Hi guys, I am new reader of Custom PC and after discovering the magazine last year I got involved with Folding in your team. I started folding about 10 years ago for another team, but after a few months I quit, I left my original team and I lost also my interest in folding. Now, after reading the folding-related articles in Custom PC, I gained interest and I started folding again, since last week more or less. I am completely confused about all the articles I am reading now on the Web to set up properly my rig. Actually, I don't even have a first idea whether I should fold using the CPU or GPU, and after 2 days reading and reading on internet I decided to register here and make my question directly to you. I have a i7 2600 cpu OC @ 100*45, plus ati 6950 in my main pc, which I use to work and which I keep on 24/7, more or less. Then I installed the basic folding software also on my laptop: i3 390M. I always read in the articles about users who produce a daily average of 20k wu, how is it possible?!?!?! At the moment I installed on both PCs the basic/standard version of the folding software and I don't even reach a fifth of that. Yesterday, completely discouraged, I decided to install on my desktop the version FAH6.34-win32-SMP. It seems I am increasing the WU production, but still no 20k per day. So, what am I doing wrong? I decided to ask you before making some mess with new installs and configurations and before reading again tons of articles without understanding what they talk about. Yesterday I followed the standard installation procedure indicated for the above mentioned version, plus adding the parameter -smp, if I am not wrong. But the speed increase is not so big yet. Any suggestions? I can't understand whether I need to fold based on CPU or GPU, and therefore which version of the program I need. Can you help please? As for speed and data production I think you can check my statistics. Thanks in advance!
Welcome to folding and our team! Just a few quick advices. I'm sure other members will jump in and offer more details. Laptop. Watch the temps very closely! Laptops aren't usually suitable for such heavy and sustained work. Of course, there are exceptions, very well designed laptops, with good cooling. I would advise against folding on a laptop (unless you mod it ). You'll just end up cooking it. GPU. ATi, ahem ... AMD cards haven't been so efficient at folding historically. Only recently some new methods of doing folding on them have appeared, that bring them closer to Nvidia cards. But these require a bit of tinkering, and for someone new to folding it may be too much. Just leave aside GPU folding for now. CPU. Your overcloked Sandy Bridge i7, that's what you should use! They're very good at it. I'm not sure how much it produces these days, but don't focus on pure numbers alone. It's the science that will benefit, with 20k, 10k, or even 1k ppd. Every contribution helps, big or small. The 6.34 SMP client is a good choice. Don't forget the "-smp" argument. Check in Task Manager that all cores are working at 100% load. If they're not, you haven't passed -smp correctly to the client. Most important thing with folding: watch your temperatures! I hope you have a proper CPU cooler and PSU. Don't forget to get a passphrase for your user. You'll start earning bonus points on SMP workunits once you return successfully 10 units. That's about it from me for now. The others will have more advices I'm sure. Fold on!
Hi, thanks a lot for the advice, I'll remove it from the laptop. But my registration to this forum must have been magic: only a few hours ago I rebooted the pc after some days, and only now the cores usage reads 99% on all of them (as I set it), including virtual cores. Something must have changed: since yesterday it took 3 minutes to complete a single 1% step of a 250k unit, now it takes on average 30 secs. Is it working? Seems so... My question was mainly if I have to use some GPU folding software or CPU folding software, but now it's pretty clear it will work faster in the future. Yeah that's right, it's a help for science, but you know...competition...I still have a very idiot geek/modder inside of me, and he is very interested in pure numbers... By the way, cpu at 61° on the i7, dont know on the i3, but I'll remove it, I need the laptop to work, cant cook it yet. You raised my curiosity: how do you mod a laptop for such a cpu intensive job? I am very happy every time I can disassemble and reassemble something, even if chances are it wont work again : ) still the idiot geek inside of me speaking. Tell me more about the passphrare please. I have 50 WU in 2 weeks for now, but no bonus. Does a bonus come in form of hot ladies? Greetings from bangkok!
Once you complete 10 WU's you can then apply for a Passkey. Once you have the passkey in your config you get bonus points my i7 in a server is getting around 8K PPD so you might be able to get a bit more also you could run big-adv which is around 60-70kPPD but takes a few days to complete. The faster you return that WU the bigger the bonus.
Hi pals, sorry but I still need your help: the pc crashed 3 times today, BSOD. The first time I was playing with frozen synapse and it crashed. The second time I dont remember, the third time I simply started watching the trailer of Hugo... Now I need to uninstall and reinstall it all again, but I need advice on the settings and parameters to use. 1 I can't understand if I need to decrease the core usage from the 99% which I set yesterday, or if I need to reset/decrease the cpu overclock. It never crushed before. 2 I sincerely need you to tell me what to select during the installation steps: where I need to change the default parameters, where I need to add parameters (-smp and so on), and other things I should change considering that it's been crashing many times today. 3 The WUs are working really fast, but the PC has become almost unusable in certain moments: if I start frozen synapse the audio has problems, it buzzes (like the sounds you hear in the intro screen of battlefield 3), and the game is not fluent, even loading takes more time, and eventually it crashes. Probably the same would happen with other applications, but I dont want to find out. I need my PC as fluent as before, plus folding using the 4 cores, plus a reliable version of the distributed computing software, plus no crashes. Thanks a lot again!
