DU Folding@Home - Thread #8 - Put your PC to work to fight disease!

[Roland99]

This is the next thread for the DU Folding@Home team.

For those of you still wondering what this is all about, Folding@Home is one of many active Distributed Computing projects. DC projects utilize your PC's idle time to process work units for the project. The most famous DC project is probably the SETI@Home project (mentioned in the movie Contact). Folding@Home's purpose is to help scientists determine how proteins fold under various conditions in an effort to help cure diseases (cancer, alzheimer's, etc.) This is a very worthwhile project and one certainly worthy of leaving your PC on 24/7.

Some may be concerned about leaving a PC on 24/7 and the costs involved. A newer PC running a full load will use about the same amount of electricity as two lamps left on 24/7. That is to say, not a lot. Personally, I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop that has been running SETI@Home (and now Folding@Home) 24/7 for over 4 years. I have an HTPC (Home Theater PC) running 24/7 and another (dual-CPU) I keep in my bedroom.

Security-wise, running a DC app (even a non-BOINC app) is very safe. I've not heard of any hacker gaining access to any PC via a corrupted DC app or work unit. Just be sure to download the apps from the site's main page and you should have nothing to worry about.

As for Team DU, we are falling further and further behind the Freepers (who have about 3 times the # of active CPUs running). While this project has much greater benefits of helping humankind, it would also be great to catch up to and pass the Freepers!

There are various clients available at the Folding@Home download page including CLI (Command Line Interface - DOS) and GUI (Graphical User Interface - pretty pictures) for Windows-based PCs, Linux console, and Mac OS X GUI, CLI, and Screensaver clients. Personally, I run the Windows-based CLI as it allows for faster crunching of work units (no graphics displays to slow it down).

All of the apps will only use a PC's idle processing time. I've been doing a boatload of video conversion of 16GB HDTV recordings down to 2GB AVI files (for copies of sports events for some friends) and have not seen any issues with performance with the F@H client running or not.

Below is a screenshot of what the CLI setup process looks like. It only requires input from you to specify your:





User name Enter whatever you want your name to be. This could be your DU screenname, for example. Mine is Conjur, for the name of a company I used to have (and my blog is named after)

Team Number <0> <---- VERY IMPORTANT Enter 48157. That is the DU F@H team number. Any work unit processed will be associated with Team DU. If you leave this blank, any work units will be assigned to a generic non-team.

You can press <Enter> to accept the defaults for the rest of the options but I make a couple of small changes:

Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service (yes/no) <---- Type y and press <Enter>. NOTE: - ONLY select this if you are running Windows 2000, XP, or 2003. Windows 95/98/ME will not install an application as a service. You'll want to put a shortcut to the F@H client in your Startup folder manually.

Change advanced options (yes/no) <---- Type y and press <Enter>

Interval, in minutes, between checkpoints (3-30) <15> <---- Type 5 and press <Enter>
I just use 5 min. so it writes out checkpoints more often in case the PC locks up for some reason it won't have to redo so much work upon restart.


So, that's it in a nutshell.

DU's current statistics are:

Date of last work unit 2006-02-12 14:12:17
Active CPUs within 50 days 275
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 405262 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3006 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 694 of 42747
Home Page http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss /
Fast Teampage URL http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team48157.html

But the Freepers are WAY ahead of us (they are well over 1 million points)

Join the fight against disease and have some (statistical) fun along the way!


Thread #7
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Roland99]

1. Oh, and keep this K&R!

[corporate_mike]

97. Kick!

[mcscajun]

2. Done, Done, and Well Done, Roland99!

You heard him, folks...join the project!

More CPUs!!!

[Vox_Reason]

3. K&R #4

I joined the team today, and I encourage others to consider doing so too! It's easy and contributes to a truly worthy cause.

[Mabus]

4. About the freepers

They really killed the friendly spirit of it when some of their guys went out and co-opted work and lab computers for their team. I read that one guy had co-opted about 90 computers. But you know what's really funny about all of this? We're winning on the numbers of active members. We're growing, they've stagnated and are losing numbers. Which means, in the end, even though they've done their best to pile it on, we will outnumber them and they know it.

