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Slicer
PostPosted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 4:57 pm  Reply with quote
Museum Curator


Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1474
Location: Central North Dakota, aka The Middle of Nowhere

For those of you not familiar with distributed computing: Basically, large organizations need a whole lot of processing power to do things. Stanford University is using Folding@Home for protein research, which requires a LOT of it due to the complicated molecular dynamics. F@H has been used in the development of real Alzheimer's treatment, along with a whole lot of research that I'll admit I don't understand. Smile

I've actually been running F@H under Team 0 (default) for some time, but I've just gotten serious, throwing my computer's processors into the mix and joining Team 32461 (The Longevity Meme, an organization for no-crap effective immortality). We're currently in 72nd place.

There's both a CPU (basic computer processor) and a GPU (graphics processor) client. As the CPU client only uses one of my two cores, I run both of these at once. Only turn these off when you're playing games or doing something else processor-intensive.

If you have a PS3 hooked into your router, don't turn it off. Pick a username, join team 32461, and just leave it on Life with Playstation when you're not playing games. Unless you're running a particularly high-end box, your PS3 is considerably more powerful than your PC.

(Yes, this uses electricity. The big problem isn't that, though, it's the heat. Keep your fan vents away from solid objects and free of dust and you'll be fine.)

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wondercheese
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:11 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 18 Mar 2008
Posts: 291
Location: Washington, USA

Awesome! Biochemists everywhere will thank you later. I don't have a PS3 or a decent computer though.

WC

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Merrie_England
PostPosted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:33 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 15 Jun 2008
Posts: 1391
Location: UK

Hehe, I used to do distributed computing a few years ago... about 2001, when I was into overclocking it sort of went hand in hand with that, to see how much you could process with your tricked out rig. The power of modern PC's is truly incredible, a fact to which those who had to deal with the very early models will attest. Smile

And yeah, you need good cooling - too many factory built PC's can't keep themselves cool for shit - noisy fans, badly designed airflow etc, and more heat means they'll crash and burn sooner - cool microchips tend to live longer and run smoother. Sadly my cooling costs are already quite high for my main machines... combined they put out so much heat I have to run air-conditioning which puts our electricity bill at about $180 a month - it's hard to explain to a country with a lot of AC how unusual this is (although I'd bet Slicer would understand up in the north Smile ): almost no home in the UK tends to have AC (we all have "gas central heating" only, since it's usually so cold here we almost never need cooling, except for maybe 1 day a year in the summer if we're lucky), so I'll have to pass on the DC for now. I've often considered moving to siberia or alaska, just for the free cooling. Very Happy

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im goin outside
PostPosted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 11:22 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 30 Sep 2008
Posts: 220
Location: idaho

PSSHA. If you want cold go to utah or colorado, and learn to snowboard and ski, ah good times (and theres drinking). Just watch out in utah for them mormans. Very Happy
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