Is my surface pro powerful enough?

[frizzylizze]

I just started folding, and I've got a surface pro 3 with an I3 processor, it's now kicking out a lot of heat and making a fair bit of noise, I'm wondering if my machine is powerful enough? I've got it set to light power.

Thank you

[ChristianVirtual]

Welcome to folding frizzylizze,

But to be honest: I wouldnt bother folding on a surface or as I did once on my Acer tablet. It works but not powerful enough. Plus I would worry if the thermal design is made to remove constant high amount of heat from the system.
At company I have a Lenovo Helix; that cute little guy even heat up just with Outlook or office. no way it would survive folding.
An i3 is a great processor to drive a number of GPUs for folding. Or to just run FAHControl and FAHViewer against some desktop hardware with bigger CPU/GPUs.

Do you still have a desktop around ? With a decent graphic card ?

[bruce]

A laptop with an i3 can do a limited amount of folding. I've got a couple of machines of that general class. The potential problem is heat-dissipation, as CV suggests. Many folks use a laptop tray or even bottle-caps to raise the laptop off the desk far enough that cool air can get to the bottom. Otherwise the fan runs continuously and will likely wear out in a year or two, not to mention accumulating dust in the narrow passages of the heatsink.

I've never examined a Surface carefully so I'm not sure how to compare it to a laptop. Does it have plenty of gaps where air can circulate [bottom, side, keyboard, etc.] or is it more like my Tablet -- pretty much fully enclosed?

[ChristianVirtual]

What might be a good option is the NaCL client; smaller Work units gives better control on how long the Surface should contribute on a daily base. Once we accept a work unit we also should finish it. Having there smaller amount of time needed is good.

Also the main purpose of a tablet is mobility. If you crunch like FAH your battery will run empty rather quick. So you need to plug mostly i to the wall. Which reduce mobility.

What PPd did you got until now ?