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Only 210 out of 9598 people in the Team actually fold! I am shocked!

Discussion in 'bit-tech Folding Team' started by PcShedTV, 16 Feb 2016.

  1. PcShedTV

    PcShedTV What's a Dremel?

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    Yes, I am new to folding for this team but I am actually a bit shocked when I saw the actual stats for the team and find out that only 210 people are actually folding out of 9,598 members.
    http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=35947

    Now, I am folding for several reasons, some personal and family related but also because I love tech. I love custom pc and experimenting with different components and push them to the limit by overclocking, watercooling and by god have fun with it. Yes its costing me a bit in electricity but then looking back at the money i wasted for nothing, while this is for a worth while cause of actually helping to come up with a cure for several diseases which affect so many.

    When I set a goal, I follow through, hence my drive since i started folding back on 28th December 2015. Yes I have invested a fair bit of money in components to achieve what I set to do and understand not everyone can do that, BUT there are thousands of people who folded and contributed masses in the past for the team, so the question I have what has changed?
    Why so many just stopped overtime?
    What is custom pc and bit-tech team actually doing to promote and encourage new and existing members to fold?
    What about the top 10 members who actually contribute 16,870,700 ppd which is over half of what the whole team actual contributes in 24 hours?

    Now I understand why this forum in the folding section is so inactive with only a handful of the committed folders actual posting, giving advice and actually welcoming new members like:
    DocJonz
    kirk46
    Tattysnuc
    Unicorn
    Debs3759
    Scorpuk
    Saspro

    Is everyone in the team aware that in 2.7 Weeks, we actually be overtaking TSC! Russia and move up to 7th place in the world? Considering that only 210 members are actually folding, I think that is a miracle compared to other teams.
    And I am not silly enough to think that more members will mean more ppd, you just have to look at overclockers.com (6th) with their 117 active members out of 8,173 and they producing average 37M per day compared to our team of 31M points per day of which 16 million points are actually contributed by the current top 10 members!!!

    Is it just me, or this just feel wrong and something needs to happen relight the drive on folding. Please let me know what you think. Am I just having a rant for nothing or are there other who feel the same?:confused:
     
    Last edited: 16 Feb 2016
  2. johnim40

    johnim40 Minimodder

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    Hi Welcome

    Your going to overtake me in 5.3 months 10th place at the moment

    I have been folding here since 2008 i started with a ati 2400 pro

    I was producing 700,000 PPD to 900,000 PPD with 2 970s and 2 780s but had to cut the electric

    Im just folding with a single 970 now.

    John
     
  3. PcShedTV

    PcShedTV What's a Dremel?

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    Hi fella, Congrats on the 491,658,286 points you contributed since 2008 which is outstanding.:thumb:
    The 970 gtx is a brilliant folding card and my current favorite. You been doing this for a while, how come so many members stopped folding to a point were there are only 210 active?
     
  4. debs3759

    debs3759 Was that a warranty I just broke?

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    I can't comment about all the inactive members, but I would guess a lot had to stop because they can't afford the extra electric bill, or can't keep up with the latest supported hardware.
     
  5. DocJonz

    DocJonz Another CPC refugee .....

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    There was a thread this time last year that looked at some of the reasons; Surprised how quiet this forum is - I listed a few of the reasons in Post #7 of that thread.
     
  6. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    Two reasons why there are so many inactive team members.

    1) The team has been around for a long time in one guise or another, and people move on. Not everyone remains a hardware enthusiast forever.

    2) A lot of the interest in folding was drummed up by a couple of former Custom PC staff, who have long since departed. Since there is no longer any magazine affiliation and the current site owners haven't pushed folding, interest has dwindled.
     
  7. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    Add to that, DocJonz 4th point in the thread he linked to:

    I only dabbled occasionally, but even I noticed the electric bills increase. I sold the tumbledryer too, because you could stand in the kitchen and feed the thing £10 notes. Gideon's austerity measures have made us all a little more tight-fisted, and that trend has continued.
     
    Last edited: 17 Feb 2016
  8. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    Used to fold but it's a mixture of no longer having suitable hardware and costs that mean I don't currently do it.

    May get back into it at some point though :)
     
  9. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    I used to fold but never had a good set of hardware to make much difference. And the cost of electric didn't help either. I do now have the opportunity to cram some GPUs into a rig at work, but funding said GPUs is a no no at the minute.
     
  10. PcShedTV

    PcShedTV What's a Dremel?

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    From the messages and replies, sounds like i am trying to flog a dead horse here! Its a shame.
     
  11. javaman

    javaman May irritate Eyes

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    I've been folding on and off using NACL in Chrome mainly on my i3 2330m laptop when not at home. The biggest reason I stopped was simply cost. First I bought my own house and folded on and off mainly during the chimps challange but last year I took a wage cut from £19K to £12K. This has left me in a position where I no longer fire up the desktop at all any more because prolonged use is noticeable on the power bill. I only used it over winter as using it prevented the need to run the central heating just to keep me warm and the extra monitor came in useful. The ageing hardware (Phenom II 955 and GTX 460) would cost more to run and return so few points (20K PPD from memory), than buying a new GPU and folding on that.
    When my situation changes hopefully around the summer a new PC is on the cards. Even then there are a few other expenditures that may have to be made first.
     
