Join the Phandroid Folding@home Team! - 56k Warning

[Slug]

does it use the processor or does it use the graphics card for this?

Either or both. GPUs that support CUDA (Nvidia) or OpenCL (AMD) will complete the work units magnitudes faster than even high-end CPUs, so using those is preferable when possible.

how does this help biological questions?

The research is on proteins, which assemble themselves by "folding" their chains in order to do their work of breaking down food, regulating mood, combating disease etc. If this folding malfunctions there can be serious effects on health, so the aim of the research is to better understand the processes involved. To properly do so requires modeling the huge number of possible folding permutations that can occur, which is done by mathematical modeling. This is where folding@home comes in....

how many problems do they have?

A lot! Certainly many millions.

what is the thing that is really going on during the process? From point a (Stanford) to point b (computer) point c (Stanford)?

Perhaps these links will answer some of your questions better than My own limited understanding will allow:

About the science of Folding@home
Folding@Home - Wikipedia

 

[Rxpert83]

I got into this many years ago and it just fell by the wayside when I got new computers. Maybe I should join in again.


I'm fascinated by molecular modeling, and this is another outlet

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I am back to folding after being gone for about a year. woohoo!!

Current system running: Win8 pro with an AMD A8-3870K, water cooled.

I also have the on-chip AMD 6XXX series and an ATI Radeon 7770 Vapor-X in the system, and they are being recognized by the software. Currently I am not utilizing the GPUs, have to spend some more time with the settings first.

Running well and folding away!!

So it works well with Windows 8? That's good, that's what I have now. I'll get this. So, how do I join the Phandroid team to help us reach higher ranks?

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I have now joined the Phandroid team!!

 

[sfbloodbrother]

Just to make sure , nothing bad can come from folding in large amounts (like overnight) apart from heat?

Amd that it uses a lot of power! Possibly like $3-4 a day. I'll only fold when I am using the computers

I am back to folding after being gone for about a year. woohoo!!

Current system running: Win8 pro with an AMD A8-3870K, water cooled.

I also have the on-chip AMD 6XXX series and an ATI Radeon 7770 Vapor-X in the system, and they are being recognized by the software. Currently I am not utilizing the GPUs, have to spend some more time with the settings first.

Running well and folding away!!

Nice I'm just starting to fold! Running on windows 8 as well. Though I will want to get better graphics card. Maybe 2

 

[ScandaLeX]

I used to fold on my PS3 but got away from it because my son was always on it. Does PS3 still do folding@home?

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I used to fold on my PS3 but got away from it because my son was always on it. Does PS3 still do folding@home?

I'm sorry but no, the PS3 was retired November 6, 2012. More information:
Folding@home - FAQ-PS3

 

[ScandaLeX]

Thank you kindly. I did read that before. I guess I forgot.

 

[Mehta23]

Amd that it uses a lot of power! Possibly like $3-4 a day. I'll only fold when I am using the computers

Sounds like quite a lot, but it's for a good cause I'd prefer not to fold whilst I'm on cos the added heat makes my GPU really heat up and the noise!

 

[ScandaLeX]

If Sony ever takes it up again I'll do it from the PS3 but other than that I don't believe my PC is powerful enough to do it for extended periods of time.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

If Sony ever takes it up again I'll do it from the PS3 but other than that I don't believe my PC is powerful enough to do it for extended periods of time.

Who knows. Maybe they might start it up with the PlyStation 4. That would be a great thing, for a great cause.

Sounds like quite a lot, but it's for a good cause I'd prefer not to fold whilst I'm on cos the added heat makes my GPU really heat up and the noise!

I don't really get heat at all from anything on my computer, but if it's at a full load, using both the processor and graphics card, things will stutter. So, I mainly turn my graphics card off while playing games and turn my processor to only use 3 cores for folding, and 2 for gaming. Love the fact that I got a 6 core processor instead of a 2 core or something.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I achieved my first Work Unit. Looking to achieve the ranks for the Phandroid team. Right now, I'm in 30th place.

 

[ScandaLeX]

Awesome! How long did it take to do?

 

[Mehta23]

I achieved my first Work Unit. Looking to achieve the ranks for the Phandroid team. Right now, I'm in 30th place.

I'm pretty sure I've done at least one work unit. I didn't get no certificate :-$

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I'm pretty sure I've done at least one work unit. I didn't get no certificate :-$

It takes about an hour to show up on your status.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I have completed 5 WU. With 17,000 points I am now in 24th place on the team.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

Awesome! How long did it take to do?

Not long. A few hours. Though I have a pretty powerful computer, and am able to achieve about 4,000 points for a work unit that may take a few hours.

 

[jlyon801]

awesome gentlemen! I was hoping I would spark a little bit of folding up by posting my experience with it. It's absolutely a power consumer. My little windows 7 CPU meter is pinned at 100 percent when I'm folding. 3 to 4 bucks a day for me is just fine considering the cause... however, I think that estimate may be a little high because my power bill is never more then 60 bucks a month and I've been folding consistently for a couple months now.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

awesome gentlemen! I was hoping I would spark a little bit of folding up by posting my experience with it. It's absolutely a power consumer. My little windows 7 CPU meter is pinned at 100 percent when I'm folding. 3 to 4 bucks a day for me is just fine considering the cause... however, I think that estimate may be a little high because my power bill is never more then 60 bucks a month and I've been folding consistently for a couple months now.

Well assuming for me, assuming that I am using my FULL 650 Wattage, it will be about $3-4 a day. Most likely the computer is not using that much at all, which is why I started another thread here in the forums.

Basically if I was using 650 Wattage, I would divide that by 1000 kilowatts, which is what the electric company measures your usage.

650 / 1000 = 0.65.
This is how much Kilowattage the computer would use in a given hour. It's a lot, considering it's the computer alone.

You then take this number and multiply it by how much the electric company charges per kilowatt hour. In my case, it's the highest in the country, Chicage! 15.8 cents per kilowatt.

0.65 * .158 = 10.27! That's how much it cost to run the computer for 1 hour! Multiply this times 24 for a day

$2.46. And this is assuming that is using the full 650 wattage. But I don't think it will cost that much, because most computers will use about 400 or so. I don't know how much mine is using, but I would like to know.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I have been leaving my computer on for some days now, and getting up the ranks. Already achieved 80,000 points and about 25 WU.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

I'm now number 13 on the Phandroid team with 50 WU completed. I see since we joined, we moved up 2 ranks placing us at 622 now. Maybe someday we can place in the top 100!

 

[jlyon801]

i keep runnin but apparently my sandy bridge processor gets too hot...still number 8 on the team though....you guys rock. folding rocks! keep on keepin on.

 

[sfbloodbrother]

i keep runnin but apparently my sandy bridge processor gets too hot...still number 8 on the team though....you guys rock. folding rocks! keep on keepin on.

Really? Sandy is the 2nd generation processor if I'm correct. I been running my Processor and Graphics Cards at 100% for about 2 weeks straight now, and there is no sign of heat from my computer, It handles everything very well!
Using a AMD FX 6 Core 6300 "Vishera" Clocked at 3.5GHz Processor
Graphics Card is a GTX 650 Ti OC 2 GB

 

[Mehta23]

Anyone know of a way to set how much load is put on everything? I think you can do it for the course, but what about the graphics card?

 

[Slug]

Anyone know of a way to set how much load is put on everything?

There's no direct equivalent of the 'Percent CPU Usage' setting, but there's a Windows environment variable that can be used to introduce a "wait time" to the GPU core. See here; the variable is FAH_GPU_IDLE.