Folding@Home

[CougTek]

I'm adding 3 3.2P4's (dell 400SC's - Yuk, but the price was right)...

Price can be right with P4 3.2Gagahertz? If yes, then great for you.

Hey, anyone got suggestions for the three machines I'm building? Cost matters! One will be a file server, one will be a domain controller, one is going to be an exchange server.

Yes. All three should use Celeron 2GHz or less, so that you don't end up beating my folding output ;-)

No, seriously, will they be high traffic servers (probably not)? In the extremely unlikely event that they'll be, SCSI drives would be paramount. But since my little finger tells me they won't, going ATA shouldn't hurt. Let me point out that the new Samsung 160GB model with 8MB of cache sells for less than 120U$ (112U$ IIRC) and it would be a great bang for the buck for your storage device.

I would put more emphasis (meaning $$$) on the amount and speed of RAM than on the clockspeed of the CPU.

What OS will you use? If you plan to play with Linux, forget nForce2 motherboards. Distros don't come with the MCP's LAN driver and installing it afterward is a pain in the ass. Of course, there are cheap SMC and D-Link NICs, but it is an inelegant solution IMO.

Since costs seems to matter a lot, Pentium 4, no matter what model, looks ugly against the 85$ Barton 2500+ IMO.

However, if you have a preference for Intel this time, I strongly suggest you to consider the Abit IS7 for your motherboard. Based on the i865 chipset, Abit made a BIOS that recreates pretty efficiently the PAT found on more expensive i875-based mainboards. Again, bang for the buck.

Too bad there're no mainstream Athlon64 processors yet.

 

[blakerwry]

Ive been pleased with the two celeron 2.0gHz that I've bought. They are made on the northwood core, but have the same cache as the willamette based Celerons (I believe that is 128KB L2 cache). They of course are meant to be run at the 400MHz FSB instead of 533 or 800... They're reletively cheap, cool running chips that have upgrade potential if put into an 845GE/PE or newer motherboard.

 

[P5-133XL]

The 400SC computer's are being purchased at signifigently less than what just the CPU's would cost.

Not planning to buy any HD's - Got lots of them.

NForce2's were actually in my mind. It is useful to know that Linux has problems with them - I didn't know that. unexpected because the chipset has been around long enough that I would have expected debugged drivers to have been made. Luckly the OS play machines will be the 400SC's. The hand built machines will be running W2003, or W2k and thus Nforce2's are fine.

I really would like dual Athlon MB's, but they really are very much past their prime: AMD really could sell a lot of CPU's with a new updated chipset. If you think P4's are a bad buy's you should look at dual Xeon systems. Then when done look at AMD's 64bit systems and discover an even worse value for your money.

As far as what OS's I'll be playing around with - it is whatever I can get my hands on. I want to fiddle and more understand how the different OS's interact with each other. What I can do and what I can't. A general open-ended learning experiance. I don't have much experiance with Linux and this is an opportunity to play with different versions of Linix and thus they will definately be involved with experiments with Microsoft products. This is what I call having fun: Yes I know that it is not everyone cup of tea, but it is mine.

 

[The JoJo]

I upgraded my P2 400MHz to a Athlon XP 2400, so that'll help a bit in the crunching.
My Barton 2800@3200 is the second dedicated cruncher, apart from the first mentioned.
I've got a Duron 1300 that does some work, although e-mule is creating some load also.

My T40 is mostly 5*8 on, so that's not so much.

If the motherboard on the duron is capable of it, I'll upgrade the CPU to a Athlon 1700. I'll probably check that out later today.

Too bad I don't have any personal testing hosts at work .

Crunch on people, remember this is a TEAM effort! We need everyone helping out on this!

 

[P5-133XL]

By the way I decided upon Gigabyte 7n400Pro2's with Barton 2500's each with 1 Gig of ram. These should drasticly improve upon the PII266 and PIII500 that I am currently using. When finished with this current upgrade I should be folding with.

Previously:

2 Athlon 1900MP's

Over the next few weeks:

2 Athlon 1900 MP's
3 3200 P4's
3 XP Barton 2500's

That should at least triple my weekly output.
Why bother with Electric heating when I can fold this winter, instead.

P.S. I was previously doing SR's United Devices team with the 500 and 266 machines. I don't feel particularly comfortable with SR if they are abandoning UD for some other group.

 

[The JoJo]

Back in fourth place.

