(Vanity) FreeRepublic Folding@Home Project Update (We're in the Top 1,200!)

Free Republic Folders Stats Page ^ | 12/25/2005 | me

[texas booster]

OK, new thread for the next week.

First, a big shout out to the SETI members who have added CPUs to the effort. Remember, its Team 36120, NOT Team 0.

Next, congrats to all for bumping our team up to 104 processors and 76 users. We have a number of new users in the team, with Clara Lou, fzx12345, SamfromLivingston, brityank, manwiththehands and Tami all popping onto the hit list this week.

Malsua, uriah and Ken in Texas are solidly in the top 10. Malsua is continuing to add systems and now accounts for 10% of the FR total. Great job!

Free Republic Folding@Home Stats Page

On the global front, Free Republic Folders is now listed at # 1196. We are poised to overtake (today):

carletonu (maybe in MN?)
Helms-Deep
2*ian
Dynadues
Soluchis
Greece and soon the
University of Pennsylvania!

We were passed by one team, SISD. My guess is that this team really is the computers of an Independent School District that were all "volunteered" to fold over the holidays. They are producing points at a rate of 37,000 points per day. As we gain members from the 100,000 FReepers that visit JimRob's place I expect that we will have a much greater long term growth than them.

[Seamoth]

AWESOME! You're doing great! I think you really helped float the team today, I was looking at the team stats page earlier this day and we were one of the top contributers for that day! This is soooo cool. I think you're doing well... my 2.4 gHz Xeons are doing about 1 min 22 seconds each frame, for comparison, but I've not optimized anything.

This is soooooo cool... my one-time number-cruncher box's been doing very little for months and it feels good taking it out of semi retirement for a good cause. :o)

[Seamoth]

Active processors (within 7 days)

31

Daaaaaaaaang. LOL.

[Klutz Dohanger]

A lot depends on the run that you've been assigned. I've got one machine, that's already cranked out 4 of the 46 point assignments (ie, the '500's... in the last 48 hours. so 1+ minute per frame, is about 10 hrs per run +/-, so that's about in the ballpark. Watching the logs, it takes about 10 minutes after the end of the run, to finalize it, and get it uploaded.

My laptop however, got stuck with a 250 pointer, that has now taken about 36 hours, and I'm only 1/2 way through it... reporting 16 minutes per frame, and this is a top of the line Dell Pentium M, with 1gb of ram.... *wah*.....


Just watching the stats today, the team is cranking out about 500 points per hour, and we're in the top 100 in several categories....biggest gains, points per day, average points per day... etc.

btw... if anyone hasn't noticed, I don't have a life, until the knee heals.... :)

btw2... Papasmurf, I noticed in your screen capture that you cranked up the process priority... that's not actually a good idea, and that's probably where you think the video card is slowing you down.

What that does, is remove the ability of the computer to take cpu time back away from the FAH process. If you're going to be doing other stuff, like surfing the web, etc, while crunching, you want to set it back to normal, at least, or below normal. FAH will still catch up and use all the excess cpu cycles, but it'll wait a couple of nano-seconds before it does, so you don't get that ungodly lag, when you do something simple like try to close a dialog box or something....

[Klutz Dohanger]

Daaaaaaaaang. LOL.

hehehe.... and I've still got some more tricks up my sleeve....

[Klutz Dohanger]

This is soooooo cool... my one-time number-cruncher box's been doing very little for months and it feels good taking it out of semi retirement for a good cause. :o

Now if there was just some way, of even getting even a 10th of the FR members to donate a few cpu cycles a day... we'd be number 1, in a couple of months...

[Klutz Dohanger]

I've got it... spread a rumor that the DU is out to embarass us in the distributed computing competition... that'll get a few hundred of them signing up...

... and if DU even looks like they're any sort of competition, all we need to do is spread a rumor on their board, that this is not actually assisting sanford university, but is a NSA sponsored gimmick to enhance their electronic intercept program... :)

[Seamoth]

Seriously, how're you doing that? Are you the network admin of some company & you secretly installed it into everyone's computer as a service? Careful, the electricity bills will be murder... :o)

[Seamoth]

Ah, we'll attract more members as we go up in the ranks, everyone likes to be on the winners' side. Why'd you decide to join, yourself?

[Klutz Dohanger]

Seriously, how're you doing that? Are you the network admin of some company & you secretly installed it into everyone's computer as a service?

Network Supervisor for a school District, and I control the servers... and while the buildings are all locked up tight right now, the power of the VPN is king... I'm installing it via remote on lab computers that were accidentally left on over the christmas holidays... :)

Why'd you decide to join, yourself?

Just happened to notice the "we broke 1200 thread" by accident, and then because I'm nothing but a 'puter nerd, decided to pursue it.... I used to take part in the SETI, and some other distributed computing programs, and this just seems like a worthwhile project.... not to mention, pure geek fun... :)

[paulat]

What kind of machine and OS do you have? Which client did you download?

