Anyone out there Folding@Home?

as much as I'd like to see us match your predictions, I'd sell it if I were you =)

 

Y'all talked me into it. I signed up last week. I've got my linux station at work (which is an older Dell) going almost all the time, my home PC (which sits idle a good portion of the day), and my work laptop (which probably will only get work done when I'm at a meeting).

I'd love to be able to put some of our development servers that sit idle most of the time to work, too, but I don't think my employers would appreciate it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(geologyrox @ Nov 20 2006, 03:43 PM) [snapback]352257[/snapback]</div>

I took the advice and flipped it on eBay for $1100.

Now I can buy 2 of them at normal price when Sony ships tonight...

Boy is the house gonna be warm when I plug these in and start folding!

 

OK, I have two high end computers running it and will set it up on a third also soon.

 

LOL - good call!

Although, if you want my free advice again, I'd only buy the one and go out for a nice dinner. Make a point of toasting to people who are willing to pay double+ to have it before anyone else =)


For the record (because somehow I missed it when you asked) I started with my laptop, with an AMD XP 3000+, but I eventually got tired of burning my legs. I've got it running on our web/printserver (a celeron) and my aunts celeron as well. The other computers (a dualcore AMD X2 3400 and a dualcore P4 2.0GHz) don't normally have access to the internet, but I'm probably going to leave them running using the batch feature. On Thanksgiving I'll be installing it on my moms computer (AMD XP 1800+?) and my little brothers computers (AMD XP 1800+ and an old (P2?) computer.) I've yet to install it on DHs shop computers (all AMD XP xxxx+ processors) but I'll get around to it one of these days =)



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bhaynnes @ Nov 22 2006, 01:50 PM) [snapback]353083[/snapback]</div>

I noticed! You've got some crunching power there! Thanks for supporting team PriusChat =)

 

OK, I joined.

Now let's see if tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, if all 161,000+ points transfer over to Team Priuschat under my the user name "abode," or just the 600 points I am crunching now, or if the program waits for the first download of a WU to my machine under the 52533 team number. I just don't know. :mellow:

I was getting board with hovering around the # 500 ranking on the anonymous team . . . I WANT TO BE SOMEWHERE . . . SOMEWHERE WHERE I CAN BE IN THE TOP TEN!!!!! (including me, there are currently only nine Priuschat FAH members) :lol:

 

>>> 5000 ! <<<

Team PriusChat has moved into the top 5000 teams! It is going to get harder to move up in the ranks, as the competition is getting a little fierce as we move up. With a good draft, we will break 3,000 by the end of the year.

C'mon, join the team, and donate some of those spare CPU cycles!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Nov 29 2006, 04:35 PM) [snapback]355401[/snapback]</div>

My results finally came in, my computer was chugging away on a big piece. Unfortunately, I see I configured my name as PriusChat instead of nerfer (only needed the team number, not the name too, when configuring). So I changed my name, might take awhile to show up (current protein is pretty big), but apparently my results so far will stay with PriusChat name in the Priuschat group and not follow the name change.

What's that team ranking in [time period] thing mean? Our team ranking in 30 days is 3,018, but current is 4,850. Is that a prediction of where we'll be in 30 days, or our ranking for the last 30 days?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nerfer @ Nov 30 2006, 10:51 AM) [snapback]355672[/snapback]</div>

According to the mouseover text, the rankings are the future team ranking at the end of that particular time period. so the 3018 is what we'd 30 days from now.

Anyone know how the points for a particular work unit are awarded? Right now my low-end linux box at work is banging away at its third straight 50000000 step job.

