Use F@H as a home heating system ?

[UltimateByte]

Hi there,

So... I started back folding for a weird reason, but might have gotten a good idea from it, that I would like to check for validity before widely spreading it around me.
It's cold in my computer room, because the radiator is right behind the PC and that I can't turn it on for that reason. So for a few days, I've been warming up the room with some stresstests (OCCT). Then I thought: Isn't there something that would make my components 100% usage but be useful? And thought about F@H.

The problem all comes down to one question:
Is a computer using X watts as efficient for heating the room than a radiator using the same average amount of energy?

If it is, then my idea to replace my radiator with one or several PCs running folding@home is great for winter! Uses the same amount of energy, and helps science, I would definitely recommend this all around me.

Would like to have your thoughts about it.

Have a nice day you all!

[FAMAS]

on topic of efficiency, computers are almost as efficient as room heaters. i vote for moving into folding@home as heater, which is also what i did on winter 2016.

[rwh202]

Depends on the source of radiator heating. A computer is just as efficient as a fan heater / electric panel heater, but if the alternative is a heat pump, then no.
Also, if your radiator is fed by a gas / oil fired boiler then that is probably more efficient than burning the gas / oil in a power station then transferring the electricity to heat your home via computer.

My home heating is electric and not been used for 6 years thanks to F@H (and it's -2 C outside today)!

[UltimateByte]

Haha.
Thanks for your feedback.

Well, I see I'm not the first coming up with this idea!
Yes, I can confirm that I was comparing computers heating to other electric radiators/heaters.

The reasoning behind this is quite simple in the end: Any current produces a proportional heat. If this statement is true, then there is no reason for a folding PC to be less efficient than an electric radiator.

I kinda approximated my room description, because it was boring as a topic introduction.
I've got a small 300w bathroom radiator that is right next to my computer room, and I leave the door opened so that it can warm up the room a bit. But without the PC burning, it was 16 to 19°C inside. While right now (afternoon), with F@H, it's 4°C outside, and 23°C in my computer room.

Got a friend that followed my way reasoning two days ago, he's got a flat with a big living room and 2 computers, one quite new with a 1070 and 4770K (overclocked) that don't use too much energy but got loads of PPD, and an older with an old I7 (980) and a GTX770 SLI, all of that being overclocked. Burn wattage is 770W more than idle for his two PCs together. He gets greater temps than with the radiator ON.

The only downside to this seems to be that it doesn't stop when it's hot enough in the room.

[SteveWillis]

My 6 GPUs make more heat than I need in the room so use a big fan to push the air out into the rest of the house. My wife does complain about the noise though. Different matter in warm weather when it ups the AC requirements and I'll run a window unit for that room even though we have central air.

[rwh202]

The only downside to this seems to be that it doesn't stop when it's hot enough in the room.

I've been thinking about a folding 'thermostat' - a couple of temperature sensors wired up to a PC or Raspberry Pi that can then issue a 'Finish' command to the folding slot nearest to completion. It would work better with the proposed 'streaming' cores than with WUs where it might be an hour before a slot could be efficiently paused, but could be an idea. Similarly, fire up slots when temperatures drop.

[Crazy-Logic]

I've been thinking about a folding 'thermostat' - a couple of temperature sensors wired up to a PC or Raspberry Pi that can then issue a 'Finish' command to the folding slot nearest to completion. It would work better with the proposed 'streaming' cores than with WUs where it might be an hour before a slot could be efficiently paused, but could be an idea. Similarly, fire up slots when temperatures drop.

This shouldn't be too hard to do. How good are your coding skills? I was thinking of something to do this, using php as the processing layer (i know not ideal). if you know the commands for the command line then it should actually be relatively simple. Fancy making a joint project?

[ComputerGenie]

Since you'd not want the same thing in the summer, you "could" do a piping system with "zone dampers", but it's likely to cost you more than you'd ever save.