According to http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php... the freepers have 178 active members, this 5 less than they had a week ago. Moreover they've had 79 people drop out (probably after realizing they were helping science and medical research). According to the same source Team DU's statistics (http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php... ) reveal we have 173 active members with only one inactive. Moreover, we have new people signing up every week.

Our numbers will continue to grow without co-opting computers. Wait until the day that the top freepers lose access to the co-opted computers (and maybe their jobs) or otherwise figure out the hypocrisy of dedicating medical research to Ronnie and stop crunching. I know I ran SETI for over 7 years. I'll run F@H for as long as it exists and I know from posts that there are plenty of other DU'ers who remain committed to running DC programs.

[Sgent]

5. I have no problem's with co-opting computers

all the better.

In my former job (where it was within my decision making authority), I had FAH running on multiple dual processor servers, etc.

They were always on anyway, and FAH sets its priority so low that it won't interfere with 99% of non-game related issues.

[corporate_mike]

7. It's for a great cause, at the end of the day

[corporate_mike]

8. #691 (with 275 CPUs) - FREEPers #241 (with 767 CPUs) - KOS #1,227

[TheGunslinger]

21. 683 of 42754

[Mabus]

29. My only objection is when those who own the computers aren't aware of it

In an earlier thread someone quoted a freeper saying "Next, congrats to all for bumping our team up to 714 processors and 271 user names. We have a number of new users in the team, with over a 50 computers now from GetLoaded.com, a trucking support website, all contributing while their owners ply our freeways keeping the nation moving." (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ) My question is, do these owners know that their computers have been co-opted for this purpose? If not, then it isn't cool. It is akin to Bush expanding his pResidential powers for domestic wiretapping without telling anyone that he's doing it.

Caoimhe summed up my feelings pretty well (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ) when she said "Somehow I don't think he could possibly have permission to tax that many computers. Unless of course he owns them all, which I seriously doubt. Oh well, all for a good cause! I've always enjoyed the grass roots approach rather than the steamroller approach to things myself."

[Roland99]

30. Just Google for "David McOwen" and SETI and find out what can happen.

I know David. Met him in person a couple of times. He got railroaded by the State of Georgia for running SETI on State servers.


If you're going to use work PCs...get permission!!

[Mabus]

31. He wasn't running SETI

he was running RC5-64.

McOwen was facing a fine of up to $415,000 and eight felony counts of computer theft and computer trespass, which could have resulted in anywhere from eight to 120 years in jail, for loading a distributed computing client onto PCs at DeKalb Technical College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked until December of 1999.

***

In McOwen's case, he'd installed Distributed.net's RC5-64 client on a total of 524 PCs around the school. RC5-64 is a distributed computing effort trying to break a 64-bit encryption key from RSA Data Security. Considering that 316,000 participants have been hacking away at the key for four years and still haven't broken it, it seems safe to say that 64-bit encryption is pretty strong.

RC5-64 runs as a screensaver, or in the background using unused CPU cycles. When the computer is needed for other tasks, the RC5-64 client throttles back and frees up the CPU for the other tasks, making it unobtrusive.

***
(Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the EFF) noted that there was another case that didn't get as much attention, involving 18 employees of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), who were fired from their jobs for running SETI@Home on their computers. They were threatened with criminal charges, but that never came about, possibly due to outrage over the McOwen case.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,49961,00.ht...

I didn't know about this case until just now. However, it does reinforce my feeling that people should only run F@H if they own the computer they are using or have permission to install it on the computer they intend to use.

[Roland99]

32. Oh, that's right. heh heh. He'd been active in SETI along w/myself

for anandtech.com (where I don't plan to post again as their mods are anonymous and a certain neocon-loving mod has it out for me...let them have their delusions).


I'm happily folding for DU now!

[corporate_mike]

25. True -- FREEPer production has been dropping

A few days ago FREEPers were producing 45-46,000 points per day.

They dropped to 33,000 yesterday.

