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Am I doing this right?

zokudu

zokudu

Diamond Member
Hello, Anandtech Distributed Computing Forum!

I recently stumbled upon your humble abode as I tend to lurk around the AT forums a lot. I was really interested in the DC projects you guys participate in. I think I have set everything up correctly to begin crunching numbers on both my main pc and my laptop but I'm not 100% sure.

I installed folding@home and set my team as TeAm Anandtech on my laptop and also installed BOINC on my desktop. I inserted Milkyway and SETI@Home into BOINC and registered for TeAm Anandtech with both projects.

Do I just let these run in the background and leave my pcs on as much as possible now? Are there any settings I need to adjust on either BOINC or Folding@Home?Is there a place to see if what I've set up is being recorded?

Thank you for any help you can offer and I look forward to crunching with you all.
 
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Hi zokudu, and welcome to the DC-forum.
You have chosen some good projects to crunch.
I hope that you do not run Folding@home (F@H) and BOINC on the same computer because they do not work well together: they steal CPU-capacity from each other. (This comment may be unnecessary, but I have seen this happen!) :biggrin:

I would think that F@H would do best on your main PC, especially if you gave a good graphics card installed.

BOINC runs well on laptops if you choose the right projects. Seti is one of those who can use the different extensions of the CPUs (I am thinking fo the SSE2, SSE3 etc) if you use some special applications which can be downloaded from here. Please read the instructions carefully and choose the right app for your processor - and you will increase the efficincy of your CPU (and gain more points... 😉 )
MilkyWay@home has also optimised applications, but I have no experience of those.

F@H can use GPUs too. Here you can find info in the folding@home- stats threads, usually at the end of the first post ...

Good luck, and do not hesitate to ask, there are many very knowledgable people around who answer any question politely - "noobs" 😉 are very welcome!
 
Well I had initially set up BOINC on my desktop and F@H on my laptop because F@H was easier to find the Linux client for (I run Debian on my laptop). However which do you feel would benefit from a GPU more?

The specs on both pcs are:
Desktop
AMD Phenom II x4 955
ATI Radeon HD4890
4GB RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate

Laptop
Intel Core2Duo P8600
ATI Radeon Mobility 4300
4GB RAM
Debian "Testing" Squeeze

I'm working on getting the BOINC client in my Debian install right now in case I would be better off with F@H on my desktop.
 
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Ok so quick question. I've been running F@H-x86 and started up F@H-GPU on my desktop earlier today while I was out. My statistics linked by GLeeM say I have 2 WUs completed I'm assuming 1 GPU WU and 1 CPU WU. F@H-x86 queued another WU while I was out and is halfway through it, F@H-GPU however seems to have finished its job and just exited the program as I had to restart the program right now and it queued a new WU from 0. Is there a way to have F@H-GPU continue to queue WUs once others are complete?

Also is there a way to check BOINC stats? I got BOINC setup on my laptop before I left (I was spelling BOINC wrong when trying to install the package xD) and I believe I linked my BOINC manager with an account at BOINCstats.com however no data seems to have been uploaded. SETI@home servers appeared to be down when I setup my laptop with BOINC earlier so I picked SIMAP to run while I was out (It had a thread on the front page here 😀) and I'm sure it completed 2 WUs at least.

Is there any other way to track BOINC stats?
 
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The GPU client should not stop after 1 unit unless you specifically tell it to do so.

In order to lower CPU usage with ATI folding you may want to add the following environment variables:
FLUSH_INTERVAL = 256
BROOK_YIELD = 2
CAL_PRE_FLUSH = 1
CAL_NO_FLUSH = 1

You will also see a significant increase in points per day if you use the SMP2 client on your desktop (make sure you use a passkey if you decide on this option).
 
zokudu said:
(Part of post deleted by petrusbroder)
Is there any other way to track BOINC stats?
Click to expand...

Well, you can follow your stats by looking at the number of credits on your account page. If you do not see any credits there check the "pending credits"-link.
It takes sometimes 1 -2 days for the numbers to come. On the stats-pages (such as BOINCstats or Free_DC) it may take one more day longer.

Under what name do you crunch? I have checked the SIMAP TeAm AnandTech member list and con not find the name zokudu. Please check if you indeed have become a member of TeAm AnandTech by checking in the right part of your account and stats page ("Your account") under the "Community"-heading, "Member of team: ... "
 
I was accidentally crunching under my full name which I have since changed to Zokudu. I'm now able to see my stats I have about 70 gained credit within SIMAP and about 140 pending. That seems exremely low even when crunching SIMAP just on my laptop. =/
 
Don't worry. It will be better! Some of my computers crunch no more than 400 - 500 credits/day, but then they are crunching 24/7 and SIMAP only. SIMAP is a great project from the science point of view, and not so great from the points point of view ... some other project can yield more than 3 times the same points for a given amount of time ...
 
Thank you very much for the help petrusbroder. I think I'm setup perfectly now I have SIMAP running on my laptop and my desktop. I've decided to drop F@H for now just because I kept having to fuss with the clients for it both console and system tray and the laptop has been running BOINC without issue for the last day. I havn't looked at it once so I think I'll stick with that for now just due to ease of use.

I have an older pc I may setup to run BOINC soon and just let it run with no monitor attached but thats a project for another day. Thank you very much for the help and the warm welcome from the AT DC forums!
 
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