FR Folding@Home Project Update -- We're in the Top105 of all teams with 6.4 Million points

Stanford University's Folding@Home Stats page ^ | 5-26-06 | soccer_maniac

[soccer_maniac]

Time for a new FreeRepublic folding@home thread.

Our FreeRepublic team of 337 members comprised primarily of Free Republic members in good standing have banded together to donate their excess CPU cycles to a worthy cause. Via distributed computing, millions of computers around the world, contribute directly to scientific research, in the quest for a greater understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Mad Cow (BSE).

Currently, the team is in 103th place (with 988 active CPUs - 36,400 completed Work Units and more than 6,4 million points).

This is an entirely voluntary program, and if you want to learn more, please see the links posted below (or read one of the previous 17 folding threads)

[soccer_maniac]

Folding@Home FAQ for new users:

What is Folding@Home? A Stanford University project to find out how proteins fold.

Why it's important: Proteins folding wrong causes all kinds of diseases, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and forms of cancer. Folding@Home uses novel computational methods and large scale distributed computing, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. Through Folding@home, scientists now have the horsepower to study the mechanics of protein folding. With its ability to share the workload among hundred of thousands of computers economically, Folding@home can help scientists understand how proteins snap, or don’t, into their predestined shapes — and may help to explain the origins of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and apparently unrelated diseases. We're fueling research that could end all that.

How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.

Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won't compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren't using so it doesn't slow down other programs.

How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?: 1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired username. 2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won't be folding for team FreeRepublic! 3.) The third question asks, "Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?" - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.

How can my computer help? Even if he were given exclusive access to all of the world’s supercomputers, Standford still wouldn’t have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people’s desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.

There's no reason to not get involved! It's free, easy, and you can know you're helping every minute without lifting a finger.

*******************************************

List of Relevant Folding Links
Why Fold - Watch This !!

Another Folding Clip

Folding@home Client Download

FreeRepublic.com Folder Stats

Extreme Overclockers Stats for FreeRepublic

Another Stats Page

*******************************************
Competition (Not!!) Dummies ..Daily Kos

Dummie Folding Threads #7 #8 #9#10#11

**************************************************
Other Useful Stuff - Links

How much are those work units worth? And what are they?
All Projects Listed
Point Summary for Workunits

Stat Image Generator

Fahmon Third Party Monitoring Software

**************************************
Past FreeRepublic Folding threads

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #17 Previous

[soccer_maniac]

FR Folding Ping (FRmail me to get on/off ping list) -- we have 299 people on the FR folding ping list!

[ahayes]

Seems like it's taking forever to break 20,000! I keep getting these itsy-bitsy 100 pt DGromacs.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[capt. norm]

I do a little parttime work as system admin. for a small local company with 86 boxes, nearly all (all but 4) of which are idle after 6 PM and networked with T-1 internet access.

I'm going to try to talk the owner into allowing "folding at home" to make good use of all the idle time.

[soccer_maniac]

That would be terrific!

Even if you got some of them to fold part-time, it would be a tremendous help.

We need more members as we're trying to break into the Top 50.

[soccer_maniac]

I just noticed that DUmmies have a username "Monica_Lewinsky"

Which one of you did that? LOL!

[soccer_maniac]

Here is the link to Team DUmmy stats

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

# 214 Monica_Lewinsky

That's really funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Uriah_lost]

Great!!!

[auboy]

Folding@Home Bump!

[ahayes]

lol I should put one of these processors to work folding for DU under the name "LOUSY FREEPER TROLL!"

[knews_hound]

I'm having trouble getting it to run on one of my machines.

Is there someone who knows this program well who might give me some ideas on how to get it to run?

Cheers,

knewshound

[uglybiker]

Don't feel bad. I keep getting these 20,000 frame w/u's that only give me 200 points. Right now I'm crunching a 50k w/u.

Of course, I mught get more done if I ditched my SETI program.

[Egon]

My shameless self-promotion for this thread:

If you're interested in tracking your folding machine(s) over the web, please Freepmail me.