[Mabus]

34. I'm a huge basketball fan

Some teams are able to make it to the top of the heap with a "franchise" player but once that key player gets burned out, gets injured or leaves that team tends to fall apart. Like a healthy balanced team our stats are distributed. We're not competing against each other or trying to "cover" for others that aren't producing as much. Instead, we're working together and everyone is contributing to the best of their ability. We're doing this as legitimately as possible. We aren't using co-opted computers or trying to get the most names listed. Our climb is steady and strong. I'm proud of my involvement and of every DU'er that is also contributing because we're working together to make the world a better place. We're doing it fairly and having fun doing it.

[iconoclastNYC]

35. If we had thier ethics

We'd go into thier threads and say that this research will help gays be able to reproduce and that it involves embryonic stem cells and such.

[Mabus]

36. Or we could tell them the truth

We're actually helping with the creation of those dreaded human-animal hybrids that Bush warned them about in his annual STFU speech.

[alfredo]

6. thanks for the Excellent Win tutor. (For the Mac Graphical Client).

Download and install per instructions. Launch then hit "preferences" in the menu bar.
Under "Identity" add your name and team ID# 48157

Under "network", if you are not behind a proxy, leave this blank

"Settings" are pretty much up to you. If you do have a slower machine like I do, set it for No Deadlines.

Now to set it to launch at login, go to System Preferences click on "System Accounts" Click on "Login Items" Click the + and then find click on the Folding@home application. Click add. Now you can click the box to hide the app so it will run in the background. You might have to click on the lock on the bottom left to make changes. I recommend setting it to launch at login so you won't forget to turn it on. You won't even know it is there. It automatically adjusts depending on what you are doing.

[Roland99]

17. Thanks for the info on the Mac OS!

[alfredo]

20. Sure, no problem.

I should do one using screenshots. I might do that sooner or later, do it up as a PDF.

[berni_mccoy]

9. WOOT!

In a little over a week, I've moved into 36th place on our team!!!!

[corporate_mike]

10. Recommended

[Vox_Reason]

11. More techie stuff

Setting up F@H on multi-processor or dual-core systems:
http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=293

[mcscajun]

13. More on HyperThreading (using the P4 HT chip to run two FAH processes)

Apparently, it may raise your points but not improve the scientific end much at all; in fact, it may hinder it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Roland99]

18. ARGH! I forgot to include setting up the CLI on dual-CPU PCs! DOH!

Thank you.


The Machine ID is the key and you have to have two versions of the F@H client setup in two separate directories. Set the Machine ID to '0' for the 1st instance and set it to '1' for the 2nd.

[onyourleft]

12. I'm in.

Thanks for posting (again). I'm in!!

[mcscajun]

14. Brava! Welcome Aboard!

See you soon on the stat pages.

[onyourleft]

15. Thanks.

I have set up on three computers and they are running.

[InsultComicDog]

16. I might try this

if it runs on XP x64

[Roland99]

19. I don't believe there is a 64-bit client out there, it will run on 32-bit.

http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=1023...

[berni_mccoy]

23. You can still run the 32-bit client on XP 64 in 32-bit emulation mode.

[Roland99]

22. Kick...and thanks to whoever gave me the Valentine heart!

[corporate_mike]

24. #682 (with 278 CPUs) -- FREEPers #240 (with 772 CPUs) -- Kos #1,222

Monday morning stats

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

26. LINUX tutorial

1) Create a directory called ".foldingathome" under your home directory (do not, I repeat, DO NOT do this as root!)

2) Dowload the Linux Console non-beta executable from http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html - it's a file called FAHxxx-Linux.exe - don't be misled by the ".exe" termination; it's a bona fide Linux executable. Place it in the .foldingathome directory created in the previous step.

3) Go to a shell prompt (again, as you, NOT as root) and run the following commands:

cd ~/.foldingathome
chmod a+x ./FAHxxx-Linux.exe <== The exact name depends on the version you downloaded.
./FAHxxx-Linux.exe

Reply with your desired user alias and the DU team number (48157) when asked. All other questions may be answered by pressing Enter.

