Looking to fold on my new uber-machine

[m1ldslide1]

I stopped folding after hitting a million points a few months ago - the app stopped working on two of the machines that I was running it on, and my GPU that was folding started to act funny so I cut everything off for a while.

Now I've inherited a desktop with the following specs:
vista x64
xeon E5420 2.50Ghz quad-core (x2!)
quadro fx-570 256MB
8 GB ddr2

What all do I want to look at running here? Is the SMP client able to scale to quad-core yet, or do you have to run two instances of it still to make use of all four cores? What about if you had two quad-cores - do I have to run four instances of SMP?

I'm also totally new to the quadro GPU's. I know they're supposed to be great for CAD or video editing or something, but I have no idea how they do with f@h. Should I even consider folding with it?

Thanks!
-mild

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

I have DPAD crunching on my servers currently. It's great. Unzip, setup the 'user.txt' file, and let it go. Uses all the CPUs, no fuss. Need to stop crunching for it to do some work, just kill the app running, then restart. And it keeps crunching without an internet connection too.

 

[Assimilator1]

I know the SMP client can do at least 4 cores, I don't know over that though.

What graphics chip has your quadro got?

(Having problems with the damn SMP client myself, keep getting FILE_IO_ERROR when trying to run in it on an Phenom II @3.5 GHz, Win XP64).

 

[bryanW1995]

I know a few seti users running 8 true cores, but I haven't seen any f&h users doing so. Of course, if a quad core i7 works ok then I don't see why the e5420's wouldn't.

pm markfw900, if he doesn't know he can probably find somebody who does.

 

[Markfw]

I would run 4 smp clients. I do 2 on a quad, so with 2 quads, run 4, right ? Make sure you use the fahsmp affinity changer.

 

[Assimilator1]

Hi Mark, any idea what my F@H problem is? (read above).

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Assimilator1
Hi Mark, any idea what my F@H problem is? (read above).

Very first thing is to try it @ stock. A normal OC that appears stable, quite oftern is not F@H stable. By PHII was stable at 3.9, I eve installed windows@3.8. But my final F@H was 3.6

So if stock works, then its a matter of the usual OC process, going up until its not.

If stock still errors, then ????

 

[Assimilator1]

I thought I'd just get EUEs if it was o/ced too far?, I'll try it at stock anyway.[edit] same at stock.
Btw despite the error it does load the core upto 25% (equivalent to 1 core).

Its log :-

[23:13:56] Folding@Home PMD Core
[23:13:56] Version 1.03 (September 7, 2005)
[23:13:56]
[23:13:56] Preparing to commence simulation
[23:13:56] - Ensuring status. Please wait.
[23:14:11]
[23:14:11] Completed 100000 out of 2500000 steps (4%)
[23:14:13] un 33, Clone 22, Gen 45)
[23:14:13]
[23:14:13] Error: Could not write local file. Exiting.
[23:14:18] - Shutting down core
[23:14:18]
[23:14:18] Folding@home Core Shutdown: FILE_IO_ERROR
[23:22:56] checkpoint files

Folding@Home Client Shutdown at user request.

Folding@Home Client Shutdown.

Looks like I should of given you more info, my bad 😱.
Maybe F@H can't write to the config file?? but why not??

m1ldslide1
I hope you don't mind me tagging this onto your thread! 😱

 

[Markfw]

I did have that error once or twice. I forgot what I did to fix it. I think it was on my Phemons, and I think it was high fsb(230 was even high). Are you sure its 100% at stock ?

 

[Assimilator1]

CPU u/ced @ 2.94GHz, 200FSB, HT u/ced 1.68GHz, NB 1.8 GHz, RAM @800 MHz (DDR2 800). RAM timings to spec.
CPU & HT u/ced because I couldn't be bothered to change all the multipliers 😉.

Would increasing the verbosity help to solve it?

 

[Markfw]

Not sure....Also, sata or IDE ? mine are all IDE, SATA has more problems overclocking anything.

 

[petrusbroder]

Hmmm, thanks for that idea, Markfw900. I have been thinking about that since the comps I have with IDE overclock better than the ones with SATA HDD.
Never thought of looking it up ... just thought it was an ideosyncrasy of the mobos I had.

 

[Assimilator1]

That shouldn't make any difference as the PCIe bus is locked (set to 101 MHz) so neither SATA nor IDE will be o/ced on this Phenom rig.

I have just remembered though that since installing F@H there's an error messege that sometimes pops up on entering windows, best I look into that!

Petrus
Have you locked the PCIe bus? sometimes setting to 100 MHz doesn't work for some wierd reason, hence I set mine to 101 MHz.

[edit]
OK I've fixed it, I deleted F@H & then re-installed it, it was then that I realised I hadn't put in the account name last time! sorry for wasting your time Mark 😱, wierd that the MPI thing did come up twice 1st time round though 😕.

Next to run the GPU client on 9800 GTX+.....