Is it worth it......

[Lorem-Ipsum]

I have seen a lot of pics of people with multiple low spec machines piled on top of each other for folding.

As I can't really afford to get a high tech rig just for folding I am considering using several old machines, ie p4's and celerons.

Is it worth doing this or should I not bother until I can get some kit that can push out some serious points?

 

[ionicle]

do it, it all helps

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

I guess I could get hold of some 40Gb HDD's and hook them up with a lightweight linux distro.

I'll pop over to my old school and see if they're chucking any stuff out. I know the tech's there quite well.

I've only got 3-4 old machines to use so I think I'll need to get some more.

 

[SnW]

do it, it all helps

I just can't say anything negative about this post

Spot on matey !

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Thanks guys.

When does my name show up as folding for redline? Is it when I complete my first work unit?

 

[hmmblah]

Thanks guys.

When does my name show up as folding for redline? Is it when I complete my first work unit?

Yep.

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

As I'm a student I can get hold of Windows server 2003 and 2008 for free. Would I be best with one of these or with linux?

I'm usually a linux user but as I'm a noob to folding I'm not really sure.

EDIT: lol! My laptop apparently can only do 197 PPD. its is only a Pentium Dual Core 2.0Ghz though.

Maybe I should build one good F@H machine instead of many **** ones.

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

As I'm new to this I'm not sure how long these WU's are supposed to take.

Its been running on my laptop for almost 5 hours with an ETA of 3 Hrs 20 mins.

ATM its on project: 6887 core: gromacs

Is it supposed to take this long?

I know its a low spec processor, I'm just getting familiar with the it before I either get a load more low spec machines or one beast specifically for the purpose.

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Finished my first WU!!! Woot!

How long does it take for me to appear in the stats?

 

[Brooksie]

Have patience, it'll appear soon

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Have patience, it'll appear soon

kk, thanks mate. Just read the FAQ ( like I should have done before I started) and it says approx 1-2 hours.

I'm seriously considering building a decent machine for dedicated folding now.

ATM I'm thinking of the following:

Amd Phenom II x2 555

Mushkin 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3

ASRock 880G Extreme3

2 x 1GB KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 460

Corsair HX Series 650W

Coolermaster Gladiator 600 Case

(whatever HDD I can scavenge)

Running Windows server 2008.

My one worry is; will the GPU's work with server 2008?

I usually run linux and there is a way to do GPU folding in linux but its not worth the work to set it up so I may as well use windows.

However I'd rather not buy windows 7 as I can get free licenses for server 2003 and 2008 as I am a student.

 

[SnW]

My one worry is; will the GPU's work with server 2008?

I dont see why not

Your stats (Extreme).

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=541225

Your stanford stats.

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=98860&username=Lorem-Ipsum

Your sig stats (Extreme).

Happy Folding

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

Thanks mate.

I just got my bank statement and I've spent less than I thought

Speccing up what I can get now

EDIT: I left one machine on all night but for some reason I'm not getting an error:

Attempting to send results

Could not connect to assignment server

Could not connect to assignment server2

couldn't get work instructions

Attempt ~1 to get work failed. and no other work to do

Waiting before retry

And it seems to have been doing that for some time now.

Any ideas?

EDIT: It managed to send the work but now its failing to get more work.

assign.stanford.edu:8080 shows OK

EDIT: Got it working again!

Think its a bad ethernet cable.

 

[SnW]

Think its a bad ethernet cable.

I think its stanford again, they really are very bad as of lately

What you can do ones this happens... is close the client and restart it again, works a lot of the times

Or if you need to send WU's you can add the -send all flag to the shortcut , it will keep trying to send it to a server that is online !

Good luck and HAppy Folding !!!

But you got it working so WhoeHoe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

I think its stanford again, they really are very bad as of lately

What you can do ones this happens... is close the client and restart it again, works a lot of the times

Thanks mate. I've had this on both the machines I'm running now.

They fail about 7 times then pick it up on the 8th.

 

[chudley]

I am just wondering what clients you are running? CPU, or SMP and also the GPU if your card is up to it.

Many moons a go I used to have quite a few machines that were really old folding, as mentioned earlier every little helps, unfortunatley they were locked down for security reasons :/.

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

My P4 Windows desktop that I just use for backups is running the x86 systray client.

My laptop which runs ubuntu is running a command line based client. I used the fah_Install script to set it up.

Neither machine has a good GPU so that's out of the question.

I'm planning on building the following dedicated machine anyways:

Amd Phenom II x2 555

Mushkin 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3

ASRock 880G Extreme3

2 x 1GB KFA2 NVIDIA GTX 460

Corsair HX Series 650W

Coolermaster Gladiator 600 Case

(whatever HDD I can scavenge)

 

[chudley]

That new rig will defo boost your stats up

surely if you can afford 2 x 460s you can spend a bit on a hard drive.

 

[Lorem-Ipsum]

That new rig will defo boost your stats up

surely if you can afford 2 x 460s you can spend a bit on a hard drive.

I don't really see the point in spending too much on a HDD if its just used for folding.

And I'm going to just get the one 460 and another later on when I have the cash.

I've got about £400 to spend now, but already have a case and some spares.

EDIT: Made a wishlist here: https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/P6ziMQR7FJYtnVO7j1RkTw,,

Could I get away with an athlon X2 or would that be too low?

 

[stevehat1]

I don't really see the point in spending too much on a HDD if its just used for folding.

And I'm going to just get the one 460 and another later on when I have the cash.

I've got about £400 to spend now, but already have a case and some spares.

EDIT: Made a wishlist here: https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/P6ziMQR7FJYtnVO7j1RkTw,,

Could I get away with an athlon X2 or would that be too low?

The best thing to do points wise would be an i7 on a lower level x58 board. With a an o'c to around 4G would be around 30 K+ without any GPU folding, that is about the same or a little less points as the AMD selection with two 460's. Then if you later added some 460's you'd be around 50K on a single machine.

Just another tgought......

Welcome to the team!!!