# WCG and Folding........Crunchers anonymous



## vaiopup (Nov 10, 2009)

Greetings 

Welcome to the thread where you can pour your heart out about your addiction to crunching. 
Unfortunately they have not yet made a project available to find a cure for your crunching addiction 

Post up all your hardware collection.....tell us what projects you run.....and basically confess to your addiction.
You will feel so much better afterwards


----------



## hat (Nov 11, 2009)

I run all the projects. Some people run one or two projects exclusively because they were moved by some story but I believe that all the projects are of equal importance. F@H is different because it exclusively studies protien folding, but I've been a F@H team member since way back in the day, long before we had our own little subforum.

I started out running two single core clients on my Athlon64 x2 5200+. Then I ran SMP. I checked out GPU folding once when I had my 8600GTS but I didn't run it again until I got my 9800GT. 

Later on, I upgraded my CPU from that 5200+ to a Phenom 9500. It didn't overclock in my board at the time so I bought an AM2+ board. So I started overclocking... I tried setting it to run at 2.65GHz on 1.375v and my board cooked along with my 9800GT. This sent me hurtling back to a Sempron LE-1250, for I had already given my old board and processor to my Uncle, and my 8600GTS. I RMA'd my board and got a new one.

I wasn't folding anymore because I didn't want to fold on my 8600GTS and my Sempron was too dull to cut the cake. I had money to replace my "high"-powered parts, but I was content, that is, until my 8600GTS myteriously died on me. I rembmer I was playing BF2 on the Operation Harvest map, and I shut the game down because I was going to reboot. When I did, I was greeted with a 320x240, 4-color desktop. I went to change it back, but the Nvidia control panel wasn't there, so I went to the Windows graphics properties and I didn't see my 8600GTS anymore, only my on-board 8100. My 8600GTS was dead.

I spent about a month using the on-board 8100. I overestimated its power. It didn't run BF2 well, even with all settings turned down to low. The only things I had that were playable was Quake, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Unreal Tournament. S.T.A.L.K.E.R was, for the most part, OK on the 8100 with tweaked settings, except in the psi-emitter control room (10-11FPS). I eventually found somebody here selling a 7900GT for $15 so I scooped it up.

A short while after that is when I found about about WCG. I decided to run this because WCG could do SOME amount of work on my Sempron, rather than taking two days to turn in a measley 240 point F@H work unit, the Sempron could do two work units in one day. I'm not sure what the PPD was, but I think it was around 300 or 400. Eventually I got fed-up with my 7900GT's performance levels, and after staring at the ASUS 9600GSO for $54 w/ free shipping and a $20 rebate on Newegg for a long time, I broke down and ordered it. I also caved one day later and ordered my Athlon64 x2 7750BE, which is in service today (at 3GHz). It took me a day to have my 9600GSO bios-modded to the clocks I wanted.

My 7750 was constantly crunching, but I still didn't fold on my 9600GSO. One day I decided to do so and I was greeted with some funky problems. The system would randomly hang or reboot. I eventually got it sorted out, with the solution set involving re-seating the card and clearing my CMOS, playing with the clocks until I eventually got to what I'm running on it today (700/1700/850).

I've also enlisted a few other setups into WCG, but unfortunately my 9600GSO stands alone running F@H. My mother's computer has a Sempron 3000+ in it that runs WCG, and I recently picked up a laptop with a Celeron-M 530 that runs WCG 24/7, but not at 100% because of heat. I run it at 60% and it already hangs at 75*c. My laptop is a great tool for me though. It was my Windows 7 guinea pig.

I also have (or had) a Pentium 3 750 enlisted, but that's another tale for another post. Short story is, the CD-ROM was buggered since day one. Half the time you put a disc in, it wouldn't recgonize that there was a disc there. Then I tried putting WinFLP on it (which really sucked) and it wouldn't give me my disc back so I had to crowbar the tray open. I tried Windows 98 (which sucked as well), so I decided to put Windows XP Home back on there, but my CD-ROM decided to go full-retard on me and it only boots off the disc about one time in 20, and when it does, it can format the drive and copy setup files over, but once it goes into the actual setup it will run for some undefined amount of time until parts of my screen go black and the setup locks up. I hope to get a cdrom for it, and when I do, it will once again join my little WCG army.


----------



## [Ion] (Nov 11, 2009)

hat said:


> I run all the projects. Some people run one or two projects exclusively because they were moved by some story but I believe that all the projects are of equal importance. F@H is different because it exclusively studies protien folding, but I've been a F@H team member since way back in the day, long before we had our own little subforum.
> 
> I started out running two single core clients on my Athlon64 x2 5200+. Then I ran SMP. I checked out GPU folding once when I had my 8600GTS but I didn't run it again until I got my 9800GT.
> 
> ...



