Join the SatelliteGuys Folding@Home Team!

[Foxbat]

Welcome to the team, bebop! I've been away from SatGuys for a while and I missed your PM about the sig. I see you figured it out :up

I don't have one, so I may be wrong about this, but isn't the Core 2 Q6700 actually a quad-core processor? If so, you might be able to sneak another instance of the "simple" uniprocessor client on your PC and use up some more of your unused CPU. I would not try any more than that as the ATI GPU client tends to monopolize a single CPU (so, have 1 ATI GPU + 3 FAH Clients, say) as the GPU client will get you the most out of your rig.

After you have been Folding for a while, you'll start thinking about how you can increase your hourly points production. If you try the Windows SMP Client, you may find that you can raise your production rate to a new level without spending money. You'll probably want to shut down the GPU client at that time, though, since the ATI client needs the CPU.

Spending some money, however, can net you some impressive gains. If you haven't been over to the Folding Forum (Folding Forum • Index page) they have a Forum dedicated to Folding Hardware suggestions: Folding Forum • View forum - FAH Hardware There are suggestions on how to max out your Points/Watt or Points/$.

One of my Folding PCs is an AGP x8 box with a single-core Athlon processor and an ATI HD3850 Sapphire graphics card that is overclocked using the Catalyst Control Panel. With it, I can produce somewhere between the "standard" 1,500 Points Per Day (PPD) on up to a little over 2,000 PPD. Buried in the earlier posts in this thread are a few entries outlining the trials and tribulations of getting this PC to its maximum production potential. Downloading the latest Catalyst drivers is key!

Again, welcome to the Fold!

 

[gbjbany]

Welcome to the team, bebop! I've been away from SatGuys for a while and I missed your PM about the sig. I see you figured it out :up

I don't have one, so I may be wrong about this, but isn't the Core 2 Q6700 actually a quad-core processor? If so, you might be able to sneak another instance of the "simple" uniprocessor client on your PC and use up some more of your unused CPU. I would not try any more than that as the ATI GPU client tends to monopolize a single CPU (so, have 1 ATI GPU + 3 FAH Clients, say) as the GPU client will get you the most out of your rig.

After you have been Folding for a while, you'll start thinking about how you can increase your hourly points production. If you try the Windows SMP Client, you may find that you can raise your production rate to a new level without spending money. You'll probably want to shut down the GPU client at that time, though, since the ATI client needs the CPU.

Spending some money, however, can net you some impressive gains. If you haven't been over to the Folding Forum (Folding Forum • Index page) they have a Forum dedicated to Folding Hardware suggestions: Folding Forum • View forum - FAH Hardware There are suggestions on how to max out your Points/Watt or Points/$.

One of my Folding PCs is an AGP x8 box with a single-core Athlon processor and an ATI HD3850 Sapphire graphics card that is overclocked using the Catalyst Control Panel. With it, I can produce somewhere between the "standard" 1,500 Points Per Day (PPD) on up to a little over 2,000 PPD. Buried in the earlier posts in this thread are a few entries outlining the trials and tribulations of getting this PC to its maximum production potential. Downloading the latest Catalyst drivers is key!

Again, welcome to the Fold!

your right Foxbat the q6700 is a quadcore so at least 3 command line clients, should have noticed that before.

I actually run an SMP and nvidia gpu all on the same box it runs quite well. But understand some advise against it. By doing this i gernerally am adding about 12-1400 ppd.

 

[Foxbat]

Well, I'll be joining the ranks of the nVidia GPU clients some time this weekend. The HIS HD4850 card that I put in my son's Dell 4700 has suffered heat stroke: the temps on this card started off at a reasonable 75?C, but in the last month have climbed to over 100?C! I think the fan has had it, so I got on NewEgg and picked up a new card. This time, I went with an nVidia 9800GTX+ card from Zotac. We'll see if the rebate is any good this time (I got burned from my last order to the tune of $50!). Hopefully, I'll see better PPD numbers from this rig 'cause it seems that 10K PPD is the new target for this Team.

I'll see what I can do with the old HD4850 card and the fan. It may get resurrected in a new box that has better cooling...

