DU's Folding @ Home Project - STATUS UPDATE

[iconoclastNYC]

For information on helping with the project see this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=164110&mesg_id=164110

[Imalittleteapot]

1. We have some folding to do.

Go team!

:bounce:

[iconoclastNYC]

2. We need more CPUs.

We have to keep the weekly CPU growth up, this is the only way we can overtake them.

Please keep this thread kicked and nominated.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

3. K & R

Because Mabus made me.

[longship]

4. I've got three CPUs online now, three more coming.

I'm buying a fast, dual core Opteron 64 this week and will be building it in the next week. I also will be putting a PII-400MHz back on line. All will be folding for DU. By the end of next week, I'll have more than doubled my current output.

1. Opteron 175, dual core, 2.2 GHz (2 clients)
2. Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz
3. VIA C3 Nehemiah, 1.1 GHz
4. AMD Duron, 800 MHz
5. Pentium II, 400 MHz

For those Windows XP users, it's best to run this from the command line. That way it will have minimal impact on other programs. You don't need a user interface for this. Just run it in the background and ignore it.

I agree. We need more CPUs.

[Mabus]

5. To quote an idiot, "Don't Forget Poland"

Because that's the next team we have to overtake (in terms of number of participants) on our way to beating the freepers while doing needed medical research.

36 189 Free Republic Folders - A Tribute to Ronald Reagan
***
44 133 Poland
45 128 Democratic Underground
http://fahstats.com/index.php?col=1

Currently, we have 128 active members. We need six more to bypass Poland!

:bounce:

on edit: the first number is the ranking of the teams in terms of team members. The second number represents number of active participants (those who have completed a "work unit" in the past seven days).

[alfredo]

6. I got a big one about 85% done. It should be showing up this weekend

Keep on folding

[dmr]

8. I should be done just after midnight

with my 5th WU.

From my log file: Completed 2737500 out of 3750000 steps (73)

I'll talk to my son again about coming on board. He had problems when he did SETI; he wanted to see how the Folding worked with my machine - I have no complaints, but do have the satisfaction that I am helping somehow in my own small way.

[alfredo]

11. I lost about a week of data by messing around with running two

clients on my machine. I will try it again some day because I think I know what I did wrong.

[mcscajun]

23. Turns out it's not such a great idea to go for the HT use on the FAH

You may want to look for a post of mine with an identical subject line on the prior threads for more details on this.

[alfredo]

25. Thanks. I decided just to go with one client.

I might try again after this WU.

Thanks, I will search that subject

I'm not on the Intel platform I am on a 6 year old dual processor G4. I do have the other client at a different ID.

[wakeme2008]

7. I tuxedo-programmer dropped out... Folding software does

not work behind a proxy.

I finally found a post on their forum that they use old software to connect through a proxy. This software passes the password as clear text.

My 3Gig Linux machine never worked and had 6 large WUs I tried to upload but couldn't.

A week ago my 3Gig Windows machine stopped connecting. 8 small WU on it. I started a second 1.6Gig Windows machine but killed it when I saw my other Windows machine was not working.

I tried sneakerneting the Linux results home and upload on my Apple Powerbook. But too many problems.

Yesterday, I just trashed all fold@home stuff. I have two open threads on folding@home forum but no good answers.

[iconoclastNYC]

9. Weird.

Never had a problem here, and I have it running on four computers. Two Dells desktops, a homemade computer and a six year old Dell laptop.

[wakeme2008]

10. lol these are at work

:) major proxy to get to the net. But the machines are fast :)

[mcscajun]

24. Probably just as well. You can get in some serious trouble if you're

putting F@H software (or any other Distributed Computing software) on work PCs without Expressed, Written Permission to do so.

We want all the DU folders we can get, but not at risk of their livelihoods.

[Mabus]

12. Just downloaded on my husband's computer

and got him signed as "Lebowski". I've had a couple of work stoppages but I exit and restart it. Other than that, I haven't had any problems either. Then again I'm running computers in the home, not at work, so I have control over the firewalls.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

18. You're on the list with 36 completed WUs

You're 7th on the DU list, and it shows that you've completed and uploaded successful WUs. What has happened or changed with your situation since you last successfully completed a WU?

[Mabus]

21. I just noticed that too

Hey dude, it's working. Come back!