4) Watch it work a little (I like to wait until it downloads the rest of the executables it needs and ask for a specific protein to be assigned to itself).

5) Interrupt it with Ctrl-C.

6) Insert the following command somewhere in your init scripts (in RPM-based distributions like Fedora or Suse or Mandriva, /etc/rc.local is a good place):

cd /home/yourusername/.foldingathome
su -c './FAHxxx-Linux.exe >FAH-console.log 2>&1' yourusername &

7) If you want to start real folding work now without having to reboot, log in as you and type the following commands:

cd ~/.foldingathome
nohup ./FAHxxx-Linux.exe >FAH-console.log 2>&1 &

Now it's running on the background, you can go back to doing whatever it is you do with your computer with that pinko librul kumbaya warm fuzzy feeling we all know and love.

[brainshrub]

27. Kick. Just "DU" it.

I've had this on my computer for about a month, I don't notice any adverse affects. It's a simple way to help people.

What are you waiting for?

[Roland99]

39. I like that. Just DU it!

[Roland99]

28. Join the DU F@H team and help prevent future hunting accidents!

In honor of the Cheney threads.

[Mabus]

33. #676

Date of last work unit 2006-02-13 08:12:43
Active CPUs within 50 days 278
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 417771 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3078 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 676 of 42758
Home Page http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss /
Fast Teampage URL http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team48157.html


Fish don't fry in the kitchen;
Beans don't burn on the grill.
Took a whole lotta tryin'
Just to get up that hill.
Now we're up in the big leagues
Gettin' our turn at bat.
As long as we live, it's you and me baby
There ain't nothin wrong with that.

Well we're movin on up...

[Caoimhe]

37. Some valentine hearts for my fellow folders!

What a great idea someone had. Made me want to donate more to get more hearts to give out!

[Roland99]

38. Awww...

[Roland99]

40. We need more! More! MORE!!!

Join the Team!

[corporate_mike]

41. #673 (with 278 CPUs) -- FREEPers #240 (with 777 CPUs) -- Kos #1,220

[Mabus]

44. We're only 2 behind the freepers

in the number of active participants, see http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_list.php?s=... They're listed at #30 with 182 active members and we're listed at #32 with 176 active members.

In other words, just because they have more resources (computers) than we do, there are MORE OF US than there are of THEM. They know it and it scares them. Don't forget that the number of bona fide individual DU participants keeps increasing while the number of individuals they have has stagnated and is starting to decline.

[corporate_mike]

49. We have 176 active users of 177 - FREEPers have 182 of 261

Many of them have given up folding!

We will beat them! It's just a matter of time now.

More CPUs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[onyourleft]

48. Ok. :)

I just added another CPU. I now have 4 up and running. If I can get my other laptop connected to the internet, I'll add it, too.

[Roland99]

50. Awesome!

[CabalPowered]

42. So I installed the graphical UI but it's not visible anywhere

I see it in my processes but I can't seem to locate the UI itself? I uninstalled it and reinstalled to no avail. Also on the reinstall it didn't ask for user name or team number..

[Caoimhe]

43. My laptop does that

And I still haven't figured it out. Usually, you don't have to uninstall it. Just go to Task Manager, kill the two processes with FAH in the name, reboot and then restart it. You shouldn't lose your WU that way either.

[CabalPowered]

45. Thanks. Tried it but still can't see it anywhere.

Any other thoughts? Runnin XP Pro, fresh install.

[Caoimhe]

46. Last night I had to do it twice in a row to get my GUI back

I wish I could help other than that!

[CabalPowered]

47. Thanks again.

Seems a little buggy but it looks like it's chewing on the WU. Good enough for me.

[mopinko]

51. team mo update!

so, team mo added a new computer-

in 145th place, mo pvr with 182 points.
this one will move up fast. it is a bleeding edge machine.
the rest of the team-
#31- Moebius2288- 4109
#39- mo pinko- 3492
#54- mr mo- 2308
#62- mo drama- 1916

for a team mo total of 12007 points. (which would be 7th place)

still haven't gotten mo kids on board. looks like a firewall things. just haven't had time to poke at it.

