Folding rigs.

Anti

As suggested, what hardware do you guys run for folding?

I may aswell go first

1. CD T2300, 1gb ram, Vaio fgn-fe11m, Nvidia 7300, xp MCE
2. Opty 170 @ 2.98ghz, 2gb ram, dfi nf4 ut (sli-mod), Gecube X1950pro, xp pro
3. CD T7200, 2gb ram, dell latt 820, vista ultimate
4. C2D E6600 @ 3.4ghz, 2Gb ram, evga 680i, 8800gtx x2, vista ultimate
5. P4 2.8 prescott, 1gb ram, Generic dell desktop, 6600gt, vista ultimate
6. P4 2.6 northwood, 1gb ram, 6600gt, Fiesty fawn ( up tomorrow )
7. Celeron 2.6, 512mb, dell inspiron 2200, xp pro
8. P4 2.4ghz 1gb, Generic dell X3 xp pro

So thats me, What are the rest of you running?

DonkeyStyle \o/

1. AMD64 4000+ San Deigo @ 2.6GHz, 2Gigs ram, 7900GS, MSI K8N, XP

Have two other (respectable enough for single-core) machines, but I loaned one out and the other needs a new PSU.

hopeful

Current:

Asrock 030 DUAL-SATA II Board
AMD X2 3800@2500mhz
2gb G'Skill DDR500 RAM
ATI X1900XT@650/750
XP Pro
Lian Li V2000
Watercooling from Alphacool

Cuurently in the middle of building Core 2 Duo rig...more news as I get it.

aidan_walsh

1. AthlonXP 2800 2.08Ghz, 1GB RAM, XP Pro SP2
2. Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo 6825, Intel Celeron 2.8Ghz, 512MB RAM, Windows 2000 SP4
3. Compaq Presario 2274, PII 350Mhz, 64MB RAM, FC4 Server

Ok, so that last one is a small bit embarassing But its a personal file server thats mostly always on when I'm working so I figured I might as well have it doing something useful rather than just sucking power.

hopeful

New machine built...

Intel Core2Duo 6320...stock speed at present
2gb G-Skill DDRII 6400
Nvidia 7900gs
XP Pro

Nice and stable thus far. Will start to clock it up when I get my Scythe Ninja HSF back.

Forgot my file server...churns out a WU every couple of weeks!

AMD Duron 800mhz
256mb RAM
XP Pro

I will be rebuilding my AMD X2 rig at some point.

Anti

within the next week i hope for 2 more machines to be running 2X cpu clients, and 1 gpu client. If it all goes as planned.

DonkeyStyle \o/

aidan_walsh wrote:

3. Compaq Presario 2274, PII 350Mhz, 64MB RAM, FC4 Server

Does that thing actually meet WU deadlines? :eek:

aidan_walsh

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Does that thing actually meet WU deadlines? :eek:

10% into a job thats being forecast to finish in July But then, my other two machines are forecasting June, so I'm not paying too much heed to that.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I'd get FahMon on the case (if you haven't already) and see what the deadlines are for that WU.
I read recently on the f@h forums that there aren't any deadlineless WUs around anymore.

And just so I'm not going that far off topic, I've got a C2D E6600 build on the way... SMP bonus here I come!

aidan_walsh

Cheers. I didn't realise that WUs had set deadlines. Might have to retire the file server if its unable to keep up

DonkeyStyle \o/

aidan_walsh wrote:

Might have to retire the file server if its unable to keep up

Or upgrade your file server!
Think of the PPD!!?!111 (Thus begins the slippery slope)

riptide

Anti ... nice line up there. One question? Do you pay the power bill on those? If not then it's all good.

If you do, I'd seriously consider selling the Netburst (P4) stuff and getting Core 2 stuff. Less power, more production. You'd make back the money in about less than 10 months in Power bill saving.

hopeful

Hopefully get my X1900xt back into production this weekend....and to hell with the ESB bill

Anti

Thankfully i dont pay the power bill, plus 2 are folding from where i work, and 3 where the girlfriend works.

hopeful

Installed an X1950pro on my Core2Duo rig. Now happily running one CPU console and one GPU console client.
GPU running stable at 7.40 per frame. Quite suprised it's runing that quick TBH. Thought is would be much slower than my X1900xt that runs the GPU client at 6.50 per frame.

Starting to rebuild my X2 3800 rig today...only missing a CPU heatsink. Anyone got a spare skt 939 cooler knocking about?

Anti

I do actually. A coolermaster one, Fully copper with a 100mm fan on it.

hopeful

Anti wrote:

I do actually. A coolermaster one, Fully copper with a 100mm fan on it.

Thanks Anti...but I'm looking for something on the higher end. I doubt that cooler will keep my overclocked X2 3800 cold enough.
I borrowed a Zalman S8000 for the short term but it's noisy at full speed and I've had to limit my overclock to 2200mhz.