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=48157

Rank
(within team) User Score WU
7 tuxedo-programmer 6334 36

[wakeme2008]

22. I suppect that a change in the proxy

software at the company stopped the Windows machine. It had been a good worker :(

[Imalittleteapot]

13. Work buddy now folding.

[iconoclastNYC]

15. Woo-hoo!

I'm going to try to convince a buddy of mine to run it.

[iconoclastNYC]

14. Projection - 3 months until CPU parity

If we can maintain the 67% growth rate and the Freepers maintain 19% we should have more CPUs than the Freepers in 90 days.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

16. It will take a lot longer than that to catch them in points

It will take us continuing that growth rate for 60 or 90 days after we reach CPU parity.

It's definitely doable if just 1% of DU members sign up.

[iconoclastNYC]

17. Have we got a post onto the Home page ever? n/t

[EvolveOrConvolve]

19. I don't think so

And with the Alito orgy, it probably won't happen any time soon.

[Mabus]

34. Not yet but give us time

There's a lot of stuff going on but we're still making headway.

[alfredo]

37. We keep picking up CPU's at a brisk pace. With a large

community to draw from, I can envision a 1,000 or more CPU's

Everybody should put a DU FAH signature in their posts. Let's sell this to all DU posters.


BTW, 209 CPU's 1098 ranking

[alfredo]

38. Two things we need to do.

help folders place FAH info on their signature line, and remind folders to set their client to launch at boot.

How well are we promoting FAH at the lounge?

[iconoclastNYC]

20. More stats at OCP's site

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

When we break 800 we can use thier tool to view individual rankings.

[Mabus]

26. Reason to be (very) optomistic, re: catching and bypassing freepers

On the extremeoverclocking link you provided I noticed that stats are started on teams only after they enter the top 2,000. source: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/?nav=FAQ)

Freepers first showed up on the radar in Nov. 2005 with 12,451 points and 128 WUs completed. DU first showed up on the Jan. 2006 statistics with 101,769 points and 781 WUs completed. More importantly, these are our first month's stats as a top 2,000 team, so our total for the first month as a top 2000 team is still climbing!

sources: for DU http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=48157
for freepers: http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=36120

In otherwords, we are off to a better start than the freepers and they know it.

on edit: it looks like we hit the radar as a top 2,000 team on Jan. 16, so we're doing pretty good for only being around for 11 days.

:party: :woohoo:

[coyote]

27. A kick to kick freeper butt.

:kick:

[clixtox]

28. More, More, More

Faster, faster, faster. Keep on kicking up. We have to raise the DU's participants awareness of this important effort. Go team!

[Beelzebud]

29. I had to stop. Even as a service it froze my machine.

Not sure what the deal is, but that machine went from being 100% stable, before Folding@Home, to something that randomly crashes every few hours.

Sorry, but I removed the client last night and it hasn't crashed since. I have a huge cooling fan on the processor, and I even used Arctic Silver on it, and the case is well-ventilated. It just won't stop crashing, so it's gone...

[RoyGBiv]

30. I've had to drop out ...

At least momentarily...

My CPU fan blew a gasket the other day, which I thankfully noticed before any damage was done, and I had to replace it with the stock cooling fan until I can get a new one. While running FAH, the stock fan lets the temps go above 50C, which is within normal range, but does not make me comfortable when leaving the system unattended. Turn FAH off, and the temp drops to the low 40's. With my old cooling unit, even with FAH running, I never got above 39C.

I let a rather large WU I had complete and upload yesterday, but that's the last one I'll have for awhile.

[alfredo]

31. I've been working on one WU for well over a week. I am 90% finished

and at that rate, it should be done by the end of the weekend. FAH doesn't seem to put much strain on my system, but that is probably because I have a dual processor machine.

What you need to do is buy an old freezer, drill access holes for the cables, then put your CPU in there. Another benefit of the freezer is the quick cooling of your beer.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

32. Just signed on with 4 computers

Three under my handle:

• Athlon64 3500+ WinXP Large WU
  
• Athlon 1700+ Kubuntu Linux Large WU
  
• Powerbook G4 1.67 OS X 10.4

One under "artgeek" (my wife, not a DU poster):

• Athlon64 3200+ WinXP

She might add one more later:

• Athlon 1800+ Kubuntu Linux

Hopefully some completed WUs this weekend.

[corporate_mike]

35. Awesome!!

Every computer helps

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

40. The Wrinkle household is proud to announce the birth...

... of its first baby WU. Born at 3:52 AM this morning and weighing in at 36 points. Computer is resting comfortably. Some observations:

1. My main PC "Romulus" (the Athlon64 3500) froze overnight for the first time ever.After a restart, it's folding again with a big WU due in 6 hours. Windows GUI FAH client.
   
