Folding@Home

[P5-133XL]

I added two more 3.2GHz P4's to my count. That should add aprox 25% to my daily score to aprox 1,100 pts per day. Catch me if you can.

Current folding systems:

1 Dual Athlon 1900+ MP's
3 Athlon XP 2500+
2 Athlon XP 2500+@3200+
3 HT 3200 P4's

 

[Bozo]

I had two P4 prescotts running two sessions of folding each until I got the electric bill.

Now I only run them when I'm actually on them.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

When I switched to mostly athlon 64s my electric bill actually went down about 20%.

 

[P5-133XL]

I have electric heat - Computers make for excellent heaters. I just never turn on the heat in the winter. I have nine machines continuously on and my electric bill stays around 100-110 per month regardless of lighting, cooking, etc.

 

[ddrueding]

Now that I switched to a silent A64 Mobile as my home machine, and ditched the 9800XT for a 9200 w/256MB, My system hardly produces any heat at all. Still have quite a few machines folding, still playing with the ones at the center.

 

[JKKJ]

I have electric heat - Computers make for excellent heaters. I just never turn on the heat in the winter. I have nine machines continuously on and my electric bill stays around 100-110 per month regardless of lighting, cooking, etc.

My wife would be concerned that you might start glowing from EMR or some other voodoo waves! No amount of data or protestations (or imploring) will convince her otherwise either. Don't even try. Can you guess how many machines I have running my spare-cycles client (the S-word, I dare not say it in this topic) when we're not using the computers?

 

[ddrueding]

My wife would be concerned that you might start glowing from EMR or some other voodoo waves! No amount of data or protestations (or imploring) will convince her otherwise either. Don't even try. Can you guess how many machines I have running my spare-cycles client (the S-word, I dare not say it in this topic) when we're not using the computers?

You need to go to SPCR and build some quieter computers! Then disconnect all the LEDs

 

[JKKJ]

:bglaugh:

 

[Clocker]

Info on how F@H works:

http://murl.microsoft.com/videos/xerox/Forum2004/pande_OnDemand_100_100K_320x240.htm

C

 

[P5-133XL]

I added a dual Opteron 246 server to my count. I can't guarantee that it will remain a permanent folder, but we'll see. That should add aprox 20% to my daily score for an aprox total of 1,500 pts per day.

Catch me if you can.

Come on guys: Fushigi you were supposed to bring online several machines that were to soundly start defeating me and ddrueding you have slacked off from when you were soundly catching-up and eventually would have taken over 1st place. Instead the underdog is not only keeping the lead but also streaching it out some.

Catch me if you can.

Current folding systems:

3 HT 3200 P4's
2 Athlon XP 2500+@3200+
1 Dual Opteron 246
3 Athlon XP 2500+
1 Dual Athlon 1900+ MP's

The new dual 246 isn't a particularly good folder, but gee it's one snappy machine with 4 Gig or RAM and a 15K SCSI drive.

 

[ddrueding]

Yeah, I'm afraid I'm out of the mix for a while. Not only does the client negatively impact the gaming systems, but my home system is now a fanless box that can't handle 100% CPU usage. I still have a number of servers and other workstations, but not the big iron I once was.

 

[The JoJo]

I added a dual Opteron 246 server to my count. I can't guarantee that it will remain a permanent folder, but we'll see. That should add aprox 20% to my daily score for an aprox total of 1,500 pts per day.

Catch me if you can.

Come on guys: Fushigi you were supposed to bring online several machines that were to soundly start defeating me and ddrueding you have slacked off from when you were soundly catching-up and eventually would have taken over 1st place. Instead the underdog is not only keeping the lead but also streaching it out some.

Catch me if you can.

Current folding systems:

3 HT 3200 P4's
2 Athlon XP 2500+@3200+
1 Dual Opteron 246
3 Athlon XP 2500+
1 Dual Athlon 1900+ MP's

The new dual 246 isn't a particularly good folder, but gee it's one snappy machine with 4 Gig or RAM and a 15K SCSI drive.

Doh, with (the main systems) being only 1x 3.0HT, 1x3.2HT and a Barton3000, no chance of putting up a fight...(Installing linux on the 3.2 today, so it'll start working in the next few days...)

You've got a great arsenal there! Lead the way!

 

[Fushigi]

I wish I could nab more systems, but I'm presently rather maxed out. I'll check with some of the folks at work & see if I can run the services client on their PCs.

I see there's a PPC OS X version. That should make for an easy port to AIX, and hence i5/OS. Maybe I'll email them and ask about beta testing...

 

[Fushigi]

Yeah, I'm afraid I'm out of the mix for a while. Not only does the client negatively impact the gaming systems, but my home system is now a fanless box that can't handle 100% CPU usage. I still have a number of servers and other workstations, but not the big iron I once was.

For your fanless box, just set it to not exceed 50% CPU (or whatever threshold you find acceptable).

 

[P5-133XL]

ddrueding,

For that matter assigning a max CPU useage (in advanced options when the client is being configured) may solve your problem with F@H interfering with gaming machines: If you leave some %CPU unused then it may remove the problem with games that are currently being impacted. Having some folding is better than no folding.

