FR Folding@Home Project Update -- The Need for Speed (#56 - 19,000,000 Points)

Stanford University Folding@Home Distributed Computing Project ^ | 02/02/2007 | Stanford University

[F.J. Mitchell]

Okay, my first question is: Huh?

[Drango]

my wife just picked up a nice little sony notebook told her I have to *Ahem* upgrade it.

Reminds me that I have to do some *ahem* maintenance on my outlaws computer. They are flaming liberals so I'll tell 'em the little red flower is ???. I know I'll tell 'em it's for fighting AIDS in Africa.

[texas booster]

Years ago folks realized that many computers sat around growing Life seeds or spawning pretty fishies to digitally swim around the screen.

Someone wondered, what if we created a screen saver that actually did something useful? Thus was born the concept of distributed computing, which grew around a few Big Ideas.

SETI - searching radio signals for extraterrestial life. Now Joe Cowboy in West Texas (with a sense of wonder) could be a part of the group that analyzed signals from radio telescopes looking for signs of life in the universe.

Genome@Home - How to decipher the locations and compositions of 3 billion genes in the human chromosome? Even a supercomputer is not as fast as 1,000,000 home computers for this kind of work. As researchers learned more about the genome their speed picked up, but early on G@H was it. Folding@Home grew out of this project.

Code cracking - Several variations, from finding new prime numbers to cracking German Enigma codes used on U-boats. There is still one message from WWII that has not been decoded after years of serious crunching.

Folding@Home - What do Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and CJD have in common? At some level, all are caused by proteins in our cells incorrectly folding, leaving them unable to do the intended job. Stanford University researchers are working to provide high level computational support of molecular modeling for thousands of lines of research that will directly lead to a cure for these diseases.

It is fascinating work, easy to do and will one day keep folks (maybe even me!) from suffering the agony of these illnesses. Cancer and diabetes runs in my family so I figured I would help. A few systems I had became the Free Republic folding team and we slowly added more. About a year ago a couple of new folders came on board with enthusiasm and our team has nearly 200 active members today folding on about 1100 computers.

So what do you do now? Go here and download the F@H GUI 5.03 and let it run in place of your screen saver. You will see a long molecule that move occasionally as F@H tries different positions of atoms around the protein. That is folding in a nutshell - trying to discover how the body squishes a protein that can be many feet long into a cell. Then unfolds the protein to do its work (processing sugar, rebuilding a cell wall). All inside a single cell, billions of cells, in a nanoscale environment.

Please add your system to the fray, remember Team 36120, add your FReep name and away you go. As time goes on please come back to help us help others get started, or to fold faster.

TB

[texas booster]

Please click here to go to the F@H download page. Ping us if you have questions!

http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

[texas booster]

Between this thread and FReepmail lets see if we can squeeze a little more speed out of your current system.

Are you running the GUI or the Console? How much RAM? How fast a CPU?

[FreedomGuru]

Hi all, New folder on board, since I don't fold my laundry.
1 question is there a real difference in the console or graphical clients?
I've got my 2nd computer folding, don't use it too much anymore.

[stylin19a]

that's devious...I like it !

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Are you running the GUI or the Console? How much RAM? How fast a CPU?

Pretty well tuned here...

I run the FAH GUI app on this Dual-Core Intel running at 3.2Mhz and 1 Gig of RAM. It all sits on an Intel 865GBF motherboard.

I could add another Gig of RAM, but FAH doesn't seem to be a memory-critical app. 'Bout the only other applicable upgrade would be the GPU card.

Well, been thinkin' that my FlightSim package could use a bit more 'oooommph'!

[ken in texas]

1 question is there a real difference in the console or graphical clients?

There's a slight difference, but I would suggest that it probably doesn't matter much in the long run.

The graphical client is a bit easier to set up, so that might be your best course of action. If you're comfortable with working with the DOS command line, go ahead and try the console version. I'm running the GUI version on 4 machines right now... never a problem.

[Mount Athos]

Add me to the list of people who are producing more than they used to.
I upgraded my AMD CPU to a dual core version and my production more than doubled. I might add a folding-capable ATI card in the summer.

[texas booster]

We *might* be able to add a little output for you.

Which dual core Intel do you have? If it is a Core 2 Duo, then you can run two instances of F@H with only a little lag.

If you want to really make some folks upset that are currently above you on the rankings, create a Linux boot CD, run F@H from a small partition and crank up the Linux SMP F@H core.

Once running you could earn as much as 900 points per day. Just ask Egon if he enjoyed running the SMP core on those Mac Core Duos.

[JosephW]

I'm currently running the Linux SMP client on a windows box (in VMWare), but I know it would be much faster native. However, I can't repartition that box. Even though it isn't being used for anything else right now, I need to keep it intact for future work requests.

Is there a live 64bit distro with the 32 bit extentions that can fold entirely in memory?

And if so where can I get it?

[texas booster]

I'll look around for the distro. I know I saw a discussion of one on the F@H Linux forum but don't remember where.

Why not just add an old hard drive and boot from it until the other partition is needed? I have a collection of drives I have dug up this winter from 40 mb to 20 gb. Some of them might even work.

I even think I saw a 20 mb MFM drive but don't remember if it was a Seagate or a Conner. Afraid to look too closely.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Thanks .....

I mis-spoke re:Dual-Core. This is a Pentium 4 Hyper-threading CPU - two (2) CPUs' show up on the 'Performance' window, but two instances of FAH can't be started even if the CPU Affinity (0,1) is set.. I did try.

Regarding the Linux suggestion - just not as geeky as I once was; tried Linux long ago and got messed up for weeks! Sooooo..."If it ain't broke....."!

Think the GPU is my answer...

[texas booster]

I saw an X1650 512 mb card at Frys for $160 after rebate.

I will probably hold out for the new cards to be announced in March from ATI that support Direct X 10. At the very least they will be cheaper when the new chipsets arrive.

I have an HP a730n with hyper threading 3.0 Intel that I run two instances with. It is not as fast as a true dual core but it seems to work ...

[GoldCountryRedneck]

I have an HP a730n with hyper threading 3.0 Intel that I run two instances ...

How? Is that under Linux? 'Cause if I try to start a second session, even with the first set to CPU 0 with XP Pro, a pop-up says "There is already one copy of Folding running".

$160 isn't bad .... hmmmmm

[texas booster]

F@H can only run two instances if you run the console version 5.04. Make sure that you set the advanced options and mark one as CPU 1 and the other as CPU 2.

[GoldCountryRedneck]

Got'cha; will go get the console documentation.

Thanks!

[JosephW]

I would probably have done that except I'm almost exclusively using laptops. I really don't want to be pulling HDDs from them with all their wonderful proprietary systems.

Besides the system I want to do this with now uses a 2 1/2" SATA.

Just want to minimize the headache.

[paulat]

Thanks for your new posts, TB!!

Hope it brings on more folders!