New Members Welcome & Advice Thread

[metalop1g]

This, i can ask.

Do I have to provide admin login and password to setup an smp?
Would SMP be a great gain over 2 regular cpu client?

[snoro]

hi everyone, i have a old acer aspire 5520 with a amd turion 64 x2 @1.9ghz ( might try overclocking it if i can find some tweaked bios) with 2x512kb of cache, 3gb of ram a gefore 7000m and i want to run folding@home on it, should i run it on linuz and also with smp client and gpu client should i run on it ?

[metalop1g]

hi everyone, i have a old acer aspire 5520 with a amd turion 64 x2 @1.9ghz ( might try overclocking it if i can find some tweaked bios) with 2x512kb of cache, 3gb of ram a gefore 7000m and i want to run folding@home on it, should i run it on linuz and also with smp client and gpu client should i run on it ?

The gpu client often refuses mobile gpus... Just give it a try! Try with a VM before you format your partition

[Sparky]

This, i can ask.

Do I have to provide admin login and password to setup an smp?
Would SMP be a great gain over 2 regular cpu client?

I think it needs admin, yes. But it has been a while since I ran it. Like well over a year - at that point, SMP was a touchy thing and I got fed up with babysitting it constantly.

hi everyone, i have a old acer aspire 5520 with a amd turion 64 x2 @1.9ghz ( might try overclocking it if i can find some tweaked bios) with 2x512kb of cache, 3gb of ram a gefore 7000m and i want to run folding@home on it, should i run it on linuz and also with smp client and gpu client should i run on it ?

I'd be concerned about heat. Laptops don't have the best of cooling for constant load like that, although some do handle it OK.

As metal mentioned, F@H generally doesn't like mobile GPUs. But you could give it a shot. Again, I'd be worried about heat....

[metalop1g]

Again, I'd be worried about heat....

It definately hardware suicide if you decide running it 24/7 without a warranty.

[OldChap]

This, i can ask.

Do I have to provide admin login and password to setup an smp?
Would SMP be a great gain over 2 regular cpu client?

Smp is worth trying as it should give more points.

I too have not done SMP for a year or so but I seem to remember getting 2 lots of around 2k2ppd on a q6600 @ 3.5 ish

apparently there is a newer SMP now that produces even more but I am not sure of its requirements

Edit: what rig are you wanting to use

[WFO]

This, i can ask.

Do I have to provide admin login and password to setup an smp?
Would SMP be a great gain over 2 regular cpu client?

You have to know the password of the account you are logged into. If there is no password, you have to create one.

[snoro]

i haver took off the motherboard of my notebook specially for heat problem. Ill will try it out for a couple of hour and see what happen and if temp are too high, i can go get a normal heatsink. Warranty is finished and i dont give a damm about this notebook, all my friend have comp so none need one and i have a couple of other rig i can use. So i can just go format, get ubuntu and f@h try out the gpu client and call it a day ?

[metalop1g]

Smp is worth trying as it should give more points.

Edit: what rig are you wanting to use

While I'll not go into great depth about my project because it's legitimity has been questionned, they are e8400, no OC possible, and I guess I need to setup the client as a service. It would really be nice if I could setup a SMP because the file system would be simpler and the maintenance would be easier.
I estimate running time at 8h of logged time every day, and they probably run 24/7, if not they are shut down at night.

You have to know the password of the account you are logged into. If there is no password, you have to create one.

Response to both WFO and OldChap : The problem is that the login system is built by Novell and that means the password I use to login is not the real user password, but it only gives me acces to a certain file system that is centralized somewhere else. Nonetheless, I'll try by wednesday! I'm in a really long weekend

[metalop1g]

i haver took off the motherboard of my notebook specially for heat problem. Ill will try it out for a couple of hour and see what happen and if temp are too high, i can go get a normal heatsink. Warranty is finished and i dont give a damm about this notebook, all my friend have comp so none need one and i have a couple of other rig i can use. So i can just go format, get ubuntu and f@h try out the gpu client and call it a day ?

Give it a go but u might want to consider some other options, NAS, file server, web server, firewall, blablablablablaaaaaaaaaaaa. Scavaging the HDD is another option

If you're not concerned about your electricity bill AND that your power adapter is sturdy (24/7 use will make it DAMN HOT, strap a fan on it), fah is a great option. REAL nice option

[penguins]

on linux the smp client is awesome. windows i haven't gotten it to work ( 1 attempt while drunk )

on another note, i've been folding for less than 30 days how am i orange already :O

[snoro]

Give it a go but u might want to consider some other options, NAS, file server, web server, firewall, blablablablablaaaaaaaaaaaa. Scavaging the HDD is another option

If you're not concerned about your electricity bill AND that your power adapter is sturdy (24/7 use will make it DAMN HOT, strap a fan on it), fah is a great option. REAL nice option

for the moment my 500gb hdd is enough, so dont need nas, file server or web server, i also dont see the need of a firewall and the hdd is 1.8" 250gb so i better just let it stay there and use it for folding. just need to wait for my external drive enclosure cause the dvd is the notebook is broken to install linux and fah.