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
---
1.70 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
---
29.97 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
18.16 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4240N [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

HITACHI_DK23EA-30 [Hard drive] (30.00 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 3H1464, rev 00K4A0C1, SMART Status: Healthy
---
NVIDIA GeForce2 Go (Microsoft Corporation) [Display adapter]

DCL DCLCD DCL9C [Monitor] (18.2"vis, October 2005) Default Monitor

NVIDIA t Flat Panel [Monitor] (14.3"vis, November 2002)
---

This is my error message:

Device Manager and Windows Update say there is no updated driver.

I downloaded Folding@Home 5.03...the graphical interface.

[paulat]

Sorry...I cut off the top of my post...

The machine is a Dell Inspiron 2650

[Klutz Dohanger]

for anyone willing to give it a shot, download the FAH monitor from here.... it'll download a synopsis of all the current protein sequences, and instead of opening up the video hog screen saver, it'll give you current status, and also give you the points value, of the sequence that you're working on, as well as estimated time of completion, and other statistics. FAH monitor

[Seamoth]

Heh heh... awesome... you'll probably get more good accomplished on those boxes during that Christmas break than the students & teachers do throughout the entire school year. :o)

[Seamoth]

BTW, how do you like your job? Just curious--I turned down a position like yours a few months ago with your educational system. They wanted me to be "technology education coordinator" or something like that.

[Seamoth]

Errr, with a DIFFERENT public school district. Not "your educational system", whatever that means. LOL

[Klutz Dohanger]

This is a well known problem with many applications that use the openGL specifications ( which the nifty little graphical interface uses to draw the proteins... )Dell's well aware of the problem, but doesn't update their drivers often enough, to keep up with the latest coding from the graphics folks out there.

Go to www.nvidia.com and download the latest driver for your card from their website, not from Dell.

That should solve the problem, and you'll be able to run and install the 503 client.

The other option, is to download and use the console client.
The link I just gave for the FHmon, gives you the ability to look and see how the client is doing, without having to open up a GUI interface.

First of all, if you're going to run the console version, make sure that somehow, there isn't an aborted installation of the GUI version. Check in "add/remove" programs, and then check your program files directory, to make sure there isn't a Folding@home directory. If there is, delete it.

1. Create a directory on your hardrive called FAH
2. Download the console client, and save it into that folder
3. Browse to that folder, and doubleclick.
4. Enter your username (that you want to register with the F@home team )
5.Enter Team number 36120
6. If you don't need (an you don't, on your first installation), to set any of the options, just keep hitting the enter key, until you see the client connect, and start working.
7. Close the command box. This shuts down your client.
8. Open up Control Panel, find administrative tools, under Performance and Maintenance. Open up services. Find the line that references FAH+.... (yada, yada... etc ). Right click it, select properties, make sure that it's set to automatic, and in the very bottom of that window, put in -local in the variables box. Select ok, or apply, right click again, select properties, and select start.
9. Every time your computer starts... the client will start.

10. If you want to read the log, it's a text file in the FAH directory that you created.

[papasmurf]

That used to be a agp.vxd error on win2k, nt, and 98.
How is your monitor connected? Are you using a usb adapter?

[Klutz Dohanger]

BTW, how do you like your job? Just curious--I turned down a position like yours a few months ago with your educational system. They wanted me to be "technology education coordinator" or something like that. If it's a decent sized school district... not too small, and not too large, say somewhere around the 10-20 school range, with around 5000-1000 students... it's the PERFECT job. You are god. If you have a good arrangement with the superintendent, and don't piss off any of the school board, you are super-god. Basically, unless you get some ignorant ***** in the upper administration, who thinks he/she knows "all about technology", you're given a mission, a reasonable budget, and turned loose to get it done, however you think it needs to get done. The only reason why I put the caveat about the school district sizes in there, is because I've worked for one that was too small... very limited budget, and they didn't think that they needed more than 1 technology person.. and I've worked for one that was too large, and then you have a staff of 15-20 people, and the administration thinks that it needs to start micromanaging. What we have is a staff of 6 technicians, 1 Network Admin, and 3 support staff (secretary, help desk, and our AS/400 goddess... ) It's the perfect size, we're left alone, as long as everyone is happy, we pretty much write our own diary.

[paulat]

9. Every time your computer starts... the client will start.

Klutz...I only want the folding to run when I am logged off. I work from home and I am running databases all day for the evil empire, so I can't be slowed down.

Is the GUI the only way I can have that happen?

(BTW...thanking you for your exhaustive answer!)

[paulat]

How is your monitor connected? Are you using a usb adapter?

Nope. Cable. #156 is helping me, too...but I'm not sure the console mode is right for me.

Pls see #159.

Thx.