 

Well, I finally joined last night. At first, I thought my 3 year old PC wasn't going to handle it - the estimated completion date for my 200000 frame 'work unit' was Jan 20, 2008! But I guess it's faster than the original estimate - I'm about 25% done and it should finish early this Sunday morning. Then I'll show up on the team list!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Proco @ Nov 30 2006, 11:29 AM) [snapback]355691[/snapback]</div>

There is supposedly some sort of "reference machine" at Stanford that is used to see how much a particular type of work unit will take. Based on how long that machine takes, they set the points for that type of work unit.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bigdaddy @ Nov 30 2006, 05:08 PM) [snapback]355946[/snapback]</div>

Gotcha. So this really isn't about helping science but about getting us all to buy better, faster machines so we can improve our rankings. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Proco @ Nov 30 2006, 06:14 PM) [snapback]356045[/snapback]</div>

Regarding the setting of WU points:
http://fahwiki.net/index.php/WorkUnits#WU_Credits

Some WUs run much faster on an AMD processor, some faster on an Intel . . . you get what you get WU wise, but, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the points you earn – but overall, the most important thing is the actual work:

1) Go big with Large Work Units . . . If your machine and internet connection can take it.
Large WUs, also known as BigWUs, are available to clients how are configured to received WUs larger than 5 MB. These WUs require more memory of the client machines to run and are therefore worth double the credit of normal WUs. http://fahwiki.net/index.php/WorkUnits#New...nced_Work_Units

If you are using the graphics version like I am, right click the FAH toolbar icon. Click “Connection†then mark the last checkbox to allow for receipt of WUs larger than 5MB. (I'm not sure how to do it with the non-graphics versions, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out.

2) Use the Advanced methods ( -advmethods ) parameter:
The New Advanced WUs are available to clients how are started with the -advmethods parameter. These WUs are in the final stage of testing before being made available to all the other Folding@Home participants. Please note that there is an increased chance for errors and other problems with these WUs.
http://fahwiki.net/index.php/WorkUnits#New...nced_Work_Units

3) Keep track of what your machine is doing . . . by using the -verbosity 9 parameter. In the FAH file (defaulted to C:\Program Files\Folding@Home on windows machines) are two files . . . FAHlog and FAHlog-Prev[ious]. With the -verbosity 9 parameter, the FAHlog will record and show just about everything the FAH program is doing (I have shortcuts to these files on my desktop for easy access):

The file should look like this (this is from me restarting the computer or program after 72% of the FAH WU was completed:
[I highlighted the very important stuff.]

--- Opening Log file [November 16 19:27:50]


# Windows Graphical Edition ###################################################
###############################################################################

Folding@Home Client Version 5.03

http://folding.stanford.edu

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

Launch directory: C:\Program Files\Folding@Home
Arguments: -advmethods -verbosity 9
[clip]
[19:27:59] Folding@Home Gromacs Core
[19:27:59] Version 1.90 (March 8, 2006)
[19:27:59]
[19:27:59] Preparing to commence simulation
[19:27:59] - Looking at optimizations...
[19:28:02] - Files status OK
[19:28:14] - Expanded 3068764 -> 16583069 (decompressed 540.3 percent)
[19:28:17]
[19:28:17] Project: 2414 (Run 234, Clone 29, Gen 15)
[19:28:17]
[19:28:22] Assembly optimizations on if available.
[19:28:22] Entering M.D.
[19:28:46] (Starting from checkpoint)
[19:28:46] Protein: p2414_Ribo_tryptophan280
[19:28:46]
[19:28:46] Writing local files
[19:28:46] Completed 180000 out of 250000 steps (72)
[19:28:52] Extra SSE boost OK.
[19:43:55] Timered checkpoint triggered.
[19:59:53] Timered checkpoint triggered.
[20:11:16] Writing local files
[20:11:17] Completed 182500 out of 250000 steps (73)
[clip]
[11:50:11] Finished Work Unit:
[11:50:11] - Reading up to 2111976 from "work/wudata_06.arc": Read 2111976
[11:50:11] - Reading up to 83716 from "work/wudata_06.xtc": Read 83716
[11:50:11] goefile size: 0
[11:50:11] logfile size: 159930
[11:50:11] Leaving Run
[11:50:14] - Writing 2864330 bytes of core data to disk...
[11:50:14] ... Done.
[11:50:14] - Shutting down core
[11:50:14]
[11:50:14] Folding@home Core Shutdown: FINISHED_UNIT
[11:50:15] + New frame time estimate; Working...
[11:50:17] CoreStatus = 64 (100)
[11:50:17] Unit 6 finished with 97 percent of time to deadline remaining.
[11:50:17] Updated performance fraction: 0.972264
[11:50:17] Sending work to server
[11:50:17] + Attempting to send results
[11:50:17] - Reading file work/wuresults_06.dat from core
[11:50:17] (Read 2864330 bytes from disk)
[11:50:19] - Uploaded at ~1399 kB/s
[11:50:19] - Averaged speed for that direction ~1269 kB/s
[11:50:19] + Results successfully sent
[11:50:19] Thank you for your contribution to Folding@Home.
[11:50:19] + Number of Units Completed: 347


