Team DU: Folding@Home - Join DU's Distributed Computing team. We Need You NOW!

[Roland99]

DU's Folding@Home team needs YOUR help!

For those of you still wondering what this is all about, Folding@Home is one of many active Distributed Computing projects. DC projects utilize your PC's idle time to process work units for the project. The most famous DC project is probably the SETI@Home project (mentioned in the movie Contact). Folding@Home's purpose is to help scientists determine how proteins fold under various conditions in an effort to help cure diseases (cancer, alzheimer's, etc.) This is a very worthwhile project and one certainly worthy of leaving your PC on 24/7.

Some may be concerned about leaving a PC on 24/7 and the costs involved. A newer PC running a full load will use about the same amount of electricity as two lamps left on 24/7. That is to say, not a lot. Personally, I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop that had been running SETI@Home (and now Folding@Home) 24/7 for over 8 years. I have an HTPC (Home Theater PC) running 24/7, too.

Security-wise, running a DC app (even a non-BOINC app) is very safe. I've not heard of any hacker gaining access to any PC via a corrupted DC app or work unit. Just be sure to download the apps from the site's main page and you should have nothing to worry about.

There are various clients available at the Folding@Home download page including CLI (Command Line Interface - DOS) and GUI (Graphical User Interface - pretty pictures) for Windows-based PCs, Linux console, and Mac OS X GUI, CLI, and Screensaver clients. Personally, I run the Windows-based CLI as it allows for faster crunching of work units (no graphics displays to slow it down).

All of the apps will only use a PC's idle processing time. I've been doing a boatload of video conversion of 16GB HDTV recordings down to 2GB AVI files (for copies of sports events for some friends) and have not seen any issues with performance with the F@H client running or not.

Below is a screenshot of what the CLI setup process looks like. It only requires input from you to specify your:





User name Enter whatever you want your name to be. This could be your DU screenname, for example.

Team Number <0> <---- VERY IMPORTANT Enter 48157. That is the DU F@H team number. Any work unit processed will be associated with Team DU. If you leave this blank, any work units will be assigned to a generic non-team.

You can press <Enter> to accept the defaults for the rest of the options but I make a couple of small changes:

Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service (yes/no) <---- Type y and press <Enter>. NOTE: - ONLY select this if you are running Windows 2000, XP, or 2003. Windows 95/98/ME will not install an application as a service. You'll want to put a shortcut to the F@H client in your Startup folder manually.

Change advanced options (yes/no) <---- Type y and press <Enter>

Interval, in minutes, between checkpoints (3-30) <15> <---- Type 5 and press <Enter>
I just use 5 min. so it writes out checkpoints more often in case the PC locks up for some reason it won't have to redo so much work upon restart.

Machine ID (1-8) <---- Type 1 for the 1st instance of F@H on your PC. If you have a PC with multiple CPUs, install a copy of F@H into another folder (such as F@H2, F@H3, etc.) for each additional CPU in your PC. When prompted on those other installations of the F@H client, enter the appropriate Machine ID here.

So, that's it in a nutshell.

NOTE: The CLI steps are just a bit different from above with the latest version but that's the important stuff in the screenshot above.

Home Page http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/
Fast Teampage URL http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team48157.html
Detailed Stats Page http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=48157

Join the fight against disease and have some (statistical) fun along the way!

Use your PC's power to help find the cure for diseases such as Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Done. I used to do this before but haven't in a while.

I like the SETI one, and the one to find the huge prime numbers, and also the climate model that they're running in the UK.

For this, though, I used the client you suggested instead of BOINC, and I'm just doing whatever the group is. Glad I can help!

[Roland99]

2. Awesome!!

I just like the Windows service running so I don't have to worry about starting it up. :)

[alfredo]

3. On the Mac you put it in the Startup Items.

[Roland99]

4. If I had a Mac. hehe

I just like being able to have it running on the laptop my daughter uses without having to worry about her closing it out. :)

[alfredo]

5. I'm doubling the RAM and adding a faster hard drive on my

Mac Mini. It's going to be one fast little box.

[mogster]

6. I used to do the SETI back in the 90's

On my dual cpu Sparcstation 20 ;-) It used exactly one cpu for the background work, then I had the other cpu for my work things.
I'll have a look at this, thanks for posting.

[Roland99]

7. Excellent! Always glad to have a new team member!

[Roland99]

8. Oh, and if you want to run it at work, Ask permission first!

Many companies frown upon distributed computing apps (usually from backward-thinking admins but, hey, what can ya do?)

[Fumesucker]

9. I have an E5200 dual core Pentium at 2.5 GHz, can I run two instances of the client..

One on each core?

I have one of the systray clients running and I tried the CLI client but could only get one to run.

This computer is on all the time anyway, it might as well be doing as much useful as possible.

[Roland99]

10. There are beta versions for multi-core CPUs

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/WinSMPGuideMPICH

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/WinSMPGuideDEINO


Or just do this:

http://www.overclock.net/faqs/81455-how-folding-dual-core-dummies.html

:)

[Fumesucker]

11. Thanks, I went with the third option..

:)

Is there some batch file I can run at startup to automate getting the F@H clients running?

[Roland99]

12. hmm...not sure on the batch file. I just set them to run as Windows services

With two separate CLIs running, I would think that would work ok as long as they're running from different folders. I'd swear I was doing that before on an old dual-cpu I had some years ago but the m/b croaked on that one and I've not had dual cpu since.

[mia]

13. Glad to see three new members!

I like to check this page for updated stats.

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&t=48157

[Roland99]

14. It's awesome! Would be nice if we could get even 10% of the inactive members going.

And I fried the power supply on my HTPC last night trying to get it running. Not sure what the heck happened there. ugh.

[Fumesucker]

15. I just found FahMon a freeware app to monitor the progress of your FAH client(s)..

http://fahmon.net/about.html

For instance, my dual core Pentium E5200 is getting about 1066 points per day..

[EFerrari]

16. I think the installation went okay but how do I know for sure? Edit:

It's in the tray.

:hi: