I bid for a thread like this not too long ago, as it's probably well overdue. I think we ought to "expose" ourselves, since it is a bit of a "family", and come out from behind the pseudonyms. My name is Tom, I live in Southern California (don't hold it against me), hence the "behind the Orange Curtain" in my location. I'm 53 years old and teach Math and Science to 6th graders. I'm a cancer survivor, and my mother is currently battling lung cancer. Folding rings true to my heart.
I have 4 rigs at home that fold 24/7: 1) E6750, 3.1ghz, Asus P5N-e, 2gb Corsair C6400C4, Zalman CNP9500; 2) Q6600, 3.4ghz, Asus Blitz FormulaSE, 2gb Kingston HyperX DDR2800, Ultima-90 w/Rexflo 92mm; 3) (HTPC) Q6600, 2.66ghz, Asus Blitz FormulaSE, 2gb Kingston HyperX DDR2800, Zalman CNP9500; 4) E6400, 3.0ghz, Asus P5B Deluxe, Corsair C6400C4, Zalman CNP9500. The two Formula boards have HIS X1950Pro's, so they're doing GPU folding, also.
Then, over the several years I've been teaching, I cycle my old stuff from the house into the classroom. I spend an additional obscene amount of money upgrading and maintaining my "little lab", out-of-pocket and in my "spare" time. I have, in the past, nurtured partnerships with folks like Kingston, Western Digital, MSI, and AMD, that allowed me to glom a few parts, here and there, so that I now have a student-to-computer ratio of 1:1. 32 rigs, plus a class room server. About half are P4 2.8g, with about 6 running on Soyo Dragon motherboards. Theres a couple of Fry's specials: D805's, 3.2ghz, on ECS giveaways. Those kinds of deals make up most of the balance of the room. There's a few stinkers still amongst the bunch; Duron 1.6, and a few Athlon 2400 & 2500's running on the aforementioned MSI boards. I still consider them all my babies, so unabashadly include them in my "armada."
I usually do a math exercise involving data gathering and analysis, using the rigs and SuperPi. I let teams of students pick a computer, based on their results, then they use that rig to fold for the class Team. They keep track of their results over the remainder of the school year, graph it, analyze it, etc,... you know, all that school stuff. Consequently, when that happens, MadMurph's "farm" will be off, reappearing under the class name for a while. All to the cause, on several fronts.
