Can't decide a project for a weak PC...

[QuietDad]

HIstory 1st.

I just spent 3 days going though the parts boxes upgrading PC's in the house. With Spare parts, I've built a 1.8 Pentium 4, 512M of PC133 that I'm makling the wife's PC, finally getting her off mine and no longer having to share. Having a 20 yr old son who is a graphics art/photography major (he gets the 2.2g dual) and a 23yr old daughter who's addicted to W.O.W (She gets the 3.0g HT). My wife was moaning how come she gets the low end machine (Mine is a 2.8 dual and Dad wins....) until she "test drove it and "Oh, its ok.... Mind you all she does is Windows Live Mail and Internet explorer. Thats ALL shes does...

I've been in the industry 30 some odd years, crunching SETI mostly since Oct 2, 1999 (And a team Anandtech member shortly after..) and I'm coming up on the Million credit mark in SETI and 1.5m in Boinc and cant stand to see PCs sit idle and not crunching SOMETHING.. The resources SETI needs and a wife perceiving shes being cheated, I really dont want to put SETI on her machine. Is there a project out there that is minimal in resource needs? I've been invovled for a while in Rosetta@home, but I think thats pushing it on this machine too.

Any Ideas?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seventeenorbust?

 

[QuietDad]

Maybe. I dabbled in SOB for a while, but checking on the site it looks like there might be issues with old clients and it's not BOINC, not that that matters really.

Let me throw one more requirement out there. It has to be ABSOLUETLY invisible. lol. Being my wife's machine, being she's feeling slighted for getting the low end machine in the group, and being she has no PC knowledge and would whine constantly that it's soooooo slow because "X" is running SOB would be ok but it look like it's gonna take effort to get it as a service and hidden.

 

[Insidious]

The original Folding@Home client (uniprocessor) installs as a service and.... she'll NEVER know if you install it as a service :evil:

Not a lot of points compared to the other F@H clients, but it chugs away and won't let her PC go totally "to waste" (<- I'm sure she doesn't think she's wasting it :roll: )

-Sid

 

[QuietDad]

My wife is a spamers dream. She clicks on EVERY single " You may have won..." or "Free....:" Email or web link. She WANTS wasted cycles on her machine so it's all there for her. Im trying to swing a "birthday present" for her By upgrading her to my 2.8gh dual (OC'd to 3.1) but trying to get her to think it's NEW as i upgrade minde to a quad in the coming weeks. The dual is "ok" but it's a pentium D and I may be getting a quad and a MB free so.....

I know BOINC itself doesnt take much, but SETI (My thing....) and Rosetta (Pre-med daughter who is working as a paramedic too) both hammer this poor box and I'm just looking for somethig a little lighter. My wife HAS learned (in her mind...) that the flashhing Hard drive light means somethings going on slowing her down. This PC got my daughter thru 4 yrs of W.O.W gaming. College dorm LAN parties and 4 yrs of college work so it's not THAT bad, but.....

Add to the fact I have 4 PC's now in the house (2.2Dual, 2.8Dual, 3.0HT, and her 1.8, all with >1g memory (except hers....) all with Wireless g Nics (mine's hardwired) All with > 250G hds, all with WIndows XP Pro) and I have NEVER spent a dime on any of them so there is a bone in my throat about buying a better set up for her)

Known her since I was 14 and she was 10 (We are 50 and 46 now...) , lived together 6 years, been married 25 yrs and I've become a "Yes Dear" person on certain things that the whining is not worth the fight. We'll see what happens. I'll find something I'm sure.

 

[GLeeM]

DPAD has a pretty light footprint. It can be run as a background task and thus hidden (or maybe as a service too). It can be set to use however much CPU you want, just like F@H, oh and I guess most everything else too

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: GLeeM
DPAD has a pretty light footprint. It can be run as a background task and thus hidden (or maybe as a service too). It can be set to use however much CPU you want, just like F@H, oh and I guess most everything else too

I especially like DPAD for the simplicity. Single program, use all the processors.... Good stuff. Plus I think it's cool as hell. Only problem I have found is that it doesn't free up cycles for tasks that come along, so I had to take it off all the servers.

 

[Assimilator1]

QuietDad
I don't see why SETI would be a problem with that P4 rig, is the amount of RAM the limitation?
If so DPAD should play nicely on it

FMC
That's wierd , did you set it to 'Background' priority? default is 'Low'.