Trying to start back up, Gotta learn to trust my water cooling...

TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
edited May 2011 in Folding@Home
Hello,
Its been a while,

I have not posted much lately, but I still stop by just about every day.

Ive upgraded my rig a bit. Got a new case with much better airflow and much more room. And added water cooling to my rig. Its just a cpu loop for now. But it does a much better job than my Prolimatech Megahalems.

Ive got my i7-920 running at 4.4ghz Stable with an idle temp of 39-40c, and a max load of 70c.

Im gonna start putting this thing to work again. Ive just been being a baby about this water cooling. I never leave the house with the computer on, and I don't even fall asleep with it on. Because I have this deep fear that its gonna leak. Even though I leak tested it forever, and I have had it in my system now for about two weeks with no problems.

So heres to hoping that I can overcome my fears and let this thing start folding over night. :)

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    You know, you're still only about 35 minutes away from Expo, and you still haven't come.... :D

    JUST SAYIN'

    Carry on...
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    You know, you're still only about 35 minutes away from Expo, and you still haven't come.... :D

    JUST SAYIN'

    Carry on...

    I know, I know, :D
    I said like a year or two ago that I was gonna go, and never made it.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Let this be the year you redeem your sad, 635-post-should-have-been-here-by-now self! :p
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Let this be the year you redeem your sad, 635-post-should-have-been-here-by-now self! :p

    Lol, I would love to go.... hopefully I can
    To think that I have been on these forums for 6 years now. Only living 30 minutes away and never met anyone in person.
    I came here when I knew nothing about computers, and was seeking virus related help. Now most of what I learned was from this website.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I think im gonna start folding on my brother's system too. Put his i7 930 to work.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    While you could fold bigadv on a system like that, I wouldn't recommend it given that you are uncomfortable leaving it on for days at a time. You can take a look at either SMP only (I'd recommend console client and service installation with a pair of bat files if you want to micromanage it for when you do other things OR the new v7 beta will automatically install the appropriate things for you, but have a tiny bit more overhead because of the control panel always being active.

    WinSMP Guide (not bigadv)
    HFM.NET for monitoring

    v7 beta 2 folding (same client, just a different installation/management experience)

    Either way, if you haven't before ... make sure you setup a username/passkey combo and you can certainly fold for team 93. Looking forward to your contribution to science!
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Tushon wrote:
    While you could fold bigadv on a system like that, I wouldn't recommend it given that you are uncomfortable leaving it on for days at a time. You can take a look at either SMP only (I'd recommend console client and service installation with a pair of bat files if you want to micromanage it for when you do other things OR the new v7 beta will automatically install the appropriate things for you, but have a tiny bit more overhead because of the control panel always being active.

    WinSMP Guide (not bigadv)
    HFM.NET for monitoring

    v7 beta 2 folding (same client, just a different installation/management experience)

    Either way, if you haven't before ... make sure you setup a username/passkey combo and you can certainly fold for team 93. Looking forward to your contribution to science!

    Well Im running SMP2 clients on my i7 920 and my brother's i7 930.

    Does hyper-threading help folding? Because before when I used to fold, I always heard it was better to keep HT off.

    But right now my i7 920 @ 4ghz is putting out around 12,000 PPD with HT off.
    and my brother's i7 930 @ 4ghz is putting out over 18,000 PPD with HT on.

    Im gonna try turning hyper threading back on for my 920 and see if that improves it.

    Either way, with both of our i7's, my gtx 260, and his gtx 460. Its putting out a total of over 46,000 PPD.

    Now, if I can man up and keep mine running 24/7, ill be set.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    HT on, AFAIK. Easy to test anyways, just stop your client, then launch it from a cmd prompt with -pause at the end (so fah6.exe -pause) to finish the current WU and then you can enable HT, test again. Thanks for the great contribution to the team!
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    if you turn HT on then you should add something to the -smp flag. -smp # where the # is the number of threads.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    correct, presumably -smp 8
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Alright thanks a lot guys.

    The temps are a little higher with HT on. So 4.4ghz won't happen. 4.2ghz HT on, 75c max.

    Im trying the -smp 8 flag right now.

    I didn't let my computer run over night. But I tried to let my brother's run over night. But a darn windows update shut the thing off. So much for that.

    I don't know what would be better. 4.4ghz with HT off, or 4.2ghz with HT on.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    You can safely go up to 90C on an i7.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Thrax wrote:
    You can safely go up to 90C on an i7.

    Yea, but I don't think I could stay comfortable with it running that hot all day long. Maybe I just baby this thing too much. :bigggrin:

    Hmm. HT on at 4.2ghz, with -smp 8 flag. Is only giving 8,285 PPD. When 4ghz with HT off was giving me over 12,000 ppd. Thats strange. I wonder why his 930 performs so much better when folding.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    You have username/passkey, right? Did you end up using v6 SMP or v7?
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Tushon wrote:
    You have username/passkey, right? Did you end up using v6 SMP or v7?


    I have a username, no pass. Never made one before. Do I just enter one in the config?

    I downloaded the v6 SMP2 client off of their high performance downloads page. Should i get the v7 beta instead?
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/getpasskey.py (form is case sensitive, so my username is Tushon, not tushon). Definitely do this and put it in both your client and your brothers.

    v6 is fine. The client is actually identical, just the wrapping is different. That being said, v7 should automatically install it correctly for best folding. GPU detection/implementation has been dodgy (especially in mixed environments, like one fermi and one non-fermi card), but SMP is pretty well handled. You might want to try it just to see.

    Edit: setup guide for the "right" way on console clients. From that you need to do the following:
    launch via cmd line in directory with
    fah6 -configonly -smp
    
    and then configure the following
    username (whatever your folding username is)
    team number (93)
    passkey (whatever passkey you got above, save it somewhere)
    [enter]
    [enter]
    big
    yes
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    yes
    [enter]
    [enter]
    yes (this is for service, which is the way you should be running it)
    [enter]
    -smp 8 -verbosity 9
    [enter]

    If you do that, the client should be configured correctly. Let me know fi you have any questions. Setup would be identical on both machines. If you setup GPU folding (and why wouldn't you!?), make sure to increment the machine ID (assuming you are using the separate GPU3 client. If you are using the v7 beta client, you should be able to have all in one "window" (the control window manages all the clients). I have to keep my 465 separated because it doesn't identify it correctly, but my 570 and SMP fold away within v7 happily.

    After setting up the client, you may wish to have a way to start and stop it if you will be doing something else CPU intensive and don't want any possible slowdown (which you won't likely notice anyways). This is pretty easy with two bat files.

    startfolding.bat
    net start [I]FoldingServiceName[/I]
    
    stopfolding.bat
    net stop [I]FoldingServiceName[/I]
    
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Tushon wrote:
    http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/getpasskey.py (form is case sensitive, so my username is Tushon, not tushon). Definitely do this and put it in both your client and your brothers.

    v6 is fine. The client is actually identical, just the wrapping is different. That being said, v7 should automatically install it correctly for best folding. GPU detection/implementation has been dodgy (especially in mixed environments, like one fermi and one non-fermi card), but SMP is pretty well handled. You might want to try it just to see.

    Edit: setup guide for the "right" way on console clients. From that you need to do the following:
    launch via cmd line in directory with
    fah6 -configonly -smp
    
    and then configure the following
    username (whatever your folding username is)
    team number (93)
    passkey (whatever passkey you got above, save it somewhere)
    [enter]
    [enter]
    big
    yes
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    [enter]
    yes
    [enter]
    [enter]
    yes (this is for service, which is the way you should be running it)
    [enter]
    -smp 8 -verbosity 9
    [enter]

    If you do that, the client should be configured correctly. Let me know fi you have any questions. Setup would be identical on both machines. If you setup GPU folding (and why wouldn't you!?), make sure to increment the machine ID (assuming you are using the separate GPU3 client. If you are using the v7 beta client, you should be able to have all in one "window" (the control window manages all the clients). I have to keep my 465 separated because it doesn't identify it correctly, but my 570 and SMP fold away within v7 happily.

    After setting up the client, you may wish to have a way to start and stop it if you will be doing something else CPU intensive and don't want any possible slowdown (which you won't likely notice anyways). This is pretty easy with two bat files.

    startfolding.bat
    net start [I]FoldingServiceName[/I]
    
    stopfolding.bat
    net stop [I]FoldingServiceName[/I]
    


    Awesome thanks. Im gonna set up a pass key right now.

    Thats pretty much exactly how I have my clients set up though.
    Ran the -configonly through cmd with all those settings.

    I don't know what happened, but my i7 is putting out very poor PPD all of the sudden. Right now its showing under 4,000 PPD, and yesterday with the same settings, it was around 12,000 ppd. My Gefore GTX 260 is putting out more PPD than my i7 right now. Im using the same settings as my brother's and when his is running, its pulling over 18,000 a day. I haven't been able to fold on my brother's all day either, because hes been working on it all day.

    Im gonna let this WU finish, then im gonna remove this client and try 7.