Heh-heh-heh... Karma (in the form of Pande Group) strikes the F-T-L team, aka Team FTL, aka FTL-Drive, nee FTLSpeed... We'll be re-passing them within the week.

Also, we're oh-so-close to passing 40,000,000 points! If Scott doesn't put us on the Home Page for an accomplishment like that, well, we'll sneak his PS3 away during Movie Night!

 

[bebop]

I've got a $30 video card with a Raedon 3450 chip. At first I thought it was going to be able to crank out some high PPD, but after running it for about 4 days, not so. My first WU went over the max time limit (no my CPU was not maxxed out) and it was 84% complete. Looks like the next one it downloaded is on track to finish before the required time frame ends.

Still trying to evaluate if my GPU is going to be the right way to go. I'm running the GPU + 1 CPU instance right now and my system performs great. Maybe I should look at the settings on the GPU and limit something so I don't have such long WU's like I had with the first one.

Any ideas?

 

[Voyager6]

Heh-heh-heh... Karma (in the form of Pande Group) strikes the F-T-L team, aka Team FTL, aka FTL-Drive, nee FTLSpeed... We'll be re-passing them within the week.

Also, we're oh-so-close to passing 40,000,000 points! If Scott doesn't put us on the Home Page for an accomplishment like that, well, we'll sneak his PS3 away during Movie Night!

Yeah, the FTL guys are down to about 70K ppd. They still have 308 active members but Anonymous is cranking out 48K ppd. We are gaining on them by about 40K ppd.

We should reach the 40M points mark in 9 or 10 days. Scott should definitely highlight this on the Home Page.

 

[jrp]

I think I finally got both my good producers back on line. Both are iMacs running Leopard. I had to remove all the related folding files, panes, etc from both. Then I installed 6.24 (console) on both. It took right off on one but I had to take it off of the second and put 6.20 (preferance pane) in its place. It, too, seems to be functioning now.

The macine running 6.24 has completed amd succesfully sent two 1920 point units. After the second, it took six attempts to get a new unit assigned. Each time Iwould see this message:

[10:20:12] Project: 2675 (Run 1, Clone 251, Gen 36)
[10:20:12] - Error: Could not get length of results file work/wuresults_03.dat
[10:20:12] - Error: Could not read unit 03 file. Removing from queue.
[10:20:12] - Preparing to get new work unit...
[10:20:12] + Attempting to get work packet
[10:20:12] - Connecting to assignment server
[10:20:12] - Successful: assigned to (171.64.65.56).

The only thing that changed was the number in front of ".dat" in the second line and the same number in the third line. After it got to 08, the unit began to process correctly. This only took about five minutes, but it certainly looks like something isn't quite right. Any thoughts as to what is happening?

I'm also seeing this message right before a unit it downloaded:

NOTE: The tpr file used for this simulation is in an old format, for less memory usage and possibly more performance create a new tpr file with an up to date version of grompp

What's a grompp?

 

[Foxbat]

The only thing that changed was the number in front of ".dat" in the second line and the same number in the third line. After it got to 08, the unit began to process correctly. This only took about five minutes, but it certainly looks like something isn't quite right. Any thoughts as to what is happening?

I'm also seeing this message right before a unit it downloaded:

NOTE: The tpr file used for this simulation is in an old format, for less memory usage and possibly more performance create a new tpr file with an up to date version of grompp

What's a grompp?

I didn't like the Preferences Pane version of Folding on my Mac Pro, so I ran the Console version for 8 months or so until I installed InCrease (Download here). This allows you to manage multiple instances of the Folding client (currently 6.24r1 on the Intel Macs) and keep an eye on the rest of your Folding community. (see the attached screen grab)

As far as the messages, if you deleted the folders that held your FAH files from the previous versions, it seems odd that you're getting a admonishment about an older file format. However, Google is your friend, and a quick search turns up this thread over at the Folding Forum: Folding Forum • View topic - new A2 core ver. 204 to public release (Linux & OSX) Basically, don't sweat it, this is what they call a "cosmetic" defect.

The same could be said for the "Error: could not..." messages. They don't seem to indicate a problem; they just show up between WUs. I went back and checked my logs and I'm not seeing this on my Mac Pro or my Mac Mini. I do see them a lot on my GPU clients, however.

