Folding Forum

Hi! My name is Christian and I''m doing some research on f@h.
I'm currently on 3rd year of civil engineering and I would lime to test f@h in my university.
They have allowed me to install the client on 90 intel core i5 desktop computers that are used regularly through the day by students, mostly google chrome, word, some excel, etc.. Nothing too demanding.
I don't know which client to use as the single core looks very inactive and the smp2 looks too active.
I'm doing this as a stud to see how the computers can be combined to make one super CPU.
Any suggestions on which client to use? Any configuration? Thanks!

Hello baicunko, welcome to the forum, and to folding.

Your computers cannot be combined. In fact, Folding@home is already combining everyone's computers in to one big super computer, so no need for you to do the same. However, you might consider combining those computers in a team effort, either with an existing team, or start your own.

My recommendation would be to install the SMP slot option, and set the number of processors from default (4) on the i5 down to 3. This will reduce the SMP client usage to what I believe would be an acceptable level.

Another alternative, install 3 or 4 UNI slots per i5. You can select UNI during the installation, and then manually add 2 or 3 more. (I would only choose this option if the machine will only be folding part-time and missing deadlines become a problem.)


There really isn't too much to be customized in a standard environment like yours. The client was designed so the default settings are the recommended settings for most people.

Feel free to make use of the install guides, wiki, etc., or ask away here in the forum. We're here to help.

I'm not really sure if SMP would work here. Deadlines are strict and these PC's will only be online for roughly 8 hours. I think going with unicore slots is a better idea.

Small SMP packets usually have around ~6 days timeout and 12 days expiration. It's enough even for my Core 2 duo. Larger packets get longer timeouts. I guess newer cpus can get more tight deadlines, but are faster anyways.

JonazzDJ wrote:Deadlines are strict and these PC's will only be online for roughly 8 hours.

Do you mean 8 hours a day? I believe 8 hours a day will almost certainly make the timeout of an 8042 or 7809 for example. Even if only using 3 cores instead of 4.

Iceman: you're talking about a part-time quad or a part-time 3way machine. Part-time duos are more likely to run into deadline problems, though, that uniprocessor assignments don't run into, but there are wide variations in what "part-time" means plus wide variations in the speed of the duos, and sometimes that counts a machine with two virtual cores on either side of that divide. It's very difficult to make one rule work for everybody.

Well that depends on which ones they are. If they're from the Sandy or Ivy Bridge generation, desktop i5s are 4C/4T except the low voltage Sandy Bridge i5-2390T and the Ivy Bridge i5-3470T which are 2C/4T.
Or did I miss something?

Obviously it depends on the hardware. Let's say these computers finish the current SMP units in time, with 25 % of the deadline left.

What if next year, the PG releases a bunch of bigger SMP projects and they suddenly can't make the deadline anymore (last year a bunch of new unicore A4 WU's were released which were a lot bigger, some people who folded for years had to stop because the deadlines were too strict). I can imagine that F@H on these computers will have little monitoring, and these PC's might fail WU's for weeks before anyone notices.

I believe that in cases such as this, where whole schools/universities run F@H, people opt for unicore slots. Just to be safe.

JonazzDJ wrote:I can imagine that F@H on these computers will have little monitoring, and these PC's might fail WU's for weeks before anyone notices.

I believe that in cases such as this, where whole schools/universities run F@H, people opt for unicore slots. Just to be safe.

True. But V7 does have built-in remote monitoring/control. There is the option to configure them so all of then are seen from one machine, if that's possible across the university network.

You may have thought of this already, but be sure to set v7 up so that it starts hidden away in the iconbar. That way it's not intrusive to others. V6 was neat in this way.