Team Recruitment/Stats (idle members)

[rc1974]

I've been going over the team stats and comparing them with other teams(Top 12). We aren't doing too bad, but I think we could do better.

I've titled the post "Team Recruitment/Stats (idle members)" because to me, idle members are one of the main things that can and will bring Team Short-Media's ranking down. Both members above and below me in the rankings have been idle for quite some time and that is also the case for other teams they have been on.

Idle members do not help us one bit. Why have thousands of members when only a handfull actually do any work? Would a football team win any games if only a few of their players contributed?

We definetly need more members, but members who stay active and contribute WU's are what's really needed.

[Trogan]

I totally agree. I started folding and havnt stoped.

rc1974, your not far behind me :)

btw, good post mate

[rc1974]

Trogan_1000,

The same thing is true with the team members above and below you. Both are idle :mean: :banghead:

[entropy]

I was idle for quite awhile. I stopped just short of 25,000, in fact. Lately I've been folding again, but only part-time.

[Geeky1]

Whoah whoah whoah... no personal attacks here guys... I turned in a few WUs... in October... :rolleyes:

[rc1974]

Whoah whoah whoah... no personal attacks here guys... I turned in a few WUs... in October... :rolleyes:

no personal attacks intended. I don't think that having turned in your last WU on 11-03-04 is all that bad. :rolleyes: I don't know what type of computer you have, it could be slow or fast.

The types of people I am really talking about are the ones that turn in a bunch of WU's or very few and then are idle. My biggest complaints are with the members that join and turn in one WU and quit.

These are the members near my ranking as of 12-25-04/10:30MST

396- "trippin" last WU on 04-27-03 (not on any other teams)
397- "Paladin_Hawk" last WU on 12-24-04 (good active member)
398- "mslydell" shows 323 WU's done (nothing on when last WU was)
400- "requin" last WU on 09-17-04 (not on any other teams)
401- "Dusty" last WU on 05-01-04 (not on any other teams)
402- "x01" last WU on 06-19-03 (nick shows up on 3 teams)
:D One active member near me, no wonder I'm moving up so fast


No offense intended. All I am saying that it is not right for just a few members to be doing all of the work. Granted, some members may have created sub-teams or have access to multitudes of machines. Right now I am lucky enough to have access to three machines to do folding on. I have spare parts enough to build two more, but they'd be super-slow at doing WU's. If I am ever at a time where I could go idle for a while, hopefully I'll be polite enough to tell the team about it and why.

[mmonnin]

All of Geeky's computers are fast. He doesnt buy slow systems unless its a dualie, itanium or just for fun as a toy. Look at his sig for pete's sake.:rolleyes2

Some people come and go. Some fold for awhile then quit. There isnt much we can do about it except to try and make them addicted to is as much as the rest of us.:D

[Camman]

I'm adding my friends two brand new systems soon to my folding regimen, w00t. But I'll say personally that my gaming/main rig which is the fastest (AthlonXP 2800+) gets folding turned off quite a bit because of lots of problems; video editing, gaming, all seem to have problems that go away when folding is disabled...i usually try to remember to reenable it but I bet a lot of people will fold and then when they have a problem look for the first thing to nuke that they may have added.

On a similar note; anybody know why the Windows graphical client cannot run w/ BF1942. if I have folding running and I go into a BF1942 game, it works fine until it actually starts loading the level then it minimizes the game, i try maximizing but it just reset the rez then immediately goes back and minimizes the bf1943 window again, as soon as I nuke the folding client, problem goes away.

[Geeky1]

no personal attacks intended. I don't think that having turned in your last WU on 11-03-04 is all that bad.

heh. I was just kidding. ;)

As for computers... oh, lessee.. I've got a dual P4 Xeon system w/2 2.8 Xeons @ 3.2GHz, a dual Athlon system with 2 modded XP2500s @ 1.9GHz, a 2.6GHz Athlon XP 2600m, a 3.5GHz P4E, a dual P3 system w/2 1GHz P3s, a Dell XPS laptop with a 3.4 P4E, an old Sager laptop with a 2.4 P4, and a 466MHz Celeron system. :p

[Camman]

heh. I was just kidding. ;)

As for computers... oh, lessee.. I've got a dual P4 Xeon system w/2 2.8 Xeons @ 3.2GHz, a dual Athlon system with 2 modded XP2500s @ 1.9GHz, a 2.6GHz Athlon XP 2600m, a 3.5GHz P4E, a dual P3 system w/2 1GHz P3s, a Dell XPS laptop with a 3.4 P4E, an old Sager laptop with a 2.4 P4, and a 466MHz Celeron system. :p

what good does all this do us???