[UltimateByte]

What you'd like to achieve would probably be easier with a simple $10 USB thermometer :p

@SteveWillis , is the big fan causing noise, or GPUs stock coolers ? Maybe watercool it

[owenr930]

I'm a little late to the party here but I am interested in this as a potential arduino project. I've been running folding at home at night instead of my space heater and it requires me to run a window AC to regulate temp. Im no master programmer but I understand c++. I can figure out most of this project except for the software control part. I need to know how to control the FAH app from a usb input (arduino). I would prefer that it wouldn't be intrusive to the PC's function (nothing will show up while it runs so I can use the pc while it heats the room). Does anyone know how I could go about this without mimicking mouse and keyboard controls?

[aetch]

I would suggest looking at a couple of things:-
1). The FAHClient can be communicated with directly using a terminal, this would directly control the client. I'm not doing this but I am using the advanced control on a Windows computer to control the client on a linux machine.
2). Use the shell/powershell commands, like powercfg, to increase/decrease the performance of the processor. Personally I just disabled the turbo/boost of the cpu in the bios.
3). The NVidia driver has a command line utility called NVIDIA-SMI which can be used to set the power target of your gpu. I imagine AMD will have something similar.

Something to bear in mind is that if you start/stop the processing core too many times it will simply dump the work unit and you may lose out on points. Also, there is a short period of wasted time restarting a work unit while it reloads into the system.

[bruce]

I live in a moderate climate so I don't need a lot of heat or a lot of air conditioning, but I've thought about the same thing. I have a gas furnace but have only rarely used it. In the winter, I like a little heat in the bedroom so I move one computer into that room and it the summer I put it in a room that can get a bit too hot for absolute comfort.

One thing to consider. If you fold with GPUs, the driver has a API that allows you to set a maximum power level ... within some allowable range. If you can talk to it with software, I might give you small power changes without actually stopping/restarting an active WU.

A couple of years ago, I had a computer in a cabinet. It needed a fan so I mounted a small one over a hole in the back and added a mechanical thermostat. It did keep the cabinet from overheating. I could also leave the doors open to increase the heat in that room.

[PantherX]

FYI, if you're going to be investing into a F@H heater, consider going liquid cooling since it means:
1) Less noise
2) More energy/heat being transferred out from the system into the rooms

Thus, you might be able to come up with a system that is silent but generates enough heat for the room

[owenr930]

I would suggest looking at a couple of things:-
1). The FAHClient can be communicated with directly using a terminal, this would directly control the client. I'm not doing this but I am using the advanced control on a Windows computer to control the client on a linux machine.
2). Use the shell/powershell commands, like powercfg, to increase/decrease the performance of the processor. Personally I just disabled the turbo/boost of the cpu in the bios.
3). The NVidia driver has a command line utility called NVIDIA-SMI which can be used to set the power target of your gpu. I imagine AMD will have something similar.

Something to bear in mind is that if you start/stop the processing core too many times it will simply dump the work unit and you may lose out on points. Also, there is a short period of wasted time restarting a work unit while it reloads into the system.

That is very good information to know. I didn't consider how stopping and starting might affect folding. I have tested in the past to see how much heat my cpu vs my gpu makes and the cpu wasn't enough to heat the room at all. So, I should be able to get by if I only slow the gpu. Would I be able to execute Nvidia driver commands directly from the Arduino IDE? Personally, I think it will be easiest for me to take a room temperature input and put it through an equation based on the desired temperature that will result in the new gpu power target. I just need to know how to control the power target from the Arduino IDE whether it is directly to the Nvidia driver, or through another software.

[aetch]

I can't help you with Arduino or how you're going to interface it with your folding computer.

There is a command line utility that comes with the NVidia driver called NVidia-SMI, it's comes with the linux and Windows drivers. One drawback is that it needs to run with root/admin privileges. I only came across it myself a few weeks ago.
A couple of pages from NVidia:-
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-sys ... -interface
https://developer.download.nvidia.com/c ... 367.38.pdf

You might also want to take a gander through what others have created to see if something already exists that suits you better.
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