uing a single CPU each. I'm curious to know what processor allows Tea to produce 111 points/week and Groltz to be good for 99.7 (let's say 100 ok)/week.

I've been thinking to modify my current crunching farm for a few weeks already. The three computers I now have in my geek room are all kinda noisy, power ungry and inefficient. I would like to sell all three of them (including the one with my almost unused SCSI parts) and to build just two with the cash I would get for it. I almost never play games and when I do, it's more to check the stability of my video driver than for the fun of it. My main uses are internet browsing, F@h crunching and OS/application testing. And the most powerful computer I currently have here is barely usable as a workstation since I o/c it so much that only F@h doesn't make it crash and reboot (I did it on purpose - my stats were low at the time ;-) ). Just starting Winamp or receiving mail from my POP3 account while the F@h runs usually result in a reboot.

Right now, I use my Athlon 500MHz box as my main box, letting the other two peacefully process units for the glory of our (sliding) team. An Athlon 500MHz/AMD751/256MB PC100 is still a very usable platform BTW. I can even play at Serious Sam on that system thanks to the TNT2 Pro plugged in the AGP slot. Of the three boxes I have, it's also the least noisy. Now if I could only get rid of the sole marks on the front panel, I'm sure I could sell it for a good price (Linux experience reminders).
 

NRG = mc²

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BTW... I've had enough of the E-PC and its pathetic folding performance - for very little extra money (after selling it) I'll be getting a Shuttle SK41 with Duron 1.3. The former I've already ordered, hopefully it will be here tommorow but knowing the lazy sods probably don't deliver sat/sun then it might be monday. The latter I will buy tommorow from a local shop.

Hopefully it will help things somewhat (the EPC is a P3-733 running on a borrowed Celeron 1.2T, but had no internet access the last 10 days, and the XP1800 was off so there was no productivity on my behalf all this time.
 

blakerwry

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if you want to aproximate the folding difference between your pIII and a duron 1.3 look at my folding stats...

The blakerwy-chibiUsa is a pIII 650, the blakerwry-TinNyanko is a Duron 1.3.. both had been folding for aproximately the same amount of time.
 

Tea

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Just a perfectlt ordinary Athlon 1900, Coug. Not overclocked or anything. I've been playing with the idea of upgrading it to 2400, but thus far am too lazy. Besides, seeing that it's basically just a dedicated web browser and already has an X15 ... don't you think it's fast enough?
 

Tea

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Unless one of the dedicated folders at the office is running. I'm 99% certain none of them are. But often, with the exact same single system, I get about half as many points. The FAH scoring system suckz!
 

Groltz

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CougTek said:
I see that both Tea and Groltz (Mourn) achieve impressive results, despite uing a single CPU each. I'm curious to know what processor allows Tea to produce 111 points/week and Groltz to be good for 99.7 (let's say 100 ok)/week.

This is what I have settled into:

FoldingCPU.gif


This is an unlocked + overclocked Athlon XP 2400+ running on an Epox 8K3A+.

The "faulty unit" plague that I was experiencing earlier seems to have been a result of too high a FSB with not enough vCore. I could be running this CPU quite a bit faster (One of my earlier test runs with the same CPU) but the hassles with FAH combined with the extra heat output and resulting required fan noise convinced me to pull the throttles back a bit.
 

P5-133XL

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Tea's numbers for a XP1900 are right on. I'm running (24x7) a dual MP1900+ and get almost exactly double what Tea gets for her single.
 

Groltz

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CougTek said:
Thanks Steve. Does this machine runs 24x7? If so, it's weird that you don't out-produce Tea's much slower Athlon XP 1900+.

Yes, 24/7. FAH gets interrupted for an hour or two sometimes if I do some gaming but that is about it.
 

blakerwry

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yeah, it's probably all about computer usage and idle cycles.... what can a monkey really do with a PC?

I imagine she spends most of her computer time deleting tannin's important files and making typos in his important documents. Not to mention using the computer as a storage space for food (floppy drive slots really are too small for cashews and peanuts, I bet she's glad somebody invented CD drives).
 

Clocker

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This is my new baby:

AthlonXP 2400+ overclocked to 2600+ on 400Mhz DDR bus:
cpu.gif


So, my total mini-farm is not comprised of:
  • AthlonXP 2400+ @ 2600+ on Epox 8RDA+ 400mhz DDR
  • AthlonXP 1700+ @ 2000+ on ECS K7S5A 150Mhz SDR
  • AthlonXP 1700+ @ 2000+ on ECS K7S5A 150Mhz SDR

Go Team SF!

C
 

Groltz

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How is those PCI/AGP locks working, C?

Have you been able to find out if you are at 33/66Mhz with the FSB you are running?
 

blakerwry

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This is a great idea. Just too bad the Linux client performs so poorly

Why is that?

My 1.3 duron (mandrake)was cranking out twice the WU that my pIII (winME)was, but for some reason always had a lower score... i dont get it.. how do they calculate the dumb score anyway?
 

Buck

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CougTek said:
I don't know what weird mix our Bartender drank, but he is like a freak on speed since 3 or 4 days.

He finally got off of his bum and slapped a few temporary systems togther for a little extra performance. How long it will last, nobody knows.
 

P5-133XL

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Each WU that one has has a specific value (anywhere from 0 - ???) Current projects and when it is completed, you recieve that amount of points. No, you don't have a coice as to which WU you receive. Thus from random chance you may be getting lots of low value WU's or lots of high value WU's. In theory, you will get the same amount of total points, but I have observed otherwise: Some WU's produce many more points per day than others.

