[texas booster]

I had a ping about the cost of electricity to run F@H. For me, there is no additional cost (or it is under a dollar per month). I run all my systems 24/7 anyway, and folding is a much better use of idle cycles than fishies.

Senator Bedfellow posted this almost a year ago about his experience:

I once calculated it (for Seti@home) at about $7-$8/month for for 24/7 crunching on three machines versus 24/7 idling. Of course, I drive my boxes pretty hard anyway - I do a lot of video encoding and such - so my machines are hardly idling 24/7 anyway, meaning the difference was pretty negligible in the end. I suspect that spare cycles tend to be scarcer for me than a lot of folks, but YMMV :)

[ken in texas]

re. - the cost of electricity. I'll reference this post I made earlier in the year.

While idling, my main machine draws about 124-125 watts; as soon as I crank up Folding the consumption rises to 150-151. So, running Folding on this machine is about the equivalent of a 25W light bulb. Your mileage will vary.

I keep the machines running 24x7 so consuming a little more power is not a big issue.