Speaking of GPU clients, my nVidia 9800GTX+ card arrived the other day. What a monster! Unfortunately, the power supply in the Dell isn't up to the task (not enought PCI-e connectors or Watts) so I need to make a little trip to the Computer Hardware store. I really wish we had a Frys near-by...

 

[jrp]

The iMac (intel) that balked at several units before beginning to work finished the unit this morning. I'll be able to check it a bit later and see how it behaved between units.

Foxbat, am I correct in looking at your screenshot and thinking you are watching folders on multiple machines on a network from one place? If so, how do you do that?

 

[Foxbat]

Foxbat, am I correct in looking at your screenshot and thinking you are watching folders on multiple machines on a network from one place? If so, how do you do that?

You need to attach to a network share on the remote machines. On my Mac Mini, I turned on Sharing and indicated that I wanted to share the F@H folder on the Mini. On the PC GPU clients, you basically do the same thing, except via the "Sharing and Security" pop-up menu when you right-click on the GPU Client Folding folder.

On my Mac Pro, I use the Finder's "Connect to Server" (menu "Go", then "Connect to Server...", or Apple-K) and use "smb://<ip address or hostname>/<sharename>" for the PCs and "afp://<hostname>/<shared folder name>" for the Macs. I'm sure there is a way to automate this at log on, but it's no big deal for me to do this since I leave my Mac Pro on all the time Folding.

Once you have all the remote systems connected, you go to the "Groups" menu in InCrease and "Add Groups...", navigate to the appropriate location (it looks for the client.cfg file) and there you are.

 

[jrp]

You need to attach to a netowrk share…

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Both my main producers loaded their current units without incident this morning. My production should be back to normal.

 

[Foxbat]

Karma update: We passed the F-T-L team (again). Yea, Team!

 

[Plazzman]

Well my karma is up!! Would like to catch that Linux Team before my electric bill catches me. I have to update my farm list to add a couple (Actually got the old home machine back in action) AMD Quad 9850 with 2 ATI 3850.. I do like my Nvidia cards though, just wish ATI would give our cpu's back while they are folding!!! Can run 1 standard client with the 2 gpu's and have about 80 to 90% processor usage..
Sorry guy's just couldn't let the old bird set on the shelf.. Actually had several bent pins on one corner of the processor and thermo grease all over the place... Took about 2 hours with my eagle eye site and small magnifying glass to straighten out!! On a side note did find out that acetone works wonders for cleaning thermo grease though.. If any one has suggestions for using the new ATI 9.4 drivers and getting processor percentage back I am all ears as I have been out of the ATI camp for a while.. I did try the environment variables but got eou's machine unstable with everything I tried..??

Congrats all as we are really scoring some points and gaining ground as a team!!:up

Fold On...!!!! Plazz PS Sorry for the long post....

 

[bebop]

Compated to everyone else folding here, it seems not even worth it to be contributing 300-500 PPD.

Any suggestions, without having to spend $100 or more on how to best boost my PPD output? I'm guessing a graphics card, but I don't know which one. I need on that outputs directly to HDMI because of my existing wiring for my TV2 HDMI input. Other than that, I've got a DVI/VGA montior on my computer - so just about anything else would work for that main connection.

I only have 1 machine available (quad core), so maybe I'm setting my sights too high if others are using many.

-The little engine that could...

 

[Plazzman]

Compated to everyone else folding here, it seems not even worth it to be contributing 300-500 PPD.

Any suggestions, without having to spend $100 or more on how to best boost my PPD output? I'm guessing a graphics card, but I don't know which one. I need on that outputs directly to HDMI because of my existing wiring for my TV2 HDMI input. Other than that, I've got a DVI/VGA montior on my computer - so just about anything else would work for that main connection.

I only have 1 machine available (quad core), so maybe I'm setting my sights too high if others are using many.

-The little engine that could...

Bebop I would look at something like this if you have a PCIe slot for Video..

Newegg.com - ASUS EN9600GSO/DI/512M GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

It's $69.99 with a $15.00 rebate. this matched with an SMP client should net 4-5 thousands point a day I would think. Nvidia GPU's seems to be the way to go for shear point's these day's.

