Folding@Home

Discussion in 'Articles' started by PLANofMAN, Dec 29, 2012.

  1. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    Help fight cancer with F@H. Join Team TSD today!

    This is our team homepage. Click here!


    Members of F@H Team TSD
    Erikredd Millionaire's Club Member
    Norseman
    PLANofMAN
    JRod22
    Dr.Wybert
    DreamerX
    KLF
    Luteplayers
    Suisse
    Etoyoc
    CharlieChan

    Many forums are dedicated supporters of Folding@Home. Perhaps it is time that The Shave Den become one of them. For those who are not familiar with Folding@Home, it is a project created by Vejay Pande and is run by Stanford University. Folding@Home is one of the largest supercomputers in the world, and is composed entirely of personal computers run by volunteers like you and me.

    Folding@Home is dedicated to discovering and understanding treatments and causes of Cancer, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and several other studies. Folding@Home makes use of the background processes of your computer, and does not affect normal use.

    If we get enough interest, I would like to talk to the forum admins about creating a Folding@Home Shave Den Team, perhaps with a contributor tag under your forum user name. This would be another way we could all give back to those who have helped us before. Post in this thread if you are interested in doing something like this.

    For myself, I have been a Folding@Home member for over three years, and I'm sure that other members of this forum are also contributors working quietly behind the scenes.
    [​IMG]
     
  2. Neolithium

    Neolithium I am Canadian, eh

    I was a F@H member for quite a while with some computer forum teams. Unfortunately I don't have my desktop anymore but once I build my new baby early next year I'll be in. Especially with GPU folding making leaps and bounds over the last 2 years.
     
    PLANofMAN likes this.
  3. battle.munky

    battle.munky Has the menthol.munky on his back!

    Just installed. What now?
     
  4. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    At some point we'll create a team, and get a team number that people can use when they set up Folding@Home. Then we as a team will be able to see ourselves in the rankings, and also see how much we have contributed to this project. If there is enough interest generated by the end of next week, I'll discuss options with Sparky and either post more information here, or see if we can't get a separate forum section created for Folding discussions.
    Now you wait for your work unit to finish and start a new work unit. This can take anywhere from a day to a week. Keep an eye here and stay tuned for more updates.:)
     
  5. battle.munky

    battle.munky Has the menthol.munky on his back!

    Cool. I'm in! Just let me know when we get our team number :)
     
    JRod22 likes this.
  6. Norseman

    Norseman misunderstood Dark Lord of the Sith

    Interesting. Never heard of it.
    But I am in
     
  7. KLF

    KLF Doctorin

    I installed it now. Do we have a team number ?
     
  8. TitanTTB

    TitanTTB Well-Known Member

    I've never tried the Folding program but have used BOINC before, I'll join if we get a team number up.
     
    PLANofMAN likes this.
  9. KLF

    KLF Doctorin

    It is OK if I open a team ? The_Shave_Den ?
     
  10. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    223480

    Team TSD

    Please use the same username you use here when you sign up.
     
  11. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    Okay, to input the new team number, maximize your F@H screen. In the upper left corner you will see a drop down box. Change it from novice to advanced. Go to the far left you should see a box called configure. Open it and put 223480 in the team # box. Quit Folding@Home and then reopen it. That's it. Welcome to Team TSD!

    This is our team homepage. Click here!

    Once you finish a unit before the deadline, you will receive points for that unit. the more complex the unit, and the bigger the unit, the more points you and our team will receive. After an hour or so, the points will show up on our homepage and you can see how we stack up against each other and other teams. individual members will not appear on the homepage until they have completed a unit.

    If you are using Folding@Home on a laptop, I recommend that you keep the laptop on a cooling pad. Folding@Home is resource intensive and will cause your computer's CPU and GPU to heat up. If you are having performance issues or simply do not want your computer to use all available resources, you can use the advanced settings to control how much processor power F@H is allowed to use.

    You can run multiple computers using your username and team number. If you want to use F@H on computers at work, please get permission first.
     
  12. KLF

    KLF Doctorin

    I'm in :)
     
  13. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    We've got a number now. 223480
     
  14. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    [​IMG]
    :signs107: KLF is the first member of Team TSD to finish a work unit!
     
  15. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    Here's some more information for anyone wanting to know a bit more about Folding@Home.

    So whats this all about?
    It's called folding at home and used by researchers to find cures for diseases.

    What is folding @home?
    it's a small program written by Stanford university you download, install and let run in the background while doing nothing.

    Years ago the researchers realized they cant compute this stuff fast enough, even with the fastest super computers in the world it would take untold decades, so someone had an idea, instead of trying to crunch all the data at once on one computer why not break it up into pieces and send them to peoples pc's, this way we can use all those wasted CPU cycles, in effect creating the worlds biggest supercomputer.
    You can pause it, set the amount of CPU to use, and even turn it off when you feel like it, or when it effects other things like gaming or videos etc. as long as it has a reasonable amount of time to finish the work it's fine, but too long (days) and the work is late and gets discarded.

    Does it work?
    Yes they have made many advances towards curing diseases with the help of this program, a similar effort was used to crack the human genome so quickly a few years back.

    How do i find more information about folding?
    Look here: Folding@home - Science

    Ok looks cool so i want to help out what do i do?
    simple, download here : Folding@home - HomePage
    there are Windows as well as Mac and linux versions.

    It will ask for the team number which is 223480. Enter that and your TSD name and you are part of Team TSD.

    How do I know my/our stats?

    Clicking on your name or team within the program will take you to the Main F@H stat server.
    It will show your standing with the team and the current team stats.
    But it will not show you anything under your name until you start to turn in work for the first time.

    Hey i noticed it wants access to the internet is it spying on me?
    No! there is no back door action, no advertisements, nothing, it simply needs to connect to receive work and send results.

    Is this popular?
    Yes there are well known teams from many of your favorite websites.
    in total there are almost 1.7 million people to date. and I have been involved for years.
    There are people so into the rankings they have built multi cpu computer arrays running nothing but F@H just to stay ahead of the pack.

    Ok so what's in it for me?
    beyond making a positive impact on research, we can quickly move up the ranks and become one of the biggest teams out there.
    Sometimes the fun is waiting for those 3 extra points so you can pass another team in the rankings.

    Look at it this way, wouldn't it be great to know years from now when you or a loved one or friend comes down with an illness-you helped cure it in the past? The disease you help cure today could be the one you wake up with tomorrow.........
     
    Scott-H and battle.munky like this.
  16. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    Norseman, KLF and I are now all confirmed contributors! Is anyone else waiting for work units to finish?
     
  17. Billr

    Billr Mix Master Mighty White!

    Interesting. This may be a dumb question - Does this work on a Mac?
     
  18. KLF

    KLF Doctorin

  19. battle.munky

    battle.munky Has the menthol.munky on his back!

    I know I said I was in, but I got a bit overzealous. I'm moving in two days and won't have anything but my work laptop for 6 months. I simply didn't think past the end of my keyboard.

    In six months (or if I get a non-work laptop after the move), when my family catches up, I'll jump back into it.
     
  20. PLANofMAN

    PLANofMAN Eccentric Razor Collector Staff Member

    Moderator Article Team
    No problem. I understand, we'll see you back on the team in six months. :)
     
    battle.munky likes this.

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