Grid.org V. Folding@Home

Raiser

Hi Folks,

I've been running the United Devices client from www.grid.org for quite some time now, was running Folding@Home back in the day too prior to a PC rebuild.

Just a casual query - was wondering which project people feel is best designed & aligned towards making real progress etc. etc.

- Also I don't like to leave anything plugged in at night time in the interests of fire-safety but I know that most dist. comp. folk would possibly laugh at this - so is it being overcautious or simply good old common sense to plug out everything before hitting the leaba ?

P.S. It was actually the tragic fires in the last day or two that made me ponder this again.

Sincerely,

Raiser.

Anti

Hi.

Myself i prefere folding@home as the most worthwhile, as its not just humans that benifit from the crunching. But animals too.

In the end it boils down to personal choice, some prefere seti@home. This has no medical impact on the world at all. All it does it check radio signals from space. So which ever you have a link with, go with that one.

On the note of turning of your pc before bed, i laughed to be honest. As i keep 2pc's and a laptop on 24/7. All are connected to surge protectors, And are regularly cleaned and maintained. But if it makes you sleep easier by all means turn them off.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Well as far as I'm concerned F@H is about donating spare CPU cycles... if I'm going to be away from the PC for more than a few hours, it's going off - end of story.

And of course I sleep in the same room as my PC, so leaving it running while I sleep isn't going to happen since I get agitated by droning noises when I'm trying to get to sleep... even the near-inaudible hum from my clock-radio is enough to drive me crazy some nights.

Do what you think is right for you, contributing anything is more than most people are doing anyway.

BadCharlie

Raiser wrote:

- Also I don't like to leave anything plugged in at night time in the interests of fire-safety but I know that most dist. comp. folk would possibly laugh at this - so is it being overcautious or simply good old common sense to plug out everything before hitting the leaba ?

I be thinking the same. Anything pluged in is at risk of going on fire. I also use surge protectors for my computer but i still think something could go wrong and a fire could start. Lots of house fires have started with TV's going on fire so why not computers. It be intresting to talk to someone from a fire department about this matter.

riptide

Well it would be a VERY rare occurence for a PC going on fire. Very rare indeed. A PSU has short protection and overload protection and that would shut it off in the event of a catastophic failure of some sort. I don't see any other risks really.

BadCharlie

riptide wrote:

Well it would be a VERY rare occurence for a PC going on fire. Very rare indeed. A PSU has short protection and overload protection and that would shut it off in the event of a catastophic failure of some sort. I don't see any other risks really.

Well i know for a fact i have read where 2 peoples computers have gone wrong. Resulting in a lot of smoke but both people where there to deal with with the situation in both cases. I think Gline is one person and someother guy in england where some wires in his computer just selfcombusted and resulted in lots and lots of smoke. If he was not there it could have resulted in a fire.

But yes i do agree that its very rare for this to happen. Lots of work computers are never turned off and so far so good.

Anti

Yeah this does happen quiet alot. I have had a few psu's spew out smoke on me, and luckily nothing has actually caught fire. Funnily enough all were jeantech psu's from PcWorld.

Just like anything there is a slight risk.

riptide

Well... if your using crap PSU's yes theres a risk alright. Thers another make of PSU that I can't remember and they're famous for smokin' it...

Well i have several systems 24/7 for months now at 100% load. No fire yet. I might add that I use decent components however.

AS for GLINE.. well he was probably doing something mad with his phase machine

The only thing that may burn very readily is dust and crap. So good cleaning every so often can really bring the fire risk down to a minimum.

Anti

NorthQ are the brand i think yoru refering too.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Anti wrote:

NorthQ are the brand i think yoru refering too.

Oooohohohoh, you have no idea how close I was to buying a NorthQ PSU on the komplett website yesterday. :eek:
Looks like I dodged a bullet

Anti

Yeah, they are known to have seriously bad build quality. And extreemly unefficent. Usually running at 60%. Which means for a 500W psu to actually deliver 500W it needs to pull <700W from the socket.

BadCharlie

Seasonic all the way. Very happy with my 600watt. I prob will buy another one under the 500watt as they are cheaper and very good PSU.

riptide

Anti wrote:

NorthQ are the brand i think yoru refering too.

Close Anti. Q-TEC are the brand. I'll dig up a famous review where it actually blew up.

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=1359&page=19

The second one down.... well it didn't blow up... but the fuse went and it made loats of noise.

Anti

Yep , thats the ones. NorthQ are known to be bad too.