Folding@Home

I think it might have to do with the three extra machines I added these last couple of days, Cliptin, two XPs and a Duron 850. I'm going through the leftovery bits lying around the workshop, and seeing as they all need testing and I have an internet connection that works now, they might as well do something useful. Don't despair! All three of them are available to Kristi to steal parts out of them any time she wants to. So, until I run out of parts, I plan to replace them as she uses them up. This means there won't always be 2 x XP and a Duron 850 running: this time next week it might be the Duron, a Thunderbird 700, and a Pentium III 500. Or just one of the XPs because both the others are sold and I haven't made time to make new ones. Or whatever.
 
At work one of the groups just got a Dell with quad 2.4 GHz Xeon's....So tempted, but I'm sure they wont let me. :)
 
Table sorted by week total
table1.gif


Not pretty. Xtreme Systems is outcrunching us by a fair margin. Team Austech is showing a higher daily total but lower weekly total.
 
Steve, just in case no-one said it already, those updates of yours are really good. It's great to be kept informed. Please don't stop! And well -spotted with Xtreme Systems. I've been running an eye over the lower-ranked teams every now and then, just to see if there was a threat coming up from anywhere, but I missed those guys.

They have more members than us, but not that many more. Like us, they are hardware nuts, and have several mult-system crunchers active. They have been going a lot longer than us, but only started crunching serious proteins a little while ago when they switched from SETI.

I cruised on over to their forum at http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums and they seem like nice guys. In fact, I think I'll drop in a little later and say "hi" to them.

Meanwhile, I have added extra machines. My aim was to put on a spurt to help us catch MacRumours (can't have Apple users crunching faster than us :wink:), but if it helps hold off Xtreme Systems too, well all to the good.

PS: the Stanford servers are having heaps of trouble again and everyone's stats are down. So don't worry too much about your numbers, guys, they will recover once Stanford get their servers working properly again.
 
Who are Gremlin, support and Gary Piper? I think I saw the answer behind Gremlin somewhere in the forum...just can't remember where (SteveC?).

I now finally know that Muitah is one of Tony's technicians, so it means that the RedHill veteran's contribution to our team has been very substantial so far.


Oh yeah and Doug, it's just a matter of time 8)

...until you plug your nasty dually box :cry:
 
CougTek said:
Who are Gremlin, support and Gary Piper? I think I saw the answer behind Gremlin somewhere in the forum...just can't remember where (SteveC?).

I now finally know that Muitah is one of Tony's technicians, so it means that the RedHill veteran's contribution to our team has been very substantial so far.


Oh yeah and Doug, it's just a matter of time 8)

...until you plug your nasty dually box :cry:
Click to expand...

Gremlin is a buddy of mine, his name is Jeff. I asked if he would be interested in donate CPU time and he has. I haven't looked to see if he is still crunching...I hope so.

I STILL haven't built my 2nd machine. I'm procrastinating for no good reason. I need a desk for it and it's a pain in the arse to pick on up, so I've been putting things off.
 
I STILL haven't built my 2nd machine. I'm procrastinating for no good reason. I need a desk for it and it's a pain in the arse to pick on up, so I've been putting things off.
Click to expand...

Picking one up is easy!!
Assembling it.......... :evil:
 
CougTek said:
I now finally know that Muitah is one of Tony's technicians, so it means that the RedHill veteran's contribution to our team has been very substantial so far.
Click to expand...

Yes Coug. I have a few others contributing. Muitah is one of the Red Hill part-timers (and a very nice bloke - it's a shame he doesn't seem interested in joinging the forums). The Soup_Nazi is one of the team too. He and I go way back. And, of course, there is Tannin, who is my pet human. His K6-IIIs don't really crunch much but I guess it's the thought that counts.

Coming up next (I think) the fourth and final Red Hill staff member. Any time now. :)
 
Mars said:
I STILL haven't built my 2nd machine. I'm procrastinating for no good reason. I need a desk for it and it's a pain in the arse to pick on up, so I've been putting things off.
Click to expand...

Picking one up is easy!!
Assembling it.......... :evil:
Click to expand...

