New Members Welcome & Advice Thread

[Mpetrosino]

Once the WU is done it automatically uploads the results and then downloads the new WU. BTW thanks for joining the team

ok so if i stop folding tonight will it resume when i startup tomorrow? or does it just start over? This is a pretty cool idea if you ask me!

[=[PULSAR]=]

It starts off again where you left off. Also, there is a deadline for all WU's. If you load up F@H and it starts to compute an old algorithm and the deadline has past it has to acquire a new WU.

[cyriene]

Hi everyone. Just wanted to say I have started folding for Team Xtremesystems with my new 4870. Figured I might as well put it to work for something useful while my computer is on. I don't have all the super sweet systems that some people have here, but hopefully after I get out of school I can make some upgrades and crunch some more

[WFO]

Hi everyone. Just wanted to say I have started folding for Team Xtremesystems with my new 4870. Figured I might as well put it to work for something useful while my computer is on. I don't have all the super sweet systems that some people have here, but hopefully after I get out of school I can make some upgrades and crunch some more

[texnofobix]

Hi everyone. Just wanted to say I have started folding for Team Xtremesystems with my new 4870. Figured I might as well put it to work for something useful while my computer is on. I don't have all the super sweet systems that some people have here, but hopefully after I get out of school I can make some upgrades and crunch some more

The more the merrier!

[06F150fx4]

I recently started folding for Xtremesystems.

Currently my rigs are:
I7 920 @ 3.36 and a pair of 4850's
phenom 9950@ stock and a 4850(wife's computer)
phenom 8750 black edition @ stock with a 3470(server)
phenom 8450 @ stock with a 3300 igp(HTPC)
athlon 3700 plus @ stock with a 7950 gt

So my question is, how do i get the most out of these systems for folding? I'm running a gpu client on all of the computers except the 3700 and the regular x86 folding client for all of the computers.

I've tried to get the SMP client to work on my I7 rig but I cannot get it to work. Also I'm only running only one gpu client on my I7 rig due to it being crossfired.

Also, I cannot for the life of me get F@hmon to pick up my stats. Does it store the stats in another folder in Vista 64?

Thanks in advance,

Corey

[Sparky]

Stuff is stored in a weird spot in Vista. I believe it is c:\users\all users\app data\roaming\folding@home etc or something like that.

For SMP on the i7 you need to either turn off UAC to allow SMP to work (which you could install and run 2 SMPs on that easily), or I think if you just run the SMP client in elevated, admin mode it may work that way too. I just disabled UAC because it annoyed me anyway and I know enough to not get myself in trouble You could try doing the ATI GPU client on there too with 2 SMP clients running, the hyperthreading might allow for that to work. Just make sure to give each F@H install its own machine ID (so like 1st SMP is ID 1, 2nd is ID 2, then first GPU is ID 3, and 2nd GPU is ID 4). You have to kick the cards out of crossfire mode to have both folding though. Might need a dummy plug or a monitor plugged into the 2nd card to make it detectable by F@H as well. I'd recommend using rivatuner to kick the fans up higher to keep the cards cool.

Phenom rigs would do SMP as well. THe 4850 on your wife's PC could run the ATI GPU client.

A64 The 3700+ just a uniprocessor client, but it might not be worth the electric bill to run it. Now if it is already running for something, well, stick it on there

[=[PULSAR]=]

How is everyone folding their i7's? 2 smp's, 4 smps? Right now mines running stock @ 2.66 and making 4200ppd. That about right? Also on fahmon its showing one of the smp clients doesn't have a team assigned, I tried redoing the client config and still reads "0" an ideas?

[06F150fx4]

How is everyone folding their i7's? 2 smp's, 4 smps? Right now mines running stock @ 2.66 and making 4200ppd. That about right? Also on fahmon its showing one of the smp clients doesn't have a team assigned, I tried redoing the client config and still reads "0" an ideas?

I'm running one SMP currently and making around 2700 ppd. I've heard most people are running 2.

[Kondik]

I'm running no SMP's because an OC'd I7 can easily cast a shadow over fully loaded GTX295 in the amount of outlet yummyness
But when I tried it it worked with 2 easily

[WFO]

How is everyone folding their i7's? 2 smp's, 4 smps? Right now mines running stock @ 2.66 and making 4200ppd. That about right? Also on fahmon its showing one of the smp clients doesn't have a team assigned, I tried redoing the client config and still reads "0" an ideas?

I'm running 4 vmware Linux smps. It produces more than 2 with HT off in my limited testing.

[OldChap]

Something I've been meaning to ask for a while now.....What is the correct way to close down SMP (console) so that when you re-start you don't get the "improper termination" warning?

[WFO]

Something I've been meaning to ask for a while now.....What is the correct way to close down SMP (console) so that when you re-start you don't get the "improper termination" warning?

If you ask at F@H they will tell you Ctrl+C. Hahahahah!!! That always produces errors. And that's why I always run the -forceasm flag so it doesn't check previous shutdown. Others say reboot to shut down. That also causes me to lose some WUs. Basically it's a roll of the dice and a quick prayer anytime you shut down an SMP be it Windows or Linux. I wish I had a better answer but that's been my experience. I lost 10-12 smps during the race from shutdown/ restart problems.

