FR Folding@Home Project Update - Congratulations to the New Leaders!

Stanford University's Folding@Home Stats page ^ | 06/20/2007 | Texas Booster

[texas booster]

Time for awards to be passed out for the FReepers who have pushed the team past 25 Million points.

For the old timers, you never thought we wuld see the day, huh? We had threads when we topped a million points as a team and threads when we blew the doors off the DUmmies team and silenced their boasting (what ever happened to them?).

In this thread if you have seen a huge contribution to the team then please recognize the poster and let us know so we can all shout out to them.

Cheering and noisemakers to all!

[texas booster]

First, what is up with Malsua? He lets us know production is going to be down then he explodes with 28,000 points in a day! Wow, keep this up and we will give you the Klutz Big Kahuna award!

Check it out:

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=168164

Now which FReeper has the systems furthest from, say, DALLAS TX? Central to the USA, where most of our CPUs are located.

I'll start - I am 30 miles away and have systems that live as far away as 120 miles (lappies excluded).

Please fill the thread with all the WOW! factor that we felt when we first hit 5,000 ppd, and then to have Klutz start folding that many by himself.

[texas booster]

Pinging the mighty masses to the new Folding thread!

[texas booster]

Pinging the mighty masses to the new Folding thread!

On or off the Ping list, let me know.

[Drango]

Malsua b on steroids?

I’m folding from the San Francisco Bay Area.

[texas booster]

Really, I haven’t seen that kind of movement, since Thompson’s poll results in the last three months. Up, up, up.

Congrats to JosephW to climbing to #5 on the big chart, and #1 producer of points!

Check out your individual points here:

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

Lets see, at this rate JosephW will pass Klutz in only 13 years.

I thought of using Stanford as the center of the folding map, but didn’t want to diss the Californians who are folding in the middle of the Left Coast.

[Izzy Dunne]

I am right at 2,000 miles from Dallas.
# 163 on the whodunnit list.

[Malsua]

First, what is up with Malsua? He lets us know production is going to be down then he explodes with 28,000 points in a day!

Heh, nothing so sinister. I suspect it's that a number of machines have been offline for so long and they all popped in. Either that or it's just wrong. I should be ramping up slowly, not like that.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[JosephW]

Well this week I’m home, but I’m normally more than a thousand miles away (quite often further as I travel overseas alot). Keeping the systems up while away is quite a chore.

[texas booster]

2,000 miles? Gotta help us out by putting a flag on your FR home page.

You are #130 on the points produced page.

How long have you been folding for FR? Over a year now?

[texas booster]

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 user-name.
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 they were given exclusive access to all of the world's supercomputers, Stanford 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

The Inner Life of a Cell

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 #12

**************************************************
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 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 #23 #24 #25 #26 #27 #28 #29 #30 #31 #32 #33 #34 #35 #36 #37 #38

[LonePalm]

My system is on the Jersey Shore.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[LanPB01]

I have five to seven machines folding at any given time in Greensboro, NC, and usually two machines (including one PS3) in Gibsonville, NC.

[Egon]

My shameless self-promotion for this thread:

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

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)
• Machine stats like PPD (points per day)
• Project comparison stats: PPD, average time taken to completion, etc.
• It's free-- and always will be
• ...other features as time permits, and people request

Links

• Team Page
• Instructions

Please Freepmail me with any questions.

[Egon]

Irk. Sorry. That was meant for “All”.

[Incorrigible]

I’m just psyched to be staying in the top 100 consistently!

[Professional Engineer]

0 miles from Dallas

[Professional Engineer]

I’m just psyched to be staying in the top 100 consistently!

RedWing9 and I have been playing tag for #62 for a while now. LOL

[Straight Vermonter]

I’m folding 1,769 miles from Dallas.

Only 7,730 points in about a year and a half but I keep chugging.

[JosephW]

Every bit helps (and helps to bury DU as a contender)

[HKMk23]

Hey, thanks for the ping.

