FR Folding@Home Project Update - We're are in the TOP250 teams and still climbing!!

soccer_maniac | 2-12-2006 | soccer_maniac

[soccer_maniac]

Welcome to the new FreeRepublic folding@home thread. The previous thread has gotten too large, so we move on to yet another.

While this folding@home team is not officially sanctioned by Free Republic, it's 250+ members comprised primarily of Free Republic members in good standing have banded together to donate their excess CPU cycles to a worthy cause. Via distributed computing, millions of computers around the world, contribute directly to scientific research, in the quest for a greater understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Mad Cow (BSE).

Currently, the team is in 241st place, having moved up from 1200th place, a week earlier, and is now in the top 100 teams, for daily contributions.

This is an entirely voluntary program, and if you want to learn more, please see the links posted below (or read one of the previous 8 folding threads)

[houeto]

Sorry, my home computer, connected by a single phone line through the trees, is not going to be of any use to you all.

Sure it will. All the folding is done off-line. Tell him guys.

[Malsua]

Sorry, my home computer, connected by a single phone line through the trees, is not going to be of any use to you all.

Once the work unit is downloaded, there is no need to be connected to the internet at all. The amount of downloading is fairly small too. When the WU is finished, the program will patiently wait until it sees an active connection then it will turn in the WU and fetch more data. It's quite dial-up friendly.

[TheMightyQuinn]

You can also set up Folding@Home to download in batches. That way the program will only have to connect to the Internet once a week (for a fast computer) to once every couple of weeks or more for slower computers. This way your computer won't sit idle waiting for a connection.

I folded for many months on dial up without problem.

[dfwddr]

I've been researching the same thing, except I'm not going duel core. I've been looking at the Athalon64 3700 2.2GHz w/either an Asus or an Epox board (leaning toward the Asus), but still undecided between the 754 or the 939 pin. The 754 supposedly runs at 2.4GHz w/800MHz FSB, while the 939 runs at 2.2GHz w/1GHz FSB. I'm not into the PCI-E, so the 939 is not a necessity. I'm still not sure what is more important to folding, pure proc speed, or a boost in the FSB. Either way I go, I want the nVidia 3 250 or nVidia 4 Ultra chipset. I've heard a lot of good things about both.

There's an interesting deal here on ebay, but you can buy the components separately just as cheap on ZipZoomFly or NewEgg(IF you don't have to pay tax!!). Also, try Pricewatch.

Good luck, and FReepmail me if you run into any unbelievable deals. I do the same to you.

[dfwddr]

Sorry, my home computer, connected by a single phone line through the trees, is not going to be of any use to you all.

You would only be connected to the internet for a couple minutes for each work unit you do. A single phone line through the trees is really no different than someone having a T-1 line. And while your computer would mean a good deal to us, it would be an even bigger deal to the people suffering from: Alzheimer's Disease, Cancer, Huntington's Disease, Osteogenesis Imperfecta and Parkinson's Disease.

If you haven't already, please check out this video, and reconsider. Either way you go, THANKS for at least checking our team out, and please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.

[soccer_maniac]

Active CPUs within 50 days: 805

[DocRock]

Thursday night bookmark

[ahayes]

I should have two more CPU's showing up in the next few days. One's a 1 GHz Pentium that's been crunching a Tinker (seems to be taking forever!) and should finish tomorrow, and then a G4 Mac that also has a Tinker, unfortunately for it. It hasn't even reached 50% and it's been going 3 days.

This computer is going to finish its fourth work unit tomorrow morning. :-D

[soccer_maniac]

That's great news!

We CAN and WILL get to 1,000 CPUs!

Let's go FR!

[SC Swamp Fox]

I'm really movin' on up since I borged my son's gaming PC. At this rate I'll break into our top 100....in 77 days.

[mouser]

What helped my computer a amd 3400+ athlon more than anything was going from 512 to 1 gig of memory changed in middle of fold and went from about 4-5 min a fold to the 3-3.5 min per fold. also i am on dial up out here in the sticks and it works just fine just hit 9000.

[Malsua]

I was thinking of a AMD Althon X2 3800+ 2.0 Ghz combined with a Asus motherboard. I'm not going to overclock - just don't have time of an extra hobby. But, any recommendations on bang-for-the-buck cpu/mobo upgrades?

Well, just from my perspective as a gamer, I'm going to dispense this now, take it for what it's worth.

Abit outstrips ASUS these days in performance. I run 2 Abit AN8 Ultra boards. Home and work. You definately need to make sure your box supplies good voltage. You will definately need a good cooler, I find the Zalman 7700 copper to be the best air cooling you can get. I tried others, this is it until you go to water cooling.

You need a recent power supply just to supply these boards, not sure what it's called but it's an extra connector that goes on the boards. Frankly, if your case is more than 2 years old, consider getting an Antec Sonata II. It comes with a 450 watt supply that gets the job done.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Yeah, will do. I'm thinking Fry's chip/mobo combo might be the best. I'm not settled to any specific setup. Since I only use the machine for development, anything will be better than the 1.5 Ghz Celeron I've got now. It could with be the new Pentium D or the Althon series.

I've heard that the Pentium D ran hot. Wonder if this is still the case. Plus, I don't know how to set up the dual folding thing on a dual core processor. I'd rather not have to become an expert on this - although it's usually unavoidable.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

Yup, I've been happy with Abit momboards in the past. They're a good name. I also have an Antec TruPower 380 in the box from when I got the "silent PC" bug. So that does have the new MicroATX (?) power supply connectors. I've got numerous cases here, so that's not an issue.

It does seem to be the case where folding likes a lot of memory. 1 gig seems to be enough. Right now, life's sucking on my current system with 756K of slow SDRAM.

I haven't done an upgrade on my personal system for a while. I'm running Win2K Server (a mistake for a desktop!) and will finally get to go XP Pro. Will keep the other box to fold and act as a backup machine so I can migrate apps over the course of the next year.

[Fortyfied]

lrenh, whoever you are, please accept our thanks for joining our team and making a difference!

I noticed the Reagan tribute team and started lurking here. I picked up on the DUmmies competition chatter and decided to help tip the scales.

[texas booster]

Thank you very, very much for helping out. While the competition is fun, making a difference with our health is really what it is all about.

That, and kicking DU again while they are down.

Even if you will pass me by one day!

[Drango]

Welcome!

Fold on!

[ahayes]

Congratulations also to davemaher, who's burning up the list this week with 10 CPU's. Thanks, whoever you are!

[soccer_maniac]

Terrific!

Welcome to the team!

[soccer_maniac]

Congrats on reaching 500,000 points!

http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=36120