[Marvin_The_Martian]

Yeah they are such bad people eh

Ctrl+c it is, and more importantly, if you had the issues, check taskman and make sure all fahcore_xx.exe are closed ( give it a minute tops to finish off, then manually close them if their not behaving ). Been a long time since I lost a wu on windows, and those who did, well some project's/clients/core's have checkpoint resume errors not related in any way to how you close the client. Like 590x for instance ( no, it doesn't mean any restart will produce an error, but the chanches are higher then normall ).

Never lost a smp wu on a vm with nf, but that's because I suspend the vm's not exit them, might be a good suggestion for your vm's as well. Also saves you the trouble of using usb sticks for checkpoint storage so it's win-win.

Seems I made a good decission btw, thanks for the laugh

[OldChap]

Not just me then. I always have trouble after ctrl-c....could be my setup but for example I had an SMP due to finish around 4am (local= 2 hours to end of race) on the last day of the race so I shut down the other one once it completed using ctrl-c and doing so stopped the first one too. so on restart the one I closed on purpose started fine the one I was trying to give more cycles to failed to find the checkpoint and started anew

The safest way for me so far is restart windows. ....go figure

[coo-coo-clocker]

The safest way for me so far is restart windows. ....go figure

++1

While not fool proof 100%, I rarely lose work when I use the windows shutdown technique and -forceasm.

FWIW, when I restart, I allow the first SMP instance to get fully working before I start the next. This seems to prevent problems with the occasionally buggy MPICH.

[MikeB12]

The safest way for me so far is restart windows. ....go figure

ME2....

I've played with cntrl-c and letting all the fahcore_11 instances die on their own in taskmgr before restarting, and 95% of the time I get "missing work files" and trashed wu on client restart.. windows restart works perfectly 95% of the time and the smp client starts right where it left off... when I was folding in XP, I didn't have as big of a problem, and cntrl-c worked a little better. but with vista cntrl-c kills it everytime almost.

[Sparky]

I stopped using SMP since it requires a stable internet connection and mine is hardly stable for more than a day or two. Aside from that, I've had no issues with it in XP or Vista.

[=SOC= Admiral]

I signed up although Im not going to have this laptop for long and am going to have an actual rig. My parents said i had to give them my laptop to build a desktop so how long do you think that took me to answer. I will also have in my possession my old Pentium III and matrox 500 box back soon and will make that a 24/7 folding box that i can add a third 120mb SD memory stick to. i should probably also do a fresh install of XP. But i know my dad wont let me do that. I am folding as =SOC=_Phenom_II. Do you think that the Pentium III will do fine.

[xguntherc]

you guys all helped me before when I was getting started. I'm now ready to continue. I need some help though.

I have Fahmon, I have systray GPUv2 might be a beta.. I don't know. it was whatever you guys suggested back a few months ago. and I also have downloaded then win 32 F@H6.22 Beta 2 SMP.. but I never installed that.


So, basically I now have SLI 260's. and I also have Water cooling. So I'm ready to start folding a little harder, and my system is much quieter now. so I can deal with it.

Basically do I need to get some newer versions of a GPU client. is there a good one other than system tray, or is that still the best way to fold. Also I now have SLI 260's. so do I need to run 2 clients of the sys tray GPU thing, or will it see the 2 cards and do it for me?? I have no clue how any of this works.


Also, when overclocking my cards, the only thing that matters for F@H is shaders right, so leave the core clocks on stock 576, but go ahead and Crank the Shaders to 1520+ whatever's stable. and leave mem on stock as well??
let me know guys. Also I have my quad at 4.0 Ghz. should I run a SMP along with my GPU.. or is 260's in SLI enough to pump some decent points? Whats the best way to do this with my system?????

[MikeB12]

here's the guide I used when I went multi gpu http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=568770

[Sparky]

I signed up although Im not going to have this laptop for long and am going to have an actual rig. My parents said i had to give them my laptop to build a desktop so how long do you think that took me to answer. I will also have in my possession my old Pentium III and matrox 500 box back soon and will make that a 24/7 folding box that i can add a third 120mb SD memory stick to. i should probably also do a fresh install of XP. But i know my dad wont let me do that. I am folding as =SOC=_Phenom_II. Do you think that the Pentium III will do fine.

The pentium III may pull more power than it is worth running. That's your call. Don't expect big numbers from it, if I remember correctly the highest work I got out of my old PIII a while ago was like 60 PPD. So it is your call on whether the electric usage is worth it or not to you.

So I'm confused a little, looking at your avatar then looking at your folding username, what system you going for?

[=SOC= Admiral]

Well what i want is for it to do just a bit more before i completely retire the thing. I know my ppd wont be good it an ancient slot processor. But hell it might as well do something while it sits there gathering dust. Come on live for 1 more year and became 12 years old.

[coo-coo-clocker]

it's a waste of electricity. Really. Take that thing out back and put it to rest. Then put that i7 to FOLDIN'!

[GTSRboy]

Question:

What is the diffrence between a PS3 work unit sized of 100k-1.2 million, a GPU work unit of 10k-15k, and a CPU work unit of 1k-1.5k? Are they all the same work units (in size) or are PS3 work units wayyy bigger than CPU work units?

My 9800GTX+ is folding (as far as work units go) about 10 times faster than my Q9300, its done 5 in the time my Q9300 went from 50%-95%, im wondering if its tackling the same dificulty of work unit