Still trundling along and hanging onto the #71 position by the skin of my teeth.

The office box is chewing on Work Unit #144, right now, and the Home box has it’s 179th in-process.

Still bashing the bugs out of the home PC after my power problem over a month ago. I’ve replaced the power supply, and the CPU, and brought an APC Back-UPS ES on stream to condition the incoming A/C and prevent any future power problems.

With all of that, though, the machine is still freezing, on occasion, wholly without warning. I’ve got a sensor between my CPU heatsink and the back wall of my case that sounds a piercing tone if it gets above 110F (43C). With that installed, I’ve continued to operate the computer, and I note that the “seizures” seem independent of CPU temperature, so the cause is something I haven’t changed, yet.

At this point I’m not sure whether I’d rather replace my ECC RDRAM or my motherboard. Replacing the RAM would not disrupt my XP Pro installation as much, but would cost more. Replacing the motherboard might make the O/S refuse to boot, something I’m not really ready to tackle. XP Pro CAN be “fooled” into “fixing” itself, even if you’ve made hardware changes that affect the HAL, but it’s not 100% and not a risk I want to take.

Know any utilities that can sucessfully test ECC type memory without getting false positive results; that is reporting things are okay, when they’re not?

[ken in texas]

Thanks for all your work in keeping these threads going.

I'm about 20-30 miles north of Dallas, depending on how you measure it.

Only three machines running right now... sometimes I'll have one or two others available for a week or two and I'll crank them up.

Looks like I'll lose my #16 slot very soon. Thanks to all of the rest of you that have joined in.

[dangermouse]

Download the Memtest86 iso from http://www.memtest.org/ and burn it to a cd. Boot from the cd and let it run for a couple of passes. It tests memory by writing a value to the memory location and then reading that location to see if it is the same value. If it finds an error it will tell you the value written to memory and the value read. I use it almost daily in my job.

[Drango]

One word: FRY'S

[texas booster]

While I always read the Fry’s ad, I have just about given up buying at the stores in Dallas/Fort Worth.

Too many boomerangs that require too much time to return and replace. I spend $12 on gas and two hours of my time (three last Monday). Just gets old.

OTOH, I still like brick and mortar retailers. The Frys ad is very useful in getting local merchants to price match.

I hate it when the intermittent gremlins show up. I have a system that runs great until I need to do something important, then it locks up.

Sometimes I hate computers.

But I still love Folding. Spent 5 hours Monday night cleaning up Winders for a friend who has no job. Just asked him to keep the systems running F@H for at least a month while he job searches.

[texas booster]

I’ll second memtest.

Seems to do a very good job in testing memory.

BTW, that’s amazing that you have done over 300 work units in about a year. Just two boxes chugging along.

Love it.

[shadowscotland]

I’m 4741 miles from Dallas....

and 2,470th in the world rankings (as I fold for OcUK) so I’m chasing TB but he’s 100k ahead and pulling away :o)

As ever thanks to egon for the FahMonitor and TB for the ping.

[HKMk23]

Thanks for the recommendation for Memtest86; I’ll give that a shot.

On the one hand, I hope it finds something, because that’ll mean I’ve pinned down my actual problem. On the other hand, I hope it finds nothing, because motehrboards are cheaper than ECC RDRAM.

Ahh, those fabulous folding machines and the men who maintain them...

[texas booster]

I expected that you would hold the hat for the furthest folding, unless we could find a laptop in Iraq or Afghanistan that would volunteer.

Did you use Google maps to find the closest way to drive here? Every now and then someone at Google will insert a spoof of the driving directions.

I didn’t realize that I broke into the top 2,000 worldwide. You should be there soon it seems.