Come on Clocker. You're not giving up that easily, are you? :eekers:

 

[blakerwry]

i've still got my trusty pIII 650 24x7 folder going... If I can still run my Duron 750 nearly silently then I'll start it folding again as well.

 

[The JoJo]

I noticed over at SR that Clocker and PW have started on something called D2OL.

C, can you tell us something about it?

We moved from Genome to Folding, would this be a situation to think about going to something new? Whaddaya think? Something new might be a bit more inspirational, compared to loosing in rank in Folding. If a change would be in order, can we find a cause that everyone would be interested in?

 

[CougTek]

Following PeeWee? You gotta be kidding me.

Besides, moving to the same project as SR would get us in competition with them. Ultimately, that would probably cause a merge of both our teams into a single one. Since we have less folders than they have, we would be the one that would be eaten up. Not good for us IMO.

People are free to choose for who they want to fold, but seeing how much time I spend here compare to how much I spend there, the choice is easy for me.

 

[P5-133XL]

Clocker, by his abandoning of SF's FAH team brings to the forefront the purpose of belonging to a team such as ours. For him, it appears to be the competition. We are not moving forward in the stats and thus association with us is no longer desireable. SR was not moving forward either, so his and PW's solution is to move the SR team into a new arena; where being there from the start will give a competative advantage over those that come later.

For me, it is not the stats that matters. Rather it is the participation and the sense of belonging to something larger than me. I am perfectly happy losing as long as it accomplishes something in the process. I find Clockers and PW's actions to be distastfull and have no intention of following; May they find happiness upon their chosen path, for I will in mine.

 

[Handruin]

The fame of being ontop of that new project will be short lived IMHO. Then what? Move onto another team with another project? Why not join the google's, ARS tech's, and so on if you would like to be at the top of a distributed project.

 

[The JoJo]

Whoooo, hold your fire boys

As long as everyones not bailing out to SR or whatever, we'll be fine. That was the main reason I thought about asking everyones opinion.

And no, I'm not suggesting we should follow C and PW, as you can see from my last question. It took a long while just to get people to do this folding, so finding something else would be very hard, and everyone would probably not come to a new cause, whatever it is.

Since that thing is settled, let's crunch on! And no slacking there, ya hear me! :mrgrn:

 

[P5-133XL]

- Report on my Office Computer Infrastructure upgrade -


By the way, I'm pleased with the Barton 2500 (333 fsb) + Spire FalconRock CPU fan + The Gigabyte 7K400 ProII's and Crucial DDR3200's they seem to handle overclocking the 2500's to 3200 with absolutely no problems. One simply tells the MB to operate the fsb at 400 and operate the chip in "Turbo" mode.

The 3.2GHz Dell 400SC is a quiet little bugger: I expected more noise.

I have successfully heated-up my office to an uncomfortable Temperature. That should be fixed when I move my second Pod of 3 machines to another room. I'm waiting for another Cybex Switchview (KVM), a Netgear Wrt614 and more machines to arrive. Meanwhile I'm daily being roasted alive.

The other thing to note is that I am being forced to replace my AGP Video cards. I didn't pay attention and the Gigabyte MB's support only 4X/8X cards and not my old 1X's. I had to dig deep into my old parts collection and use up my lot of PCI video cards.

I'm not yet up to full folding strength - two 3.2GHz Dell 400SC's have not yet arived and one of the Gigabyte MB's had a bad memory controller and had to be exchanged.


Even still with only

Two Athlon 1.9MP's
Two Athlon 2.5@3.2MHz
One 3.2GHz P4

I seem to be operating at an estimated 11.82 points per hour/283 per day/1985 per week. That is aprox 2.7x folding power of the Dual 1.9MHz Athlon MP's.

I'm waiting forr you folks to catch-up or eat my dust: Your choice.

 

[Clocker_Temp]

Hey guys..I decided to try to take a big break from SF. It has nothing to do with our F@H team...there are just some things with SF that I am either bored for frustrated with...I'm not sure. Nonetheless, I boneheadedly decided to try to change my e-mail account to something that would cut me off from the SF world for a while (taking@abreak.com) and managed to disable my account...thus I am posting from this _Temp account. Anyway, here are my responses to your posts:

JoJo-
D2OL has a number of nice things about it. It supports multiple O/Ss, it allows you to cache a variable number of work units on your PC (nice for modem or laptop users) and has a pretty GUI. I switched to D2OL with SR because I saw the opportunity for us to move up in the stats fast and possibly be a dominating force. It was a nice (needed) change as far as crunching clients goes and I have been happy with it. As long as I'm crunching something...it's good.