Fold On..!! Plazz

 

[Foxbat]

I'll see what I can do with the old HD4850 card and the fan. It may get resurrected in a new box that has better cooling...

I took the old ATI HD4850 card out of my son's PC and took the can of compressed "air" to the heatsync. Dust Bunnies the size of Easter Eggs (well, maybe not THAT big, but they were considerable!) came flying out. I put the old card back in and my GPU temps are back down to 74-80?C!

I'm still trying to justify spending another $80-$100 for the 500W P/S just so I can put the nVidia card in the Dell 4700. Perhaps I would be better off building a Folding rig around this card instead?

 

[bebop]

Bebop I would look at something like this if you have a PCIe slot for Video..

Newegg.com - ASUS EN9600GSO/DI/512M GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

It's $69.99 with a $15.00 rebate. this matched with an SMP client should net 4-5 thousands point a day I would think. Nvidia GPU's seems to be the way to go for shear point's these day's.

Fold On..!! Plazz

I like newegg for parts, but no reviews - I'll have to see if there are some on other sites. Thanks for the tip. That price seems very reasonable. It never hurts to have an extra video card around. Is 512MB a good size, or does it not matter in this case?

4-5k ppd would be great. Right now my F@H monitor says 1200ppd, but the gpu portion never makes it, so it's more like 800 ppd.

 

[Foxbat]

Hey Scorpy, did you lose a machine or two? Your Folding is about half of where it has been. At your current rate, I'll become a quattro-millionaire before you do!

bebop, you're moving up through the Team's ranks! Up 21 in the last week! I haven't installed my new nVidia card in my son's PC yet, but in celebration of Earth Day, I replaced the P/S in his Dell Dimension 4700 with an Antec EarthWatts 80+% efficiency P/S. It was so much easier than my last P/S transplant as the Dell case uses the standard layout for the case opening. Unplug all of the P/S connections, unscrew four screws, slide out the old P/S, slide in the new P/S, fasten the four screws, plug everything back in, and fired it up. It took all of ten minutes. :up So, I can install the nVidia 9800GTX+ at any time now.

I read on the Folding Forum that nVidia and ATI are announcing new 40nm-based GPUs, so the current generation is being priced to move, as they say. You should be able to find a great deal on a Graphics card in the coming weeks, especially after the new hardware is announced.

 

[Plazzman]

Yes I was in "Hot pursuit" of re catching The Scorpion.Sting for the top spot and whamo he is down?? Hello Scorp...??

Bebop is making great strides with "the Little Machine that could"..:up

Foxbat you better be throwing that nvidia card in as I'm sneakin up on you..
Any word on when the new ones will be introduced Foxbat?

Fold On...!! Plazz

 

[Foxbat]

Foxbat you better be throwing that nvidia card in as I'm sneakin up on you..

I saw this morning that my ATI GPU2 WU was finishing up in 15 minutes, so I went and set the machine to -oneunit and let it finish up. After downloading the nVidia GeForce drivers and removing the ATI Catalyst drivers, I installed the 9800GTX+ card and fired up the PC. I got the nVidia drivers loaded, rebooted, and wouldn't you know it? I grabbed the wrong drivers (V185. something) instead of the nVidia GeForce drivers with CUDA V2.0 The new version doesn't have the cudart.dll file, but I had a version from when I downloaded the Viewer and so I'm Folding with that. I'll see how it goes today and tonight, after my son's Spring Concert, I'll strip out the V185 and install the CUDA-safe version.

Preliminary observations: 1) It's so weird to hear the GPU fan running with hardly any CPU activity; 2) on WU P5760r14c200g29, my percentage times are approximately 58 seconds, for 222 pph, or a little over 5,300 ppd; 3) the GeForce Control Panel sux compared to the Catalyst CP. I can monitor GPU temperatures and activity with the ATI card, but it must a separate download for the GeForce card?

So, add 5.3 Kppd and subtract 3.6 Kppd for a net gain of 1,700 ppd (althought that won't be enough to halt the advances of you, Plazzman! )

 

[jacobm69]

Almost 40 million points

From the looks of things, it appears that in less than 24 hours we should break the 40 million point mark!