Folding@home: join the OA team

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is anyone folding?

folding@home

it can be installed in console, graphical, or even screensaver :D

if ur about to start...use 24 for the team number to join my team...the OA :P
 

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Physics news on Phys.org
Link broken. But you've got my curiosity.

I'm thinkin':
Folding: origami
Folding: a small town in California
Folding: a yoga technique for advanced 4-dimensional spatial travel
 
funny :smile: it's a distributed computing project which studies protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. You donate CPU when your computer is idle.
 
Monique said:
You donate CPU when your computer is idle.
I've heard something about this relating to the SETI project, but really don't know how it works. Can someone explain in simple terms exactly what goes on? Is it a guaranteed safe site (I got fooled by the BBC fake)? Does it affect what I can do with my computer while it's running? (Like, will it interfere with my own programmes or PF sniping?) What happens when I go off-line or have to reboot? I'd like to participate if the answers are agreeable to me. Thanks.
 
it's safe. I've been donating my cpu time to einstein@home which is a project running in a very similar way. maybe even identical, I'm not 100% on this. it will use the computing capacity you aren't using at the moment. obviously compiling large programs or doing something else that requires a lot of juice isn't going to run smooth with the project on but you can turn it off at any time. if you reboot or go offline it'll start the computation from where it stopped. you won't be connected to any external machines for long times. you just download a bunch of data, crunch it and send it back to the server.
 
I used to do SETI before but I've changed to folding, since it's more useful (I think).
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=41665
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&teamnum=41665&username=JukkaVayrynen
 
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inha said:
it's safe.
Thanks for the info.

Okay, Mcoy, count me in. Team 24, huh? Right. I'll go sign up right now, then go to work and see what's happened when I get home.

edit: No luck! The buggers don't have an OS9 version listed. It was in the FAQ section, but I guess it isn't popular enough any more. When I get home from work I'll contact them and see if it's still available even though not listed.
 
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Danger said:
Can someone explain in simple terms exactly what goes on?
A high fraction of the time, your computer's processor is idle. Hit ctl+alt+del and hit the performance tab and watch the graph. Typing this sentence, the usage on mine never went above 5%. Seti@home (the original distributed computing project) and Folding@home use that 95% that you aren't using.
Is it a guaranteed safe site (I got fooled by the BBC fake)?
Yes.
Does it affect what I can do with my computer while it's running? (Like, will it interfere with my own programmes or PF sniping?)
No. Newer operating systems are capable of multitasking, load balancing, etc. Essentially, the SETI or Folding thread is assigned the lowest possible priority, so it will always get out of the way of whatever else you are doing. Out of curiosity, I've tested my computer - playing games, running benchmarks - and there is no difference in performance of the system.

The one thing you do lose is the memory. I'm not sure about folding, but SETI uses 16 megs. On my system, I currently have about 200MB free, so its not something I notice. Unless you're short on ram, you won't either.
What happens when I go off-line or have to reboot? I'd like to participate if the answers are agreeable to me. Thanks.
The program is capable of being completely autonomous. It picks up where it left off when you reboot and downloads new data to analyze (and uploads the old data) automatically if you are always connected, or it warns you that it needs new data if you aren't always connected.
 
installed 'n' folding on my server (athlon 1.8 Ghz + 1.5 gb ddr2600)
 
russ_watters said:
Folding@home use that 95% that you aren't using.
It's good to know that you can set the max allowed CPU that can be used. For instance, I have a laptop and it would overheat pretty fast if I run it on 100% CPU all day.

It's a pity that universities don't install such software on their computers, hundreds of computers just sitting there doing nothing is a waste.
 
Many universities do run programs like this on the computers! They really pile up the 'work units' hehe. Others i suspect don't do it because if you allow the student body to use the computers and they need to do something processor/memory intensive, their programs will actually run slow. The thing with Folding@Home (ive been using for about 6 months) is that it will normally be unnoticable and take up about 200 megs of memory ( I think this is adaptive since it benchmarks your system to see how memory/processor intensive of a "work unit" to request from the Stanford server to send to yoru computer). The one thing though is that when I run games, Folding@Home will have a very large impact on its performance for some reason. Maybe the game isn't signaling the comptuer to cut processing power to Folding@Home or it even in "idle" mode, takes up a good deal of power... i don't really know.

Its perfectly safe... can run as a screen saver or a little program that goes into your bottom right thingy with the clock... name is skipping my mind right now... Its really great to have :D
 
Monique said:
It's good to know that you can set the max allowed CPU that can be used. For instance, I have a laptop and it would overheat pretty fast if I run it on 100% CPU all day.
Uh, that's not what I said - that was a practical example when 5% is already in use. I don't know if you can actually set it for a max utilization, but I tend to doubt it.
It's a pity that universities don't install such software on their computers, hundreds of computers just sitting there doing nothing is a waste.
Well, a computer probably uses another 20-50w of power with one of these programs running. For an individual, that's just a couple of bucks a month, but for a company or a university, that can be a lot of money in energy bills.
 
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russ_watters said:
Uh, that's not what I said - that was a practical example when 5% is already in use. I don't know if you can actually set it for a max utilization, but I tend to doubt it.
Ok, but I run folding@home and if I don't change the config it will use all the CPU that is available. There is a config window where you can instruct to only use a certain percentage of the processor available to it.
 
Monique said:
We already have a sticky set up in the biology forum that lists some other initiatives

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=22387

The PF team is 42986

For the stats
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=42986

Too bad I am the only on the team

Also, there's a bug with folding @ home and, at least, my ATI Radeon 9600 video card. I have the shut off folding @ home if I want to play video games. The video games minimize all the time if Folding @ home is running.
 
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I joined your team! .. It will take a while for my project to finish so I'm not showing yet.
 
Danger said:
The buggers don't have an OS9 version listed. It was in the FAQ section, but I guess it isn't popular enough any more. When I get home from work I'll contact them and see if it's still available even though not listed.
Guess I'm hooped. All they say is 'please consider upgrading'. Like I can afford a new computer.
 
monique said:
I joined your team! .. It will take a while for my project to finish so I'm not showing yet.

thanks moniq

actually i use it as a screensaver rather than the graphical clients...but its just as good :D

lol, and i dint notice the folding@home posted at the bio sections...

and i wonder...does the computer conume less power when not processing?
 
Hmmmm... maybe I should send this to our IT department here.
 
that would be a good idea... but am not so sure that would be allowed...
i tried to convince ma dad to put it in their company but it didnt turn out to be pretty...
 

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