I forgot to mention that I need to know if there is a quick way to change the parameters without reinstalling... The cpu is pretty decently cooled, I have a cheap cooler master hyper 212 Plus which kept it under 40° until now, while computing it never goes over 61°, but BSOD is frequent. Even twice a year would be too frequent for me.
I believe one can apply for a passkey right from the start. It's the bonus that comes in after completing 10 WUs. Your i7 only does 8k ppd? It must be a low-clocked server chip. My slightly overclocked Phenom II X4 does 7k and a desktop i7 is much faster. On top of that, his 2600k is overclocked to 4.5 GHz, so it should do 15-20k easily. Bigadv is no longer available for i7s.
Well, tonite it's working fine, except I will interrupt it to work a bit myself. In any case I still have to find out how to close it. I simply close the console window, but at the next start I read a message within the lines saying I didn't close it properly. Now the pace is about 1 WU while I am watching a movie at dinner, so 2 hrs more or less. I cant calculate a precise daily output yet, but I am more interested in fixing it to have it working all day long, stable and reliable, while I use the PC. I also discovered how to change the settings: I edited the config file (I know what a dremel is...). But even reducing the core usage nothing happens, still 97-100%, so I am afraid if I start a game or some heavy application I will have another crash. What's the impact of temperature and cooling on it all? 61°C doesn't look so bad, but crashes are not a positive sign.
A few pointers for folding: With a laptop, you can set a maximum percentage of the CPU to use, so you may wish to do so. I'd say maybe start with 80% or so, then adjust as comfortable with the temps. Some good programs to monitor your temps with are CPUID hardware monitor and Real Temp. Information about getting your passkey: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-passkey Don't be afraid to check out other places/forums to find more information about folding. Here are some: Maximum PC - my home team [H]ard Forum - the number 2 team, but seem to have the most active forum EVGA - the number 1 team Overclockers.com Overclock.net Folding is fun and addictive, so watch out!
that's exactly something I am not able to do right now: I edited the config file and set it at 75-80%, but the core usage indicated on windows task manager is always 97-100%. Even if it's not due only to the folding, since it only uses spare cycles, I'd need to keep the total usage lower, i.e. folding+other applications under that current 97%. I wish my PC a long life...I like distributed computing but I still need to work sometimes.
As mentioned previously -get the passkey: http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/getpasskey.py You will need to reconfigure your client with the passkey. To edit the config if using the console put -configonly and it will be the third option. Then after 10 units you will get your bonus points, and your 2600k should do 20k+ a day depending on other usage. Now if you want even more points then you can run a virtual machine with linux.... maybe come back to that once you get your feet wet. Welcome to the fold.
You might find it easier to use the V7 Beta. It includes a GUI interface which can be more intuitive for some, and includes clients for uniprocessor, SMP and GPU, making it easier to try out different options without remembering the command line. As others have said, your 2600K @ 4.5 GHz should net you 15-20K ppd with SMP work units and a passkey. The passkey gets you bonus points for finishing a wu early, the earlier you finish the more points you get (that's part of the 15-20K).
Hi again, thanks for your help so far, things are getting better but not enough yet. I installed v7 as suggested. It seems the best version for me I have seen until now. My ppd indicated is between 19k and 23k, but I have a couple of problems to solve left: 1 BSOD: I leave the PC computing alone when I go out and when I come back it's frozen with BSOD. It didn't happen with the basic software versione before. It was producing less, but it was stable, no crashes and no problems with other applications. 2 Pausing: I cant pause the software, no matter whether I pause it or simply close it, when I restart it I see I have lost all the parts done for the current WU. Unfair... 3 Is there no user stats link on this V7 version? every time I want to check I need to use the one still on my laptop. 4 I am only using smp, the gpu was reaching 70°C, the room was getting very hot and I assumed the PC was quite unstable, so I eliminated that option. CPU@60°, but still unstable. Please help me improve my ranking : )
If you are getting a BSOD then your overclock is not stable. I'm assuming it's a BSOD 101 or 124, which will mean you need to increase the CPU voltage a little. I can't help with the other issues.
If you need to stop and start clients then the GPU-Tracker V2 is probably the best one to use. http://fahtracker.com/ There are varied opinions but if find it the easiest to use and seems to be most stable when stop/starting clients. It also is just tick boxes for all the options which makes it easier to setup.
It works, I will be soon in the top 1000 of the group, but my office room is hot like hell now, good for an Italian winter, but I am living in bangkok now, I hope science will really need this effort because I am frying. Could a small liquid cooler like H100 or H80 help?
No, it doesn't matter whether you use water or air to transfer the heat from your CPU to outside the computer, the amount of energy is still the same.