Available features include:

• Timely snapshot of each machine's progress on it's current project
• Point values for project
• Estimated completion dates/times
• Warning indicators for machines that appear to have stopped communicating or folding
• Warnings for machines that won't make their deadline
• Team ranking status box (courtesy of EOC)
• It's free-- and always will be
• ...other features as time permits, and people request

Beware. It's addictive.

[soccer_maniac]

It's a great tool. Don't feel that it's a shameless self promotion. You're doing us all a favor.

[papasmurf]

Thanks for the ping!

:O)

P

[Straight Vermonter]

BTTT

[DocRock]

Big Bump!

[HangThemHigh]

"Is there someone who knows this program well who might give me some ideas on how to get it to run? "

Most here, including myself, will be glad to help, anyway we can. I suggest you post some details on the trouble you are having and then we can figure out if we know enough about your situation to help.

[DTwistedSisterS]

Thanks to who ever publicized this.


The benefits so far:
1) It occupies my time when I'm not doing anything
2) It's really cool to think that something might possibly help someone
3) It's helped heat my room for the past few weeks. I say this because when i close my door, the room gets hotter. I attribute this to the fact that the fan has to run. If this isn't the case, too bad, because i like the explanation!

[SC Swamp Fox]

[Uriah_lost]

We are on the move!!

[soccer_maniac]

Thanks for the chart. Gotta love the straight increase on the first graph.

DUmmies should be embarrased by their miserable performance. They're libs and they have no shame :)

[Drango]

First, the hot:
940D + ECS 945P for $259
X2 4200+ + ECS K8T890-A for $329

OK deals:
930D + Gigabyte 8I945PL for $279
X2 4400+ + Asus A8R32-MVP for $649
FX60 + A8N32-SLI for $999

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=32664&adid=3024228&cat=3525

[houeto]

Bump!

[LTCJ]

Egon, you have Freepmail.

[soccer_maniac]

We're only 184,887 points short of #99 (currently team "MSI HQ Red Rockets"). We should march into the Top 100 in 6 days.

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=36120

[HKMk23]

Donator: HKMk23
Team: 36120

First work unit launched 20060527 12:20PDT

[MrBlueSky2005]

Earlier this month, my primary HD on my old computer crashed, giving me the perfect excuse to retire the venerable six year old machine and replace it with a new machine with a 64 bit AMD Athlon X2 4200+ w\ 2GB RAM. Needless to say, thats upped my production quite a bit. There are several computers selling for under $1000 with similar specs and they are worth every cent. :)

This summer, I hope to get a cheap new HD and bring the old machine back online to crunch a few extra WUs AND I will be throwing our family machine and laptop behind the cause. So, that should be 5 CPUs crunching results soon...

[dfwddr]

Welcome to all new members!!!!! :

[DocRock]

I just posted over on the Elizabeth Taylor Has Alzheimer's Disease thread with a link to our folding thread. I hope we can recruit a few more folders to help find a cure for this terrible disease.

[HKMk23]

OK.

I ran on ahead and just installed the Windows GUI version of the software and THEN discovered that it monopolizes my OpenGL pipeline so none of my other OpenGL apps will run.

So, now I want to switch over and just run the Console client, but I also don't want to lose the progress I've made.

Can I pull it off or am I SOL?

[HKMk23]

I took the risk, held my breath and...got it done; successfully switched from the graphical WIndows client to the Console client.

FReeper 4CJ had this post from back in December 2005 that gave me the clues I needed.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1537549/posts#94

For anyone else who cares to switch from the Windows graphical client to the console client "on-the-fly", here's all I did.

First, note that I already had the Graphical Client installed and actively working. So, I popped up the display, right-clicked and hit "Quit" so it would save it's work and stop.

After that, I simply followed the same procedures 4CJ laid out in the post linked above: uninstalling the graphical client, creating a shortcut to the console exe with the -configonly switch, launching it, and electing to run the application as a service. I used XP Pro's services.msc to start the FAH service and, like a trooper, it picked up my WU right where the graphical client had left off, which I confirmed with a quick peek at the FAHlog.txt file.