I enjoy building things like this...I don't have a vehicle to transport the desk and having it delivered is useless since I'm in an apartment.... I'm almost never home when packages arrive, and to leave this sitting in front of the door would surely piss someone off. :)
 
Handruin said:
I enjoy building things like this...I don't have a vehicle to transport the desk and having it delivered is useless since I'm in an apartment
Click to expand...

You can borrow my truck, Doug, as long as you pay for the fuel. :wink:
 
Groltz said:
Handruin said:
I enjoy building things like this...I don't have a vehicle to transport the desk and having it delivered is useless since I'm in an apartment
Click to expand...

You can borrow my truck, Doug, as long as you pay for the fuel. :wink:
Click to expand...

What's the MPG on that baby, 8? That's 375 gallons at lets say 1.50 per gallon...$562 Goodness gracious, no thanks. I could build another PC for the cost of the gas. Oh wait, and return trip. :eekers:
 
I have written a batch file for loading FAH. It works with 2000 and most likely NT. 98 is a toss-up.
http://personal.cha.bellsouth.net/~strainwh/fah.zip

Impetus:
I have access to many machines that stand dormant an indetermanent amount of time. I can do anything with them I want but they may be scooped up any day. There is also an influx of machines to replenish the supply.

Solution:
My batch file utilizes network disk space and a lock file (like Tannin uses) to preserve an installation of FAH even if the machine it is running on is removed. It also provides for an increasing number of folding machines and prevents a particular machine from sharing an installation thus corrupting it.

Use:
Place the FAH folder contained in the zip file into the root of a network share. Run the batch file. I copy a shortcut to a floppy for easy access. (Make the working directory c: and use a UNC path).

Customizing:
You will need to specify the network share to net use/map to in the "establish parent directory" section of the script. Be sure that you are not already using the drive letter I chose (Q:). If you are, change the file to something that is available.

Happy Folding!
 
Cliptin said:
I have written a batch file for loading FAH. It works with 2000 and most likely NT. 98 is a toss-up.
http://personal.cha.bellsouth.net/~strainwh/fah.zip

Impetus:
I have access to many machines that stand dormant an indetermanent amount of time. I can do anything with them I want but they may be scooped up any day. There is also an influx of machines to replenish the supply.

Solution:
My batch file utilizes network disk space and a lock file (like Tannin uses) to preserve an installation of FAH even if the machine it is running on is removed. It also provides for an increasing number of folding machines and prevents a particular machine from sharing an installation thus corrupting it.

Use:
Place the FAH folder contained in the zip file into the root of a network share. Run the batch file. I copy a shortcut to a floppy for easy access. (Make the working directory c: and use a UNC path).

Customizing:
You will need to specify the network share to net use/map to in the "establish parent directory" section of the script. Be sure that you are not already using the drive letter I chose (Q:). If you are, change the file to something that is available. FAH should be at the end of the directory structure.(eg. \\dell\tmp\FAH
Happy Folding!
Click to expand...
 
I see Tannin is enticing our neighbors for folding:

:mrgrn:

I had to do a little investigative work to understand where these new members were coming from. I hope we can pickup and keep ahead! :wink:

edited with permission to fix formatting in thread
 
Hi guys,

I was a long time lurker at SR, think I only posted about 20 times. I have added three machines to the effort P4 2.2, P3 750 and my dual P3 450 Server.

On the Dual 450, is there anyway to get both CPU's going? Right now only one is being used for Folding.

Jeff
 
Neat! Great to have you with us, JMP. Be sure to post a little more often from now on.:) To get twin CPUs going, if I remember correctly, you need two copies of the console version. (This is for Windows - I don't know what the Linux arrangement is.) Make two folders: FOLD1 and FOLD2, for example. from each one, type...

(Tea? Didn't you post about this already? Quite possibly in this very thread?)

(Quite right, Tannin. Thankyou. I'll go find it, paste it in.)

Tea said:
The trouble with having two copies is that it is all too easy to start one copy twice, and that results in an instant nuke of your work in progress. You have to create two different folders with a copy of the console folder in each, and then remember (a) to type "-local" every time you start one, and (b) to check carefully which of your multiple copies is already running before you start an instance.

Windows, alas, does not seem to have the basic facility to specify if an executable (or shortcut to an executable) should create a fresh instance the second time it is invoked, or simply bring the already-running process to the foreground. (OS/2 has had this ability forever, I assume that Linux does it too - it would seem a pretty basic and sensible facility to have as part of the OS shell.)

