"On the global front, Free Republic Folders is now listed at # 487"
Movin' on up - YEAH!
Unfortunately - I'm not. My 2nd CPU (a P-II, IBM box) crashed and burned yesterday - won't even power on. Probably the power supply, but I might have cooked the CPU or MB. It had only been folding about a week or so. What's strange is that my main system (which I built) cooked my Gainward GForce 4 (TI4200 with 128mb ram) about a week after I started it on folding. The video card has it's own fan onboard, and the system chasis is aluminum and never gets over 92o, and the AMD Athlon XP 2100 processor has a great cooler keeping it around 120o (both measured in Farenheit) - weird. I never had any problem with hardware before (and I don't overclock - need stability for my business - of course my main system is over 3 years old and I won't even talk about the P-II, LOL).
I didn't have any other apps running on the P-II except NAV & Zone Alarm. I run all sorts of business programs on the AMD, but nothing graphics intensive. I don't have time to troubleshoot them right now (I just installed a back-up video card for the main system & continued folding and working, (like now - posting to FR, heheh). The other one's offline though. When I have time, I'll install Mepis (Linux) to another old system which has an older AMD processor and get it online.
I've got to get more CPU's online - I'm stuck in the low 70s rank on the team, but I'll have to wait until I can afford an 8 port KVM switch before I can try and bring on more. (We might be in 1st place by then, LOL).
But I can brag about folding more WUs than all but the top 38 on our team + BoT who has an amazing 117 and is not in the top 46. (I know, I know - it's the points, stupid, LOL).
Anyway - my congrats to all FR folders - we're whipping DU butt - they'll never catch us.
RT
The downside to folding is that it will certainly stress test computers. Sorry to hear of your thermal issues.
If you build your own machines, you won't have the same issues again if you use Antec Cases and power supplies. For the CPU Zalman CPU/Northbridge coolers take the day.
One of my folders is an Athlon 2700 with 3 case fans, 2 in the power supply plus a thermaltake volcano on the cpu running a massively overclocked Geforce 6800.
Don't feel bad, I cooked two procs and or mobos last week. One was on my Soyo Dragon+ board also. Got some serious shopping to do this week, hope to get them back up next weekend.