[andyk]

Welcome aboard!

[Drango]

Welcome new folders! We have some very unofficial protocols you may not know about.

1. If you have folding questions, please ask. Others are glad to assist.
2.  If you have technical ‘puter skills please share ‘em with other “folders” as we all were beginners at one point. If you have no technical skills don’t let that stop you from opining on a ‘puter problem, it’s never stopped me.
3. If someone passes you on the list, it is OK to snivel about your lack of “folding” power. It is also cool to blame you lack of CPUs on your spouse who watches the budget like a hawk.
4. Borg every computer you can, but always get the owners permission. Borg, borg, borg.
5.  I you have taken out a second mortgage on your house to upgrade your ‘puter, please let us know.
6.  The Freeper folding flux capacitor upgrade is generating impressive point increases.
7.  Use Freepmail to communicate to others how we jimmied the results at Stanford to get extra points. In no case should you discuss the methods in an open forum. If you must, use the code.

01001101 01100001 01100100 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01101011 00100001 00100000 01000100 01010101 00100000 01110011 01110101 01100011 01101011 01110011 00100001

http://www.adcott.net/binary/

[JCEccles]

Happy to assist.

So far, I've just had my main home Windows XP computer (3.06 GHz, 1.4 GB RAM) on task (I use an Apple iBook for FReeping). It's been purring away 24/7 for about a week now. I may put two more computers on task, after I get back from my trip next Friday.

The only problem I've had is about four instances of the program aborting for some unexplained reason and sending to screen the annoying Windows dialog box asking if I want to send an error report to Bill. I just click "don't send" and reboot the program. The first three instances seemed to follow the completion of a work unit, but I had an incident today in which the program showed me about a third of the way through a work unit after I rebooted.

I'm not enough of a computer nerd to know exactly why this is happening.

[HKMk23]

Are you running the console client or the gee-whiz OpenGL graphics version?

[HKMk23]

Thanks for the welcome.

Off to a bit of a rock start, but I'm beating the issues.

The switch to the console client solves conflicts with my OpenGL applications. Now I just have to ventilate my cabinet to prevent heat buildup when the cabinet is closed and the machine is folding.

I have one of those computer cabinets with four doors; two above the desk and two below. When it's closed, the CPU is enclosed in a volume of space below the desktop that it is capable of heating to unacceptable levels. Left closed, on a normal day, it can cause the CPU to stop executing; forcing a reboot after amply ventilating the space.

I plan to open the back of the cabinet and install a quiet 6" fan -- perhaps two -- to force the heated air to exhaust behind the cabinet. This will pull cool air in around a 1" gap at the floor and keep the machine running at acceptable temperatures.

[andyk]

I happen to appreciate your taste in handguns. :)

You're definitely right to be concerned about the heat build-up in an enclosed space like that. Until you get that option resolved, you can throttle your CPU usage down by going to the advanced tab of the FaH configuration. Whoops, I just remembered that you're using the console version now, so I assume that setting would be in a config file somewhere...

[ezsmoke]

I recieved another bad WU. It was taking a lot longer per frame than usual, about 12m compared to the usual 8m. I noticed it late and restarted the client and recieved the error message below. A 400 frame Tinker (p1152_L939_K12M_ext_from638) on frame 172. That always kills my points per day. For a day of work I got a partial point value of 6.


[19:55:06] Received faulty work unit.
[19:55:16] logfile size: 113664
[19:55:16] - Writing 114176 bytes of core data to disk.
[19:55:16] end (WriteWorkResults)
[19:55:16]
[19:55:16] Folding@home Core Shutdown: BAD_WORK_UNIT
[19:55:21] CoreStatus = 72 (114)
[19:55:21] Sending work to server

[JCEccles]

I'm running whatever the default setup is for Windows XP.

I'll take a look "under the hood" and see if I can figure out what's going on in there.