From the F@H FAQ

"How do you decide how much credit a work unit is worth?

How do you determine how many points a work unit is worth? Before putting out any new work unit, we benchmark it on a dedicated 500MHz Celeron machine (this machine does not have SSE/3DNow). We plug the results of this into the following formula:

points = 2 * multiplier * (daysPerWU)

where daysPerWU is -- no surprise -- the number of days it took to complete the unit.



How do you set the deadlines for the work units?

Each work unit is benchmarked on a dedicated 500 MHz Celeron machine without SSE/3DNow. We look at how many days it takes, and multiply this by 2.5. This corresponds to requiring such a machine to fold less than 10 hours a day in order to meet the deadline. From our experience, the majority of donor machines are faster than our benchmarking machine, and virtually none are slower, so this shouldn't be a problem (if a machine is slower, it may need to fold more hours a day). Occassionally, deadlines may be set longer than the above calculation indicates, but the reason for having deadlines at all is that the sooner we get back work units, the sooner we can put the results to good use. We are looking into, in the very near future, having the assignment server take machine speed into account in making assigments, thereby allowing slower machines to receive smaller work units. "
 

blakerwry

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what if we don't meet the deadline? I assume your computer keeps cruching the current work unit until it's done and sends it in anyway... but do you get any point for completing the unit?
 

P5-133XL

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The FAQ says - You get the points, but the work is not used, because it has been sent out back to someone else.
 

Bartender

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CougTek said:
I don't know what weird mix our Bartender drank, but he is like a freak on speed since 3 or 4 days.

No special drink Herr Coug. Things were getting a bit chilly* behind the bar since it is winter, plus running in and out of the keg-room was running a chill through me, so I decided to fire up a few systems to generate a little heat. At present, my heaters are:

PIII 667 EB Coppermine - Slot-1
PIII 1.2 Ghz Tualatin - Socket 370 (Thanks Groltz :D )
PIII 833 EB Coppermine - Socket 370
PIII 833 EB Coppermine - Socket 370
XP 2000+
XP 2000+

As you can imagine, the Athlons are the warmest. If that Tualatin ran any colder, I'd believe it wasn't calculating a single thing. Of course, the fact that it dips down to 40-degrees Fahrenheit (4-5 degrees Celsius) in here doesn't help things either, and the Tualatin isn't in an enclosure either.

Just as a side note, Buck has been upgrading a few of his customer's systems lately, so I've been left with all of these leftover Quantum Fireball drives. At least they come in handy for the Folding@Home machines. But they do seek at pretty high decibels. If it weren't for the record player back here, I don't know if I could stand all of those old drives chattering.




_____________________________
* Chilly for us here in Southern California, and relative to the way we dress. Buck stands out in his shop at night with barefeet and sandals on with sweat pants and a sweat shirt. The temp in the winter averages around the mid 50s (Fahrenheit (12 or 13 degrees Celsius)) when he is out there at night.
 

CougTek

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SteveC said:
Does anyone know what the "Total Team Adjustment" is at the bottom of the Statsman page? I haven't noticed it before.
You didn't noticed simply because it wasn't there. I'm almost sure it wasn't there yesterday. No clue what it is.
 

Handruin

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I was wondering about that total team adjustment thing. I hope all those users that have one results aren't killing us as a team...

I've been searching for the answer to this stat, but I haven't found anything yet.
 

SteveC

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Just as quickly as it appeared, the Total Team Adjustment has dissappeared from the Statman page. One other note, we're over 5000 points a week as a team, I think for the first time, and 32nd in weekly production. We seem to be rather consistent in the overall ranking, even though our output has increased recently.
 

blakerwry

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I think we should pick up the pace.... I want to be in the top 10-20 if possible... the folding stats page wont load for me now, but I figure that as you get towards the number 1 position the scores go up exponentially.. making it increasingly more difficult to get to 1st place....
 

Handruin

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blakerwry said:
I think we should pick up the pace.... I want to be in the top 10-20 if possible... the folding stats page wont load for me now, but I figure that as you get towards the number 1 position the scores go up exponentially.. making it increasingly more difficult to get to 1st place....

More members to the site could help, along with the FAH page I'm working on. We could discuss one of those distributed machines that people chip in to build like some other sites do. I would donate a few dollars towards that.
 

Buck

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Handruin said:
More members to the site could help, along with the FAH page I'm working on. We could discuss one of those distributed machines that people chip in to build like some other sites do. I would donate a few dollars towards that.

What type of machines do they build?
 

zx

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Better late than never. I'm running F@H on my machine now...it's not much but it's better than nothing :) .

My machine :

- Athlon Thunderbird 1333
- 512 MB RAM
- Wonderfull :)P) ECS K7S5A mobo.
 

Fushigi

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I've temporarily nabbed a few spare cycles from some servers here at work. They're not too terribly fast but anything helps at this point.

We all know P4s suck at Folding when compared to Athlons. Any guess if a P4 Xeon would fare much better?

- Fushigi
 

CougTek

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Fushigi said:
We all know P4s suck at Folding when compared to Athlons. Any guess if a P4 Xeon would fare much better?
Nope, it wouldn't. F@h isn't supposed to benefit from addtional RAM or even cache since it uses tiny bits of data. Or so was I told.
 
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