2. "Khitomer", my Linux box, produced the first WU and is chugging through the second one (ETA 12 hours).
   
3. "Jupiter" (my wife's Athlon64) reports an ETA of 72 days on a regular WU, even though it's about as powerful as "Romulus"! I don't believe the ETA calculation.
   
4. She just installed FAH on her Linux box "Vulcan".
   
5. The performance of the Mac GUI on my work Powerbook (no geeky name) was appalling: 1.25% of a small WU completed in the same time that Romulus did 20% of a large one. I've taken it out of the project.
   
6. This is fun and rewarding!

[Mabus]

42. Congratulations on the first!

May it be the first of many!

BTW, I got my husband hooked up the other day. I was already working on a 500 frame WU and he got a 2,000. His old machine cranked through it pretty quickly and he is already done with it and working on his second (more than 10% done). In the meantime my 500 was still working away. I finally finished it this morning and got a 250 frame WU which is now more than 30% done. So, just because one machine is working appallingly slow doesn't mean it isn't working as efficiently as the others.

The 500 frame WU that I finished overnight was worth 600 credits (per project summary page http://fah-web.stanford.edu/psummary.html) so I knew it would take a while. My current work WU is 250 frames for which I will receive 41 credits. The higher the credit (or points) the longer it will take to fold. At least that's the way it seems to me.

[strategery blunder]

33. It slows my computer down noticeably

But I haven't had too many problems with outright crashes. Considering I really only use my computer for typing papers and Internet access anymore, I can deal with the sluggishness.

My biggest problem is that restarting the computer takes FOREVER now (and I restart far more often than I used to because it seems to make F@H run faster). By the time I'm able to log into the campus network, get my MSN running, and get to DU, it takes well over ten minutes...but once those ten minutes are gone, it's no longer a big deal:)

[alfredo]

36. 204 CPU's 1108 Ranking

Keep it up folks.

[strategery blunder]

39. I have bad news

Last night my computer crashed so hard that Dell is sending me a clean copy of Windows so I can reinstall the OS. In light of other DUers reporting instability with this program, I have decided not to continue F@H after this, because I suspect that that's what led to the crash.

Sorry guys.x(

[iconoclastNYC]

41. You know i find it really hard to believe that this project

Caused your windows installation to be corrupted. How do you know it was this and not some other program? You don't. Further if this sort of thing was common they wouldn't have it running on thousands of computers.

[strategery blunder]

44. I realize it could be something else.

It's really more of a cautionary thing. I said it was a possible cause, and the program had caused my computer to freeze a couple of times before the big crash. It might not be the cause of this, but it did destablilize my system a little bit, so after I reinstall the OS, I'm not taking any chances.

Moreover, it's pretty much the only program other than Firefox I've been running as of late, and while it's entirely possible I have a virus, I doubt it, simply because the university is quite vigilant about computer security here, to the point of suspending your access to the network if your antivirus updates and scans lapse for so much as a day. So, there are only so many things that could have caused this. I'm not 100% sure if F@H is the cause, but it is one possible cause, and I must treat it as such.

(Edit: Dealing with outsourced tech support from India probably didn't help things--I would have preferred to try to uninstall the program first to see if it really was the cause, but all I got from System Restore was the Blue Screen of Death and a physical memory dump.)

[Mabus]

43. Sorry to hear that

Both of the computers that I'm running are Dells. We're running different OS. I've got XP and my husband is running Win 98. Neither of us are having problems with the program. I had a little bit of a slow down last week (it lasted several days) with my computer speed and so I checked to see what programs were running in the background. To make a long story short, I had reinstalled Windows Media Player after I had some problems with it. It forgot to click something along the way and it installed itself in start-up. Since I had to reboot after I installed the WMP I unknowingly started my own slowdown problem. I went in and changed the configuration, rebooted without the windows program in the background (and without a couple of other things I had going) and my computer is faster than its been in a long time.

My husband has reported no problems with his computer. Believe me, if he had any, I would be the first person to hear about it. I would hear about it until it fixed. So far, not a peep. Actually that's not true. Now he tells me how much progress he's made on his WUs.

[alfredo]

45. A thread is up at the lounge.

Check it out here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=4665410&mesg_id=4665410