[Clara Lou]

This may be totally unrelated to your problem, but whenever the frames in my WUs begin to take longer than usual to complete (my PC is working on p1152 for the 12th or 13th time) I restart my computer. This is true for both my PC and my iBook laptop. Frame completion times always go back to normal.

[HKMk23]

I took command and got my heat issue under control today. I went to Radio Shack and bought a $25 120mm, 120Vac brushless cooling fan that I mounted at a 116mm port I cut in the upper rear of my computer desk. Now, the hot air discharged from the computer case gets exhausted OUTSIDE the desk enclosure instead of being continually recirculated. Fresh, cool air is drawn in through the 1" gap at the floor and keeps the CPU within an acceptable operating tempereature range. No more CPU shutdowns due to thermal overload.

[HKMk23]

Sorry, I meant which version of the FAH software are you running; there are TWO that could be considered 'default' for XP. On has really cool graphical displays of the current work and the other -- the console version -- has no display, it just saves progress info to a log file.

I'm assumiing you meant you're running XP in "out of the box" configuration; no added bells and whistles -- yet.

If that's true AND you're running the graphical version of FAH, be aware that your OpenGL graphics will be monopolized by FAH; no other app will be able to run if it uses OpenGL.

This is because OpenGL does not allow multiple applications simultaneously; it's not a 'bug' in FAH. If you have other OpenGL apps that you want/need to run, switch to the console client. I ended up having to do exactly that, myself. It was very straightforward and painless.

Here's a link to my post on that topic. In that post is another link to further detail about making the switch.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1638783/posts?page=39#33

Good luck!

[JCEccles]

That makes sense. Thanks for the great information.

Free Republic Folders - A Tribute to Ronald Reagan

Date of last work unit	2006-05-30 11:15:51
Active CPUs within 50 days	1002
Team Id	36120
Grand Score	6592567 (certificate)
Work Unit Count	37394 (certificate)
Team Ranking (incl. aggregate)	105 of 44206
Home Page	http://www.freerepublic.com
Fast Teampage URL	http://fah-web.stanford.edu/teamstats/team36120.html