The difficulty will be finding the amount of CPU needed by the errant games. I'm affraid trial and error may be the only way.

 

[Fushigi]

I see there's a PPC OS X version. That should make for an easy port to AIX, and hence i5/OS. Maybe I'll email them and ask about beta testing...

Well, I asked to renew the 'next platform' poll over at the folding forum. While waiting on a response, I've already implemented the SETI client on our new i5. 2 instances; one for each CPU. Any suggestions on a team to join for SETI work?

 

[P5-133XL]

Folders might want to upgrade their F@H version to 5.02 and then reconfigure (use the -configonly option on first use) to allow large WU's. Large WU's give a 100% points bonus!

This only applies to modern machines with 512MB+ RAM. The large WU's tend to use 130-150M+ of your ram and tend to be time consuming to the point that lower-end machines need not apply.

 

[Handruin]

I added the folding at home client to my new dell SC420, but I've yet to see it show on any of the stats pages. Even the main F@H page only says I have one active processor. I checked both config files, and one machine is set to ID1 and the other is ID2.

I just looked at the config file again and it was missing a ton of information. All it had was my machine ID, and one other thing, but no team or user name. :-?

Oh well, probably some lost team credit. I deleted the config file and ran through the config again. Hopefully I should see some of these results in the next couple days, Am I missing anything else obvious?

 

[P5-133XL]

The config file is non-text based (binary) so you are likely to be missing lots of info if you are reading it via a text-based reader like notepad.

You won't see anything stat wise from Stanford untill at least the first WU is finished and then the number of CPU's will increase. You need something like EMIII/Logstats to actually monitor your production or you can look at the FAHlog.txt in each of the directories to see what is happening...

Make sure that you are using the proper switches: -local -forceasm -advmethods

Both CPU's need seperate directories

 

[Handruin]

I probably screwed up the config file, and that's why it was missing data. My new PC has finished several work units as far as I can tell. Each time I check there is a new due date, so I'm guessing it was sending back completed work units.

I added those arguments, but I was not using them in the past. The log file warns about using "-forceasm". What does that do?

I only have single CPU's I was setting up F@H on my new machine, so the directories aren't a problem.

 

[Handruin]

How do I keep those arguments in the service startup? I was able to add them when I start it manually, but is there any way to make them permanent?

 

[P5-133XL]

forceasm enables SSE on AMD chips; and removes some automated corruption checking.

A single CPU that has Hyperthreading turned on is treated as two CPU's. Both virtual CPU's need seperate directories and seperate CPU numbers and the -local switch so their configs are stored in files within their respective folders and not in the registry using the same keys.

You can't be assured of completed units based on different due dates. It could have been corrupting the data and simply cycling through several WU's without completing them. You really need to examing the FAHlog.txt and check for completion and successful sending of the WU's. If your CPU count does not go up after a completed WU then something is wrong!

 

[P5-133XL]

How do I keep those arguments in the service startup? I was able to add them when I start it manually, but is there any way to make them permanent?

You can add startup parameters to any service. Right click My computer and pick manage->services and applications->services. Pick the service and select properties and you can insert start parameters.

 

[Handruin]

I know my new PC finished. There were two of these in the old log file:

[06:11:53] Completed 990000 out of 1000000 steps  (99)
[06:24:17] Writing local files
[06:24:17] Completed 1000000 out of 1000000 steps  (100)
[06:24:17] Writing final coordinates.
[06:24:17] Past main M.D. loop
[06:25:17] 
[06:25:17] Finished Work Unit:
[06:25:17] - Reading up to 453384 from "work/wudata_01.arc": Read 453384
[06:25:17] - Reading up to 1553836 from "work/wudata_01.xtc": Read 1553836
[06:25:17] goefile size: 0
[06:25:17] Leaving Run
[06:25:18] - Writing 2023412 bytes of core data to disk...
[06:25:19]   ... Done.
[06:25:19] - Shutting down core
[06:25:19] 
[06:25:19] Folding@home Core Shutdown: FINISHED_UNIT
[06:25:22] CoreStatus = 64 (100)
[06:25:22] Sending work to server

As for the service. I added the startup arguments into the services panel, but I believe those are temporary? The wording says:
"You can specify the start parameters that apply when you start the service from here."

After I start the service, I verified the arguments passed based on the F@H log file. If I stop and restart, the arguments are no longer applied.

 

[P5-133XL]

I asked the same question at the F@H forums and was directed to the following post:

Unfortunately, at this time, the only way to add flags to the service is to edit the registry entry for that service.

1/ Shut down that instance through the Services manager snap-in
2/ Run regedit and go to key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<service name> and edit the entry ImagePath, adding whatever flags you wish to the end. Exit regedit.
3/ Re-open the Services manager snap-in, and verify that your changes appear there, and then restart the service.

NOTE: Registry editing can be dangerous if you do it wrong, although the above is pretty straight forward. Use this procedure at your own risk!

