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Thinking about starting to run one of these clients/projects.

KeithTalent

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Hey all, I was thinking about getting my PC to start crunching on one of these projects. It sits home alone for a good 15 hours per day, so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to put it to work during that time.

I went through the BOINC listing stickied at the top of the thread and it's a little overwhelming so I have a few questions:

1. How do I know which projects need the resources more than others?

2. Are certain types of projects better with certain PC setups? My rig is linked in my signature, so is there something that would work better with that configuration?

3. Silly question, but will my power bill go up considerably by doing this and is it safe to leave it home alone crunching?

4. Is there anything else I need to think about?

I think those are all of the questions I have right now.

Thank you very much in advance for your help. 🙂

KT
 
Hello KeithTalent and welcome to DC!

Your "My Rig" link didn't work for me.

1. You could look at the TeAms' rank to help determine if the project needs help.

3. Power bill will go up some, how much depends on if you usually leave PC on when you are gone. Remember that it helps heat house during winter 🙂

 
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Hey all, I was thinking about getting my PC to start crunching on one of these projects. It sits home alone for a good 15 hours per day, so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to put it to work during that time.

I went through the BOINC listing stickied at the top of the thread and it's a little overwhelming so I have a few questions:

1. How do I know which projects need the resources more than others?

2. Are certain types of projects better with certain PC setups? My rig is linked in my signature, so is there something that would work better with that configuration?

3. Silly question, but will my power bill go up considerably by doing this and is it safe to leave it home alone crunching?

4. Is there anything else I need to think about?

I think those are all of the questions I have right now.

Thank you very much in advance for your help. 🙂

KT
Click to expand...

1. I usually pick based on what I like most. They all need the resources so I wouldn't worry about that. For example a lot of people work on Folding@Home because they know someone who died of cancer. A few people prefer math type projects because there is an identifiable goal, such as when Seventeen or Bust finds some huge prime number. Or possibly crunch SETI because their Uncle Bob was abducted by ET. 😉

2. Some projects will award a higher points to some processors, I'd go by what you want to crunch more than points though. As far as i know none of the projects have major issues with compatibility, it'll all run fine.


(shameless project recommendation) If you are really stuck you could always join us in Malaria Control@home, TAS mini team and a few others are hanging out there for February.

Welcome to DC! 😀
 
Thanks GLeeM!

I assume these are the relevant parts from my rig:

Intel C2D E6600 @ stock

2 x 2900XT Crossfire

Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W PSU

4 x 1GB Corsair CMS DDR@ @ 667

Vista Ultimate 64

I will take a look at the rankings, thank you.

KT

 
Originally posted by: Alyx
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Hey all, I was thinking about getting my PC to start crunching on one of these projects. It sits home alone for a good 15 hours per day, so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to put it to work during that time.

I went through the BOINC listing stickied at the top of the thread and it's a little overwhelming so I have a few questions:

1. How do I know which projects need the resources more than others?

2. Are certain types of projects better with certain PC setups? My rig is linked in my signature, so is there something that would work better with that configuration?

3. Silly question, but will my power bill go up considerably by doing this and is it safe to leave it home alone crunching?

4. Is there anything else I need to think about?

I think those are all of the questions I have right now.

Thank you very much in advance for your help. 🙂

KT
Click to expand...

1. I usually pick based on what I like most. They all need the resources so I wouldn't worry about that. For example a lot of people work on Folding@Home because they know someone who died of cancer, or SETI because their Uncle Bob was abducted by ET. 😉

2. Some projects will award a higher points to some processors, I'd go by what you want to crunch more than points though. As far as i know none of the projects have major issues with compatibility, it'll all run.


(shameless project recommendation) If you are really stuck you could always join us in Malaria Control@home, TAS mini team and a few others are hanging out there for February.

Welcome to DC! 😀
Click to expand...

Good point. I'm not too concerned with ET or prime numbers or anything, so I will probably choose something medical.

I'll take a look at those rankings to see if anything jumps out at me.

Thanks!

KT
 
3. Power bill will go up some, how much depends on if you usually leave PC on when you are gone. Remember that it helps heat house during winter

Not only that, feel free to tell your computer to go sleep if that is a concern but if your are in in for pure work unit power then just leave it on screen saver mode or what not...I recently re-joined Seventeen or bust (the project is fairly close to completion and needed a bit of processing power. It also works flawlessly on my hardware) in terms of BoINC projects, our rosetta@home project could use some power help fight aids, cancer and a whole host of other ailments.