  12. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    Thanks to DocJonz and a a bloody good deal gonna cram some GTX460s in a rig at work. Should churn out a semi-decent PPD.
     
    Last edited: 21 Feb 2016
  13. debs3759

    debs3759 Was that a warranty I just broke?

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    GTX460 will probably give 20K or less. I only get around 50-60K on a 580.
     
  14. noizdaemon666

    noizdaemon666 I'm Od, Therefore I Pwn

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    I know, but 4 of them at it isn't too bad as a start :D
     
  15. debs3759

    debs3759 Was that a warranty I just broke?

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    I wouldn't want to be working in that office, they are pretty nice room heaters :)
     
  16. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    Wow - only 210 of 9598 people - that's a meagre 2% of the people who have folded continue with it.

    I'll add a caveat to that statement...
    "... with the same team"

    I'm not sure if the number of users has radically changed who are involved in folding, but the number which Stanford quote on their site certainly SEEMS to be dropping. You know the one, where they say:

    Help us reach 1,000,000!
    Today we are 119,639 computers strong outputting 21,829 teraflops of computing power.

    I feel sure that that was over 250k users when I started a while back.

    I'm not sure of the reasons, I guess most are cost related, but also there have been fewer "experiments" lately from Stanford - like BIGADV. People invested heavily in that setup and while it was out there, it worked amazingly, however when it ceased, people were left with rigs which were being outperformed by cheaper GPU based rigs, leaving a bit of a bitter taste...

    I've tried debating the "how to we gee up our team" but been met with an almost stoney silence - I'd dearly love to get numbers up again. I saw real results when I was doing stuff over on Hexus.net (I jumped ship for a bit for a new challenge) and discovered:

    You can temporarily increase involvement by increasing awareness such as:
    1. running initiatives, such as the chimpchallenge
    2. doing leagues/ folder of the month etc. People have egos and they like to be recognised
    3. when the initiatives/"incentives" stop, participation stops.

    any analysis takes a great deal of effort to repeat. I used to spend hours pouring over datadumps to work out who'd increased their production rate most over the past X months.

    I decided I might use this as an opportunity to hone my SSIS and T-SQL skills and have been downloading daily the stats from Stanford for the past 3 years. Not every day, but 250+ days per year which is getting quite sizeable.

    One day I might even find time to do that piece of work.... one day....

    Tatty
     
  17. DocJonz

    DocJonz Another CPC refugee .....

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    In light of Tattysnuc's comments, point two from Shirty seems very apt.
    How do we get the team name holders (CustomPC and bit-tech) interested as a starter, so that there is more promotion from them on the web and in the mag??
     
  18. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    I think it'll be difficult. As far as I know, CPC doesn't any longer have a website or dedicated forum (good old Dennis), and I suspect David Ross doesn't really harbour any strong desires to re-affiliate the link between this site and the print magazine, despite the shared readership and subject matter...

    We are still intrinsically linked via the subject of folding, but I fear the most likely outcome in the long run would be the removal of one of the businesses from the team name.

    The best solution might be to rename the team without making reference to either business, and keep an informal link alive that way, but I don't know if this is even possible.
     
  19. davebodger

    davebodger My Dremel's bigger than your Dremel

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    Mea Cupla, I've not folded for the team for a long time now.
    As others have said the electric bill was getting a bit OTT and then the hardware demands to achieve a decent ppd meant I would need to replace all my kit as it became non-competitive.
    So I swapped over to BOINC where I use the same hardware to support multiple causes.

    P.S. I just downloaded the latest client and fired it up "for old times sake".
    The web control is suggesting I will get 20K ppd using 8 cpu cores.
    I'm not sure how long I will run it for, it's already pushed my cpu temps up to 70C from 50C.(water cooled)
    If the machine crashes then I'll be turning folding off again I'm afraid.
    In the mean time let's see how it goes.......
     
    Last edited: 9 Mar 2016
  20. Christopher N. Lew

    Christopher N. Lew Folding in memory of my father

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    You have to remember that the team is over 10 years old and that of those 9598 people many came for a while, then lost interest. Life changes and so on.

    I stopped because of electricity costs, and the heat and noise of dedicated GPU folding. And there was something wrong with the electrical wiring in my home, which no-one has been able to fix, so safety concerns.

    The ending of the BIGADV experiment put me off for a while.

    It may be me, but installing the v. 7 client isn't much of a challenge, unlike earlier versions. Perhaps I'm missing something.

    I may buy a GTX1060 later this year and put it in my main machine to fold in the background, but I don't have any plans for dedicated folding machines, even though my trusty MSI K9A2 boards are still in the cupboard.
     

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