Coug-
PeeWee? I thought we had a little better rapport than that. Maybe you're just trying to get a rise out of me? Or maybe you have just a touch of sour grapes because you'll never know if you had enough juice on F@H to pass me up in the stats? I guess we'll never know but I'm a little baffled by your tone.

P5-
Suprising holier than thou attitue. You have got to be kidding me with the your "actions to be distastfull" comment. I contribute my PC power to help DC causes and to have fun by trying to WIN. WTH is wrong with that? Feel free to use F@H for your sense of belonging to something larger, but, for that purpose I choose other parts of my life and there is nothing wrong with that. WTH is the difference what I use my PC on as long as my spare CPU cycles are going to a good cause? WhoTH are you to judge me because I'd rather compete than sit back at watch my team get passed by slowly but surely. Feel free to sit back on a declining SF team, there's nothing wrong with it if that is your thing. Sure, the computing you are doing is very worthwhile, but competition is what spurs more work and progress in the world, not complacency. I'd rather be competitive while doing constructive crunching at the same time. I'm bound to drive others to be more productive while I'm at it.


Doug-
There are plenty of DC projects out there. My attitude is to stay competitve because if creates more interest and motivation. Sure, SR will peak on D2OL at some point. That's fine...and there's nothing wrong with switching to a new project at that point, either. There will always be more DC projects to contribute to and they're doing good for humanity. So no...I don't want to just sit at the top....I always want to be passing somebody. IF you get to the top thats cool but then it's definitely time to switch.


With all that said...I probably won't be around SF much. It has nothing to do with F@H...just some other things that I don't want to go into. I really just wanted to let you guys know that my leaving has nothing to do with the fact that SF has peaked out on F@H (which P5 may or may not have implied above, and if he did he should have known better)...I would not leave SF just for that!

Adios,
C

 

[P5-133XL]

P5-
Suprising holier than thou attitue. You have got to be kidding me with the your "actions to be distastfull" comment. I contribute my PC power to help DC causes and to have fun by trying to WIN. WTH is wrong with that? Feel free to use F@H for your sense of belonging to something larger, but, for that purpose I choose other parts of my life and there is nothing wrong with that. WTH is the difference what I use my PC on as long as my spare CPU cycles are going to a good cause? WhoTH are you to judge me because I'd rather compete than sit back at watch my team get passed by slowly but surely. Feel free to sit back on a declining SF team, there's nothing wrong with it if that is your thing. Sure, the computing you are doing is very worthwhile, but competition is what spurs more work and progress in the world, not complacency. I'd rather be competitive while doing constructive crunching at the same time. I'm bound to drive others to be more productive while I'm at it.

I had no knowledge of you leaving SF, or the reasons therof. The only knowledge I had, was of you leaving the SF team. Thus there was no implication for the reasons for leaving SF. The reasons for leaving the team were made clear in the thread at SR and you clarified them even more here. I stand by my previous statements concerning those reasons. I would not leave the team for the reasons you gave: But then, you are not me.

 

[The JoJo]

:?:

Why is Kevin leaving?

 

[CougTek]

Clocker,

Peewee is PW, not you. I'm disapointed that you leave, but I'm not bitter. Oh and I too believe our rapport is better than that. Feel free to come back anytime.

 

[Fushigi]

I personally do F@H for the potential betterment of the human condition. Nothing else.

If SF embarks on a new DC project, I'll follow along as long as I agree with the goals of the project. Otherwise I may stick with Folding and join another team.

To me, this is not a race. Nor is this a competition. Team standings for SF are something I don't get too concerned about. The competitive side of me is satisfied with competing within the team itself.

 

[Bartender]

Bye Clocker, hope to see you around again. We'll keep the Red Wings banner in the corner for you.

 

[Buck]

Take it easy Clocker, we'll be waiting for your visit.

 

[NRG = mc²]

The cost of electricity for so much computer power is too expensive for me. But the phone of creating a folding farm would be great.

I have been pleasantly surprised at my electricity bill lately - for the past three years I was living in a house where the landlord would take care of water and electricity so I had no idea at the true cost of running a PC 24-7.

Bill for three months I've been here cost me £13 in electricity. Thats less than $7 per month. That said, I hardly watch TV, its been summer so the lights were only on in the evening, and hot water, cooking and heating is through gas, and I have a TFT display that probably consumes 10x less power than my old hulking 20" SGI. Wasn't expecting it to be this cheap.