[Mabus]

52. Way to go Team MO!

Sorta makes me wish I had kids or reliable relatives.

[mopinko]

53. hey, i feed them

otherwise????

[Mabus]

54. I spend most of the day feeding my husband and the dogs

At least the dogs are grateful.

[mopinko]

55. thank god my dh is a geek

i was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the digital age 20+ years ago. i can't imagine my life without the web, but i shorenuff would never have gotten here by myself.
it makes me happy to put all this silicon to GOOD use.

[Roland99]

56. Kick!

[Chovexani]

57. I just joined up!

I've been wanting to do it, but I couldn't on my old Mac. I'm in now, though!

[Roland99]

58. You rock!

[alfredo]

59. Reallly knocking them out 278 CPU's Rank 670

Keep up the good work.

[Mabus]

60. I think it is fitting that I get to announce we are now #666

being the third anti-christ and all.

Date of last work unit 2006-02-13 21:10:20
Active CPUs within 50 days 279
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 426573 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3131 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 666 of 42772

[mia]

61. # 662 with 280 CPUs

2006-02-14 02:10:32
Active CPUs within 50 days 280
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 428144 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3144 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 662 of 42772


Looking forward to my first WU today - 3% to go!

[onyourleft]

62. Good morning!!

This is a dual-purpose post, to ask a question and to say thank you.

Question: I have finished two work packages on Folding. However, this does not seem to be reflected in the team scores. They both finished around three this morning. How long does it take to post to the team records?

Second, because I don't have enough posts to start a thread (even after being here for 4 years), I just wanted to say "thank you" very much to whoever gave me my "heart." It was such a nice surprise on this early Valentine's Day morning.

[Roland99]

63. I thought the F@H site updated stats once an hour but, perhaps...

overnight takes a bit longer?

You did have the team ID of 48157 in there and specified a unique Username, right? You should at least be able to go to your own stats page and see what was submitted.

[onyourleft]

68. Yes, thank you.

I made absolutely the ID was correct for DU. Anyway, according to post above, it has been posted now. Thanks for responding.

[Roland99]

69. Sweet!

[lakeguy]

64. it can take a "while"

i say "while" because i don't know for sure. i have noticed a delay each time i complete one but you will get the points.

[Mabus]

66. You're on the list at 146

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teamp... 2 units completed worth 201 points.

Congratulations.

[onyourleft]

67. Thank you.

I checked early this morning when I started work. Evidently, it was posted after that.

[corporate_mike]

65. #652 (with 282 CPUs) -- FREEPers #239 (with 789 CPUs) -- Kos #1,204

[Roland99]

70. Argh! We've added 4 CPUs. They've added 12! We need MORE MORE MORE!!!

[corporate_mike]

73. I think many FREEPer CPUs are inactive now

They only show up because stats define active CPUs that completed a WU in 50 days.

A lot of FREEPers have thrown in the towel in the last 50 days. They are usually short-term guys with short-term prospective. Just watch their numbers drop in the coming days.

[CabalPowered]

71. So I got to thinking about this over the evening and I might have some

older comps that I could get together in a farm. I have seven boxes with PIII/900mhz chips that are collecting dust. Just wondering if anyone is running a comparable chip and what kind of results your getting with it?

[corporate_mike]

72. Every CPU helps (no matter how slow)

Fire'em up!

[CabalPowered]

78. Well with seven machines I was trying to weigh output

versus heat. They didn't SETI all that well when I had them setup for that and our server room started getting much warmer.

[Mabus]

74. LOL, those chips gathering dust are what I use

My computer cranks out a WU every few days. The variable is the size of the WU. The larger ones take longer. I've completed 11 WUs since I signed up in late December. I'm currently working on my 12th and it will be uploaded sometime tonight/early morning. I use my computer for work and recreation. I'm on the computer up to 8 to 10 hours a day, so at least a third of the time most of the resources are going elsewhere.

