Folding Forum

Hi there,

I have tried to do a bit of research and am still dead confused! I am quite good hardware wise for a pc but software is hit or miss! I vaguely know what a client is but if someone explain it to me, it would be much appreciated. Also, what else do I have to do to setup.

Right, now after some thinking my main aim is to get my school to do this, there are tonnes of CPUs sitting around my school being left of overnight which could do something. The only problem might be is that half of the PCs are logged off. Can fah run with a pc logged off? Also, half of the school runs of servers, I think the servers are 12 core dell opteron or whatever the name is. Is it possible to put fah on one of these?

However, before I go to my school with the idea, I will need to understand it all myself. I will also need to try it. I don't have a very good laptop but it is alright and does get left on occasionally. It had an AMD turion m500 dual core @2.2ghz in it. It does get left on through dog walks which are an hour and a half and other time periods, how long does it take to complete one 'thing'? Sorry for my lack of knowledge here! What client do you suggest I install for my laptop?

Next thing, can someone explain what the pcs are being used for? Am I right in saying it is to do with the folding of proteins like DNA when it reproduces?

I hope this isn't too confusing, and someone can help me out! Any help would be much appreciated and I apologise for my noobyness!

Music Guy

Sorry, I got the cpu wrong on the server, it is actually an intel xeon x5660. They updated the servers not that long ago, that is why there was a cpu change. I don't know how many servers the school has though, will find out but it will have to be in a weeks time, am on half term! Basically my idea is to gather as much knowledge as possible about fah so that I can go to the school and ask them to do it and help them set it up. Please chaps, I really do need some help on how to set this up and explain exactly how it all works! Any help would be much appreciated.

Music Guy

It is of course possible to install a client on FAH servers which you speak, but before all things it is important that persons responsible are informed.
Must also give us more information about the hardware and operating system of the servers, so we can inform on how to exploit the client FAH.

Thank you very much for replying, it is much appreciated. The OS is windows server 2008 R2 I think...does that make sense? For permissions, am going to talk it through with my headmaster, he will probs be delighted as it is for a charity and it is something he can put as an advertising for the school. Will then have to talk it through with the head of IT as you need administrative priveliges to do anything so we will work it out toegether. Hardware wise, I think there are 4 intel xeon x5660 servers that just get left on all night doing virtually nothing. There is 64GB RAM that is all I can really find, will have a look in device manager to see what I can find, can put some screen prints if you want. Thank you very much for replying, it is much appreciated. Also, how would I set it up for my laptop? I can let it use one core but no more.

Music Guy

Right, I logged into remote desktop and took the screen prints, I hope they are good enough, if you want any more info, just ask and I will try my best. Here are the images, I hope they are good enough quality!

Edit, sorry, those images haven't worked, apparently I have to wait a day so will post them tomorrow morning. I can give you Hardware details if you want, just ask and I will try to find them out. Please help and thanks for the help so far!

For your laptop, the easiest is to install the client v7 beta, that is very simple to use.

https://fah-web.stanford.edu/projects/F ... etaRelease

At the time of installation, you must inform your username, the team that you want to join (if you want) and passkey (which you can receive by email). Then you must choose "uniprocessor slot" and that's all ...

For more informations about setup of the V7 client:

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/WinGuide

For installation on servers, I do not know if Windows Server 2008 R2 is ok for the V7 or SMP client most ancient ?

Other people will certainly answer that better than me about Windows Server 2008...

Thank you for replying, I actually just downloaded a client and got on with it! It has been going for a couple of mins and says 2/250. I think it is working, I think I just stuck it on one core. When checking the task manager, the fah doesn't leave 50% cpu usage so I'd assume it is using one core to its full ability. Am currently wrestling with heating problems...98C :S! I built a custom cooling stand about a year ago, am going to have to dig it out again! I am also running iTunes which seems to be using a lot of cpu power, it is sycing but is converting the songs down to 128kbps so that is using about 40+ % cpu. Will be interesting, will tell you guys how it turns out! I have joined a team, I work as a mod on another forum, have joined their team! We aren't the best of teams, we could do amazingly if we wanted but can't be bothered! I think one guy could pull in 250,000 points on his own in a day if he wanted! I think that is what he said anyway!