Anti

It would handle my 3500+ and 3800+ at 2.8ghz at under 45c full load. Its supprisingly good.

hopeful

Thanks for the offer Anti...but I reckon I'll hang on and get something that will let me push this X2 back to it's limits again.
Had a Thermalright Ultra 90 on it previously and would clock to 2600mhz and run at 40c with two CPU console clients running at 100%.

Just to let you all know my second rig is back folding..one CPU console client and one GPU console client on my X1900xt. Should get my PPD back to a reasonable level

My C2D 6320 is now up to 2.45ghz and still under 45c...some more headroom left in this chip methinks.

hopeful

Had a bit of a swap round

My C2D rig..now at 2.8ghz..is running the Windows SMP client and rolling along nicely at 13.40 per frame on the 2610 WU.
The X2 3800 is running one GPU client on the X1950pro and one CPU client.

All nice and stable!

BadCharlie

AMDXp2500 @ 3200*Abit NF7-S V2*1.5Gig PC3200*Geforce mx440*760 GiG HD's*Plextor 740*Audigy 2 ZS*Antec Sonata Case*380Watt Antec PSU*

Thats the only machine i have folding.
Have moved house and still waiting for my line and internet to be connected up. Prob will be 6weeks before ill be back folding. But down in 35th position im fighting a uphill battle.

Anti

IF you get that 1950xt folding you will be back up there in no time.

hopeful

Anti wrote:

IF you get that 1950xt folding you will be back up there in no time.

True..That card is good for 660 points per day as a minimum...needs one core of cpu time to do it but still leaves one core free to run another client...assuming a dual core cpu of course

BadCharlie

Don't have dual core yet maybe in a few months time. House is taking all my money.

zilog_jones

Here's what I have:
- Core 2 Duo E6300 - been running the normal commandline Windows client pretty much since I got it in late '06. Just found out about the Windows SMP beta, but the short deadlines have put me off it (I don't have it on 24/7). Might try running a second client (tried before but was too lazy to set it up as a service)
- Pentium III 933 - been running since October, and it's just finished its first WU! It's my headless download box, so it's left on overnight a few nights a month or sometimes a few days straight.

I borged a machine in one of my labs in college last year (P4 2.0GHz or something like that) but it seemed to stop running a while ago. Is there any way of telling what systems have done what WUs (or doing any other monitoring) from any online sources? I know about FahMon but AFAIK it needs SMB or NSF access (kinda hard to do over the internet without using a VPN or something).

I'm quite surprised I'm in the top 10 of producers in the team!

Anti

zilog_jones wrote: »

Here's what I have:
- Core 2 Duo E6300 - been running the normal commandline Windows client pretty much since I got it in late '06. Just found out about the Windows SMP beta, but the short deadlines have put me off it (I don't have it on 24/7). Might try running a second client (tried before but was too lazy to set it up as a service)
- Pentium III 933 - been running since October, and it's just finished its first WU! It's my headless download box, so it's left on overnight a few nights a month or sometimes a few days straight.

I borged a machine in one of my labs in college last year (P4 2.0GHz or something like that) but it seemed to stop running a while ago. Is there any way of telling what systems have done what WUs (or doing any other monitoring) from any online sources? I know about FahMon but AFAIK it needs SMB or NSF access (kinda hard to do over the internet without using a VPN or something).

I'm quite surprised I'm in the top 10 of producers in the team!

I believe there is an app called fahspy, but then again you will need vpn

As for the top 10, good going

zilog_jones

Hmm, that looks a lot more sophisticated than FahMon but it looks like it still relies on SMB file access. Thanks for the link anyway.

Cuddlesworth

Four P4's ranging from 2.8 to 3 ghz, one 3.4ghz PentiumD running an Smp client along with a E6300. All stock from machines I had lying around. Assuming I'm bored for the remainder of the week I have another 300 or so machines I can put an image on for Folding. Most are P4's with 5 or 6 Pentium D's and some Core2duos for short periods.

How many P4's do I need folding to get 2000+ points a day?

Ohh and a E6600 @ 3ghz with a Ati 2900xt at home. The Xt seemed to shoot through Wu's, but its only for brief periods, since I like the gaming and not paying for electricity bills(already around 180 a month).

zilog_jones

Which user are you on the team?

I currently have 5 Pentium D 925 clients (i.e. 2 clients on two PCs, one on the other), one Pentium 4 (2.2GHz?) on top of the two above.

I've overclocked the E6300 a bit to 2.1GHz (getting some better RAM soon so can go further) and am running two clients on it (not 24/7 though).

Cuddlesworth

zilog_jones wrote: »

Which user are you on the team?

I currently have 5 Pentium D 925 clients (i.e. 2 clients on two PCs, one on the other), one Pentium 4 (2.2GHz?) on top of the two above.

I've overclocked the E6300 a bit to 2.1GHz (getting some better RAM soon so can go further) and am running two clients on it (not 24/7 though).

Username is Cuddlesworth. Why are you running 2 clients when you can run a single SMP client on the dual core machines?

zilog_jones

Oh yeah, didn't notice your name before You new to this, or did you change teams?