5) ALSO VERY IMPORTANT: If you crash your computer or don't allow FAH to do a soft shutdown, the next time FAH starts will be in a degraded mode . . . it will forgo any optimizations. If that happens, shutdown FAH and restart it again . . . and look for the “Looking at optimizations...†and “Extra SSE boost OK†[or whatever boost your computer system is capable of] in the FAHlog.

In order to start the advanced methods and verbosity 9, the TARGET for FAH needs to be “C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\winFAH.exe" -advmethods -verbosity 9
in your FAH desktop icon and/or in the Windows startup folder.

GOOD FOLDING!!!!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Dec 16 2006, 07:20 AM) [snapback]363075[/snapback]</div>

It's been doing that for a few days. Search seems to be broken. Presently, if you go to the main page, then go to the page links, PriusChat team is on page 13.

To bring you up to speed, there is quite a little race starting to brew within the team. There is going to be some pushing and shoving into the team's first place position over the next month or so. Some folks are sneaking in some heavy iron.....

 

OK, it's now been a month since I joined Team Priuschat. I joined the team in the #9 spot, now I am sitting at #3.
http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.p...p;teamnum=52533

There is probably no chance of me catching GeologyRox/Karen or bwiederholt in the #1 and #2 spots, since they are running six and four processors respectively – and I am running one lowly three year old AMD 64 computer (not quite lowly, but no longer the comparative blaze master it once was. )

In post #54, I gave suggestions on how to increase your score. Doing a little quick math, you can see one of the reasons why I am at #3 while others with higher numbers of completed WUs have smaller scores, and are being left in the rankings dust. Of course this doesn't take into account those who don't run their computers 24/7, but it does demonstrate the relative point quality of the WUs being crunched on your machine.

1 GeologyRox/Karen 19308 /108 = 178 average points per WU
2 bwiederholt 11880/58 = 204
3 abode 7771/19 = 409***
4 Danny 7236/35 = 206
5 bhaynnes 6561/18 = 364***
6 Renocat 5802/20= 209
7 Proco 5299/25 = 211
8 Jeannie 3514 /8 = 195
9 George_Kalkas2 2078/9 = 230
10 galaxee 1565/4 = 391***
11 nerfer = 1406/7 = 200
*** Undoubtedly has settings set to fold Big WUs

If you can (it's your computer, etc, etc) implement the suggestions I made in post 54 and help Team PriusChat gain respect :lol: . . . and do more quality science for mankind. :wub:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy @ Dec 27 2006, 03:43 PM) [snapback]367327[/snapback]</div>

Thanks for the tip! I recently swapped to bigger WUs after reading your posts. I think maybe only 1 or 2 of them has posted, they are taking much longer, but I did get a 900+ reward recently. I was motivated by the fact that you and bhaynnes were beginning to close in on me.

My new PS3 is here (I sold the first one for a $400+ profit, bought the next one on ebay at *less than cost*, what a hoot). Unfortunately, Sony & Folding@Home have not released the PS3 folding client; but over on the folding boards (I'm priusdaddy there), they are speculating that it will be "soon." In the meantime, I am using the PS3 for more important endeavors, like playing Resistance: Fall of Man.

Edit: I've also had to cut back on the overall number of processors I am using. I was using both processors on a Dell Laptop, but I began to have trouble with the video displays and had to have video replaced under warranty. I blame it on the heat that the folding clients were generating. I have since cut back to one processor on that machine. I do use another machine for folding, but I do some genetic algorithm work on that one as well and there is a lot of competition for the processors on the box.

 

So what do we need to do to get other Prius Chat members to join our team?