I just joined the folding team 93.

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited January 2005 in Folding@Home
I was playing around with the computer last night and thought of the folding thing. So I pulled out my laptop (Latitude CPi-A366XT) and read some things at short-media and downloaded the folding program from Stanford and set the computer up to run. To keep the laptop cooling fan from running constantly I set the processor load to about 70%.

In the morning I had about 14 frames done. Around 30 minutes per frame. This is too slow!

So I deleted and removed all folding stuff off the laptop and put it on my desktop system 1830 Mhz Athlon XP 2500+ Barton, 512 PC3200, NF-7.

Well, it works a lot better now, about 2-1/2 to 3 minutes per frame, but the limiting factor is heat. I've always had a stock all aluminum heat sink, and I could only run the processor at about 50% if I wanted the CPU temp to stay under 50 Celsius.

So I opened up the computer tower and made some changes. An extra 80mm fan blowing right at the memory, processor, and top half of the motherboard, and I took out one of the CD drive blockoff plates to strategically redirect airflow through the case.

I was able to take 3 degrees off the case temp and 3 degrees off the CPU temp with this modification.

But this will only allow me to run a little higher. With the folding, task manager, and motherboard monitor windows open, I can only run 60%-65% CPU load before I go over the 50 degree CPU temperature mark.

I need a good copper processor heat sink.

I don't know how long I'll do this folding thing with Team 93 (my user name in folding is Tim225), but I'll give it a chance.

Comments

  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Nice username choice, Tim! :thumbsup:

    Fold and slant on!

    A good all-copper heatsink for your CPU is the Thermalright SLK-900A.
  • PirateNinjaPirateNinja Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Awesome, welcome to the team! :)

    Thermalright acopper heatsinks are the best. You are looking at a 40$ investment to get one with a fan though. Good luck, and thanks for folding.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    I've got fans, I just need the copper part and hold down clamp spring.

    Anyone got a good heat sink to sell cheap? I'm going to go by a used computer parts store today, but I don't expect to find anything useful in my price range (LOW, I just WASTED $300 on bills again).
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Welcome to team 93 Tim!
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Tim:

    Silicon Valley Compucycle has a fairly new and very good HS they are selling fairly inexpensively (compared to many vendors) for this kind of HS cooling. It is a Copper BASE plate plus helicoil aluminum pin "multi-metal flower" type HS from Swiftech. Here's a link:

    http://store.yahoo.com/svcompucycle/swmcheforamd.html

    This one takes an 80 mm or 92 mm fan. I use its earlier version brother for Intel and AMD (they are out of the one I wanted to suggest, which is a universal Swiftech HS) and want one of the Intel variants of the newer kind for the XP box, the old one will stay in the Linux box. Read the info on that URL, it might apply to you if your board has lots of capacitors real close to the CPU socket.

    I replaced an all copper HS with this one, but it is kinda corroded so I will not sell it until it has been massively cleaned.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2004
    Thanks for joining Team 93, Tim! :)
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited November 2004
    Welcome to the team Tim,
    Try some Arctic Silver on your heatsink first, it might lower your temps just a little.
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    I went out and bought a new heat sink today. It's says "KWI" and "Kingwin" on the box. It's ALL copper and has an 80 mm fan. It looks like the Thermalright but not quite as tall. On the side of the box it has several model numbers, and KCU-7025 is checked off.

    I don't know how much better it'll be than the all aluminum one, but I'll find out this evening.

    I'm up to 165 frames out of 2500 on my first work unit.

    Maybe after the new heat sink is in I can crank the processor up to 100% and get some folding done.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited November 2004
    Welcome to Team #93, Tim. :thumbsup:
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    The new processor heat sink is in and doing well.

    With the old 19 fin cast aluminum unit, my temperatures at 50% folding load were 28 CASE, 49.5 CPU.

    With 50% load on the new 24 fin copper heat sink, I had 25 CASE, 43.5 CPU.

    With 100% load on the folding program, 27 CASE, 47.5 CPU.

    I don't know how good that is compared to a Thermalright, but it's a lot better than the old aluminum unit!

    Now I can think about overclocking!

    I'll have to download that thing that puts my folding stats in my signature line. I still don't know if I'll keep doing it, but I'll do at least one work unit if nothing else. I don't like the idea of leaving my main computer on all the time.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Thanks for joining the team, Tim!

    The vast majority of the folding team leaves all of their computers on for 24/7 with no detrimental effects. Is it an electric bill concern? A computer longevity concern?
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    I'm worried about wearing out a hard drive. That has my website and all the high and low bit rate episodes of "Online Video" on it.

    I have 2 drives, each with a full copy and I back everything up on CDs, but I still don't want any drive failures.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Actually, you will not be wearing the HD much. WU work uses mostly RAM, though a bit of HD space might end up being used here and there-- it writes temp files, and files that outline specs for WU, and sometimes a results file for a while if a server is being maintained or is otherwise unavailable.

