Folding Forum

I am have a problem with my folding laptop receiving a WU. Its stuck in a "Assignment Wait" loop.
This started after I shutdown the laptop for a couple of months while we were away. After returning home and starting up the folding laptop it has been unable to receive a WU.
I was running version 8.3 I then updated to version 8.4.9 thinking that this would fix the issue. Unfortunately it did not fix the issue.

Here is the folding laptop logfile:

03:26:36:I1: Bits: 64
03:26:36:I1: Mode: Release
03:26:36:I1:***************************** System ******************************
03:26:36:I1: CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz
03:26:36:I1: CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 23 Stepping 6
03:26:36:I1: CPUs: 2
03:26:36:I1: Memory: 1.91GiB
03:26:36:I1:Free Memory: 1.44GiB
03:26:36:I1: OS Version: 6.8
03:26:36:I1:Has Battery: false
03:26:36:I1: On Battery: false
03:26:36:I1: Hostname: folding-laptop
03:26:36:I1: UTC Offset: 10
03:26:36:I1: PID: 1061
03:26:36:I1: CWD: /var/lib/fah-client
03:26:36:I1: Exec: /usr/bin/fah-client
03:26:36:I1:*******************************************************************
03:26:36:I2:<config>
03:26:36:I2: <!-- Account -->
03:26:36:I2: <account-token v='#######################################'/>
03:26:36:I2: <machine-name v='Folding Laptop'/>
03:26:36:I2:
03:26:36:I2: <!-- HTTP Server -->
03:26:36:I2: <http-addresses v='0.0.0.0:7396'/>
03:26:36:I2:
03:26:36:I2: <!-- Server -->
03:26:36:I2: <allow v='127.0.0.1 192.168.5.0/16'/>
03:26:36:I2:</config>
03:26:36:I1:Opening Database
03:26:36:I1:F@H ID = ####################################
03:26:36:I3:Loading default resource group
03:26:36:I1:Listening for HTTP on 0.0.0.0:7396
03:26:36:I3:Loaded 0 wus.
03:26:37:I1:Default:Added new work unit: cpus:2 gpus:
03:26:37:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:26:37:I1:OUT1:> GET https://api.foldingathome.org/machine/y ... yQVNRWHN3o HTTP/1.1
03:26:37:I1:OUT2:> POST https://assign1.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:26:38:I1:OUT2:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:26:38:E :OUT2:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:38:I1:WU131:Retry #1 in 2 secs
03:26:39:I1:OUT1:< HTTP/1.1 200 HTTP_OK
03:26:39:I1:OUT3:> GET wss://node1.foldingathome.org/ws/client HTTP/1.1
03:26:40:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:26:40:I1:OUT4:> POST https://assign2.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:26:40:I1:OUT3:< HTTP/1.1 101 HTTP_SWITCHING_PROTOCOLS
03:26:40:I1:Logging into node account
03:26:41:I1:OUT4:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:26:41:E :OUT4:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:41:I1:WU131:Retry #2 in 4 secs
03:26:45:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:26:45:I1:OUT5:> POST https://assign3.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:26:46:I1:OUT5:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:26:46:E :OUT5:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:46:I1:WU131:Retry #3 in 8 secs
03:26:54:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:26:55:I1:OUT6:> POST https://assign4.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:26:56:I1:OUT6:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:26:56:E :OUT6:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:56:I1:WU131:Retry #4 in 16 secs
03:27:12:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:27:12:I1:OUT7:> POST https://assign5.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:27:13:I1:OUT7:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:27:13:E :OUT7:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:27:13:I1:WU131:Retry #5 in 32 secs
03:27:45:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:27:45:I1:OUT8:> POST https://assign6.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:27:46:I1:OUT8:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:27:46:E :OUT8:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:27:46:I1:WU131:Retry #6 in 1 min 4 secs
03:28:50:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:28:51:I1:OUT9:> POST https://assign1.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:28:52:I1:OUT9:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:28:52:E :OUT9:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:28:52:I1:WU131:Retry #7 in 2 mins 8 secs
03:31:00:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:31:00:I1:OUT10:> POST https://assign2.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:31:01:I1:OUT10:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:31:01:E :OUT10:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:31:01:I1:WU131:Retry #8 in 4 mins 16 secs
03:35:17:I1:WU131:Requesting WU assignment for user doctorbob team 0
03:35:17:I1:OUT11:> POST https://assign3.foldingathome.org/api/assign HTTP/1.1
03:35:18:I1:OUT11:< HTTP/1.1 503 HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
03:35:18:E :OUT11:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:35:18:I1:WU131:Retry #9 in 8 mins 32 secs