    And those .bat files will come in real handy, thanks.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Glad to be of service. One day, I'm going to put together brand new guides for current gen folding. Remember that "FoldingServiceName" needs to be what yours is actually called in services.msc

    If you aren't getting decent numbers, something is wrong. Just a process of elimination to figure out why. Finishing the WU then clear out all except for the fah6.exe. Make sure to launch it with
    fah6.exe -configonly -smp
    
    , do the config, then launch the service with the bat file. Wait for a while, check PPD. You should be able to look at taskmgr and see 100% utilization of all cores. The -smp 7 may improve PPD; people who fold bigadv use -smp 8

    edited from k's clarity
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    The whole thing about doing 7 on -smp is because with HT it is not designed to work with fake "cores/threads" but only with physical cores/threads and using a prime number seems to help resolve some issues. There is math and theory behind it but I don't remember it of the cuff, part of it has to do with thread assignments in the run queue.

    If you run bigadv then you MUST run -smp 8. If all of a sudden your ppd drops off in the middle of a WU make sure the TPF is actually slower then earlier in the WU. If a new WU is slower check the credit or WU # because you simply might be running a longer run protein than the others. The most prevalent -smp WU is small and yields over 10k on a machine with 8 threads or more. There are longer run WUs that will drop production to below 10k.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Finally!

    That was so strange. Even though his was acting fine yesterday, I had to reconfigure his too. His was only putting out 7,000 ppd just now.

    Deleted all the files except the fah6.exe, reconfigure them both.

    Both cpu's with HT on and "-smp 8"

    My 920 is now putting out 18,089 ppd
    and his 930 is doing 19,653 ppd! So over 37,000 ppd.

    Now with the roughly 7,000 ppd that my gtx 260 does and the 9,000 his gtx 460 does. (roughly 16,000 ppd) it should be around 53,000 ppd if I can manage to keep these running 24/7. Which sadly won't happen, cuz hes always doing work on his during the day. And I shut mine off at night.

    But I am glad mine is finally putting out a good amount of points. His 930 was making me jealous. ;D
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    If you haven't noticed you are not putting out your projected points that is because you do not have enough WUs turned in with your passkey. It takes 10 WUs submitted with the user's correct passkey to get the extra time bonus, you should meet this requirement today or tomorrow and your production will jump severely.

    This hadn't been mentioned earlier and didn't want you worry about numbers not matching later and trying to fix something that wasn't borked yet.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Yeah, I neglected to say that. Good deal with your PPD shooting up. Make sure to have him try leaving it running while doing his work, to see if it affects it much. I never have to shut off my SMP client while running my gaming rig, and only during very recent games do I need to shut off my GPU client.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Tushon wrote:
    Yeah, I neglected to say that. Good deal with your PPD shooting up. Make sure to have him try leaving it running while doing his work, to see if it affects it much. I never have to shut off my SMP client while running my gaming rig, and only during very recent games do I need to shut off my GPU client.

    Well, he basically runs his own studio in our basement. And thats his main rig.
    And his recording software doesn't use that much cpu. But all the crap tons of plug-ins he has for it does. And he said it was running way to slow for him while the smp client was running. But its gonna be folding every night, and all day while hes at work.... and if hes not recording he said he will keep it running too.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Sounds about right. I've heard horror stories about CPU use when doing audio recording/mixing/production. You give him the bat files?
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Tushon wrote:
    Sounds about right. I've heard horror stories about CPU use when doing audio recording/mixing/production. You give him the bat files?

    Yea, Im gonna give him the bat files so he can easily stop/start it.

    I don't get it. Im having some seriously dumb problems with mine. His 930 never drops below 16,000 and is usually around 18-19,000.

    Mine did great last night, also pulling in around 18.000 after I re-configured it.

    And now its back to acting up, only doing 6,000 ppd again. This thing is really annoying me.


    So apparently every time I restart or shut down my computer, I have to re-configure my smp. Because once again reconfiguring it put it back high up there again.
  • TrumandrummerTrumandrummer Taylor Michigan Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    My ppd might drop down for a couple of days.
    My brothers system is going to be down. Installed an ssd drive for him. And I gotta go through and reinstall all of his stuff.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    Yeah, I had a whole bunch of crap happen in the course of a couple weeks that made my PPD go sub 5000, but then got it all fixed and got a new card to boot. Someday soon, I'm going to switch out my server's mobo, and then i'll add my GTS450 back into the mix.
  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian
    edited May 2011
    I don't believe this has been posted on our folding forums yet and the current thread involves it some.

    When setting the -smp # flag for more than 4 threads possible on a machine it is important to have the number be the same number of available OR fewer. If the number is more than is actually available then it hurts production to a large degree. I have a machine that, apparently, someone pulled one of the processors from so my -smp 8 flag was incorrect, needed to be just -smp. With the wrong flag had a TPF of 10 minutes but when corrected is down to 7 minutes and about doubled the ppd from what is possible now.....but under half of what it was getting with two procs.
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