Geeky1 Last updated: Sat Dec 25 22:33:22 PST 2004

Date of last work unit 2004-11-03 22:09:08
Total score 9513
Overall rank (if points are combined) 33122 of 407405
Active processors (within 50 days) 0
Active processors (within 7 days) 0


I count 11 CPUs in that post about all your rigs...I count 0 folding.

[Geeky1]

what good does all this do us???
aaaaaaaabsolutely none at all :D

[rc1974]

All of Geeky's computers are fast. He doesnt buy slow systems unless its a dualie, itanium or just for fun as a toy. Look at his sig for pete's sake.:rolleyes2

Some people come and go. Some fold for awhile then quit. There isnt much we can do about it except to try and make them addicted to is as much as the rest of us.:D

I used to be active with Seti@Home, mainly because Art Bell talked about it on his show quite often. I was active with Seti@Home for about four years and then quit. Between the two nicks I use I had done 2486 WU's. The reasons I quit were that I was bored with it and Team Art Bell was very cliqueish. I know it was contributing to science and all, but I really don't think that aliens would contact us even if they do exist.

All being said, we need to keep active members excited about folding and try to get inactive members active again. :)

[rc1974]

I'm adding my friends two brand new systems soon to my folding regimen, w00t. But I'll say personally that my gaming/main rig which is the fastest (AthlonXP 2800+) gets folding turned off quite a bit because of lots of problems; video editing, gaming, all seem to have problems that go away when folding is disabled...i usually try to remember to reenable it but I bet a lot of people will fold and then when they have a problem look for the first thing to nuke that they may have added.

On a similar note; anybody know why the Windows graphical client cannot run w/ BF1942. if I have folding running and I go into a BF1942 game, it works fine until it actually starts loading the level then it minimizes the game, i try maximizing but it just reset the rez then immediately goes back and minimizes the bf1943 window again, as soon as I nuke the folding client, problem goes away.


I've got similar problems with F@H causing problems with games, but not so much video editing.

[Geeky1]

Although, to my credit, I DO have "SVHFH" folding (at least they should still be folding o_O) and that's 5 or 6 AXP 1800s, a 650 P3, a 600 P3, and a 500 Celeron

[rc1974]

:clap: we need to start folding more because as current stats go, Team MacOS X should be ahead of us within ten days and possibly ahead of SAGoons in 30 days. That means a drop in rank for our team . Right now it looks as if Team MacOS X is really churning out the WU's

So far we have a good amount of active CPU's at 1.154 per member. The teams either side of us have 0.695(SAGoons) and 1.209(Team MacOS X) per member. The problem is that are score per WU is low (36.52) as compared to Team MacOS X(48.20) and SAGoons(54.01).

:D One good thing, our team members who are active, are churning out the WU's. WU's per member are at 592 for us, 133 for SAGoons, and 201 for Team MacOS X. Points per member are good too, 21625 for us, 7183 for SAGoons, and 9712 for Team MacOS X.

[EyesOnly]

If we will talk about seti vs fah well then there's 2 reasons i don't run seti. First it's a high priority program. It totally knocked out my old p2 system and would prolly do the same with this one. With fah i can even game without turning it of. :)

The second is that i think that if aliens do exist and do visit us, telescopes wont be necessary to see them, a camcorder should do the trick. Untill then i'm putting my cpu-time on stuff that we know is real.

BTW even though i've been going strong for a long time lately i've began doing some heavy gaming which will take it's toll on my progress. Just so you know. Personly i think it's more important to figure out why some just fold for a while and stop that it is to find more members. What's the point of having lots of members if they just stop after a while.

Oh and one last thing: GEEKY1 GET THOSE RIGS FOLDING THIS INSTANT! :rarr: :D :(

[dragonV8]

What's the point of having lots of members if they just stop after a while.



I recall you making a simular comment over 6 month ago and rightly so too, EyesOnly. It appears to be a fact of life.

[mmonnin]

We score lower per WU because this time has been around for a much longer time, hence the lower Team number, 93. Points were much lower back in v2 of the FAH program. When I started I got a whole bunch of 2 pointers and 1.x pointers. Nothing even came close to the 600 pointers we have now. 5 points was huge back then.

[rc1974]

We score lower per WU because this time has been around for a much longer time, hence the lower Team number, 93. Points were much lower back in v2 of the FAH program. When I started I got a whole bunch of 2 pointers and 1.x pointers. Nothing even came close to the 600 pointers we have now. 5 points was huge back then.

I guess the case is closed then.

But still, low points in the past or not is no excuse for idleness. Good excuses are, gaming, crashed system, rebuilding system, etc.