Filtering for errors:

03:26:38:E :OUT2:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:41:E :OUT4:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:46:E :OUT5:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:26:56:E :OUT6:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:27:13:E :OUT7:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:27:46:E :OUT8:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:28:52:E :OUT9:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:31:01:E :OUT10:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}
03:35:18:E :OUT11:HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE: {"error":"No appropriate assignment"}


Here is the folding laptop information:

PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS"
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION_ID="24.04"
VERSION="24.04.2 LTS (Noble Numbat)"
VERSION_CODENAME=noble

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 (2) @ 2.401GHz
GPU: Intel Mobile GM965/GL960
Memory: 312MiB / 1958MiB


What do I need to do to receive a WU?

Currently all or almost all CPU projects are requiring a minimum CPU thread setting of 3. It may be lowered back to normal at some point in the future, the setting is a workaround for an assignment bug in the v8 client. Until then the T8300 has too few cores to get an assignment.

The whole idea of using these old devices is to keep them in use and out of e-waste.
Is the hardware specs of this laptop too low to be useful to folding@home?

Is the hardware specs of this laptop too low to be useful to folding@home?

I think the best answer is "almost".

As the retired owner of a Residential Aged Computer Facility, I am in general agreement with the notion of keeping old creatures active, but CPU Folding is probably not the activity of choice for elderly laptops. It is very expensive in electricity, and hard work for the relatively low power available, which means very long runs for much heat - rarely needed in Cairns, I imagine - and little benefit. I mainly have HP workstations, but back in 2020 I gave all of my devices a Folding Tryout. I don't have a device with the exact equivalent for your T8300, but I can bracket its CPU power with various devices I tried, using the CPU Mark figures as a guide to relative CPU power (1 thread/multi).

2005 vintage Dell Inspiron 600 with a Pentium M (1C-1T- CPU Mark 494 / NA). Practically unusable for Fah even in 2020. [1 WU 43 points]
2008 vintage Dell 910 "mini" with an Atom N450 (1C-2T CPU Mark 276/360) Practically unusable for Fah even in 2020. [1WU 132 points]
2010 vintage ASUS 1015PE EEE-PC with an Atom N570 (2C-4T CPU Mark 276). Practically unusable for Fah even in 2020. [1WU 223 points]

Your Core2Duo T8300 (2C-2T CPUMark 970/902)

2013 vintage Toshiba Satellite Z930 with Core i5-3337U (2C-4T CPU Mark 1286/2095), UB1= 111 WUs 102,466 points] (ceased 5 Jun 2020)
2016 Vintage ASUS UX305A with Core m3-6Y30 (2C-4T CPU Mark 1174/2177). UB2= 59 WUs 102,729 points] (ceased 5 Jun 2020)
2011 vintage HP Z600 with 2x Xeon X5660 (2x6C-2x12T CPU Mark 1350/10343). Z605= 233 WUs 1,461,241 points
2011 vintage HP Z800 with 2x Xeon X5690 (2x6C-2x12T CPU Mark 1709/12896. Z802= 205 WU's 1,243,253 points

That being said, apart from occasional use on weekends - mainly when updating - the only CPU folding I do these days is with Z605, and that is only because it is my usual workhorse and is switched on most of the day anyway so it might as well fold in the background. The Ultrabook laptops were never happy folding. UB1 lost its turbo along the way and had to be retired to light duties running the scanner. UB2 is my only reasonable modern and portable device, so it spends most of its life in mothballs admiring its new motherboard (not caused by Fah) and charging a phone. Two of the Z600s and two of the Z800s have GTX10xx GPUs in them and occasionally fold on weekends. Almost all the work is done by the RTX 2060s in the three Z440s.

The T8300 is getting close to too old for folding. It is old enough that it does not support AVX which is used in current CPU folding cores when available for speeding up calculations. There is a version of the core that still uses SSE, which the T8300 supports up to SSE4.1.

I guess it goes to e-waste then.

I am back up and folding again.
I updated the folding-laptop to a Sony VAIO with a Core i7-3517U CPU.

To safe much confusion a stated minimum hardware specification would be great information on the folding@home website or in the forum.