SG Broadband Community

Wonder how some people get 100,000 plus points with only a few cpus working for them.

Stanford has released a new type of work unit, it requires a minimum of 8 cpus, real or ht'd. And must be finished withing 3 days.

To run them you need to have a 64-bit Linux O/S, or Apple O/S. Not ported over to windows yet.

I fired up this pc a couple of days ago:

ASUS MB Z8PE-D12
Duel Xeon 2.24GHz Quad cpu's with HT (16 cores)
6GB DDR3 for each CPU

Up to 84% complete on my first work unit. Until I finish 10 of them I won't get any bonus or at lease 10 wu's that use the A2 core.

Bonus is figured using this formula. WU_time <= timeout time, bonus factor = sqrt(deadline_time*k / WU_time)

Preferred deadline = 4 days
Final deadline = 6 days

So mine would figure like this I think:

360 hours * 2 / 50 hours
720 / 50
14.4 * 25,403

however the maximum bonus is 10 X so my bonus (once I've qualified would be 254,030 points for one work unit.

They also say that a fast i7 cpu would finish just under the deadline (2.8GHz or faster)

So anyone out there got the equipment and willing to run Linux on it, we could really get a boost in points.

Fold on
Rick

rickoic wrote:So anyone out there got the equipment

I've got the equipment. Sorry. No pictures!

MadDoctor

If you want to try folding them I can guide you through getting it set up. I haven't figured out how to get my GPU card on the motherboard folding as yet. Working through the wine folder install, but just about ready to start folding the big boys and get them going.

1. You need a 64-bit Linux O/S (I used Ubuntu Desktop, allready configured for 16 cores, if you have more you will need the server O/S which is configured for up to 64 cores.)

2. Vijay has pretty good install instructions which I can post if your interested.

I didn't turn on the -bigadv flag until I'd folded 9 of the smaller wu's which use the A2 core. As soon as it finished 9 at about 4 1/2 hours each I then turned on the flag.

Will take me about 50 hours to fold one of the big ones. But 254,030 points should be awarded me for just the one unit.

Tks
Rick

Thought I'd go ahead and post the install instructions, just in case anyone is interested.

These were posted by Vijay Pande.

Requirements

Before you install the Linux SMP client, here are some requirements to check:

. You must be running a 64 bit Linux OS. The client is not supported on 32 bit (this is due to the MPI layer SMP is using for inter-core communications.
. Even though the core requires a 64 bit OS, the client needs the 32 bit library so you will have to install it.

Note: With some distributions, you may need to add su or sudo to execute the command if you are not logged as root.

Debian-based distributions:

apt-get install ia 32-libs

Redhat-based distributions:

yum install compat-libstdc++

Installation of the SMP client

We are in the process of making an installer to make this process much easier. For now, here are detailed instructions to setup the client.

. Go to Terminal. Depending on your desktop engine (KDE, GNOME, ...) the Terminal application can be in different places, but you'll find it. GNOME has it at "Applications->Accessories->Terminal". Open Terminal

. In the Terminal window you should see a prompt that looks something like this: yourusername@yourcomputername - $

. To get the FAH client going type in (or copy/paste) the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/folding
cd ~/folding

(depending on your OS type one of the following should work)

curl -O http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... -Linux.tgz

wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegrou ... -Linux.tgz

tar xzf FAH6.02-Linux.tgz

. Now you should have the FAH client in place and you'll have to configure it. It can be done by running the following comand:

(theres a new version of the FAH6 program out that needs to be d/l'd now)

rm FAH6 (to get rid of the old one)

curl -O http://www.stanford.edu/~kasson/folding/linux/fah6
or
wget http://www.standord.edu/~kasson/folding/linux/fah6

chmod +x FAH6

./fah6 -configonly

. You must select BIG units.
. It has been found that setting the extra parameters to 1 less than the number of cores available gives slightly better performance.

When asked in advanced for flags or parameters.

-bigadv -smp 15 -verbosity 9

now to run, simply type:

./FAH6

and you should be off and running.

As indicated in my previous post you must have completed 10 work units that use the A2 core before being edgible for any bonus. So my advice is when you do the -configionly leave out the -bigadv until you've completed 9 work units and then add it back in at that time.

Fold on
Rick

Thank you kind Sir. I have this little 850mh machine folding as hard as it can. When my wife lets me have some of the money I bring home, I'll purchase the machine you've identified. Until then... Go little HP 850 go!!!!!!!!!!