As for linux, i just go get ubuntu or any other linux, get the driver and fah and i am good ?

[metalop1g]

for the moment my 500gb hdd is enough, so dont need nas, file server or web server, i also dont see the need of a firewall and the hdd is 1.8" 250gb so i better just let it stay there and use it for folding. just need to wait for my external drive enclosure cause the dvd is the notebook is broken to install linux and fah.

As for linux, i just go get ubuntu or any other linux, get the driver and fah and i am good ?

Ubuntu and kubuntu are other light distro of linux. Might want to consider a console interface if you'r a little more into PC'S

[snoro]

i have very basic knowledge for command, script and stuff like that,i would like it to be as simple as possible so i can explain to other people how to do it also. Still i have to wait for April 13th before i can set it up.

[penguins]

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Folding@home


i have not upgraded to 6.29 yet, but this guide for arch ( one of the better distros IMO ) worked great for me.
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=11852 foldingathome 6.02-2
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=11964 foldingathome-smp 6.29-1

[Sparky]

To those who do linux,

I can't seem to wrap my head around it. I use it a little bit for some stuff like drive cloning and whatnot, but other than that, I'm useless with it. Guess I've used windows far too long

[jcool]

Err... guys?
I came back over here because someone over at WCG mentioned that FAH now works on 5870 cards.. so I downloaded the 6.23 systray client, but at startup it says "your GPU is not supported".
Do I have to add something to the shortcut? I forgot what it was.. been a while...

Edit: NVM.. check http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=248938
Any input appreciated. Claiming at the insane rate of 4500PPD
Poor HD5870... 3 Teraflops at 1Ghz core and it still sucks on FAH.

[MaximumPig]

Hello not sure if i should post here or in a new thread but erring on the side of caution

I am lucky enough to have gotten an i7 980X and wanted to give it some folding to do

I installed the SMP2 MPICH client following the instructions here ]
when i run the client i am getting about 8% CPU usage (in win 7 task manager) and it looks like only 1 CPU core is being used which is not what i expected

so my ultra-noob question is, in order to get multi-core folding going, do i need to install the client multiple times? or are there other additional steps to take?
from the instructions it sounded like the 1 client could run multiple folding threads but that does not seem to be happening for me. i did note that in the initial install.bat run to configure the client, it properly identified the 12 CPU cores (6 X 2 hyperthreading)

any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[OldChap]

Sounds like something is wrong with the config or flags but I am out of my depth with recent cpu folding....If no-one else has Ideas I will take a look after work

[p2501]

With a single Windows SMP2 client you're not going to saturate your rig, it scales not well enough and the points you get for watts used are mediocre at best. You need to run either purely on a3 Wus, a mix of a3 Wus and bigadv, or two bigadv at once.

To be able to answer whats best for you we'd need to know a few things here: Do you have at least 12gig of ram installed? Is your chip overclocked, if not do you plan to oc it?

[MaximumPig]

At the moment I have it OCed to 3.66 with plans to push >4ghz+ once I figure out how to OC an i7 system properly (last rig was P45) (and reseat my heatsink (air)).
I have 6GB memory at the moment, may get another 6.

I also was planning to fold on my GPU (ATI 5870) on the same rig if possible.

Thanks for your help.

[p2501]

Okay, since you're lacking memory let's try and get you set up with a3 Wus.

You seem to have installed the right client, what arguments did you pass on to start it?

(as reference, go to step 15. See that -smp flag? Instead, put in -smp 12)

Further, for receiving a3 work units, you'll need a passkey. Go here. You need to put that in the configonly step. Now you should have a working a2 installation. Once you have 10 a2 units on that passkey, you should receive a3 units which receive bonus points based on return times per wu.

Does the client use at least more than one core now with the smp flag?

[MaximumPig]

thanks again for the help

got a passkey, put in -smp 12

in windows task manager "processes" tab, looks like i've got
1 fah-mpich.exe *32 running (that's what i renamed the executable)
and 2 mpiexec.exe *32 running

weirdly, the reported cpu usage in win taskman for all three processes is 0 but the fah client is reporting progress and the "performance" tab in taskman shows what looks like 8 out of the 12 cores at 33-66% usage--assuming that's right it's definitely in the groove, or at least more than before. the only difference from before was adding the -smp 12 (i had a passkey already)

i've never seen a discrepancy like that from taskman but i don't often run cmd as admin--could that explain it?

also i originally had -advmethods but i removed that when i added -smp 12

should I re-add that flag?

thanks again

[p2501]

Yes, you can add that flag again. Without it it's possible that you might get a1 work units which are even worse for your rig. See any Fahcore_XX processes? Can you post your Fahlog so we can see what's going on?

My idea is that once you're running a3 Work units, we'll see about ram usage, and if it's possible we could add a VM with bigadv work to the mix to get those 12 threads really loaded up.

[MaximumPig]

i must have gotten credit for some sporadic folding i've done over the years because the 2nd wu i got with the smp client was an a3--and it's using 100% of all 12 cores:



now it's time to reseat my hsf and add that 2nd fan because this thing is cookin

if i wanted to add a gpu client on top of this what is the best practices for that?

thanks for the help