 

[timwhit]

Clocker, what's the reason you are leaving SF? You still seem to be active on SR...

 

[P5-133XL]

If you want an answer from Clocker the perhaps a PM at SR would be appropiate. If he is not coming back, then you can't expect an answer from here.

 

[The JoJo]

PEOPLE, COME ON! We have so many people here, and so few crunchers? What is this?

Unless you've come upon a way to increase your income by using your spare cpu cycles (if you have, please PM me immediately ) , you really should feel a small sting in your heart for not folding for us!

Okey, enough of the bullying.

 

[timwhit]

Sorry, I still fold for SETI. I have 4177 units done and I would rather not switch.

 

[i]

Unless you've come upon a way to increase your income by using your spare cpu cycles (if you have, please PM me immediately ) , you really should feel a small sting in your heart for not folding for us!

My primary method for contributing to the Folding@Home team has devolved into unintentionally picking a username that's easily confused with someone else's username. That way, they simply have to mis-type their name when configuring their client and I get credit for their work.

To demonstrate this, consider that after creating an account with F@H, I never completed a single work unit, yet I currently have a score of 7. And no, I have no sympathy for the guy who's username is a capital letter i.

Maybe if you people want to increase your scores, you should create additional accounts with usernames like "jhon" and "smtih".

Personally, I decided to save the world (and my wallet) by not using so much electricity.

 

[Pradeep]

Hmm, one of my clients just dl'ed Core 78, I just pissed my pants when it said "Extra 3DNow boost OK". Phear the powa of my mighty dual Athlon!

I used to jump from DC to DC, but in the end there will always be someone with more computer powa/money to get ahead of you in the stats. I'll stick with F@H, even tho it is difficult on dial up at times. Helps now that I don't have some gay dl/ul limit (buh bye Telsluts, iPrimus, et al).

 

[CougTek]

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

No! It's Supermark flying thru the sky of StorageForum team...

...and about to steal me my so-hardly-earned fifth overall position.

 

[blakerwry]

ouch, i see we have plummetted to the low 60's place in overall team ranking... And despite me doubling my output I have not rased rank within our team hardly at all.

 

[P5-133XL]

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

No! It's Supermark flying thru the sky of StorageForum team...

...and about to steal me my so-hardly-earned fifth overall position.

Add a few machines and my daily points increase a bit.

To All: You too can do it, if you choose. Otherwise - EAT MY DUST.

 

[CougTek]

Finally! I've been chasing the Cocker for more than a year now...and I finally managed to overtake him.

I feel like I won a long and hard fight.

Adrian! Adrian! Adrian!

Huh? Mark isn't Adrian...why is he the one who's coming closer and closer?

Hey you! Back off my fifth place!

 

[P5-133XL]

Coug,

Don't worry, by my calculations you have till Dec. 4th to increase your daily production. An earned early Xmas present could still save your place in folding history and help with the team's place too. Another less useful solution is the "give your points to Coug" program like was done for Cliptin earlier.

Enjoy the competition

 

[The JoJo]

Mark, are you sure afterburners don't require some kind of license?

You seem to be on a high altitude vector aiming for the number one spot. Rock on!

 

[P5-133XL]

Sorry about my recent performance - I'm having problems with roaming profiles corrupting the folding data.

Specificly, the roaming profile has a startup shortcut that points to "C:\program files\folding@home" However whenever I logon on another machine the shortcut changes its addr to "//last machine logged off of/c$/Program files/folding@home" This of course will then corrupt both machines folding progress and if I'm working with multiple machines I endup corrupting the work on multiple machines. Very frustrating and annoying.

I'm going to have to stop using a roaming profile to fix this or is there a setting/registry entry that prevents the OS from making that change to the shortcut in startup?

 

[Howell]

Is this while running it as a service?

 

[P5-133XL]

No they are running as a simple shortcut, in the start menu, to the console.

 

[P5-133XL]

Correction a simple shortcut in the startup folder to the console version.

 

[blakerwry]

why do you ahve it running at user level? why not system level? that would be in the registry under hkey local machine...

 

[Howell]

No they are running as a simple shortcut, in the start menu, to the console.

I'm thinking that if it were to be run as a service the application would be associated with the system user and not interact with the roaming profiles.

 

[P5-133XL]

That is what I've done - I've gotten firedaemon and am now running them all as services rather than under my user account.