One good thing, I'll bet it safe to say that we aren't the only team that suffers from idle members or what I've now termed pop-on/pop-off members (the ones that do one or two WU and then quit).

I just hit the 3K mark and I hope to hit 10K really soon. :)

[Straight_Man]

I've been going over the team stats and comparing them with other teams(Top 12). We aren't doing too bad, but I think we could do better.

I've titled the post "Team Recruitment/Stats (idle members)" because to me, idle members are one of the main things that can and will bring Team Short-Media's ranking down. Both members above and below me in the rankings have been idle for quite some time and that is also the case for other teams they have been on.

Idle members do not help us one bit. Why have thousands of members when only a handfull actually do any work? Would a football team win any games if only a few of their players contributed?

We definetly need more members, but members who stay active and contribute WU's are what's really needed.

I agree with that. That's why I'm doing about 2k per week of Folding points with my 2 P4's doing the work. So, id jdii1215 at Folding is back and has been since mid-October.

[gibbonsl]

Hope the Floding clients on my parents computers keep working

the one I have folding I can not keep on while I am deployed

total 3 comps folding

don't like running it on the on in the sig

the fans run all the time and it gets very hot, also it only uses 50% CPU :scratch:

[Geeky1]

it only uses 50% CPU because your CPU is HT, and do you use mobilemeter?

[TheGr81]

heh. I was just kidding. ;)

As for computers... oh, lessee.. I've got a dual P4 Xeon system w/2 2.8 Xeons @ 3.2GHz, a dual Athlon system with 2 modded XP2500s @ 1.9GHz, a 2.6GHz Athlon XP 2600m, a 3.5GHz P4E, a dual P3 system w/2 1GHz P3s, a Dell XPS laptop with a 3.4 P4E, an old Sager laptop with a 2.4 P4, and a 466MHz Celeron system. :p
Hmm... I think Geeky has some parts to donate to the SMX Project. (Or Rick's New Computer Fund) :D

[Geeky1]

bahahahahahaaahahaha... no. :p

[gibbonsl]

it only uses 50% CPU because your CPU is HT, and do you use mobilemeter?

Yes and Yes

[Geeky1]

//ot
well, what kind of temps do you get?

[gibbonsl]

CPU 50-54
hmm time to look into put AS5 on the CPU heat sink, and also clean it
HD1 47-48
HD2 50 even

ran folding in it before and the laptop temp increases 2C% but the fans are on high all the time

they get very annoying when they run like that

also i take it TDY all the time

gone more then I am here at home

[Geeky1]

those drives are running way, way, way too hot dude. I had that problem with a single 7200rpm drive in my 5620. Those drives are rated for 50*C max. Running them over about 40 is asking for premature failure. :-/

[gibbonsl]

trying them solo

currently the 60 gig 7200 rpm is running 41C

CPU droped to 47 too

whoever thought to put 2 drives, back to back in a laptop should be shot:(

will try the 100 gig solo tomarrow, need to transfer the os to it first

[shwaip]

just a heads up gibbons.

cash = money
cache = the memory used to store info temporarily for quicker access.

[gibbonsl]

just a heads up gibbons.

cash = money
cache = the memory used to store info temporarily for quicker access.

:scratch: where did i make that mistake?

[Geeky1]

sig

[gibbonsl]

Thanks and fixed

also transfered the OS to the 100 gig drive

it is running at 39C Solo

[miinkie]

On a similar note; anybody know why the Windows graphical client cannot run w/ BF1942. if I have folding running and I go into a BF1942 game, it works fine until it actually starts loading the level then it minimizes the game, i try maximizing but it just reset the rez then immediately goes back and minimizes the bf1943 window again, as soon as I nuke the folding client, problem goes away.

try the no-nonsense version

[miinkie]

my thoughts exactly

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24209&page=2

[rc1974]

:bawling: This is sad. I just did a count of idle members in the last week for our team. According to the stats at EXTREME Overclocking, 83% of our team members have been idle in the last week. Too bad it doesn't show who has been idle in the last 50 days, that would be more accurate, but I happen to think that it would still be close to 75% or higher.

At this rate and with my 3 machines(one running part time), I should be in the Top 100 in no time. :D

[Clutch]

F@H takes some dedication that some people just do not have. Then there are others who stick to it, and will continue to do so. To those that fold, fold on. To those that don't...WTF are you waiting for?

[rc1974]

F@H takes some dedication that some people just do not have. Then there are others who stick to it, and will continue to do so. To those that fold, fold on. To those that don't...WTF are you waiting for?