Some methodology of entering the flags at service install time has been requested for the next maintenance release of the client.

At that point I think I prefer using FireDaemon rather than F@H's service capability

 

[Handruin]

I applied those chages to the registry and it woked fine. Thanks for finding those!

 

[P5-133XL]

The Large WU's and their 100% bonus are starting to show their effect. My daily production went from 1400-1500 -> 2500-2800 (Some machines still get standard WU's). However, it has taken some time to notice the increase. Those 600 point WU's take days to process even on a fast machine. Also, because they are 600pt units the daily variability of points should increase.

 

[CougTek]

Folders might want to upgrade their F@H version to 5.02 and then reconfigure (use the -configonly option on first use) to allow large WU's. Large WU's give a 100% points bonus!

This only applies to modern machines with 512MB+ RAM. The large WU's tend to use 130-150M+ of your ram and tend to be time consuming to the point that lower-end machines need not apply.

Would a 2.2GHz Athlon XP (Thoroughbred core) with 512MB of PC3200 RAM count as a modern machine or would I need to upgrade to an Athlon 64 in order to use large WUs?

I'll soon have two of them, instead of only one. One of my systems is waiting for a graphic card. I'll try to build a third box with the spare parts I have laying around.


And what the Hell are using Clocker and Handruin to get 2500 points/week with only two active CPUs? My puny Athlon XP can't even achieve 700 points per week alone. Is the secret related to large WUs or what?

 

[Handruin]

I think it might be the large work units. I enabled the setting on my cheap dell 2.53GHz Celeron with 512MB ram running server 2003 Small business edition. My other machine is the one you guys donated (athlon XP 2200 thoroughbred & 1GB Ram)

Your machine should be fine with the large work units if you have at least 100-150 MB of memory free. I don't do much with my Dell, so it works out fine.

 

[P5-133XL]

Folders might want to upgrade their F@H version to 5.02 and then reconfigure (use the -configonly option on first use) to allow large WU's. Large WU's give a 100% points bonus!

This only applies to modern machines with 512MB+ RAM. The large WU's tend to use 130-150M+ of your ram and tend to be time consuming to the point that lower-end machines need not apply.

Would a 2.2GHz Athlon XP (Thoroughbred core) with 512MB of PC3200 RAM count as a modern machine or would I need to upgrade to an Athlon 64 in order to use large WUs?

I'll soon have two of them, instead of only one. One of my systems is waiting for a graphic card. I'll try to build a third box with the spare parts I have laying around.


And what the Hell are using Clocker and Handruin to get 2500 points/week with only two active CPUs? My puny Athlon XP can't even achieve 700 points per week alone. Is the secret related to large WUs or what?

You can get away with large WU's on both machines as long as you have at least 512Meg of RAM. It will take several days to complete one 600 point unit though (aprox 100 hours on my 1900) but it will still easily finish before its time limit. I'm doing Large WU's on my 1900MP and it gets about 1000 points per week; 2500 XP's get 1450 ppw; 3200 XP's get aprox 1750 ppw; My HT 3200 P4's produce 2400 ppw. All these are on large WU's and you can scale them all down aprox 40% with "Normals". I hope that gives you a concept of what different processors can accomplish

 

[P5-133XL]

We averaged over 8000 ppd this entire week. At 6000 we were very slowly dropping but If we can sustain this new rate we should start improving our team ranking over the next few weeks.

During the next month the team should break the 2,000,000 point milestone.

 

[Handruin]

I should also have a third machine coming online in the next couple months to help out.

 

[P5-133XL]

Gotta get Fushigi to switch over to Big WU's. That alone ought to give us another 1000 points per day.

 

[CougTek]

Oh and what's the -advmethods option for?

 

[P5-133XL]

-advmethods tries to pick the newest WU's (Beta's) that are out in preference to established WU's. Currently those are the big WU's.

 

[Fushigi]

Gotta get Fushigi to switch over to Big WU's. That alone ought to give us another 1000 points per day.

Alright, alright already. I'll start migrating as the current WUs finish.

 

[Fushigi]

Quick question: If I use the run-as-service option on XP Pro on a PC with multiple user accounts, will the service start at system boot or must one or another account actually log in for it to load? Right now, on my wife's PC the F@H system tray icon version runs when I log in under my name but not hers (we use user-switching so it runs all the time anyway). Under F@H V5, I'd like to make it so the F@H service loads on PC startup without requiring either of us to log in.

 

[Clocker]

Fush-
When you have it run as a service, it runs as a 'system' service. Nobody needs to be logged on. I've been running that way for a long time with nobody logged onto my XP Pro machine I'm using as a file server and folder....

C

 

[Fushigi]

Thanks, Clocker. My PC (Athlon XP 2800) & my wife's (Barton 2600) have been converted to 5.02/service/large-WU-enabled. I'll work on the other systems probably on/before Tuesday.

5.03 is out but not in the console/service version.

 

[Bozo]

Does anybody know if F@H can be run on a computer that is not connected to the internet?

Thanks,

Bozo :mrgrn: