T93 October Challenge!!

the_technocrat

I figure we can probably start pulling on ARS and 2CPU pretty good if everyone gets 1 person to start folding for T93.

This would also cut the advances of CustomPC and ABX.

I just ordered a Dell C2D laptop for my brother. I'll install FAH as a servicex2 when I install OpenOffice, AdAware, etc. for him.

WHAT ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE? YOU'VE GOT 3 WEEKS, Post when you find ONE machine and install FAH on it! (Don't forget to set your username/team #!!!)

(I'd suggest installing the FAH screen saver for someone who's not in-the-know or new to FAH)

Minimum spec's:

at least 1.7Ghz
at least 512MB RAM
at least 20GB Hard drive

These probably shoudn't count:

Getting an SMx rig back online
Claiming some random new person who posts to the 'Who are you' forum as your 1 new folding machine...
someone who was already folding for T93 when this thread was posted



Of course, if you do get someone to join T93 between now and Nov. 1, instead of just getting another box under your own name...good job!

Ready? Go!
:smokin:

the_technocrat

Post in this thread when you get a machine installed and folding under T93, and I'll add you to:


THE T93 OCTOBER CHALLENGE WINNERS
cores username

85 thermalfish
07 primesuspect
06 qch2002
03 buddha16
02 sledgehammer70
02 lemonlime
02 the_technocrat
02 datsun1600
02 mirage
01 clutch
01 jared
01 donut
01 ultra nexus

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
(but feel free to keep going... )


Goal: 100 new cores folding for Team93
Days to reach goal: 21
Avg. machines needed per day: 4.76

% of goal completed: 115% (115/100 new cores)
% of time elapsed: 90.5% (19/21 days)
Status: WE MADE IT! WE'RE IN GOLDEN TIME NOW!
updated 10/29/06

A huge thanks goes out to thermalfish, who cranked up a whole lotta cores for Team93, as well as the rest of us who managed to find quite a few more ways to 'fold for the cure'!

:thumbup :thumbup :thumbup
:celebrate

Clutch

I will be installing the F@H client on my sisters new E-machines computer she got tonight. I will also be working on getting my spare computer back up and running tonight. Fold on guys!

airbornflght

we can do this, I would like to see us back in the top 10. I'm waiting for a response to an email I sent to our schools it director. I didnt get it sent until monday, so he should be getting a response sent to me. if not I will em ail him again and see what the deal is.

If he does it, I could have upwards of 1200 computers. now, they all dont run at the same time, all day long, but they probably run 3-5 hours a day. Even so, if they put it on the blades and the other servers that would be awesome, though I doubt they will put it on the blades, because they run vmWare and for some reason they are real protective of them. I'd like to see them give me 2-4 labs of computers.

muddocktor

Hopefully when I get back in from the rig, I will be able to check on a few old borgs that don't seem to be producing. Plus, I might just loan a cheap thumbdrive to a friend so he can get his machine folding too, since he has no net connection at the house. He's hurting pretty badly for money now because he's lost most of his eyesight due to a genetic disease and has to get by mainly on social security now. He does have internet access at the church he goes to and he can download and upload work off the thumbdrive there.

the_technocrat

airbornflght wrote:

we can do this, I would like to see us back in the top 10. I'm waiting for a response to an email I sent to our schools it director. I didnt get it sent until monday, so he should be getting a response sent to me. if not I will em ail him again and see what the deal is.

If he does it, I could have upwards of 1200 computers. now, they all dont run at the same time, all day long, but they probably run 3-5 hours a day. Even so, if they put it on the blades and the other servers that would be awesome, though I doubt they will put it on the blades, because they run vmWare and for some reason they are real protective of them. I'd like to see them give me 2-4 labs of computers.

That's basically what I have going on. 4 30-machine labs + all of the faculty machines in the classrooms that stay on 24/7 (about 100-125)

I have FAH installed on about 100 more machines, but they are hardly ever on, or are library laptops that usually only run on battery.

Good luck!!

primesuspect

I got one of my co-workers folding

lemonlime

Just setup a Dell workstation for my parents last night! Should be seeing a nice boost in my production starting.. probably today D820 dual core too.

the_technocrat

lemonlime wrote:

Just setup a Dell workstation for my parents last night! Should be seeing a nice boost in my production starting.. probably today D820 dual core too.

set up for both cores? or just one?

the_technocrat

primesuspect wrote:

I got one of my co-workers folding

nice!

mirage

profdlp wrote:

Are you comparing your results to those of people over their entire Folding lifetime, or just recent WU's?

Years back, WU's had a much lower point value - some even as low as a fraction of a single points. If you see a long-time member with thousands of WU's but a low Point:WU ratio, it probably means that they piled up a lot of those one and two pointers in the early days.

As for current WU's, those come in cycles and can vary at different times for different members. I have some machines which are getting thses measly 44-point WU's which do not do well on AMD machines.

Of course, you may be looking at teammates who have not fully optimized their rig(s), in which case any advice you could give would be much appreciated.

If we look at the latest super stars TT, Shalimar, Datsun1600:

TT: ~178 points/WU with 236 processors - 46 daily-points/CPU
Shalimar: ~316 points/WU with 28 CPUs - 85 daily-points/CPU
Datsun 1600: ~199 points/WU with 14 processors - 221 daily-points/CPU

On the other hand I have ~412 points/WU with 11 processors - 160 daily-points/CPU

I think Datsun1600 has the most efficient setup based on daily-points/CPU

The CPU speed is the most important factor here. So, here are my processors: 3x P4-3.0GHz, 1x P4-2.66GHz, 1x PD-3.5GHz, 1x A64X2-2.6Ghz, 1x PM-2.0GHz, 1x AXP-2.4GHz, 1x PIII-1.3GHz. My processors vary in performance in a wide range; upto 4x difference between the slowest and fastest.

I did not enable advanced methods and no-time-limit jobs, as I could not see the benefit of this from my own experience. And my common config file is as follows,

[settings]
username=gungor
team=93
asknet=no
bigpackets=yes
machineid=x
local=xxx

[http]
active=no
host=localhost
port=8080
usereg=no

[clienttype]
type=1

If others can also pitch in, maybe we can find out the most efficient FAH configurations. Shall we try to converge on three optimal FAH configurations for powerful, moderate, and slow processors? Maybe we can increase the team's output by doing this.

the_technocrat

I know I could do a lot better with optimizations. I was VERY conservative with my client settings when I rolled out, since this is to a production environment. I think it's safe to say the machines are handling it OK, so it might be time to push a new client.cfg out...

I basically have about 250 2Ghz/512MB machines. Here's what I'm running now:

[settings]
username=the_technocrat
team=93
asknet=no
machineid=1

[http]
active=no
host=localhost
port=8080
usereg=no

[power]
battery=yes

[core]
checkpoint=10

any ideas for me anyone? (bigpackets?)

mirage

any ideas for me anyone? (bigpackets?)

TT, with 512MB RAM and keeping in mind that FAH running in the background should not interfere with the user programs, I think, I would not enable bigpackets.

Sledgehammer70

I got 2 buddies of mine folding just the other day for Team 93... not to sure what user names they choose but the did set it for team 93

the_technocrat

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

I got 2 buddies of mine folding just the other day for Team 93... not to sure what user names they choose but the did set it for team 93

added!

the_technocrat

mirage wrote:

TT, with 512MB RAM and keeping in mind that FAH running in the background should not interfere with the user programs, I think, I would not enable bigpackets.

Yeah...these are for labs. Some labs just are used for Internet Explorer, others for IE and MS Office, and another for IE, MS Office and Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.

the_technocrat

I'd be interested in hearing what Datsun's got going on as far as a client.cfg/hardware these days

muddocktor

As far as bigpackets goes, it depends on how much ram these machines have in them. If they only have 256-512 MB, then I would say no. If they have a gig and you are running just 1 client, then you could try it out on a few and see if it gives any problems. If they have more than 1 gig of ram, then you could pretty well safely set 1 client up on bigpackets.

I wouldn't run bigpackets on the machines that they use for photoshop though. The client will release cpu resources but it doesn't release the ram footprint in use by the client, which could possibly affect photoshop operations.

the_technocrat

muddocktor wrote:

As far as bigpackets goes, it depends on how much ram these machines have in them. If they only have 256-512 MB, then I would say no. If they have a gig and you are running just 1 client, then you could try it out on a few and see if it gives any problems. If they have more than 1 gig of ram, then you could pretty well safely set 1 client up on bigpackets.

I wouldn't run bigpackets on the machines that they use for photoshop though. The client will release cpu resources but it doesn't release the ram footprint in use by the client, which could possibly affect photoshop operations.

sounds good, my problem is that I have about 50 brand new 2.5Ghz/1GB machines spread out across OU's. Time to get creative...

I'll probably make a Group Policy that says 'If you have 1GB or higher, download \\servername\fah$\configs\bigpackets\client.cfg. If you have less than 1GB, download \\servername\fah$\configs\baseline\client.cfg.'

lemonlime

the_technocrat wrote:

set up for both cores? or just one?

Two cores. One is set for large WUs, and the other for small WUs only (512MB Ram on that workstation).

the_technocrat

lemonlime wrote:

Two cores. One is set for large WUs, and the other for small WUs only (512MB Ram on that workstation).

added!

the_technocrat

Enverex wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but unless you want him to have no battery life and burning legs all the time I don't think that's a good idea...

