Anandtech vs Tom's Hardware Folding@Home Coronavirus Race thread

biodoc

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2005
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@Ryan Smith challenged us to take on Tom's Hardware in a Folding@Home race to help the scientists at Stanford, Washington (St. Louis) and Temple Universities develop new therapeutics for Covid-19. Team Anandtech is always up for a challenge so we are ready to fight this virus with our friends at Tom's Hardware.

Race start time: March 18th at 10 AM EDT (14:00 UTC)
Race end: April 15th at 10 AM EDT (14:00 UTC)
Stats for the race: @Ken g6 has set up real time stats for the race.

Key links for getting Folding@home going on you computers:

Download the software here.
Installation Guides (Team Anandtech is team # 198)
Get a passkey (to get bonus points)

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of volunteers at Folding@home since they announced their new coronavirus projects so the load on their servers is high and work is scarce. This is good news for the projects but a bit frustrating for racers, Just relax and remember we are supporting good science and having good fun with our friends at Tom's.

More info on the Covid-19 pandemic here.

---

How To Get Started

Welcome to the race!

You can simply download the software and let it crunch on it’s own as is, or you can try to maximize your output and tweak your settings to your heart’s content. It is up to you.

This is a basic getting started guide. For more complex scenarios and for help with the advanced side of the Folding at Home Control please ask questions and someone will try to help. Please be as concise as possible when asking a question.

Go to the main page of F@H (https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/) and download the software by clicking on the “start folding” button. You can let them download the Windows version or if you have a different OS, click on “See all Downloads” in lower right of the pop up window and pick your poison there.

You will first need to create a user account, and get a passkey. You do this in order to get bonus points after crunching ten work units. See Passkey FAQ on this page at the bottom: https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/points/passkey/

When starting up the first time be sure and enter your Folding Name and Team Number and Passkey or your points won't be counted properly.

Team Numbers:

Team Anandtech > 198

Tom’s Hardware > 40051

Also read the Guide page here: https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/project-details/

Most beginners should choose Express Install which automatically starts with Web Control. If you wish to see behind the curtain and have more control over everything you can switch over to Advanced Control after F@H starts by right clicking on the system tray icon and choosing Advanced.

Miscellaneous Issues:

It is important that you pay attention to your GPU drivers. Make sure you have drivers suited to your equipment, and try NOT to let Windows automatically update the driver once you get things working properly.

It is highly recommended that you start at least a week or even two ahead of time in order to work out any problems and to let the first ten work units process before the race starts.

There is a lot of good info on the Folding@Home web site but occasionally you may run across old info, so don’t be afraid to ask questions if things don’t go as expected.

Often when you make a change it is applied right away but it is usually best practice to stop the client and restart it after a change, especially if it does not behave as expected.

Good luck to all.
 
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Ken g6

Programming Moderator, Elite Member
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It took awhile, but stats did finally download for the start of the race after about 12 minutes.

TeAm AnandTech: 40,450,303,145
Tom's Hardware: 33,297,662,789
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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Well, out of 12 video cards, I have ONE that got work, a 2060. The other 11 are trying to get a unit. So your number one folder is virtually dead in the water. Instead of 20 million ppd, I am at ONE million.
 
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borandi

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I have a dual GPU machine that keeps alternating which one has work. One will run through a WU, upload, and then the other GPU will get work.
 

Markfw

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I may have been lucky to get starting stats at all!


Also, my only work is on a 750 Ti right now. But I'm rebooting when the "Next Attempt" wait time is over about half an hour, so we'll see if I get work.
I have ZERO of 12 units working.
All 12 of my idles, say they have waited like 15-20 attemps, and don't retry but every 3-5 hours !
@Ken g6 do you have a linux script that can force F@H to retry every few minutes ?

6ysE93m.png
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
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www.teamjuchems.com
I am back in for this. 5700xt is my big addition this time around, no massive 4 way servers needing a burn in period this time, sadly :D

Logged in, got work immediately. Is there an easy way just to get GPU work? I have some newer GPUs with really old CPUs and I don't feel like burning quiiiite that much power! (launched the advanced interface, told it to finish the CPU unit, that should quit getting more WU's on completion, right?)

That said, do we need to choose a specific project in order to get the right work units for Covid/Sars? I like the idea of doing science, but I want to really help that.

The last time I folded I could have mined 1000+ BTC with the same GPU power/duration. Think of all the science I could have done! :rolleyes:

(biodoc, stefan, thank you for your quick answers below! got it!)
 
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biodoc

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2005
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Is there an easy way just to get GPU work?

In FAHControl choose configure, then the slots tab. Click on the cpu slot and then "remove" then "save".