In any case, the only way I know of to get around this is to use batch files.

Anyone who is interested can download this:

http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/foldit.zip

To use it, take an empty floppy disk. Copy the current version of the folding@home console client onto it, making sure that you rename it to "fold.exe". Unzip the contents of the zip file onto the disk too (in the root folder).

Then, every time you want to set up a new machine, simply insert the floppy disk and type "install".

Install.bat will:

1: Create a folder on your hard drive called "fold"

2: Copy the empty file "empty.dat" into it. This will serve as our "busy flag" so that we can't accidently run two copies of the same executable at the same time and thus nuke our work in progress.

3:Create the subfolders "1" and "2".

4: Copy fold.exe (the console client) into each of those subfolders, renaming it to "fold1.exe" and "fold2.exe".

5: Copy fold1.bat and fold2.bat into c:\fold

Now, simply drag a pair of shortcuts to those batch files onto your desktop (or to whatever other place is convenient).

------------

Disclaimer:

I've been using this method, more or less, for ages now, but didn't have my original batch files handy here at the office. So these are rewritten from memory. They look allright to my quick, rough eye, but I may have made a typo somewhere in them. I'll post again if I discover any errors.
Click to expand...

One more thing, JMP. The first time you run each of those two batch files, you will need to give your username, your team number (10047, of course), and say "yes" to advanced options. In there, give each copy a different machine number (e.g., 1 and 2, or 2 and 4 if you want - it doesn't matter, just so long as they are different). The "machine number" is actually to keep the two copies seperate so that they don't clobber each-other's data, and in your case it will refer to the two seperate CPUs.

And one more other, other thing: if for any reason you crash, the batch files won't restart because they will see the flag.dat "already running" signal and stop, so as not to clobber your half-completed work units. If this happens, simply delete the flag file from the FOLD1 or FOLD2 folder. (Don't delete the flag.dat in the parent folder! That has to exist or the system won't work. It doesn't matter what it actually is though. I just made a zero-length text file and used that, but it could be a 500MB MP3 and irt would still work, albeit more slowly.)
 
Tea said:
Mark's Pentium 133

4 work units, 3.8 points
Click to expand...

Ahem...Tea...I'd like to let you know that was MY P133 thank you very much!

Unfortunately, it is in pieces somewhere in a landfill at the moment... :-)

C
 
If you think the P133 is me, you're wrong. My P133 does United Devices, not F@H. It is my observation that UD gives much more credit for low-end machines than F@H. The UD algorithum gives credit (even if it does not use it) to ram, network card and HD space and discounts CPU capability.

My P133 has a UD capability score of 47 (a unit commonly takes 106 hours) and generates 6 points/CPU hour
My PII-266 has a UD capability score of 77 ( a unit commonly takes 31 hours) and generates 9.5 points/CPU hour
My PIII-500 has a UD capability score of 101 ( a unit commonly takes 21 hours) and generates 16 points/CPU hour
My Athlon 1900 has a UD capability score of 175 (a unit commonly takes 6 hours) and generates 31 points/CPU hour

Scaling everything to P133=1
P133 = Productivity=1, score=1
PII266 = Productivity=3.4, Score=1.6
PIII5000 = Productivity=5.0, Score = 2.7
Athlon1900 = Productivity=17.7, Score = 5.2

One can see that the UD score per CPU hour given does not even come close to the actual productivity of the individual machines. Thus, if you have low-end machines and one is trying to optimise scoring between the two systems, use the Athlons in F@H and give everything else (especially low-end machines) to UD.
 
I'd just like to explain that Tea is outside holding her head in a bucket of sand at this present moment. I think she is feeling a little stupid. On her behalf, sorry Mark. Sorry Clocker.

Interesting numbers, by the way, Mark.
 
That darn Cliptin just keeps on raising the ante. Look at his daily output! (WTF are you running, Cliptin?) I currently have:

5 Athlon XP 1800
1 Athlon Thunderbird 1333
2 Duron 850
1 Thunderbird 700

all running 24/7 and he is still outpacing me! So, I am hunting around the place looking for what other CPUs I have in stock. For the last week or two, Clippy and I have played a "see your 160 points a day, raise you 20" game, upping the pace every day, first him, then me.