1. it's a desktop replacement. No burning legs needed.
2. in the client.cfg settings, you can tell FAH not to run when the machine is on battery power
3. run a FAH machine at 100% overnight. If it's not smoking in the morning, fold on! (or you could use this, like I do...)

Clutch

I installed F@H on my sisters computer this afternoon. Going to see about my spare computer, and maybe one more either tonight and this weekend. So far only 1 more cpu added. Go team #93.

the_technocrat

Clutch wrote:

I installed F@H on my sisters computer this afternoon. Going to see about my spare computer, and maybe one more either tonight and this weekend. So far only 1 more cpu added. Go team #93.

nice! added.

Shalimar

mirage wrote:

If we look at the latest super stars TT, Shalimar, Datsun1600:

TT: ~178 points/WU with 236 processors - 46 daily-points/CPU
Shalimar: ~316 points/WU with 28 CPUs - 85 daily-points/CPU
Datsun 1600: ~199 points/WU with 14 processors - 221 daily-points/CPU

On the other hand I have ~412 points/WU with 11 processors - 160 daily-points/CPU

I think Datsun1600 has the most efficient setup based on daily-points/CPU

The CPU speed is the most important factor here. So, here are my processors: 3x P4-3.0GHz, 1x P4-2.66GHz, 1x PD-3.5GHz, 1x A64X2-2.6Ghz, 1x PM-2.0GHz, 1x AXP-2.4GHz, 1x PIII-1.3GHz. My processors vary in performance in a wide range; upto 4x difference between the slowest and fastest.

I did not enable advanced methods and no-time-limit jobs, as I could not see the benefit of this from my own experience. And my common config file is as follows,

[settings]
username=gungor
team=93
asknet=no
bigpackets=yes
machineid=x
local=xxx

[http]
active=no
host=localhost
port=8080
usereg=no

[clienttype]
type=1

If others can also pitch in, maybe we can find out the most efficient FAH configurations. Shall we try to converge on three optimal FAH configurations for powerful, moderate, and slow processors? Maybe we can increase the team's output by doing this.

Hi mirage,

To clarify a little on the above:

I am currently on 16 physical cpu's 7 X HT's run with 2 instances of fah, the 28 cpu's you see in the 50 day period are actually me having to reformat 2 of these HT's every 29 to 30 days & reinstall winxp so it can run for another 30 days.

In otherwords, we do not have anymore licenses..... so another reinstall will be coming in the next 4 days as this 30 day period winds down.

But in saying that i have to agree that Datsun 1600 does have the most efficient setup. His points per cpu is way above what i can produce.

Shal

mirage

Shalimar wrote:

Hi mirage,

To clarify a little on the above:

I am currently on 16 physical cpu's 7 X HT's run with 2 instances of fah, the 28 cpu's you see in the 50 day period are actually me having to reformat 2 of these HT's every 29 to 30 days & reinstall winxp so it can run for another 30 days.

In otherwords, we do not have anymore licenses..... so another reinstall will be coming in the next 4 days as this 30 day period winds down.

But in saying that i have to agree that Datsun 1600 does have the most efficient setup. His points per cpu is way above what i can produce.

Shal

Hi Shalimar,
I am using Linux on all of the folding computers that are not used as destop. I would highly recommend you the same, instead of dealing with licensing complications of Windows. Installation of Linux is also quicker than Windows, actually, you can also eliminate the harddisks and use a flash drive to boot and run FAH. Two of my Linux boxes do not have harddisks at all. TT has just submitted a zip package for Linux on a flash drive, and I think, it is now available for download from SM.

Regarding the efficiency of FAH configuration, do you mean you are running 2 FAH jobs on an HT CPU or a dual-core CPU. My experience with HT P4 CPU's is that, it is more efficient two run single FAH job. But if you mean dual-core, yeah, I am also running two instances in parallel on the dual-core processors.

Thanks for the feeedback, later


Here is the link to the thread about the zip file for Linux
http://short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50697

the_technocrat

just a quick note:

we're 4.8% through our three-week challenge here, and we're 6% of the way towards our 100-new-core goal!

We're ahead of schedule! Let's blow this one out of the water!

Buddha16

Well i added two more cpu's last night, a P4HT 3.0 and a kinda slow Athlon 1.8. Not smokin' new but its something.

the_technocrat

Buddha16 wrote:

Well i added two more cpu's last night, a P4HT 3.0 and a kinda slow Athlon 1.8. Not smokin' new but its something.

great job!! added.

Sledgehammer70

Not a new core but I have a AMD Athlon that will start folding tonight under my name so 1 more core to the masses

the_technocrat

Sledgehammer70 wrote:

Not a new core but I have a AMD Athlon that will start folding tonight under my name so 1 more core to the masses

sweet! let us know how it goes