    Here's what a 316 point p1310 look like, file size wise, in progress (I included the listing of the work directory, ignore the weird commands as this is the Linux box and I stuck the commands in also just for kicks:

    [john@john-mdk john]$ cd FAH4
    [john@john-mdk FAH4]$ ls -al
    total 7536
    drwxrwxr-x 3 john john 4096 Nov 19 09:30 ./
    drwxr-xr-x 36 john john 4096 Nov 19 21:50 ../
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 182 Nov 19 02:33 client.cfg*
    -rwxrwxr-x 1 john john 249236 Sep 1 18:26 FAH502-Linux.exe*
    -rwxrwxr-x 1 john john 31 Oct 12 20:24 FAH5Config.bat*
    -rwxrwxr-x 1 john john 42 Oct 12 20:06 FAH5run.bat*
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 2264152 Sep 1 18:32 FahCore_65.exe*
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 3154316 Sep 1 19:55 FahCore_78.exe*
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 60782 May 28 17:35 FAHlog_Prev100_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 75727 Nov 15 13:30 FAHlog_Prev87_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 56210 Oct 23 20:11 FAHlog_Prev88_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 94146 Oct 19 08:54 FAHlog_Prev89_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 32376 Oct 12 20:06 FAHlogPrev90Amber_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 30022 Oct 10 21:38 FAHlog_Prev91_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 151043 Oct 1 10:06 FAHlog_Prev92_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 79164 Sep 21 07:39 FAHlog_Prev93_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 57246 Sep 19 13:15 FAHlog_Prev94_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 297597 Sep 9 21:15 FAHlog_Prev95_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 384703 Aug 9 18:29 FAHlog_Prev97_linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 189897 Jul 28 22:00 FAHlog_Prev98_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 345258 Jun 26 12:29 FAHlog_Prev99_Linux_Northwood.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 54259 Nov 19 09:26 FAHlog-Prev.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 6218 Nov 19 21:45 FAHlog.txt
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 8 May 26 00:21 machinedependent.dat
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 1483 Nov 16 16:16 MyFolding.html
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 7168 Nov 19 02:33 queue.dat
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 160 Nov 19 21:45 unitinfo.txt
    drwxr-x--- 2 john john 4096 Nov 19 09:30 work/
    [john@john-mdk FAH4]$ cd work
    [john@john-mdk work]$ ls -al
    total 31904
    drwxr-x--- 2 john john 4096 Nov 19 09:30 ./
    drwxrwxr-x 3 john john 4096 Nov 19 09:30 ../
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 09:30 core78.sta
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 37694 Nov 19 21:45 current.xyz
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 7196 Nov 15 08:18 logfile_05.txt*
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 3105 Nov 19 21:45 logfile_08.txt*
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.arc
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 106916 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08.bed
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 174 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08.bxv
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 193 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08.chk
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 5958480 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08CP.arc
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 3019627 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.dat
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 09:26 wudata_08.dyn
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.goe
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 112112 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08.log
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.pdo
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.sas
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 50512 Nov 19 21:45 wudata_08.xtc
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 0 Nov 19 02:33 wudata_08.xvg
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 john john 23276189 Nov 19 09:30 wudata_08.xyz
    -rwxr-x--- 1 john john 512 Nov 19 21:45 wuinfo_08.dat*
    [john@john-mdk work]$

    ALL sizes shown are NOT in K, they are in bytes, 1024 of which go into each K. YES, the zero byte files are that size right now, they get written later for this project. The weird file names ending in Linux_Northwood.txt are actually back logs of work by this computer. The BIGGEST file is the .xyz file, and it is 22.197 MB in real size in true K. I'll let you add those if you want, but the total size is less than 40 MB (totals by folder are in true K). HD will not die for that. BUT, empty your Recycle Bin daily or every other day or so, ok??? Essentially, HDs that are warrrantied for year or three are typically rated for 1 or three years of comtinuous running in testing, and mfr's try for less than 1-5% returns depending on mfrs. HD will not die from folding alone, no way. Powering computer off and on a lot, unless you have lots of problems with power quality, is MORE likely to stress HD than folding.
  • TBonZTBonZ Ottawa, ON Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Welcome Tim! :wave:
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    When will my name show up in the short media statistics? I wanted to get the signature box but the list of 1111 names doesn't have mine at the bottom yet.

    You need to have your name on the list to get the signature box.
  • KingFishKingFish
    edited November 2004
    Good to see you joined the team Tim. Extra good to see the participation in the forums too! When you post your first work unit your name will show up in the box. You may want to allow a few hours of lag time, but it'll appear.

    KingFish
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited November 2004
    I heard once that FAH writes twice a second to the hard drive.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    Wouldn't the HDD activity LED be flashing almost continuously then? :scratch:
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2004
    I think it only writes at the same interval as your checkpoint frequency. In the graphic version this can be set for anywhere between 3 and 30 minutes.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited November 2004
    Well I read on the community awhile back where someone asked about why the network lights were blinking constantly because he had a diskless system set up. Then another person said or posted read/writes to a HDD with FAH accessing the HDD twice a second.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited November 2004
    The only thing I can figure is that in a diskless system it's writing to memory over the network.
  • TrinityTrinity UK
    edited January 2005
    Tim wrote:
    When will my name show up in the short media statistics? I wanted to get the signature box but the list of 1111 names doesn't have mine at the bottom yet.

    You need to have your name on the list to get the signature box.

    I know the stats server was down for a bit last week, but it looks like it's all working ok now.
    Once you've done your first full work unit you're stats should show up :)

    btw Welcome to Team 93 :thumbsup:
Sign In or Register to comment.