Team members

Rank (within team)	User	Score	WU
1	Klutz_dohanger	1659255	9453
2	lrenh	488845	2896
3	Malsua	414600	2147
4	Texas_Booster	150423	830
5	davemaher	137110	648
6	andyk	109532	515
7	LSimpson	108494	556
8	Andrewksu	81170	537
9	Craigon69	76950	445
10	walkerk	72004	360
11	dfwddr	70177	433
12	VeniVidiVici	68229	367
13	Chris_Primavera	66712	321
14	Advil000	66662	348
15	Kingu	62671	305
16	Egon	62573	510
17	Ken_in_Texas	58260	344
18	farsighted	53378	225
19	Uriah	47915	283
20	zeugma	47093	234
21	rach_FR	46450	283
22	Derllak	45341	226
23	FRpapasmurf	44352	278
24	FreeAtlanta	43587	227
25	Senator_Bedfellow	42977	197
26	greenbo	42942	221
27	smith288	40901	224
28	mouser	40465	225
29	stylin19a	39971	200
30	ValorDaus	39165	279
31	HangThemHigh	38869	198
32	Drango1	36665	212
33	TheMightyQuinn	35550	154
34	DocRock	35500	195
35	Bobibutu	35188	206
36	Chesterbelloc	33279	212
37	Linda_Geiger	32909	158
38	Bush_Democrat	30870	192
39	TChad	30744	207
40	FrogMom	30109	180
41	houeto	29181	146
42	ezsmoke	28738	133
43	abner	27720	127
44	mediamole	27613	215
45	colinhester	26733	132
46	sirtaurus	26698	203
47	Thom_Pain	23690	139
48	JohninWAGL	23568	118
49	MathyKathy	22937	104
50	HangnJudge	22620	105
51	Swordmaker	22285	101
52	Compaq_Owner	22136	172
53	MarkeyD	21011	122
54	RedWing9	20138	132
55	Route66_FreeRepublic	19843	126
56	ahayes	19743	107
57	arderenne	19554	79
58	InfraRed	19290	123
59	sshultz460	18832	98
60	RebelTex	18800	139
61	A.Hun	18723	136
62	fostendug	18717	109
63	Brian_Allen	18483	100
64	Dads_AMD3000	18445	64
65	SilentServiceCPO	18000	89
66	doc11355	17974	102
67	FReeper_Dundee	17809	122
68	hessian	17596	95
69	Treb	17526	136
70	Petronski	17450	104
71	oblomov_1	16134	64
72	Mount_Athos	15679	72
73	BurbankKarl	15640	79
74	Tonystransportation	15419	83
75	Foldspace	15369	78
76	j_tull	15310	82
77	LynnHam	15301	98
78	holly_go_rightly	15212	77
79	Happy_Babymoon	15115	82
80	KJC1	14791	82
81	paengineer	14780	84
82	bbarr	14705	78
83	patricia_bell	14398	84
84	Hawkeyes_Girl	14095	92
85	Professional_Engineer	14023	83
86	mombrown1	13986	72
87	1066AD	13858	76
88	Jacy	13853	73
89	PCBMan	13827	73
90	Freeper_KOZ.	13749	66
91	Ladypixel	13670	67
92	ewg	13554	82
93	_MontanaDal	13530	72
94	Flyer_FR	13049	75
95	evilC	12934	67
96	Mike_Medved	12834	67
97	FRstentor	12712	68
98	Compaq_Owner3	12490	105
99	Sgt_Schultze	12379	60
100	MnJohnnie	12051	59
101	FourtySeven	11926	80
102	SC_Swamp_Fox	11586	73
103	spunkets	11578	69
104	nsa2318	11472	61
105	Tatze	11351	62
106	Mississippi_Freeper	11232	61
107	idiots_will_catch	10915	68
108	Steve_Wilson_1	10777	68
109	GoldCountryRedneck	10759	73
110	eyespysomething	10561	55
111	Jim	10333	70
112	ShakeNJake	10283	65
113	BoT	10067	166
114	Rate_Determining_Step	9989	127
115	auboy	9971	44
116	MRadtke	9953	51
117	Slothful1	9832	58
118	BigBro1	9822	56
119	SW6906	9601	44
120	Tim_Colman	8866	43
121	kacknor	8818	46
122	Mrs_1066AD	8803	49
123	tsomer	8799	41
124	rodneymatlock	8747	53
125	Hiredhand	8430	56
126	Incorrigible	8362	46
127	Harmless_Teddy_Bear	8346	41
128	Suzzee	8109	39
129	umbagi	8073	74
130	ThirdOrder	8072	39
131	MrBlueSky2005	8055	62
132	Katya	7993	46
133	bubba_sales	7846	64
134	Weasel	7565	55
135	Pikus	7527	41
136	fzx12345	7484	47
137	dangermouse	7455	42
138	Camel_Joe	7225	51
139	Seamoth	7164	61
140	Freeper_Drago	7151	45
141	GL-Bartaholic	7022	42
142	vulture	6899	27
143	Chip_Leonard	6839	41
144	T_Admin	6796	53
145	Sunshine55	6721	39
146	Clara_Lou	6676	37
147	pbrown	6570	40
148	kenth	6366	46
149	VICI	6289	49
150	brityank	6264	41
151	Angry_Elephant	6198	28
152	NAPA_Laurel_MS	6158	30
153	Jack_of_All_Trades	6140	31
154	SoCalRocket	6126	38
155	AndyKaz	6120	25
156	Recovering_Hermit	5933	29
157	Incredulous	5846	32
158	William_Helvig	5819	31
159	hoping2help2	5809	33
160	Bella_bru	5662	25
161	vidi	5634	52
162	Thomas_Bernardo	5619	27
163	jimfree	5612	28
164	dbender5555	5530	25
165	conoverc	5507	30
166	Izzy_Dunne	5483	22
167	Cody