Mark, I'm sure you've said it before, but what do you do with all those computers?

Jax Omen

Golden Member
Mar 14, 2008
1,654
2
81
folding farm? hoping to win a prize in GIMPS?

Large family of gamers?

Lan center?

>_>
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
Right here is the reason
I have done more F@H than all but 69 people out of 960,378 people for Stanfords effort to cure cancer. Its a cause I believe in. SETI was fun, but it was a game. This games has REAL outcomes that may one day save my own life !

Some of them are used in lan parties with my sons friends, like every new years eve !
 

Jax Omen

Golden Member
Mar 14, 2008
1,654
2
81
Heh, I was pretty sure it had to be distributed computing.

Good for you. I wish I had the money to throw at playing with that much hardware AND be able to use it to donate to a cause I believed in.



So which one do you use for your day-to-day stuff (i.e. it's not for your folding farm)?
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
E6400@3.4 on P5B I use for working on Oracle databases and other support functions (I am also sysadmin to about 10 servers at work).
Q6600 G0 on DQ6 w/ultra120 extreme lapped @ 3420 I use for playing games.
X3210 B3 on S3 @ 2900 is my sons computer. I am not even sure what all he does with it other than myspace and web browsing.
Q6600 G0 on DS3R with XP90 @3510 is for encoding when I need to

The rest are a just folders until lan party times !

And here is the farm at work ! A little over 38k PPD
 

Jax Omen

Golden Member
Mar 14, 2008
1,654
2
81
so 60% of the computers in your house are just running full blast 24/7 folding@home? holy crap.
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
all 10 are running F@H 24/7 @ 100% load
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
Portland Oregon is very mild most of the year, 35-45 in the winter, and 75-85 in the summer (I do have central AC)
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,131
3,667
126
Originally posted by: Denithor
I hope you live somewhere cold...

id be more worried about the electricity bill.

The average quadcore @ load will draw anywhere from 220-350W off the wall. Count how many quads he got, and thats a lot of power he's drawing. (mine draws more btw)

Also lemme rephrase this again. I had 5 quads connected to one hard line at my house. All under load in WCG. Well, about 1 year later, i had to upgrade the breaker because it was causing issues. And no i didnt want to split the farm up in different areas. :\
 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
Its about $170-$200 / month total, and I use about $40 for everything but the computers. As for the breakers ? I have 7 on one 20 amp line, the rest are on 2 different circuits....

No problem until the summer, then I have to shut them down (1/2 of them) or the AC kills me.
 

alfa147x

Lifer
Jul 14, 2005
29,307
106
106
Thats awesome!

my 100% F@H home box used to be a AMD Athlon XP 1500+ until February I got the E8400
 

Dadofamunky

Platinum Member
Jan 4, 2005
2,184
0
0
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Its about $170-$200 / month total, and I use about $40 for everything but the computers.

Even now, with our wonderful President's decadent Middle East friends charging us $110/bbl? Better brace yourself. But then, you're getting power from the Bonneville Dam, most likely.

Portland is a relatively inexpensive city compared to where I work (Silicon Valley) and live (Sonoma County). I could see having all those boxes in your case; having a good IT job is pretty rare in Portland, and the cost of living is still substantially lower than most tech centers. Love Portland myself but the job market sux out there.

But me? With two small systems, my bills are through the roof, averaging $300 a month. There's no way I'd ever run a bunch of systems like yours now. My wife and I used to have seven computers in our San Francisco apartment in a mixed Mac/PC environment; after some years of this I started getting tired of working, then coming home and having to perform IT chores all over again. People would freak out when they came over, seeing all our gear. (This was the Windows NT Server days, when I wrote a book about the subject and just ran our whole house on it for several years.)

So Mark, what kind of Ethernet switch do you use? (I use powerline Ethernet myself, and I think it's fabulous.)
 

bunnyfubbles

Lifer
Sep 3, 2001
12,248
3
0
Originally posted by: Dadofamunky
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Its about $170-$200 / month total, and I use about $40 for everything but the computers.