My husband's computer is older. He's running a Pentium II and is cranking out WUs faster than I am. He's completed 6 WUs in less than a month (2 1/2 weeks). Here's his stat page: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php... and here's mine: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php... He's had smaller WUs to process so they don't take as much time.


on edit: echoing the words of corporate_mike, fire those puppies up!

[CabalPowered]

77. Just to compare to..

I loaded folding on my home comp last night which is a serious machine.. and I should complete my first WU by this evening.

[Roland99]

75. Those should finish a work unit I know in less than two weeks

Maybe one week? They'll certainly help the project (and the Team).

My dad has a PIII-500 that was running SETI and I'm switching him over to F@H.

[CabalPowered]

76. Alright I'll get em started..

I have to find some room for them and track down a KVM switch but I'll get it started. I was a little hesitant because they didn't SETI too well and the server room started getting much hotter. I have new digs since then so I think I can squirrel them away somewhere. Thanks for the input guys/gals!

[Roland99]

79. No, thank *you*!

[alfredo]

80. We keep on moving up. 285 CPU's ranked 649

Good work folks, keep it up.

[Vox_Reason]

81. We're 3 spots from overtaking "The Bush School".

Heh heh! Should pass them in the next few hours.

Go team! DU--come on and pitch in! Use those idle PC processor cycles for something more worthwhile than a screensaver!

[alfredo]

82. Is that GW Bush, "bush" as in the outback or

is it something to do with a woman's anatomy? anyway, lets get past them and not think about it again.

[Mabus]

83. LOL, it's a school in Seattle

http://www.bush.edu/ourschool/mission.asp which I found through their folding page (http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teamp... )


Now, don't spend any more time worrying about them. We will overtake them tomorrow and not look back.

[alfredo]

87. Not sure if I can. I spent the night tossing and turning,

wondering about the nature of this school.

[mia]

84. # 638 with 287 CPUs

I bet we'll be in the 500s with over 300 CPUs by the weekend!

[Roland99]

85. Rockin!!

[soup]

86. Wow! Finally caught a WU being uploaded and replaced

with a new one.

Neat.

11th WU for this tired old computer chugging away now.

[corporate_mike]

88. #635 (with 287 CPUs) -- FREEPers #235 (with 798 CPUs) -- Kos #1,186

[lakeguy]

89. bragging bump....

moved into 115th place in a weeks time. look out everyone, here comes lakeguy!

[Mabus]

90. A well-deserved bragging bump! Bravo!

We're not worthy.

Go lakeguy! Go!

[tiptoe]

91. #632 ( 287 CPUs ) -- Links to Stats, Rankings, Charts

Extreme OC's Teams Overall Rank

Date of last work unit 2006-02-15 11:14:57
Active CPUs within 50 days 287
Team # 48157
Grand Score 453316 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3304 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) # 632 of 42797

DU Folding@Home Team Members

Active Teams Rank - sorted by # active members (Freepers #31 (202) ...DU #41 (147) Feb 15, 2006 at 9:00 UTC-8)

F@H Stats - Team Radar Screen


Team New Members Daily Histories & History Tables - recent 8-weeks:
Freepers (36120)
Redstate.com (48064) (leveled off)
Daily Kos (48083)
Democratic Undeground (48157) (started 12/23/05)

Download to Join the DU Folding@Home team (48157)

-- the GOAL, Nonprofit, the Science, FAQ and "Radar Screen"--

[Roland99]

92. 629 of 42804

[corporate_mike]

93. Great post! Excellent stats -- RedState.com leveled off (no new members)

[corporate_mike]

94. ALERT:::::::::::::: FREEPers have 802 CPUs

We need new members and more CPUs to overtake them

[corporate_mike]

95. List of new DU members

[alfredo]

98. Welcome and thank you.

292 CPU's 619 ranking.

[corporate_mike]

96. #621 (with 292 CPUs) - FREEPers #232 (with 802 CPUs) -Kos #1,176 (81 CPUs)

[corporate_mike]

99. #616 (with 294 CPUs) - FREEPers #231 (with 804 CPUs) -Kos #1,171 (81 CPUs)

[corporate_mike]

100. We will be in the Top 600 tomorrow

See: http://fahstats.com/tr.php?t=48157

[CabalPowered]

101. I've got about 9 cores running now

The farm is operational with 6. 2 at home and my desktop at work. I can bring another 3 online with $50 in parts, including an older dual cpu server no longer in use.

