Folding@Home Announcement

[BraveDude8]

Folding@​​​​Home is a distributed computing project that uses the idle resources of your computer to contribute to scientific workloads. It's specifically relevant at the moment because they've got a few dozen projects related to COVID-19, the coronavirus I'm sure you're all aware of.

The combined power of the project is already 2x the fastest supercomputer in the world, and it's only getting faster. There's so many people using it at the moment that they're struggling to give clients any work to do, which is a lovely problem to have.

Download Link

Our team ID is 236605, which you can enter after you launch the program for the first time. Setting up a passkey is also advisable so you have a unique ID. Neither of these impact your contribution to science, they just give you bigger numbers to brag about.

Once it's installed, right click on the icon on your taskbar and click "Web Control" to see the control panel. If you're happy having it run all the time, set it to "While I'm working". If you don't want it stealing precious resources, i.e. gaming/compiling/rendering, set it to "Only when idle". Light/Medium/Full allows it to use more or less of your CPU/GPU.

And no, no-one's getting paid for this. Bragging rights and warm fuzzy feelings only.

EDIT: 03/04/20 update in spoiler, we've just broken into the top thousand teams.

Spoiler

EDIT: And top 500, bloody hell.

Spoiler

 

[kaf]

alright

 

[AviKav]

Stat page:
https://stats.foldingathome.org/team/236605

[ul][li]Light: CPU is Folding at half speed, GPU Folding is off.[/li]
[li]Medium: CPU is Folding at three-quarter speed. GPU Folding is on. This is the default setting, and recommended for most users.[/li]
[li]Full: CPU is Folding at full speed. GPU Folding is on. This is the most productive setting. Will cause fans to run faster and may produce more heat.[/li][/ul]
You can also go to Advanced Control -> Configure -> Slots for finer control over what hardware is used and the number of CPU threads

 

[Matsuura]

Already with the french Team Z Event. Good post nonetheless for people who want to contribute.


@AviKav, the stat page from foldingathome can take time to update credits with the high peak these days.

https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=236605 can be a alternative to see stats.

 

[rtwpsom2]

I remember doing a similar project back in the 90's called SETI@Home.

 

[plsnobully]

warm fuzzy feelings

Are you sure it's not the corona doing that?

 

[Shyning]

Great endeavor !
I've been aware of it through the Team Z Event as mentioned by Matsuura, I'm glad to see it made its way to MD as well, thanks for reaching out to us about this Brave !

edit: I guess I should warn potential computing power donators, be aware that using the "Full" setting is akin to cryptomining, it will take a toll on your GPU / CPU if used for a long time, especially if you're not geared to cool it well enough. I'd recommend the standard setting for most users unless you've already made sure you can go to Full without damaging your components.

 

[Mar2ck]

So do you just set your team as 236605 or is there something else to join

Edit: Figured it out

 

[AB2000]

@BraveDude8
What if they're just mining bitcoins with that computational power?

 

[gormadoc]

@rtwpsom2 Sadly SETI@home is dying in one week.

 

[silvver]

Google should use their quantum computer - they were so proud of it.

 

[theroachoftime]

Actually set up my old computer that I wasn’t using to do this full time over the weekend. I’ll have to change my team over to mangadex now. Not that my stats are that great. Even working 24/7 it is a very old computer. It only managed 8 work units in about 24 hours, but it’s still something.

 

[Why_Wolf]

Should note that the central node serves for fold@home are currently overloaded. So once you turn the program on it can take a significant amount of time before your computer will receive a work block to actually start computing anything. They have something like 4x the normal number of users hitting the service now so its overloading their servers and their bandwidth. Linus (and others I'm sure) are trying to get a new server set up in their office as they have a 10Gbit fiber connection direct to an internet exchange hub.

 

[felipipexd]

i love that more people are joining up in this proyect, as a scientist with tons of time available due to covid-19 is very important to allocate more resources to help fight this or even some other illnesses like cancer <3 even if is not much you can collaborate your grain of sand.

Some remarks about:

You can set up the level of use your computer will do, medium ones is OK for all people, im using medium one and is not that much of normal use, but you can hear the ventilator working more than usual, and max level is akin to cryptomining usage, so i recommend you using this level only if you computer allows it as your computer will use more resources, i still dont use it as im afraid of exploding due to bad ventilators on my side, but if you have a good computer and want to help, you welcome.

Best you can do if you dont want to give resources to f@h if you are compiling, playing games or doing sh*t is to set it up to use when idle and leave it at night running.

as @why_wolf says with the quarantine running more people are joining in, so you will propbably have to wait a bit for projects, i joined up in like 10 AM today 24/03 and i waited like 5 minutes and i got a proyect to work with using the CPU, the GPU got work to do like 3 hours later.

Thats all folks, happy quarantine! <3

 

[BraveDude8]

@AB2000 Feel free to look them up, they've been around a while.

 

[rtwpsom2]

@gormadoc I'm surprised it's still going. I hadn't even thought about it in 15, maybe 20 years.

 

[xyzfogottenme]

https://scienceunited.org/ is also another platform you can make use of. However, it seems they have taken in down for maintenance today. It makes use of user preferences for certain projects and the bionic client. Unlike folding it tends to favor dedicated CPU usage while folder prefers GPU. Most people tend to run both in tandem on their zombie systems.

 

[doppler]

If you want to fold. I would suggest turn off GPU folding. Unless you have a real kick-ass GPU setup. Running both GPU and CPU taxes your system to almost unstable. While folding your GPU and CPU can become very hot. So a very good cooling system is needed. Stock cooling is almost ineffective. Clogged fans will only hasten your systems death.

I have folded in the past. I have experienced first hand what can happen. You can goggle "folding cooked my (insert here)" GPU/CPU/motherboard/power supply. If you do want to fold use the screensaver mode of folding. At least you can still do things.

IF YOU DO WISH TO FOLD DO NOT STOP UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR ASSIGNED UNIT. LATE ASSIGNMENTS ARE A BIG PROBLEM. THERE ARE TIME FRAMES TO COMPLETE TASKS. A UNCOMPLETED MUST BE DONE BY SOMEONE ELSE. ALL TASKS ARE DOUBLE ASSIGNED. TWO ASSIGNED UNIT EXECUTIONS MUST MATCH OTHERWISE THE UNIT IS ASSIGNED AGAIN.

Sorry for the all cap's. But what was said was very important.

So if you want to fold, knock your self out.

 

[doppler]

@xyzfogottenme

bionic client

The BIONIC client can be used on raspberry pi computers. The PI can get very hot when it runs it heart out doing work. Keep it cool somehow. Especially a PI-4.

 

[AviKav]

@doppler
Folding is far more performant and power efficient on a CPU than GPU and by default FaH runs at the lowest priority regardless. If FaH is interfering with system usability or if your laptop is getting too hot to the touch, maybe don't run a longlived computational workload on what is clearly an unsuitable system? At the very least, not one with clearly clogged fans. My fullly
stock systems are still going strong