Folding Forum

I work in the IT office of a department at my university, and I was wondering what it takes to install FAH on maybe 40 computers? Is there any type of remote install available? Do universities generally have policies against such installs? Have there been any security problems in the past with FAH? Along the same lines, I've been wondering why universities, like mine, buy supercomputers but don't take advantage of the perhaps 2000 computers on campus that are idle most of the day, and never seem to get turned off. Is it just not cost effective? Or is it just that the university has no incentive to participate in something like FAH? I know these questions have been answered online somewhere, but I searched the web and the FAH forum without much luck.

Thanks

The first thing you need in this situation is to get written permission from the owner to install FAH on the machines. Once you get it, it will be time to wonder how you will install it

You might need to build a file to show them advantages in getting involved.

Someone in the IT department should be able to tell you what the university's regulations are regarding such matters. I wouldn't install it on a PC that anybody uses without their permission, even if the pc belongs to the university or is under their support. This is after you get permission from the university or IT department.
Looking at the campus I work on, there are also countless PCs left on continuously whether in use or not. They're not as energy efficient for large tasks as a supercomputer is, but as you noticed, they're not very good stewards of energy if they're left on all the time anyway. We do turn our computers off before leaving the lab I work in, but we're "odd" in this sense among our peers. It's ironic. The university laments the millions spent on electricity, and we estimated $15 to $20/month/machine in electricity based on the typical machines in our office. If the machine is on, folding doesn't increase the power consumption as much as an LCD monitor consumes if left on. I'd say petition for better power management schemes across the university, put them to use folding if they're on, or some combination. You're in a good position to do something if you're already in the IT department.

In thinking about the computer usage, I realized a key question is, can FAH run when no user is logged in, because that's the condition of most of the computers when no one is using them. And in a similar vein, does FAH run when I lock my windows vista computer?

I know these questions have been answered somewhere, but I can't find it.

Thanks

With the console client in service mode, it runs even when no user is logged in.