[corporate_mike]

102. What's the cheapest way to build a folding monster?

I'm thinking about buying 5-6 cpus with no CD drive, monitor and link them to my main machine somehow.

Can someone provide instructions on how to do it?

[CabalPowered]

103. A couple of questions

Have you ever built a computer? Any space, heating/cooling or power constraints? Depending on your budget, you may want to consider a single computer with a dual processor board with dual core processors. It would certainly simplify things but will be more expensive.

[corporate_mike]

104. answers

Never built anything much less a computer.

I was thinking about buying a few cheap motherboards and setting them up in my garage (no heating/cooling issues)

[CabalPowered]

105. I'd buy a cheap motherboard, case and processor combos

You want a motherboard that has integrated vga and lan. Then you'd need buy a hard drive and ram for each computer and maybe a cpu cooler if it's not included in the combo. You shouldn't need more than 256 MB of RAM and the cheapest hard drive you can find will suffice. You'll also need at least one cdrom to load the operating system with. Once you have it loaded, you can uninstall the cdrom and use it to setup the next computer. If your going to run Serial ATA hard drives in your computers and Windows, you'll most likely need a floppy drive to install the SATA drivers during the Windows installation. Then to connect them all to the internet, you need a cheap lan hub/switch. And then you'll need what's called a keyboard, video, mouse switch (KVM) that will connect one keyboard, monitor and mouse to them all. You can skip the KVM switch but you'll have to move the KVM connections everytime you want to check on your computers, which is a real pain.

edit: spelling

[corporate_mike]

106. Thanks, but it sounds like a lot of work :)

[CabalPowered]

107. I'd then just buy this thing..

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Sc...

[Mabus]

108. #604 (298 CPUs)

Date of last work unit 2006-02-17 10:15:12
Active CPUs within 50 days 298
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 484135 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3458 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 604 of 42826

Keep up everyone. We're about ready to hit the top 600!

[corporate_mike]

109. #603 (with 298 CPUs) - FREEPers #229 (with 808 CPUs) -Kos #1,153 (82 CPUs)

[alfredo]

110. I'm half way through a nice big WU. It should be done

in a week or so.

[Imalittleteapot]

111. Folding. Kick.

[alfredo]

112. Thanks for the kick

[corporate_mike]

114. #601

[alfredo]

115. What coincidence! you have 300 posts and the team

(at this moment) has 300 CPU's

[corporate_mike]

133. it'd be nice if the CPU count would keep up with my post count

[alfredo]

135. Wish my bank account kept up with my desires. I am

surprised our climb up the ranking hasn't stalled out yet. It's good.

[Vox_Reason]

113. Adding Folding@Home stats image to DU sig?

Can someone who's less of a DU dummy than me help figure out how to insert the image described at http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/?nav=IMAGES into a DU sig line?

I think it would be cool (if possible) for DU F@H team members to have something like this to help raise and maintain awareness.

I tried changing my sig line to <img src="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.ph... " border="0">, but no luck. Any hints, anyone?

Thanks in advance!

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

119. I got it to work! But it's not automatic nor dynamic...

By the way, DU doesn't support raw HTML tags. You must use the substitute tags found in the HTML lookup table link above the textarea when composing a post. Only a subset of HTML is supported.

However, using the right tags doesn't help in this case. The "image" we want to link to is not a JPEG nor GIF file (the only two that DU supports), it's a GIF result generated by a PHP script. So you can forget about linking directly to http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/sigs/sigimage.ph... for example.

The only way that I can get this to work is:

1. Go to the direct link in my web browser.
   
2. Save the generated GIF to my computer.
   
3. Make sure the saved filename only has one period in it (e.g., "sigimage.gif", not "sigimage.php.gif"), otherwise DU will give an error "This image link contains an illegal code".
   