 
Originally posted by: narzy
3. Power bill will go up some, how much depends on if you usually leave PC on when you are gone. Remember that it helps heat house during winter

Not only that, feel free to tell your computer to go sleep if that is a concern but if your are in in for pure work unit power then just leave it on screen saver mode or what not...I recently re-joined Seventeen or bust (the project is fairly close to completion and needed a bit of processing power. It also works flawlessly on my hardware) in terms of BoINC projects, our rosetta@home project could use some power help fight aids, cancer and a whole host of other ailments.
Click to expand...

I was looking at Rosetta, it seems like a good one, but Malaria looks interesting as well.

Originally posted by: Alyx
Here's a good link for you to see teams activity on BOINC
http://boincstats.com/stats/bo...m_graph.php?pr=bo&id=8
Click to expand...

Ahh good, thank you. I fail at Google apparently because I could not find anything. 😱

KT
 
Since you have a multicore system maybe you would want to sign up for both rosetta and malaria and give them an equal share of the work?
 
Originally posted by: waffleironhead
Since you have a multicore system maybe you would want to sign up for both rosetta and malaria and give them an equal share of the work?
Click to expand...

Cool idea, but I think I'd rather just pick one and give it everything I can. 🙂

KT
 
Ok so based on a little research I've narrowed it down to the following:

Malaria Control Beta

POEM@Home

Rosetta@Home

SIMAP@Home

TANPAKU

World Community Grid

I really only want to pick one, so my final questions are:

1. Are there any reasons why one of these projects is better or worse than any of the others?

2. I saw something called "WU Quota" on a couple of these, what does that mean?

Thanks again for the help!

KT
 
MalariaControl, which has the potential to soon help millions of people, usually has only a few crunchers, right now (for February) the Rally TeAm - TAS - is helping out so there are more than usual.

There seems to be some problem with their servers the last day or two, just a warning if you decide to go with it, hopefully everything will be back to normal soon.
 
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Ok so based on a little research I've narrowed it down to the following:

Malaria Control Beta

POEM@Home

Rosetta@Home

SIMAP@Home

TANPAKU

World Community Grid

I really only want to pick one, so my final questions are:

1. Are there any reasons why one of these projects is better or worse than any of the others?

2. I saw something called "WU Quota" on a couple of these, what does that mean?

Thanks again for the help!

KT
Click to expand...

1) The biggest factors I go by is Ease of use of the client, which in my experiance you can't go wong with the BoINC based projects, and server stability. The latter is important because it is a pain to reconfigure every computer to crunch a new project every time you switch.

Lastly I choose projects that are of interest to me, that I feel would have the most impact on the human race in the near term, although SoB is outside of that zone of comfort really big numbers are cool to print on unsuspecting printers 😉.

Out of the BoINC projects I choose Rosetta because it fights cancer an may help hasten a cure, my mother is a breast cancer survivor so that is of direct importance to me.

2) WU quota just refers to how many Work units the client can download and cache, some projects send out time sensitive units that need to be completed before the next batch is sent out so they want a low WU quota to shorten the time that a work unit is live or redistribute a WU if it is not completed in a timely manner.
 
Thanks for the input and help everyone! I think I will go with Malaria Control because my Mom was in Africa last year and told me stories about the impact of malaria on everyone, in particular children, there. She donated money, so I think the least I can do is donate some computer time.

Cheers,
KT

 
Originally posted by: narzy
welcome aboard 😀
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I just got up an running. Is there an Anandtech team? If so, am I allowed to join it?

Thanks,
KT
 
Originally posted by: narzy
31) KeithTalent 356 33.62 Canada

is it too soon to inquire about adding more computers 😛
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah sorry, I'm sure I'm not doing that great but I'm planning on getting a quad soon, so maybe that will help a little?

KT
 
Originally posted by: KeithTalent
Originally posted by: narzy
31) KeithTalent 356 33.62 Canada

is it too soon to inquire about adding more computers 😛
Click to expand...

Heh, yeah sorry, I'm sure I'm not doing that great but I'm planning on getting a quad soon, so maybe that will help a little?

KT
Click to expand...

actually you're doing quite well 🙂
 
Heh, thanks all! Pretty nice community over here in DC.

It feels kind of weird having my PC running constantly, but I guess I'll get used to it.

KT
 
Welcome to the team, Keith!!

😎

I think you'll find theteam to be comprised of all good people.

If you want your rig data to show up, try using the following link in your signature block in your profile:

http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.aspx?member=197465

Most of the projects require a quorum (number of computers working on a task) of 2 or 3, so even when you complete a task, there may be someone else working on it, you won't get the credit until everyone who is working on it finishes the task. Go to the malaria control home page; then go to your account and view your pending credit. It takes a few days to ramp up to the point that credit flows out of the pending credit as fast as it goes in. It also takes a few days for your RAC (recent average credit) to come up to what it should be.

You'll have many questions for a while.

Have a good time!
 
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