They're not PCs I can manage easily so didn't want to go messing around with betas. I also wasn't sure if such lowly dual-cores would be up for the task (dunno what's recommended for the SMP client). I use two 6.10 beta clients on my E6300, as I don't have it on 24/7 so it wouldn't reach the short deadlines of the SMP client.

Cuddlesworth

zilog_jones wrote: »

Oh yeah, didn't notice your name before You new to this, or did you change teams?

I have been meaning to do something for a while, but was under a tight corporate network.. Now I have started I can't stop eyeing up all the machines around me not in use.

BadCharlie

Im up and running again. Have one machine folding away 24/7 at the moment "when gaming folding is off". Not sure how long i will keep this going.

Its rig two from sig, it burns 161watt while folding if i could get my video card to help in folding it would use 205watts.

So far i average a little under 100points a day just using this machine.

zilog_jones

BadCharlie wrote: »

"when gaming folding is off"

You don't need to do this TBH. It's not like you're short on memory with 2GB or anything.

BabyEater

Just thought i would share what i am folding with, under the username Cronan.


A P4 3GHz dont know anything else about this yoke.

An AMD 4200x2@2.7GHz with a 780G integrated graphics. One CPU core using processor the other CPU core helping out me 780G integrated graphics.

An AMD Opteron 144 @2.7 with an ATI HD4850. The CPU is helping the 4850 in this rig.

zilog_jones

The GPU client does not need a whole CPU core to itself - from what I've seen it uses half or less once it's started. So you should be able to still run a CPU client on each core too - they may be a bit slower at doing work but should still reach the deadlines no probs on such modern CPUs.

BabyEater

Using 100% here on my Opteron 144 as this GPU2 client on my HD4850 seems to use a lot of CPU power.

I will check out the 780G inetgrated graphics client as that is a slow GPU so might not need the whole CPU

BadCharlie

After doing lots of reading ect.. and wondering why i could not get my x1950xt video card working. Its cause the GPU2 client does no longer support my series of video cards . It would have done more work then my CPU.

BadCharlie

BabyEater wrote: »

Using 100% here on my Opteron 144 as this GPU2 client on my HD4850 seems to use a lot of CPU power.

I will check out the 780G inetgrated graphics client as that is a slow GPU so might not need the whole CPU

Under windows XP a GPU2 client will use 100% on a cpu from what i have read. Also does the same to my folding machine. Need to change to windows Vista for it to use around 20% of its CPU power.

Im getting close to 4800PPD by just using one GPU2 client.

BabyEater

Just have 1 gig of RAM so vista is out. My HD4850 only gets 1500PPD hope it will improve when they optimise the cores for it.

Shiny

Just started folding for the boards.ie team there today.

Have 1 laptop and 1 pc running at the moment. I could
probably get more if I knew how to run it on the computers
in college. I cant install anything here and copying the install folder
to a usb key allows it to run but I can't connect to revieve work units.

riptide

Great.

One thing about college PC's./... You have to ask the owners/admin for permission.

Shiny

Permission only really matters if you have it installed and running all the
time. I was just hoping to run it while i was in the labs programming.

Its not as if DEVc++ needs cpu power.

zilog_jones

You probably need to go through a proxy server to get internet access within college

Shiny

I entered in the proxy information that was working in my browser in
college and it still couldn't get the data from Stanford.

Will try again today.
Has anyone heard of folding data being carried around on a USB key?

zilog_jones

I found using the IP address of the proxy server instead of the name seemed to work when I was folding in UL (don't know why the name didn't work). It only uses HTTP to download and upload IIRC, so technically shouldn't be a problem.

Also: http://fahwiki.net/index.php/Sneakernetting

Shiny

Yey. First unit completed. Bit disappointed that after 24hours of running
the WU, it was only 165points.

Surely a Q6600 can do better than this in 24 hours with the normal client?

zilog_jones

Unless you're using the SMP client (which may still be buggy, haven't been paying attention recently), you should be running 4 clients simultaneously to make use of the 4 cores.

Shiny

I installed the smp client yesterday evening and am about 70% through
the first WU.
All 4 cores are now maxed out completely as opposed to around 25% with
the normal client.

I will report back the points generated from this.

Thanks for the help zilog.

Edit:

1,760 points for 1 WU on the SMP client. Just jumped 45 places.

Shiny

zilog_jones wrote: »

Unless you're using the SMP client (which may still be buggy, haven't been paying attention recently), you should be running 4 clients simultaneously to make use of the 4 cores.

Yeah its still buggy.
The first submission above was fine then I got a bad? WU and it completely
borked everything. Spent days trying to fix it. have decided to just run
3 clients at once. hasn't crashed yet but points are much lower.

riptide

Remember guys that the new WU's 5748 or whatever they call it, has twice as many atoms as the previous ones. And unfortunately again Pande Group has screwed up the points awarded to it. So if you were geting 6k per day on GPU, you might only get 4k now on these WU's.