Don't worry about not knowing about the windows server, could anyone else help? Please! If I can get this going, I can get 4 Intel xeon 5660s going using probably 5 out of their 6 cores for about 12 hours each day.

Edit: Do you know how long it will take to roughly complete a wu on my laptop? roughly, just want to get a vague idea!

Music Guy123 wrote:Thank you for replying, I actually just downloaded a client and got on with it! It has been going for a couple of mins and says 2/250. I think it is working, I think I just stuck it on one core. When checking the task manager, the fah doesn't leave 50% cpu usage so I'd assume it is using one core to its full ability. Am currently wrestling with heating problems...98C :S! I built a custom cooling stand about a year ago, am going to have to dig it out again! I am also running iTunes which seems to be using a lot of cpu power, it is sycing but is converting the songs down to 128kbps so that is using about 40+ % cpu. Will be interesting, will tell you guys how it turns out! I have joined a team, I work as a mod on another forum, have joined their team! We aren't the best of teams, we could do amazingly if we wanted but can't be bothered! I think one guy could pull in 250,000 points on his own in a day if he wanted! I think that is what he said anyway!

If you are folding with the school's equipment you could always set up a team for the school, that way the school can always check on its contributions to this great endeavour of ours.

those x5660 servers should be set to fold using standard SMP, using either the v7 or v6.34 client, each should be able to do 2-3 work units a day during the week and 3-4 each day of the weekend. If you are looking for ease of use i would suggest using v7

I am currently using my laptop, I just joined my forum's team. We aren't great but we will get there, we design some of the most powerful specs so we are growing as more and more people find this! I will make a team for my school, but do you know whether putting fah on the server will slow it down or not? Will fah reduce its power need if the school needs the cpu when everyone is logging on all at once in break time? Thanks for the help, I can't tell you how much it is appreciated! Once again, do you know how long my laptop will take? I trust I can pause it at any time right?

Music Guy123 wrote:I am currently using my laptop, I just joined my forum's team. We aren't great but we will get there, we design some of the most powerful specs so we are growing as more and more people find this! I will make a team for my school, but do you know whether putting fah on the server will slow it down or not? Will fah reduce its power need if the school needs the cpu when everyone is logging on all at once in break time? Thanks for the help, I can't tell you how much it is appreciated! Once again, do you know how long my laptop will take? I trust I can pause it at any time right?

I can't really help with you laptop's times as I have not folded uniprocessor WU in a long time, it will also be depandant on which WU your laptop is running and its specs'

With reagrds to the servers F@H is only designed to use spare cpu cycles. If it needs to do something else then F@H just slows down. On my daily machine i usually leave SMP running even when I am gaming, The only thing i could suggest is trying it on one server and see how you get on. That way you could make adjustments before starting on the other ones. Or set each server up with a different number of cores running SMp and see how you get on. Don't forget to switch on hyper-threading if it is not already on.

Thank you so much, very helpful! Is there any reputation system on this forum so that I can thank you for the help? It is good to hear that f@H works like that. I am spreading it fast, just sent a text asking my friend to do it...he has a spare desktop and his sister suffers from a DNA problem so I think he may do it! Will see anyway! Thank you very much for the help! Will talk to my head of IT when I get back to school. Thank you very much again, have just completed 6% of my first WU!

F @ H will not slow down the server, especially if the client uses the CPU (SMP or uniprocessor) because it is low priority which means that other software can still use all the power if necessary.

For your laptop careful to monitor temperature !

Yes, have put my home made cooling stand on and have now got temps in the high 60s so should be fine! Another question would be, if I wanted to turn my pc off, would i just click pause work then turn it off? Also, how long have I got until it expires or whatever it is? Also pause when done, I am guessing that means don't start another wu when thins one has finished right? Have now completed 32/250! It has been going for about 4 hours I think now, and has got 13% Does that mean there is another 26-27 hours left?