F@H - Tale of the Tape!

Folding@Home Distributed Computing, Stanford University ^ | June 10, 2012 | Texas Booster

[texas booster]

It has been a while since our last Free Republic Folding@Home update.

The team has seen growth in the past couple of years as contributors have added high performance GPUs from NVidia and AMD/ATI, and same consoles such as the PS3.

The team started in 2001 with a few volunteers, and grew dramatically in 2005 as we started actually posting regular threads.

As we grew from a Top 2000 team to a Top 100 team, we attracted the attention of DU. After a couple of years of name calling, they realized that merely boasting that you can beat the opposition means nothing if you can't back it up. They float in the Top 300 due to the strength of two primary folders. Still, they have folded for nearly 8 years and we thank them for that.

Today the FR team 36120 folds about 330 individual computers, down from our peak of about 1,800 systems. However, the team is currently averaging 250,000 ppd, many times greater than we have ever accomplished.

If you have a computer running Windows, Linux or OS X, or a PS3, then you can start folding very quickly. Look here for starting instructions:

Folding@Home Downloads

Why would you fold? There are multiple distributed computing groups searching for everything from cryptography to SETI. I started folding after helping in the original Genome@Home project, as scientists worked to complete the first sequencing of the human genome.

Now I fold to advance the science of treating diseases. A partial list of diseases that the project has worked on include:

Alzheimer's Disease

Mad Cow (BSE)

CJD

ALS

Huntington's Disease

Parkinson's Disease

and many cancers

When I was younger I thought that I could help find a cure for my parents' diseases. Now I fold to find a cure for the diseases that currently or may inflict me, and one day may inflict my children.

Read the thread and PLEASE ask questions. I will try to answer all questions that are posted.

Tuesday I head over to InfoCOMM 2012, so if some of the other folders can help out I would really appreciate it.

If we could reach 100 active folders and 1000 systems, we would see our output double. While we fold to cure diseases, a race to the top is always fun.

[HangThemHigh]

I’ve never got the GPU folder to work, so I am probably not the best source of advice.

[zeugma]

It’s kind of fun to participate as I did in SETI at home. Other then wasting electricity anybody document any of these projects accomplishing anything worhwhile?

While I'm not sure exactly how "worthwhile" one might say it is, if you look at the FAH homepage, they have links to peer reviewed papers that are based on the results of the FAH work.

[RebelTex]

Thanks for posting that image of your stats. I didn't know that was available.

[RikaStrom]

for home

[LonePalm]

Bonjour, y'all.

I have been folding about four years. I am currently #5 on the FR F@H list and #2226 overall folders. I went over 13,000,000 points yesterday afternoon. With continued folding I will be #2 by mid-October.

I am folding one NVIDIA GTX-470 GPU for 16-20K ppd.
I also have 13 CPU consoles spread over three computers.
I have one PS3 that just sits and folds.
My current average ppd is 22,080. It floats up and down a bit.

If you are thinking about folding, come on in. The water's fine.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[colinhester]

#2 by October!?!? I take that as a personal threat :) OK....One video card back up. Broken one sent in for warranty repair, 3 ‘puters will be loaded with SMP by end of day - don’t need to run Prime95 anymore. By the way....how are you getting 16k with a GTX470? I have the EVGA version and only getting 10k.....thanks, Colin

[LonePalm]

That's what is showing on my ExtremeOverclocking page says.

Points for the GPU depend on which work unit is folding. It is showing 13,707 ppd in FAHMon right now. I get somewhere between there and 21K ppd depending on the WU.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[FourtySeven]

Sweet, I think I got my network issues finally resolved. I’m up to 129 (rank) now.

So I got an XBox 360 a while ago. Can I fold on that?

[grey_whiskers]

Just contributed in my own way: did the C.H. Robinson MS 150 bike ride from Duluth MN to Minneapolis.

Self-ping for later when my legs recover.

Cheers!

[Fire_on_High]

Mine’s been pluggin away in the same config for several years, since my last big hardware change. Never actually had 6 cores on it like it says, though...it simply decided after a major power outage downed all of our machines that I was running different stuff.

Anyone who’s getting lag....stick with it. I frequently get a brief lag spike on WU uploads, particularly from one certain machine. If nothing goes awry, it never lasts more than a minute. The only issues show up if their server isn’t actually receiving the unit and mine starts to get aggressive trying to upload til it takes.

[bd476]

Thanks for starting this up again!

[texas booster]

Shouldn't you have biked the other direction, Minneapolis to Duluth, and then drove back?

All uphill from Duluth to Minneapolis, especially the first 15 - 20 miles.

[houeto]

Thanks for the ping TB.

Bookmark.

[RebelTex]

Ok, now y’all are just showin’ off. Ya made ma poor li’l ‘puter cry, it’s so humiliated. I’m crossin’ ma fingers that it don’t stop foldin’.

Oh nooooes, now it’s feelin’s are hurt and it’s tryin’ to shut down.

Wait - talked it out of shuttin’ down and cheered it up some - I think it’s going to continue foldin’ as long as it doesn’t lose any ground (rank), lol.

‘nuff said - congrats to the BIG DOGS on the board, LOL.

[Clara Lou]

problem: My dual core completed two WUs but sent only one of them in and retrieved a new work unit. The other is sitting there at 99.99% and is doing nothing.

my set-up:
AMD Athlon x 64 dual core
FAH version 7.1.52

Do you have a suggestion or an idea where I can get help?

[LonePalm]

Close the stuck console and reopen it.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Clara Lou]

I love an easy solution! Thanks!

[HKMk23]

Still plimkin’ away. IT retired my Xeon box, which was my best-producing machine. Gave me a nice Dell M4600 Precision laptop, but it’s all locked down; no admin rights; no F@H. :(

So, point production is in the sink (I’ve fallen 8 positions in the team ranking since 5/20/12) until I get more horsepower on-stream at home. Still, I’ve got an old single-core XP box going 24/7 keeping me moving forward.

[astyanax]

Thanks for the heads up.
I’ve been slacking for awhile it seems.
I kind of dropped off after replacing my home computer.
Just installed on my new laptop at work and my new(est) desktop at home.
I’ll have to throw it on the kid’s computers, too.
The youngest (first grade) is only running an nvidia 9800, but every little bit helps.
Now if I can just get around to setting up the PS3 again...
Thank you for all your effort. It is definitely for a good cause.

[Drango]

Remember when we use to post our top secret folding ideas in code to confuse the idiots at DU? Like below...

YOU SUCK DU