Folding Forum

Hello everyone!

I am new to folding as of a couple days ago! I have been doing some research on it and I decided that I might as well put my awesome computer (well it's awesome by my standards!) to work when I'm not using it! I look forward to participating with you all.

I have what I hope is not a silly question/problem and I hope I haven't mucked up my computer too badly. I am not that proficient as most of you are with computers but I am beyond the average person's understanding so keeping that in mind, I'd like some advice. The other day I started folding and I ran it on full. I was sure that there would be no problems with this as I built my rig myself (with a friend's guidance) and am confident in its abilities. However, about an hour in, I heard a loud click, then a minute later got a short whiff of a burning smell, then my screen went dark. BIOS started to try to run but then it failed. I panicked and turned everything off. Later I turned on my computer again to see how things were, it started up normally and since then everything has been normal. I've since then folded on medium which seems to be great but I am scared to attempt to run it on full. Do I need to be concerned by what happened? Should I open her up and take a look and if so, what do I look for and what steps should I take from there? Should I try running on full again and see what happens?

I'd like to be able to run on full so that my GPU can fold (it's 20% through a WU right now and I'd like to complete it) but I'm afraid of burning it up, if that's even possible.

Any guidance or help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
extrapale

Computer Specs: Intel Core i5 2500k 3.3/3.6 GHz, 4GB RAM, 32bit
number of cores: 4 i think, need help determining this?
GPU: geforce gtx 560
Network Connection: Cable
Operating System: Windows 7 up to date
Overclocked?: no
Stable?: yes
Software: newest.
What version of the core(s) are you using? not sure what this means :-/

Have you checked the temperature? And what is your PSU?

What version of the core(s) are you using? not sure what this means :-/

It's the FahCore version you are using. You can see it on FAHControl.

The i5 2500K has 4 real cores, no hyperthreading. http://ark.intel.com/products/52210/Int ... o-3_70-GHz

extrapale, just FYI, there are programs you can use to find out a lot of details about your computer's hardware. Speccy is one such program that I personally prefer. http://www.piriform.com/speccy Speccy will also give you hardware temperatures, which can be pretty handy at times. I'm wondering if this is related to temperature in some way, you might want to look into that, just to be safe.

I've never heard of a report like this before. I'd run it on Medium for now, which will use your GPU when the screensaver kicks in. If I had to speculate, I'd first look at the GPU, and then I'd look at the motherboard. I'd look for anything that looked burnt. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles there. I've felt that horrible something-might-be-damaged feeling before. I'm happy to hear that it still runs though.

A burning smell is not a good thing! Absolutely be cautious. No one wants you to damage your machine. Yes, I would open it up and check the power plugs on the MB and the video cards for scorch marks just in case. The loud click may have been your power supply shutting off because of excessive power draw. You may want to verify that you have enough power to run your computer with that video card and that your video card is not sharing a single rail with something else.

With that in mind, and after you have checked the stuff above, I would suggest that you start out with some real-time monitoring of temperatures in your systray. I personally use realtemp for my CPU and EVGA Precision to monitor GPU temps. I set Precision to monitor %GPU usage, GPU Temperature, and GPU clockrate in my systray so I can see those numbers at all times. Once those are running turn folding on full and see what happens but be prepared to shut it off if temps go too high (no higher than 80C).

I'd guess your power supply was overloaded and the circuit breaker prevented (or at least limited) permanent damage. Since you built it yourself, have you computed the required current draw at 12v and at 5v and compared that to the power supply rating?