Nice story!
I'll give mine

Back in March (or April, I don't remember), I learned about F@H when I went to register my 8600GTS at EVGA.  I learned of the awesome setup they had where you would get 100 EVGA bucks for 1 million points in F@H for their team.  I thought cool, so I downloaded and installed the F@H GPU client on my 8600GTS.  Ugh.  Slow.  It got maybe 1500 PPD, I think less.  Soon after that, I upgraded to a pair of G92 9600 GSO cards.  They were great for games, and also good for F@H (3.5-4K PPD each).  I ran the F@H GPU clients on them for a while, and got about 400K points for team EVGA.  I also ran 4 F@H single core clients on my Q6600 (the SMP client kept crashing and messing up my Windows install, required a fresh install each time I tried to run it  Back in June I gave away the cards to my friends who were looking for upgrades.  In early July I learned about WCG, which sounded like an easy to set up way to use multiple cores.  I first downloaded and installed WCG on my laptop, and ran it for about a week.  We then went on vacation for a month, but by the time we got back I had decided that I needed something better for WCG.  I sold my Q6600 rig (with the 8600GTS ) because it was big, loud, and ran hot.  When we returned, I instantly installed WCG on my mom's E6550, which runs about 14 hours a day.  A good start, but not enough   So I decided I needed a new rig, and a quad was an obvious choice for me.  I picked up a Q9400 on sale at Tiger Direct, and the rest of my parts at Newegg.  I set up WCG on the Q9400, and was pleasantly surprised that I was getting about 1600 PPD with it.  I then remembered about folding, and decided that I would try F@H on my Geforce 9300.  Not the best choice   It was, and still is, even slower than my Geforce 8600GTS.  In mid-September, I found TechPowerUp!, and my addiction was worsened    I decided in October I needed a better video card (almost exclusively for F@H, I don't game much), so last week I purchased a Geforce 9600GT from a guy off of OCN.  I planned about 3 weeks ago to pick up a pair of 8800GTs (even though my current computer only supports 1) from an ex-Folder on OCN for $40 a piece, but they were all sold by the time I convinced my parents to let me buy them   Despite the fact that I'm currently getting an average in excess in WCG (something I dreamed of when I first started), I'm now looking to upgrade again :shadedshu  It's hard having an addiction.  At least it's for a good cause


----------



## Kreij (Nov 11, 2009)

I am not addicted to any distributed computing causes.

There are thousands of charitable endeavors and ways that one can give to them.
Each of us must determine what we can do, and how we want to help.
WCG and folding are admirable, but do nothing for helping your local community deal with the issues that crop-up every day.
Helping local projects do nothing for the advancement of global research on a massive scale.

That old lady down the street may not need the results of DC, but maybe she could use someone to help her get groceries once a week.
That young child with cancer might not need groceries, but a gene replacement/augmentation therapy may save his life.

You can't help everyone, so go with you heart and help as many as you can, in any way you can.


----------



## Chicken Patty (Nov 11, 2009)

I wouldn't know where to start or end.  All I can say is that it started off as just why not do it.  FIT made a thread saying he made a team and that is was for a good cause.  I said, why not.  Shit, Now I have about 1,392 builds in my head and I can't seem to find the money to do them 

FML!


----------



## Solaris17 (Nov 11, 2009)

I started folding when the orig folding thread was first started. way way back before we had the dedicated sections. I would fold on and off on my orleans 3800+ back the  i upgraded alot mroe. because even the most simple parts made for an upgrade. So i wa on and off..id upgrade reformat and just forget for a few months. then id re install upgrade and this continued giving some were and when i could or remembered to do so. It really hit me when i got my 9600's that i really thought about folding and the things and people it helped. so i started folding more and got more and more into it. this continued into my 9800GTX's when i got my GX2's it was a whole diffirent game from my humble begginings. we had dedicated forums many more people and the tech world as a whole had a feirce drive for it. that and then cloud computing came into play i loved and was facinated by farms etc. now i have my own if i had power cables id have more rigs running but im curently at 6 or so if i remember. i got into WCG for a bit but i decided to focus on one easy to monitor client which ended up being F@H because i could monitor all the systems over the network with F@H mon. and now im in the process of formatting and setting my F@H farm back up. I smile everytime i think of the prospects. folding/cruching isnt about win or loose ya know? no one person is going to figure out cancer. and when a cure is found none of us will get indavidual credit. but one thing we will say is i helped make that possible. i was a part of that cure.


----------



## theonedub (Nov 11, 2009)

At first I was crunching for WCG so that my computer was not idle while it was on doing random stuff. Then it became an addiction  From a single E2200 24/7 to where I am now with many other setups between  

It is a good way to put nice hardware to worthwhile use (esp since I do not game on PC).


----------



## vaiopup (Nov 11, 2009)

Voluntary work~check.
Work with/for elderly mentally/physically ill~check.


Crunching I do just "because I can"........that we can help science advance is cool, and unlike charitable donations you know where your money/effort is going.

We also get the personal reward of meeting great people from all over the world. 

I got all bases covered I think


----------



## King Wookie (Nov 11, 2009)

My 2 cents.

I started crunching a few months ago, after reading Fit's thread and other's. Managed to hit 1ook on my overclocked e6550. Recently got my mom's pc running it 24/7. (e4500 stock)

I tried folding with my 4850, but it never played nice. Got myself a 260GTX beginning of the month, and after a few teething issues, seems to be folding away happily.

Like Chicken patty, there are countless builds I'd love to do, but the wallet says otherwise.
Now just to quad this box and find a quieter cooler for this 260. Hmm, wonder what body part I can sell?

And Vaiopup, thx for starting this thread!


----------



## Chicken Patty (Nov 11, 2009)

King Wookie said:


> My 2 cents.
> 
> I started crunching a few months ago, after reading Fit's thread and other's. Managed to hit 1ook on my overclocked e6550. Recently got my mom's pc running it 24/7. (e4500 stock)
> 
> ...



I've thought about body parts, but not here in the US.  Nobody wants to buy.  try Brazil


----------



## vaiopup (Nov 12, 2009)

Oops.......

Cases delivered...........but they look so empty 

Hmmm

1366 board in the mail....oh and 6 gigoram and a GTS 250.

And the added bonus, wifey not speaking to me 

(still need cpu and sink).


----------

