Folding Forum

im runing 1 cpu and was wondering can you run multiple cpu's on the same pc? (multiple WU's)

also can i use GPU? if not why? will it destroy the pc?

i olny get around 69 points every 2 days atleast, how can i get those WU's with the Points, all i get is either 69 or 194 , fah core a4 and 78, howd i get different cores? and better points?

Graphics : ATI Radeon HD 4300 Series

PC:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2.70GHZ
RAM: 4.00 GB ( 3.25GB Useable)

Yes, you can use all of your cores by installing additional copies of the uniprocessor client. Make sure you don't just copy the folder that has the current client, as that will also copy over the same ID numbers, and will cause problems. If you install a copy fresh and make sure to give it a different Machine ID, there won't be any problems and each client will run separate WUs.

Regarding cores, the other cores are for different clients. Uniprocessor uses 78, b4, and a4 primarily (though a4 can be run in SMP mode), as well as some others like 79, 80, 7c, which may not be in use right now. a3 and a5 are the primary cores for SMP work (SMP uses all of a processor's cores to work on one WU rather than each core working on a separate WU). Cores 11, 14, 15, and 16 are used by the GPU clients. So, if you're running just the uniprocessor client, you won't get that many cores because your client doesn't run them.

Regarding higher points, you could try running the SMP client. You would only run one copy of it, as it would use both cores to work on one WU. In order to really earn points, you would have to acquire and use a passkey; all SMP WUs earn a bonus based on how quickly they're returned as long as they're returned before the preferred deadline and have a passkey attached (and if you've returned 10 or more SMP WUs with a passkey). Your CPU is rather old, however, in hardware terms; the Pande Group doesn't recommend running the SMP client on slow dual-cores, and based on its age your CPU may fall into that category.

Regarding the GPU, no you won't destroy your computer if you try to run it. To use it, you'd have to install one copy of the GPU client. You should take the following points into consideration:

1. The 4300 is not very powerful, and might miss some deadlines. I've seen threads about low-end ATI cards not being able to make certain deadlines. It's not going to do fantastic in the Points Per Day metric, either, because of how weak it is. As someone suggested in the first thread you created here, you may be better off just running the SMP client if it can make the deadlines.
2. All ATI cards from the 4000 series and below will be deprecated soon; currently the plan is for that to happen in September.
3. The ATI core requires a lot of CPU time to run (ideally it wouldn't, but unfortunately this isn't an ideal case). SMP folding would be slowed down significantly and I'm virtually certain you couldn't meet the SMP deadlines with 1xSMP and 1xGPU. You'd probably have to go with 1xUni and 1xGPU in that setup.