Ultimate Guide To Folding@home

_JOHN_LENNON_:
1. Doing ANYTHING stresses the life of your processor, but this F@H (Folding @ Home) uses spare CPU cycles, so you dont notice it while your playing BF 1942, or while im playing Halo. But if say you leave your computer for a bit, it will notice the free processor, and pick up the slack.

2. It really doesnt hurt your computer like I said above, I konw people that have this running on no less than 20 machines and have been doing for awhile.

3. Yes, I said 20 MACHINES. People take this very seriously, as over at AMDMB.com.

4. I have been folding for over a year now for the AMDMB.com team, and I think were maybe 5th or 6th world wide. I know from our forums that we have several people like I said with the 20+ Computers running 24/7 just to fold for cancer. (yes the electric bill gets raised a few ticks) I know that also we have taken donation on 4 complete machines, and then given them to people to they can be Folding for the team in the privacy of their own homes. I think were currently taking donations for the 5th one.

5. You guys should all get into this, haha Bigdawg, being about my age I know your parents have asked you around the house at times (whats your computer doing on right now, when your not even infront of it.) Well, atleast now you could say Fighting Cancer Mom! Heh, no but serious guys, every computer can help, even if its just a few work units a month. And we all have Spare CPU Cycles to spare because none of us are maxing out our PC all day. Half the time I have my PC on im just tinkering with some and I have WMP on and Folding @ Home.

6. Now everyone go download the folding at home command Client
Click to expand...

OC TEAM:
What are the system requirements for folding?
You will need to have the equivalent of a 200MHz Pentium to be able to process the work in time. The time limits for turning in completed work vary depending on the size and complexity of the protein that you are given to work on. NOTE: in some cases users have gotten even slower computers than this to fold and get units on time. The slowest i have seen get units in on time is a P166 mhz. If you think it is too slow to fold, give it a chance, what's that worse that can happen.




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do the dgromacs, ambers and qmd,s use different cores, just checked my install directory and i only have cores 65 and 78
 
I was looking over the team statistics, What I was wondering about is the pts. I see there is a page that you can goto to see what the worth of a package you are doing. How do you get these pts is it after you are done the package or every so offten? Im not really worried about the pts but it would be kool to see how I stack up against other ppl.

One last thing to ask, then I will stop asking so questions.

I was think about how to get my pc fold faster. I thought about running F@H in safemode, So I did. The #'s are hard to read and I only did this for a hour but it seemed to be a bit faster. Could anyone else see if this could work or not.
 
Twice now since I've been using F@H, it's crashed taking hours of CPU time with it. The first time I lost about 71% of a work unit, due to a communications error with the server:

"[06:21:45] Completed 355000 out of 500000 steps (71)
[06:33:02] CoreStatus = 1 (1)
[06:33:02] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x1
[06:33:02] Deleting current work unit & continuing...
[06:33:22] - Preparing to get new work unit...
[06:33:24] + Attempting to get work packet
[06:33:24] - Connecting to assignment server
[06:33:27] + Could not connect to Assignment Server
[06:33:27] + Could not connect to Assignment Server 2
[06:33:27] + Couldn't get work instructions.
[06:33:27] - Error: Attempt #1 to get work failed, and no other work to do.
Waiting before retry."

Which prompted me to stop using it. I retried it the other day, got one WU completed. My PC crashed again today, and no surprise, F@H lost its WU again:

"[16:33:30] Completed 480000 out of 500000 steps (96)"

:(
 
Ever since today Soulseek hangs when i use the Folding thing!
Tried it without the extra commands, but it still screws up my Soulseek.
When i close the folding thing.. soulseek come's back on....

Help? I want to use them both!


:angry:
 
we were ranked about 170th last nite, due to a corrupt database and losing all previous WU, the database is offline of maintanaice. but u can still send completed wu and get new ones, its currently 3am in the morning there, so i aint expecting it to be back up soon. Link

edit: but when it does, make sure all your wu are showing, expecially your most recent ones, from about 6pm(gmt) yesterday.

edit2: i dont think ive had a tinker in weeks on at least 2 of my machines, havent looked at the other one yet. there mostly 500 and 250 ones.
 
;) ok i came back from school early....toaday turn over day...so u could skip classes so i came early...

ok ill expain gromacs

There are 2 cores (FAHCore_78.exe and FAHCore_65.exe) you can check which core you are running by pushing CTRL+ALT+DELETE...

CORE_78 is gromacs the new fast one...
CORE_65 is the slow one

most of you probably have core_65 so u want it to be core_78

Method:
Either make a shorcut or use the startup shortcut (which is already there) from "winFAH.exe" which is probably in your "folding@home directory" (in program files)

now go to your shortcut and RIGHT CLICK>PROPERTIES then change this:
add -advmethods -forceasm at the end of the target after the (") ;)
just copy and paste this.... "C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\winFAH.exe" -advmethods -forceasm (if ur using the default directory..)

PIC:
FAHTEAMSSSS.JPG

it should look something like tht

then click ok and when the WU ur working on right now is done the "winfah.exe" will AUTOMATICALLY download the new core_78 and you will be folding gromacs in ur next project
u can check ur LOG file to see if it is using the gromacs are not at the beginng of a project..
but sometimes you dont always get gromacs....so then u will get the use the old core...

remember the old core projects are usually out of 400..

but you will see a big difference in the folding speed with the gromacs for sure :D

i hope this explains it well.... ;)
if u still have questions feel free to ask... ;)
 
Originally posted by Livy@14 February 2004 - 13:44
if anyone has probslems using the -forceSSE command with amd processors, there is a beta gromacs core which fixes the problem. it will be automatically distributed soon if you dont want to use a beta core.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/beta-core/

to install, download the new core. close folding@home, and put the new core in the f@h folder, then run f@h again and it will use the new core for gromacs WU's
Click to expand...
Thanks Livy !

Good info :)
 
ive got an athlon 2500 barton 512mb @169fsb, running nearly 24/7, sometimes used for gaming.

athlon 1500-mobile 320mb, running 24/7 not used, just surfing net.

and my g/f's celeron 2ghz 240mb, running nearly 24/7 at the mo, but its usaully just on when getting used.

ive got an old amd k6-2 500, 256mb that i gave to my gran and grandad i could put it on too,

and my g/f old via 533, but it doesnt have net access. her bro uses it now.
 
Just a few questions;

1) Is there any risk to my P.C me running this? I normally leave it on overnight downloading is this roughly equivalent or does it use alot more CPU power to fold? MY P.C's not going to melt halfway through the night or die under stress?

2) If I wish to remove the program I can just remove it without any bits remaining and running after I have done so?

3) What is the information gleamed going to be used for? Is it just to be used by Standford University or the scientific community as a whole? Is there a chance that this insight into proteins allow people to perform nastier tasks (Stuff like cloning - I know this is DNA modification but proteins and amino acids often tie in pretty closely - or creation of harmful biological weapons)?

4) Is this actually worthwhile or will the whole thing be discredited in a years time when the scientists find there actually doing something a bit wrong and all this folding info is useless?

5) Are the pics on the user interface the actual pics of the protein being folded or are they just random images?
 
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