Folding@home Information

[Hobbs]

Hey everyone, thanks for taking a second to read this. What is Folding@home you may ask? Well let me explain to you. It is a groundbreaking project conducted by Stanford Universities Pandle Group.

Many people have had their lives changed by cancer, by participating in this you will receive no reward.. aside from the knowledge that you're contributing to a very good cause. I am by no means the end all authority on this so if you guys are interested, please check out Stanfords FAQ's and various guides. Anyone with a computer can participate, especially you guys that may game or do a lot of video and have higher end systems like myself. If you have any troubles finding anything or getting set up please feel free to PM myself. You don't need to join a team if you don't want to, and if we get enough interest I can possibly strike up a team for the forum, although I doubt we will sadly. If you don't want to fly solo I would recommend Overclock.net's team (team 37726), which is where I was introduced to F@H.

F@H Homepage FAQ

What, how, and why?

• What is folding? Folding is a worldwide distributed computing effort conducted by Stanford University to understand how proteins assemble themselves. The real world applications of this research includes potential cures for diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer, and Parkinson's. Nearly everyone's life has been touched by someone who has had one of these diseases or one of the many other diseases this research is aiming to cure. For more information, please see Stanford's Folding@Home website.
• How can I join a team? Simply go here, download the program, and enter a team number.

Folding@Home software

• Which operating systems can I use to fold? Windows (98SE through Vista), Linux, and Mac OS X.
• Which versions of the folding client are available? The list of primary clients and their uses are as follows:
  • Windows console - most basic folding client, can run multiple instances on multi-core CPUs
  • Windows graphical - more robust client with a rendering of the protein being studied as well as production info, can only run one copy per computer, can conflict with programs that use OpenGL for graphics
  • Windows SMP - for use on high end multi-core systems, has very short deadlines but is extremely efficient
• Now that I know what the clients are, which one should I use? The client you select can have a major impact on your production rate, and the selection depends on your system (i.e. specifications) and how you use your computer (e.g. if you leave it on 24/7, if you game a lot, etc.) The GPU client on high end video cards is the current fastest client. On Core2Duo, quad core, and faster AMD dual core systems, the SMP client is the most productive.
• Will folding slow my computer down? The folding application only uses idle clock cycles, meaning that if another application has need of the CPU, the folding application will decrease its usage until the other application's needs have been satisfied. The only drain on system resources is the RAM that's utilized, which remains utilized even when other applications are using the CPU.
• Why do I keep getting the same WU? Is it normal to get the same WU as someone else? Is project is comprised of thousands of WUs, so it is absolutely normal to get the same WU repeatedly on one or more computers. Each WU is a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

How am I doing? What are other people using to fold?

• The estimated time to complete my current work unit is 23 years. Is that right? For the first set of frames, the folding application estimates 30 minutes per frame, regardless of how fast your computer is. On work units with very large numbers of frames, this results in a very unrealistic completion estimate. Once approximately 1% of the work unit is complete, the estimated time to complete will be fairly accurate.
• How long should this work unit take to complete? Work units (WUs) vary greatly as does the time it takes to complete them on different computers. Some WUs will take only a few hours on high end computers while some low end computers may take a month or longer to complete a WU. Generally, faster computers will take between a day and a week to complete a large WU.

Help!

• I can't transmit completed WUs to Standford's server. What can I do? If you have successfully submitted completed work in the past, it is most likely a server error. Check this page to see if the server you're attempting to reach is currently up. Look in your folding window for the IP address of the server, find it in the left column on the page linked above, and check the status to the right. It shold read Accept or Accepting if everything is good on their end. If it's a persistent problem, the issue is most likely on your end. The most common problem is having enabled the Connect with Internet Explorer option. Run through the configuration again, selecting No for this option, and that should take care of the issue.

[K1024]

i say strike up a team for the forum and get them to give us lung cancer specific things...and say we do it as a charitable thing, would look good for the forum.

[Bye bye now have fun]

i was on teamhackaday back in the day. we use to tear it up, but now i have a 4 year old laptop so its not even worth it

[Giant Ninja Robot]

I...have...no...idea...what any of this means....

I'm 23, I'm supposed to be all technologically advanced and stuff....

[K1024]

essentially it is giving your processing power to someone else when you arent using it.

if you have multiple room mates this can be bad, because sometimes it uses some internet bandwidth...but not that often.

its to make it so that scientist can have a bunch of processing power to do complex calculations without having to buy that many computers.

if you leave your computer on when your not using this then this is probably a good idea for you, as it helps the community understand things.

[kbCorruption]

This is very easy to do if you have a PS3. Just download the latest firmware update and select folding@home from the XMB.

[Click]

I'll certainly help.  Should I be signing up as solo or will we have a group together and get a team number?

[Hobbs]

I'll certainly help. Should I be signing up as solo or will we have a group together and get a team number?

As of right now there is no specific "Hookah forum" team, it initially appeared to me that there would not be much interest, I'll have to talk to Mush or someone if there was enough interest to get it okay'd first.