Folding Forum

I fold because my PC at home sits idle most of the day and I'd like to be helpful if I'm paying for the power regardless.
Just trying to be a nice guy.

I fold because the wife asked me, "what do you need such a big computer for". I had to come up with a good excuse. So I started folding and told her I was a research facility <grin>.

Please pardon what is perhaps a blockhead question...but why fold? I don't need anybody to tell me that it is a boon to the scientific community and ultimately mankind and naturally the faster the computations can be done, the better. Other than that, is it just a competitive thing to see who can get their computer(s) to crank out the most points? Is there anything else to be gained other than bragging rights? I know I saw something about bitcoins somewhere but not sure if that was just vapor or not. Thanks for entertaining a newb.

Good that you missed the point to not mentioned that in cases people fold because they had/have family members or friends or themselves impacted by the diseases subject of folding. The other points you mentioned are still valid too. But I also admit that additionally I like the friendly competition within each teams and partially across teams. This makes it a meaningful "game" (not disrespectful at all!) . I honestly don't understand much about the science behind folding; not my area of expertise at all. But I'm working in IT and in healthcare industry so folding is a natural choice for me to increase my horizon ... Still learning ...

The disease you help to cure might be your own. In the US, 1 in 4 will die from cancer. Look around at your family and yourself. Which one do you think it will be?

If you had a chance to fight back, would you not take it?

For me, it's the scientific benefit. Once I understood how the simulations work and the necessity for the research, it became important to me. Secondly, I have hardware that is not used for all the time, and it could be doing something. When it's not serving my own purposes, I feel happy knowing that I'm doing something with what I have. It's nice to put them to work towards something, and I've decided that F@h is the most beneficial project I could put them towards. I also find the whole project pretty fascinating.

I fold because it is one small thing I can do to make the world a slightly better place for others. I consider it no different than donating blood.

I'm retired, and my desktop's CPU was sitting idle for 90% or more of its time… so it was conscience about that wasted computing power that started me off.

I thought about the searches for extra-terrestrial intelligence, extra-solar planets etc but, whilst a successful result from those would be extremely interesting, I couldn't see what use it would be, so I went for folding.

Now I quite enjoy the competitive element

I first read about F@H on 1st April so thought it was a joke (by habit, I don't trust anything on 1st April anywhere). However, I was intrigued as to origins of the "joke" and started digging. The next day, I realized that it was the real deal and joined F@H and successfully submitted my first WU on 3rd April

Since I never turn off my system, I liked the concept of putting it to work when idle for the benefit of humanity as a whole. Later, when it was time to upgrade my system, I decided that getting high-end hardware to increase my contribution to F@H felt satisfactory to me instead of having the high-end parts just because you can.

The results of F@H are freely available in the scientific community and there isn't any discrimination as to who gets it or not. Moreover, I know that majority of the WUs that I fold are unique to me, thus, in the bigger picture, I am represented individually.

First I saw Folding & Rosetta info at overclocking forums somewhere in 2012. I was interested but I was too lazy to try getting involved. Did right that time, because actually had no appropriate hardware for achieving points that allow me become a member of TSC!Russia team
Now, having a slow CPU and fast GPU, folding reduced my game-hours almost to zero. Folding motivated me to upgrade my graphics HW more rapidly than as it was for just games. In 2 years I improved computational power by 13 times!
I don't believe F@H would make new drugs cheaper. But it makes their invention possible.

I work at Stanford at the accelerator out on Sand Hill Road (SLAC) as an EE. I have been off work for a few weeks now (but attend frequent Zoom meetings at work). I still get paid so I do as much as I can on my computer(s) from home. I thought I'd contribute to corona virus research and so I installed F@H on both of my computers at home. I also read that there are so many people signed up for F@H that the total computing power of all of these volunteers is greater than all the supercomputer on Earth.

That last statement sounds nice. If these computers are anything like my two computers at home, they are sitting idle a significant amount of the time. While idle, these computers are still running and wasting energy. I don't mind my higher PG@E bill to support F@H (when the computers are actually folding) but I do not like wasting energy waiting for work assignments.

It seems as though F@H is a victim of its own success. Unfortunately, I am tired of having my two computers sit around, wasting electricity, supporting PG@E (we all love them, right?) and just waiting for work assignments.

I've hear all the stuff about bringing new servers on line ... yada yada yada ... but it seems to be just getting worse. Bring a lot of new people on line and make them wait.

I'll maybe give F@H a couple of more days before I uninstall it from my computers. Maybe UC Berkley has something for my computers to do.

Paul J. Stiles (stilespj on the SLAC team for now)

stilespj wrote:While idle, these computers are still running and wasting energy. I don't mind my higher PG@E bill to support F@H (when the computers are actually folding) but I do not like wasting energy waiting for work assignments.

It seems as though F@H is a victim of its own success. Unfortunately, I am tired of having my two computers sit around, wasting electricity, supporting PG@E (we all love them, right?) and just waiting for work assignments.

I've hear all the stuff about bringing new servers on line ... yada yada yada ... but it seems to be just getting worse. Bring a lot of new people on line and make them wait.

I'll maybe give F@H a couple of more days before I uninstall it from my computers. Maybe UC Berkley has something for my computers to do.

Paul J. Stiles (stilespj on the SLAC team for now)

Hi Paul, thanks for trying to contribute. A modern computer that is idle will use very little power. FAHClient will look for work which is a very short process and again will use little power. If you could post the first part of your logfile we may be able to provide some advice but I suggest you start a new thread for that.

I've been folding for the last several days with mixed results in regards to obtaining work units. "Modern computers will use very little power" ... compared to the max rating of the power supply installed. Max computer power supply efficiency is much much lower at lower power supply utilization. My two computers at home have been largely idle for a significant fraction of their power on hours. So much so that I have decided to no longer run F@ H. F @ H is installed and I warn others about what goes on here. Maybe when the F @ H has some respect for the people who volunteer their resources, then ...

Until then Pasta la vista (for those who like Italian cuisine)!

Paul

p.s.

There is nothing wrong at my end.

I will say that at YOUR end, if there is an issue of downloading or uploading work units or results, F @ H is very quick to give up (instead of trying again).

I first started folding in around 2011/12 I think the F@H client was v7.4.1 or something like and I was folding on the LinusTechTips team then kind of forgot about it for a while. While going through YouTube last October I noticed some videos that people built PC's dedicated to folding and I was like ohh shit, I remember that and basically the rest is history haha but this time round I set up my own team.

I fold because I like science and also I like PC's and tinkering. On my second outing with F@H I had 2 machines, one was Luna which still has the same hardware as I had in October and Terra which has the OC'ed Core i5-4690K but only had a GeForce GT 430. The main job of Terra was to be my YouTube and Netflix box but since getting back into folding I bought some more hardware over the months that includes a Dell OEM GeForce GT 640 (got a good deal on it) which actually did pretty well, a pair of Quadro K4000's and finally splurged on a pair of AMD cards, the RX 570 was installed into Terra and I got the 3rd machine up and running that has a Core i7-5820K and installed the RX 580.

I am planning more upgrades but need to save up due to being Furloughed here in the UK, hopefully will be back to work in a few weeks but we'll see.