Did you ever toss a system onto Team 36120 just we could track you better?? ;’)

[HKMk23]

Fry’s is a mixed deal; they chew their employees up and spit out their bleached bones (my pastor’s Father got canned by them years ago because he had the timerity to prioritize his family above his job there), but they have some of the best prices, but they’re a “big box” kind of atmosphere where getting really competent help can be a longshot, but they’ll haggle with you and cut pricing in certain circumstances, but you’ve got to go in knowing what you want or you can get “Fried”.

I found a book on Photoshop (”1001 Photoshop Tips and Tricks”, IIRC) that had obviously been on their shelf for a very long time; had a tear in the cover and actually looked like it had gone home with someone and come back. I pulled it down and said I wouldn’t pay the sticker price for it ($60) owing to its condition, but would gladly buy it for $20 less. They found the guy who had authority to make that deal and I got the book for my price.

I most always check out http://pricewatch.com/ before I go buy at a brick-and-mortar establishment. I look at the pricing shown there for reputable brands of the item(s) I’m considering and use that as a baseline for my shopping.

When I know a certain manufacturer is top-tier in their market, I’ll often pay more for their product, and I usually try to buy directly from them. I did that with the power supply I just got from PC Power & Cooling. Those guys know their stuff; I highly recommend their products.

I’ve actually got something of an advantage because I work in Silicon Valley and commute through Milpitas/Fremont, and there are several hardware distributors in the area. More than once I’ve checked pricing on-line, then driven to the distributor’s location and bought what I wanted at their “Will Call” desk.

Try that in central Nebraska.

[JosephW]

Well, I’ll be managing mine from Okinawa in a few weeks. Is that far enough? The systems are in Kansas.

[texas booster]

Okinawa!

Maybe you could trade a dinner for a civilian system that could help?

[JosephW]

Probably going to be on base the whole time. Will try to get a few new folding freepers though (won’t be the first time).

After all it doesn’t really matter if they fold in my name, rather that they fold for us and make the DUmmies look bad.

More proof that liberals don’t know real charity.

[Route66]

Hey... I just noticed that I passed 100,000 points!
I guess I have not checked in a while.

It would be nice to add some more active folders to the team and increase our momentum.

Lurkers.... Sign up. :-)

[shadowscotland]

Most of my pc's are on Egon Fahmonitor for all to see, and my output is split two ways as it is. So many thanks for the invite but for now it's a no. In the process of setting up a subteam. Which is a grouped total on kakao stats but individual in EOC. Getting a mixed response, but wanted a way for members with single pc's to compete with the big boys at the top of the table. Used this link to find the ‘distance from dallas’ (googled) http://www.findlocalweather.com/how_far_is_it/tx/dallas.html No idea how accurate it is :o)

[ThE_RiPpEr.]

My good friend Jeff died June 12, 2007 from Huntingtons.

I’m bumping this thread in hopes that there will be others that can help us by using their spare cpu cycles to help find a cure or treatment for these terrible diseases.

Here is the national website for Huntingtons: http://www.hdsa.org/site/PageServer

Here is my State of Wisconsin chapter: http://www.hdsawi.org/

Both sites will accept donations

Please help us find a cure.

[texas booster]

Please accept our condolences for your friend Jeff. I have multiple friends who have suffered from Alzheimer's Disease or have parents who suffered from AD.

A big part of Folding@home research has been geared toward Huntington’s Disease. Many of the proteins we fold are geared to finding the minute changes in a protein that causes it to clump.

It is very easy to run the Folding program. Just follow the links above. Ping this thread if you need help.

From the Folding Education page:

HUNTINGTON’S DISEASE (HD) is caused by the aggregation of a different type of proteins. Some proteins have a repeat of a single amino acid (glutamine, often abbreviated as “Q”). These poly-Q repeats, if long enough, form aggregates which cause HD.

We are studying the structure of poly-Q aggregates as well as predicting the pathway by which they form. Similar to AD, these HD studies, if successful, would be useful for rational drug design approaches as well as further insight into how HD aggregates form kinetically (hopefully paving the way for a method to stop the HD aggregate formation).