4. Upload that image to an image host or other website (I use ImageShack).
   
5. Put the resulting URL in my signature.

You would have to repeat all of the above whenever you want to update your stats. This sucks a little as we will have people showing out-of-date team stats. That's why I put a date/time stamp below the image. Hopefully someone can come up with a dynamic solution.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

124. Ignore the above post^^^. Dynamic F@H sig is possible...

... courtesy of the nice people at www.dynasig.net . Create a free account there (no intrusive private information required) and follow their instructions. They create a dynamic GIF image that DU will accept in a sig. There are other F@H sig stats providers out there, and ones with a large number of stats items, but not many produce a directly-linkable GIF.

Free accounts are limited to 5 lines of text in the larger block (the one I have). The F@H stats that you can insert into a signature are limited to the last update datestamp and:
Team: ID, name, rank, points, WUs
You: username, global rank, team rank, points, WUs

There are a small number of colour, font and image options available. We should probably come up with a standard configuration for Team DU. I just chose some that were not entirely vomit-inducing.

Speaking of vomit-inducing, here's the Freeper's F@H stats sig as posted at www.dcsig.com (I didn't want to insert the disturbing image in this message). Warning: It's also disturbing and amusing to see the stats for DU and me superimposed over that image (it's what the site does when showing gallery examples).

[corporate_mike]

131. thanks

I'll give it a try

[Mabus]

132. I *knew* I shouldn't look, but I can't help myself

I'm a Looky-Loo I admit it. I just had to look. Oh well, excuse me while I go shower now. For some reason I feel dirty.

Besides, I'm getting ready to party with some fellow DU'ers tonight. A balmy 12 degrees Farenheit and we're all meeting out in the country at for a good-old fashioned, Lawrence hippie bonfire/potluck/party.

FYI, this meandering post is pretty much serving as a bump.

[QC]

116. Joined! n/t

[mia]

127. Welcome QC!

It's great to be able to do something so wortwhile with so little effort.

DU is now at #39 in terms of active membership.
http://fahstats.com/index.php?col=1

[corporate_mike]

136. welcome -- talk to your friends/family and ask them to join as well

[mia]

117. Rank 599! 300 CPUs!

Date of last work unit 2006-02-18 03:12:56
Active CPUs within 50 days 300
Team Id 48157
Grand Score 496263 (certificate)
Work Unit Count 3523 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate) 599 of 42838

Go Team!

[tenshi816]

118. This is a great cause, but

as soon as I signed up and downloaded the app, my computer started crashing every few minutes. This went on for days before it occurred to me what the problem might be, and once I uninstalled the software everything was back to normal.

Is there a way around the problem? I'd like to join in, but it's not going to happen if it interferes with my computer to the extent that I can't stay online for more than 5 minutes at a time.

[alfredo]

120. First tell us about your computer.

I think on the windows version you can set the amount of memory it uses.

[tenshi816]

121. OK, but what exactly do you need to know

about my computer? I don't want to send useless information to you.

[alfredo]

122. Usual stuff OS, amount of RAM.

The crashing could be a memory problem. I only know OSX and Linux, and I just wanted to make sure when the Windows experts look in they will have something to help them diagnose your problem. Are you running XP, W2000, or ME. All info like that will help.


this is an example of what info I was asking for.

I am running OSX 10.4.5 on a Mac G4 Dual 450 with 640 RAM

[mia]

128. I had a similar problem.

I read on a thread where you could change the allocation of CPU usage from 100% to around 70 or 80%. I changed mine to 70%. Folding goes slower but without the crashing.

Right click on the red cog. Choose "configure". Go to "advanced" and you'll see the sliding bar there.

When I did that, my WU reset and started over. Now I'm on my second WU.

[tenshi816]

137. Thanks, I'll try that! n/t

[corporate_mike]

123. #598 (with 301 CPUs) - FREEPers #226 (with 854 CPUs) -Kos #1,132 (83 CPUs)