Even now, with our wonderful President's decadent Middle East friends charging us $110/bbl? Better brace yourself. But then, you're getting power from the Bonneville Dam, most likely.

Not sure what oil has to do with this, most of our electricity comes from coal, a very different fossil fuel from oil (and then there's to consider that the US is a veritable "middle east" when it comes to coal supply)...

Switching off incandescent lights when they're not being used (or even better, replacing them with something like CFLs) is a good way of saving on electricity for me. Also, turning the heating way down in the winter, and relying on my computers to keep my room warm works wonders ;) (although it can have the opposite effect in summer, I'll often move the hotter ones into a room I don't sleep in)
 

TonyB

Senior member
May 31, 2001
463
0
0
bets on how many years it'll take for a single multi-core CPU to outperform all those quads?
 

aldamon

Diamond Member
Aug 2, 2000
3,280
0
76
My Q6600 @ 3 GHz (not the rig in my sig) with a modest video card and Corsair 80 Plus PSU draws only 150W from the wall when folding 100% load.

Originally posted by: aigomorla

id be more worried about the electricity bill.

The average quadcore @ load will draw anywhere from 220-350W off the wall.

 

Markfw

Moderator Emeritus, Elite Member
May 16, 2002
27,411
16,270
136
So Mark, what kind of Ethernet switch do you use? (I use powerline Ethernet myself, and I think it's fabulous.)
Due to positioning around the house, I have 3 Trendnet gigabit ethernet switches.
 

Idontcare

Elite Member
Oct 10, 1999
21,110
64
91
Originally posted by: aldamon
My Q6600 @ 3 GHz (not the rig in my sig) with a modest video card and Corsair 80 Plus PSU draws only 150W from the wall when folding 100% load.

Originally posted by: aigomorla

id be more worried about the electricity bill.

The average quadcore @ load will draw anywhere from 220-350W off the wall.

Yep, I've got six quadcore systems here clocked at 3.3GHz and matched with puny video cards and 650W PSU (overkill)...they draw 185W from the wall at 100% load. Not bad in my opinion, less than two 100W lightbulbs.
 

ArchAngel777

Diamond Member
Dec 24, 2000
5,223
61
91
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: aldamon
My Q6600 @ 3 GHz (not the rig in my sig) with a modest video card and Corsair 80 Plus PSU draws only 150W from the wall when folding 100% load.

Originally posted by: aigomorla

id be more worried about the electricity bill.

The average quadcore @ load will draw anywhere from 220-350W off the wall.

Yep, I've got six quadcore systems here clocked at 3.3GHz and matched with puny video cards and 650W PSU (overkill)...they draw 185W from the wall at 100% load. Not bad in my opinion, less than two 100W lightbulbs.

Yeah, PSU recomendations are often overstated. My current system pulls 420 watts from the wall when playing a game. Idle is around 240 watts.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
21,131
3,667
126
Originally posted by: aldamon
My Q6600 @ 3 GHz (not the rig in my sig) with a modest video card and Corsair 80 Plus PSU draws only 150W from the wall when folding 100% load.

Originally posted by: aigomorla

id be more worried about the electricity bill.

The average quadcore @ load will draw anywhere from 220-350W off the wall.

dayam thats a low power draw...

My quads pulled anywhere from that. That number can vary as well from G0 and B3's.

My QX rig draws 515-535W on load. Talk about a monster eh?
 

richwenzel

Member
Sep 19, 2007
172
0
0
Originally posted by: Jax Omen
folding farm? hoping to win a prize in GIMPS?

Large family of gamers?

Lan center?

>_>

Taken from directly from Mark's diary:

When I have the quads, I will be free, and the world will be different, because I have understanding. Understanding of digital watches. And soon I shall have understanding of video cassette recorders and car telephones. And when I have understanding of them, I shall have understanding of computers. And when I have understanding of computers, I shall be the Supreme Being!