A few (stupid?) questions

[SPF1000]

Hi,

I am completely new to this and I have a few questions. Also I am very dense, so with that being said please offer explanations as if they were being presented to a class room of third graders during their show and tell, right after snack time A little more info: I have 2 older laptops that I would like to dedicate to running the software, but might have to pare it down in the case that its totally inefficient (I invite any and all suggestions)

1) First machine is a 2010 MBP with a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, outside of tweaking settings within FAHControl is there a way to optimize this setup to dedicate more oomph?

2) Second machine is a Dell Inspiron, how would I go about stripping it down in order to optimize it to function strictly as a folding machine? It has a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor.

3) The first machine runs high sierra, and the second machine runs windows 10, would I be better off running some Linux Distro on these babies instead?

4) My current ISP is X-finity and imagine it will be for the foreseeable future. They provided me with their equipment (ARRIS TG1682G) this was ~3 years ago. Any suggestions as far as investing in my own networking equipment, is it worth it in my specific case?

Forgive the cha-cha like questions, and thank you for the help!

[jonault]

WRT to your MacBook Pro, it looks like the 2010's had either a NVIDIA 320M or 330M GPU. I don't think either of those will support GPU folding, so you might as well stick with Mac OS X on that machine - you'll only be doing CPU folding on it anyway. I can't think of any settings you'd need to tweak on it, but you'll probably want to install some kind of fan control program to boost the cooling fans - laptops tend to run pretty hot when folding. Setting the laptop on something like a cooling rack that would expose the bottom of the case to some air would be a good idea.

[Jesse_V]

Hi and no worries.

1) There's not a whole lot of ways. The F@h software is fairly optimized and it should get as much out of the hardware as it can by itself. I'd say one of the most important things is making sure that it stays cool and well-ventilated, but that's good advice for any other machine too.

2) I don't think you need to do any stripping down at all. Perhaps the best thing you could do is make sure that it's up-to-date, it has the latest Nvidia drivers, and that you aren't actively using it or running other applications that can drain a lot of resources. It should be fine by itself.

3) Yes, Linux tends to work a little faster. It's more efficient and there's less bloat and garbage floating around that can interfere. I'd recommend Kubuntu or Linux Mint, both of which are extremely user friendly.

4) Xfinity should be fine. F@h shouldn't put notable load on your network at all. I will also mention that you can get your own router from NewEgg, Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, or any other store and then you won't have to pay for renting XFinity's equipment from them. That can get a little technical sometimes, so its up to you to decide if you want to go that route, whether your own router will do what you want and is fast enough, and whether its going to work for you.

[JimboPalmer]

Welcome to Folding@Home!

1) macOS cannot use graphics cards so the setup is simple, just use the CPU. (It is probably stronger than any of mine)

2) Windows 10 is fine, I would just use the CPU on this one too. (A log of this could prove me wrong viewtopic.php?p=261082&f=24#p261082)

3) Linux is a good investment on desktops with multiple graphics cards. I would not worry about it.

4) F@H is not all that network constrained, if it works now, it will work after.

[SPF1000]

Thank all of you! Very helpful!
I will see about switching over with Mint or Kubuntu in the coming days!
I'll have to scope the deals on NewEgg.