Moral of story: never taunt Cliptin when he passes you for two hours. That man never gives up.

PS - fantastic effort, Cliptin. You might pass me yet, but if you do you will have earned it!
 
SPECIAL DOUBLE EDITION

Team stats sorted by weekly total: (SF is 24th overall in weekly output)
Table3.gif


Member stats sorted by weekly total:
Table4.gif
 
"Welcome back to CNN Sport, and thanks for staying with us. I'm Dave Spadruck, and it's time for our regular wrap up of the Folding Handicap. Well, you've seen the raw results, Ed, what do you make of them?"

"Yes Dave, and can I just say first that we all appreciate the great job that our back-room wizard Steve is doing with the graphics."

"Sure, Ed."

"Interesting numbers this week, Dave, because there is a lot of action going on that might not be obvious to the casual observer of the game. You can glance at the rankings and see that JoJo is still on top, and Clocker's P-133 is still on the bottom, and then, if you don't look a little closer, you might think that nothing much is going on."

"But the team total is up, Ed, and StorageForum.net is still climbing up the rankings."

"Well, for sure, Dave, and it's been a fantastic effort by all concerned. But I want to take a look at some of the less obvious action going on."

"Like the enigmatic JBarksdale Ed."

"Right on, Dave. Here is a guy slipped into the team all-but unannounced just on a month ago, hasn't made a fuss or drawn any attention to himself, just got right on with the crunching."

"One of the quiet achievers, Ed."

"That's right Dave. I bet you didn't know that, on a points-per-week basis, JBarksdale is in the Storage Forum Top Ten now. Or look at Mourn - there is a guy with just one machine and he's tuned it up so nicely that he's crunching enough for two."

"But what about the action, Ed, who are the big movers?"

"JoJo has led the field for quite a while, Dave, and we have all started to think of him as the undisputed champion cruncher - but that could change any time now. The mighty JoJo has slowed right up, and I'm going to go out on a limb and make the big prediction that he will slip into second, third, even fourth place soon."

"Fourth place, Ed! You are kidding me, right?"

"No, Dave, I'll put money on it. Ever since he sold his girlfriend's computer, JoJo seems to have lost his edge. Or mayube it was his well-publicised fitness troubles with the Stanford servers that took the heart out of him. And there is renewed activity on the part of his pursuers."

"You think Clocker is going to catch him?"

"Well, he's a long way out in front of Clocker, Dave, but the Big C is cruncing awful fast. But I don't think Clocker is the real threat."

"You mean Tea then?"

"Nope. Oh Clocker might take the lead, and I think Tea will, at least for a little while if the Orange Oranutan can keep up the pace for long enough, but the real dark horse is Cliptin."

"Tea is crunching faster, Ed."

"But Cliptin has more staying power, Dave. Tea is only good for short bursts. She likes the glory but hasn't got what it takes to stick at things for the long haul."

"She's holding Cliptin off, Ed."

"For now, Dave, for now. And we shouldn't forget Jake the Dog either."

"You're right Ed. According to Steve's graphic, Jake is the third-fastest cruncher on the team right now. There is another dark horse."

"And then there is CougTek and Handruin, not to mention - "

"Sorry, Ed, we have to take a commercial break. You're watching CNN Sport."
 
Unfortunately my dual XP 1.47 is unavailable for about a month so my only output will be from this sloth of a P4-M 1.6GHz :cry:
 
Tea said:
WTF are you running, Cliptin?

PS - fantastic effort, Cliptin. You might pass me yet, but if you do you will have earned it!
Click to expand...

I'll let you know in a week. I've had two xp 1800s down for at least two weeks.

Thanks, my little batch file is magic I tell ya.
 
is anyone successfuly folding on an althonXP running winXP? i can't get my XP2000 to run the win or console version of F@H without it locking up within minutes :x :x :x
 
My XP is running the console client 3.01 in XP.

I don't think its ever crashed because of F@H, and since its a 1900+ with seriouse anomolies running at 2100+, pretty much anything should be more stable.

Technospawn is also running an XP with XP and the same client with no trouble.

What version of F@H are you trying to run?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top