I agree, F@H does take dedication. It seems that the bottom half of our 1100 or so members are mostly made up of people who do a few WU's and then quit. Interspersed in that bunch are the few newer members that actually are doing WU's. I'm in the 350-400 range and even there, there many idle members. According to the charts at EXTREME Overclocking, I should be nearing the top 100 in about six months if my current WU output continues.

I thought I was going to have an extra folding machine, an Athlon 700, but I turned it on and the PSU let out the proverbial magic smoke :bawling: This thing was running as my main computer as of about 18 months ago, but who knows what happened between now and then. Time to investigate.

As for other idle members, what is up with "t1rhino" :scratch: who is 4th in the listings, but hasn't had any WU since 12-15-04? Either they quit or they've got one slow computer.

[primesuspect]

t1rhino lost access to his farm through no fault of his own.

[rc1974]

t1rhino lost access to his farm through no fault of his own.

damn! that's horrible. :( How many machines did he have on the farm? Did he lose it all of a sudden? I noticed that in August and September his WU output was phenomenal, then it dropped to a trickle in October. Hope he's able to get back up and running soon, but if not, he's done his fair share, unlike about 2/3 of our members.

[muddocktor]

T1's farm consisted of work computers and he had some nimrod asswipe complain about F@H keeping his processor at 100%, so his superiors told him to remove the client from all the machines. :rolleyes: I just hope the buttwipe that complained introduces a company-wide virus into their office and they can his ass. :D

All my folding basically comes from my own personal farm at my house, which I pay to run and build. It must be nice to be able to borg companies like other people have the chance to do, but that is life. I just do what I can to contribute to the project and the team.

[rc1974]

T1's farm consisted of work computers and he had some nimrod asswipe complain about F@H keeping his processor at 100%, so his superiors told him to remove the client from all the machines. :rolleyes: I just hope the buttwipe that complained introduces a company-wide virus into their office and they can his ass. :D

All my folding basically comes from my own personal farm at my house, which I pay to run and build. It must be nice to be able to borg companies like other people have the chance to do, but that is life. I just do what I can to contribute to the project and the team.

I've dealt with buttwipes like that before, but only on a smaller scale. Mostly I dealt with them when I worked at a local computer shop in town. They ran the gamut from the "anti-virus makes my computer run slow," to the "50,000,000 items in the system tray."

Two idiots in particular come to mind. One was a guy that was referred to us by his ISP. I went out to his house and found that he had a major virus infestation. This was in October of 2000. Luckilly I kept updated NAV rescue disks with me and started to disinfect his computer. However, I could have just nuked and paved, but he had "important" information :rolleyes: . After about the third hour the guy started to bitch. I call my boss on the phone and the guy just started a big fat hissy fit. The guy gave the phone back to me and my boss told me to charge the guy the standard rate for one hour and leave. That is exactly what I did. Come to find out, this guy did have anti-virus, but it was from 1997 and had not been updated since the initial installation. The guy also could not fathom how he could get a "virus" and why would anyone send one to him. :shakehead

The other idiot was this old lady that had a "neighbor who knows about computers." :rolleyes: This is also another virus story. She came to us with her computer that had a virus on it that she got from e-mail. We disinfected the computer, installed NAV, updated it, and sent her on her way. Everything was fine for about two months when she came in with the same exact problem and bitching about our products and services all the way. In fact, it was the exact same virus. I wondered, "How could this be possible?" Well, he know-it-all neighbor thought that somehow their ancient 1998 copy of McAffee was superior to the 2001 version of NAV that we installed and thus installed their AV, never bothering to update it. :banghead: Basically we disinfected the computer, left the neighbor's AV on the computer, charged full price for two hours labor, and sent her on her way. :D


Sorry for the long stories, but I hate computer illiterate buttwipes that think they know what they're talking about. I've been running F@H non-stop on three computers for two weeks and not one of them has given me grief. That idiot was probably some guy that read something on the "internet" that said if your processor is running at 100%, very bad things could happen. An ignorant... no stupid buttwipe like that is just the classic example of who would introduce a virus into the system.

---I found T1's story from October and what a bummer. :bawling:

[Gareth]

At this rate and with my 3 machines(one running part time), I should be in the Top 100 in no time. :D

I should be at about rank position 99 in 200 days. (It will soon be summer)
I'll let you know what it's like just to prepare you :p ;D

[SimGuy]

I would say that idle members don't currently help, but at one point they did contribute to the overall success of the team. Whether that be in small or large quantities, the fact remains that the help was there at one time and they should not so easily be dismissed.

Why don't I put my 20 GHz towards Folding@Home anymore? Call it a change of direction & a change of interest. The main thing is that these systems are being used for distributed computing, just in an area that more suits my current tastes.