That said, do we need to choose a specific project in order to get the right work units for Covid/Sars?

Most of the work I'm getting are coronavirus related but there's no setting available to get those tasks exclusively.
 
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StefanR5R

Elite Member
Dec 10, 2016
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(ninja'd by @biodoc)

Is there an easy way just to get GPU work? I have some newer GPUs with really old CPUs and I don't feel like burning quiiiite that much power! (launched the advanced interface, told it to finish the CPU unit, that should quit getting more WU's on completion, right?)
Right, after you set the CPU slot to "Finish" and it did so, it will not request more work in this session. But it will again if you restart the client or the computer. In order to keep the CPU slot off even after restart, "Pause" it additionally after it completed its work. (It will arleady show itself as paused then, but manually "Pause"ing it on top of that will make this stick through restarts.) --- Or perhaps more conveniently, go into the slot config dialogue and remove the CPU slot altogether. You can still re-add later on if you ever feel a need to do so.

That said, do we need to choose a specific project in order to get the right work units for Covid/Sars? I like the idea of doing science, but I want to really help that.
No; leave the project selection at the default of all projects. You will get a mix of cancer- and COVID-related work, but the latter is currently emitted by F@H with priority.

There is a FAQ:
Folding Forum/ [FAQ] SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) projects
 
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Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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No, that's BOINC, sorry.
What I can say is this now has 4 2080ti's and one 2060 going:

sudo service FAHClient stop
<pause>
sudo service FAHClient start

After about 5 minutes of trying I have 5 cards now running for 14 million ppd.

Edit: 6 cards or 1/2 the farm. a 1080ti got a unit on its own
 

angb

Junior Member
Mar 18, 2020
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I've been folding for about a week now prior to this without a passkey. I have just created one and added it to the windows client through the configuration as opposed to specifying on install, do you guys know if it'll continue folding under my 'name' or the passkey? And would the points I collected contribute to the team?
 
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Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
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I've been folding for about a week now prior to this without a passkey. I have just created one and added it to the windows client through the configuration as opposed to specifying on install, do you guys know if it'll continue folding under my 'name' or the passkey? And would the points I collected contribute to the team?
after about 10 units are processed using the passkey, your bonus points will start to appear. You get credit for all the points before and after the passkey, but the points before will be minimal, compared to the points after.
 
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Moishe

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Feb 27, 2002
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I've thrown my rig into the mix. Took me 25 minutes or so to get work. my CPU picked it up. Now my GPU has one as well.
 
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StefanR5R

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Dec 10, 2016
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@angb, you can change the team affiliation any time.
In FAHControl's advanced view, go to Configure -> Identity. There, enter
  • your user name (must stay the same for as long as you want credits to accumulate for this user),
  • 198 as team number for TeAm AnandTech (can be changed anytime, but of course team 198 is the one to be with) :-)
  • the passkey for sizable Quick Return Bonuses
if you haven't done so already.

So, how to verify that everything had the desired effect? Normally you can look yourself and others up at https://stats.foldingathome.org/donors, but this is not working right at the moment due to server performance problems.

Instead, try if you can find yourself here:
https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_list.php?s=&srt=1&t=198
This is updated every three hours.
 
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ZipSpeed

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Aug 13, 2007
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Stefan posted a link to the COVID-19 FAQ above, but in case someone missed it, here are the specific project numbers related to COVID-19

COVID-19 FAQ said:
6. How do I know that I'm working on COVID-19 related projects ?
If you're running a project that's listed here, you're fighting COVID-19 :
CPU : 14328 - 14329 - 14530 - 14531
GPU : 11741 to 11764

My lone GTX1060 is back on F@H and managed to pull a WU. Hopefully the shortages/bottlenecks/issues are behind us and we can stomp Tom's!
 
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StefanR5R

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Dec 10, 2016
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We had one week long Folding races against Tom's in the past.
In a few ways it's a good thing that this one will go on for four weeks. :-)
 

borandi

Member
Feb 27, 2011
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I've set my watch to beep every hour, and if a system doesn't have a WU, I restart it. I should write a script to do it
 

StefanR5R

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Dec 10, 2016
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I switched on 3 hours ago, and currently have 8 slots running + 2 slots waiting for assignment. (I.e. 10 slots total, of which 9 are GPUs, and one 36-threaded CPU slot.)
 
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Markfw

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I currently have 5 of 12 running The other 7 are waiting to get work
 

TennesseeTony

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Aug 2, 2003
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The good news is that we have a 4 week race. I do hate to introduce new people to any DC project during an overload period. I hope everyone understands this shortage of tasks is far from normal, and to hang in there.
 
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