[texas booster]

Click here to view the molecule in a Java applet, moving and spinning:

Phenylalanine Molecule

Most of the simulations that we run consist of 40,000 atoms, all the way up to 90,000 atoms.

The PS/3 and the GPU folders get subslices of these molecules and will focus on how water molecules, for example, change the dynamics of protein folding.

[Izzy Dunne]

Click here to view the molecule in a Java applet, moving and spinning:

You know, I wonder why they can do all this chemistry, and all this programming, but they can't even get a help sentence correct on the page.

(You do NOT use "alt-click" on a Mac - the option key is only labeled "alt" for use with Windows, and it's the CONTROL key that brings up a context menu, and it's been that way for 15+ years...).

[dfwddr]

Bump from Nashville, 673 miles away.

Lurkers, please see post 36 as to why we do this.

[shadowscotland]

Just a heads up, ALL the smp clients expired on the 30th
The client will only check it own deadline following a restart - so all you freepers that leave your rigs on 24/7 it makes no differance. But worth updating now as a random reboot in a week/months time will stop you folding dead.

Windows SMP - download new client installer - Stop existing client - run - say ‘no’ to removed existing - reboot pc - restart client (if you say yes, you need to run the install.bat file again following the reboot)

Linux SMP - stop client - download new client (small file) - open in archive manager (default) - extract files over existing - restart client. Job done.

Both should start crunching without any loss of WU’s.

[texas booster]

Thanks for the headsup.

[JosephW]

One of my upgrades has had tremendous failure and the other system (SMP) has suffered cataclysmic failure. One of them (SMP) is under warranty and will be replaced in about a week (maybe two) and the other should have the replacement part in a few days.

My numbers will be back up then.

Have another significant upgrade coming in about 2 weeks (mid-level upgrade to a very slow system). And finally a real SMP system is in the works (about a month) and I’ll have real numbers to post (and should consistently cross 5K per day).

[texas booster]

That’s exciting. I gave up on the Linux SMP system for now. It keeps reporting that the AMD 64 X2 is not SMP capable, so I started running two single cores on it. Now if I could make it start F@H as a service on restart then all would be fine.

I downloaded the latest ATI drivers (Catalyst 7.6) and was able to increase the overclocking on my ATI 1650 video card. Cuts about 10% off the folding time of a work unit, but the fan runs all the time.

Here is the latest report on the worldwide goal of a folding PetaFLOP:

OS Type............Current TFLOPS*....... Active CPUs
Windows.......................177.................... 185786
Mac OS X/PowerPC......8......................... 10546
Mac OS X/Intel.............15......................... 4828
Linux..............................41....................... 24396
GPU...............................46.......................... 772
PLAYSTATION®3.......452.......................24958
Total.............................739..................... 251286

The Playstation 3 folders have realy dropped for now. I expect that most of them are turned off during the week and are playing games on the weekend. Once some team has a Fold-a-thon focused on PS#3’s then we will be close to a 900 TFLOP sustained rate.

Hope to have a new thread up here soon. Feel free to ping me with worthy news articles that discuss teh basic research in Alzheimer’s and Huntingtons Disease.

[shadowscotland]

Why can’t use set up the standard units client as a service?
It’s the second question on the list after -config or -configonly flags. (or are you running a standard linux client) if your using linux try finstall to load the clients.

sudo apt-get update>
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs #Answer yes to its request for disk space
cd ~

wget -c http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/finstall
#Make finstall executable
chmod +x finstall
#Run script
./finstall

It’s the same commands for setting up smp (but without smp at the end of the last command line script.

http://www.aeternum.co.uk/smp/smp-part2.html

Hope that helps

[texas booster]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1862449/posts

New thread alert to everyone!

[cost_benefit]

I’m on board as well

[texas booster]

Thanks for joining the team.

You can keep track of your progress here:

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&a=2&t=36120

It normally takes a week or so for the first points to show up. If you used your FReeper name then we can ping you when it arrives.