Best of luck Team 93.

[muddocktor]

I would say that idle members don't currently help, but at one point they did contribute to the overall success of the team. Whether that be in small or large quantities, the fact remains that the help was there at one time and they should not so easily be dismissed.

Why don't I put my 20 GHz towards Folding@Home anymore? Call it a change of direction & a change of interest. The main thing is that these systems are being used for distributed computing, just in an area that more suits my current tastes.

Best of luck Team 93.

Yeah, their contributions are appreciated, but it would be nice if they were still interested in this project, as I feel it shows much more potential benefit to humanity than looking for ET or hunting for prime numbers or cracking encryptions, but that's just me. :) (No, I'm not knocking you for looking for ET, SimGuy! :p ).

I do know that some former team members never made the transition from the old Team Icrontic to here when Icrontic got hacked to death and Team 93 became Short Media. Plus, there were some issues on the inequities of points in the past that Stanford handled pretty badly, to be frank about it. Plus there were (and still are at times) severe server problems that might have turned people off to this project. Hopefully though, most of the bad issues are behind us and it seems like this last year or so that Stanford has wised up to giving better response from input from us folders and they've also upgraded the server hardware considerably too, for more reliability.

[rc1974]

I should be at about rank position 99 in 200 days. (It will soon be summer)
I'll let you know what it's like just to prepare you :p ;D

One of the machines on my "farm" is actually one I sold to my parents for them to use, so basically it is theirs. They don't mind having F@H on, but the problem is them keeping the computer on. It is one of the machines that I have a 600 pointer on, but I've decided to let it do the smaller WU's in the future. They are on broadband and I have RealVNC running on their comp so I can check progress. 2/3 of the time, even during the day, the thing is not on. They have the habit of turn computer on, write and send e-mail, turn computer off, twenty times a day. So, one machine in my farm will not be as reliable as I thought.

Howver, I did a parts inventory and I do have enough parts to start on three machines.

Athlon 700- needs case/PSU

Athlon 1000 Tbird- needs mainboard, case, PSU

Athlon 64 S-754- before I bought my board I am using now, a DFI LanpartyUT NF3 250GB, I had bought an Epox 8KDA3J. It still works, but it had a bios problem where "Cool n' Quit" could not be disabled properly and caused major problems. I keep checking to see if there are any BIOS updates to fix the problem. (needs CPU, RAM, case, PSU)

BTW- Simguy, I used to do Seti@Home and I had quite a few WU's for the machines I was using. Personally, I think F@H is a more noble cause than searching for space aliens. Let's see, have my computers working on a cure for Alzheimer's or listening to space static? What would I choose?

[mmonnin]

Bah, who needs a case. My dualie doesnt have one.

[rc1974]

Bah, who needs a case. My dualie doesnt have one.


I've thought of that before, but I'd have to re-arrange things a bit in the room where my machines are. If the board I had, which is an Epox 8KDA3J had onboard video, a wall mount would be way cool, complete with neon accents and all :mullet: .

The extra case that I have is one I bought when I upgraded from an AT case to my first ATX case. The problem with it is the only place to mount rear fans is above where the PSU sits. The case is pretty tall. With the problems I've been having keeping my current Athlon 64 cool, with a case that has the proper fan locations, I don't know if that old case of mine would work very well.

However, I might start looking up wall mounting ideas. :cool:

[mmonnin]

Mine just sits on top of a cardboard box.

[SimGuy]

Consider building a wooden rack-mount unit to house the different systems you don't want (or need) a case for.

Go for the gold.... set up a Yattamonster (or in this case... the STOMP Monster & Crunchy Hog)...

[KingFish]

Wow, impressive rack there simguy. It's much more organized than the mess I have set up that's similar to that. Plus I have only 11 computers in the casa. You sure you want all that going to SETI instead of folding? What are the specs of each mobo/cpu?

[entropy]

Hooooly... those are all yours SimGuy? :eek: And not Folding :( ;D

[primesuspect]

I don't think SimGuy is from OC HQ UK ;)

[KingFish]

OMG what a tease. :rolleyes:

[entropy]

Ah, right ... well I didn't ... wasn't ... d'oh >_<. Either way that's impressive :thumbsup:

[SimGuy]

No way. They aren't mine (but I'd love to own one or two some day).

Just some ideas for how to efficiently organize the stacks themselves for those who don't want to shell out the cash for a case for each system they build.

[CyrixInstead]

I live about 10 mins drive away from OcUK. You reckon I could sneak to the business park one night and do one with their stomp monster?? ;D

~Cyrix