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A forum just for SPCR's folding team... by request.

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aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:02 am

I'll post my obstacles as a newbie on the folding forum. After that it's up to them to decided if my experiences warrant some changes for clarity.

:)

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 15, 2007 4:32 pm

bkh wrote:Hi, Aristide1.
I haven't been following your entire story, but did you remember to install the 32-bit compatibility libraries after you installed ubuntu? ........
BINGO! Image

Started right up. Other info:

AMD X2 4000+ with stock cooler.
Biostar T-Force 6100
1 stick Corsair 675 CAS4, 2nd stick was bad. :?
(I'm hoping only 1 stick has some performance impact.)

Wow, 52 minutes for a checkpoint on a 4000+ X2 as opposed to 23 minutes for my E6400. :x

Stock settings, memory settings had to be done by hand. 4-4-4-12
Stock CPU cooler barely above 100F hardly warm to the touch 8)
Northbridge - quite hot :shock:
Southbride - slightly warm
Power usage with 300 watt non-APFC Fortran - 105 watts. :evil: :x

I know with X2 dual cores and Windows that there is a CPU driver require for optimized performance? Now to see if such a pgm exists for Ubuntu/Linux whatever this thing is. Would like something like CPU-Z as well. Looking at system monitor (64MB devoted to video) 333MB of 436MB RAM used.

WHOA! The processes tab on System monitor shows FahCore_a1.exe eight times, what is that?

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Post by ryboto » Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:37 pm

it should only show 4 instances of the FAH core...something is amiss...

bkh
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Post by bkh » Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:00 pm

Hi, Aristide1.

Glad you got it working.

I agree with ryboto that there should only be 4 cores, not 8. I hope your process monitor only shows one instance of fah5 -- if two, the fah work files will likely get overwritten by the two competing instances making a mess.

The old-fashioned way to see what is running is in a shell window (applications->accessories->terminal) run the command named top. It shows a dynamic display of what's running and how loaded the system is (cpu, memory, swap, etc.) When top is running type a question mark for internal help. (It will indicate, for instance, that if you type u aristide1 then top will only show the jobs that user aristide1 is running; q to quit.) The really old-fashioned way to see what is running is with the ps command, but that's arcane and not as nice.

Because of its roots in unix, linux is obscure in many ways, but after awhile it seems natural even if it shouldn't (so stick with it -- it gets better.) That's how someone can write "untar" and think that is a clear explanation of what to do, or how the system can give you an error message "I can't find an executable named fah5." when you have a file named fah5 and its permissions are set to allow execution ( --- the operating system discovers that it can't actually execute the file because it is a 32-bit executable not a 64-bit executable.)

There are a few SMP jobs that run especially slow on the AMD X2 compared with newer Intel chips. In particular there is the dreaded 2608 which evidently suffers lots of cache misses on the X2, but does much better on the 4x larger CPU cache of the new intels.

Good luck, and have fun watching those points roll in.

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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:29 pm

ryboto wrote:it should only show 4 instances of the FAH core...something is amiss...
:(

Yeah, there were 2 FAH5s running, one got a lot of time, 1 didn't do much of anything. I stopped the one with little time. The 4 FAH exe's also ended.

How the hell did I do that? :?
Will this one complete OK?
I restarted Konsole now I can't see what its doing, can only tell from the system monitor.

Need to move qd and fpd to the correct directory. Haven't figured out how to move files yet. Hopefully now with the 32 bit libraries I can also get FahMon going (not really).

I had done an install as a service. When I got all the 32 bit libraries and rebooted perhaps that started working properly, and then I turned around and started another one by hand. :?

??? Both CPUs are busy but now they hover around 90-95%.

Thanks for the help.
Aris :?
Last edited by aristide1 on Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

bkh
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Post by bkh » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:24 pm

>How the hell did I do that?

Probably one started at boot (you said that you "installed it as a service") and you started a second one in a terminal window.

>Will this one complete OK?

Decent chance if it is still making progress.

>I restarted Terminal now I can't see what its doing, can only tell from the system monitor.

Open a terminal window. cd to your folding directory. Then,

1. to see a brief status of percent complete and due time:
cat unitinfo.txt

2. to see just the percent complete ("look for % in the file named u-something"):
grep % u*

3. to read the output that would have gone to the terminal window:
less FAHlog.txt (press spacebar to advance through the pages, q to quit)
... or you could read FAHlog.txt in a good text editor.

4. to see just the last 5 (or any number) lines of output:
tail -5 FAHlog.txt

5. to read the last 80 lines of output, pipe the output of tail through less:
tail -80 FAHlog.txt | less


You can make a new command to facilitate showing the status: in your home directory the file named .profile can be used to define new commands. You can use a text editor to add to the end of your .profile something like

alias fs='tail -5 ~/myfoldingdir/FAHlog.txt'

After that, when you start a new terminal window you can just type fs and it will print the last 5 lines from the folding log without your having to cd to anywhere or type anything long and cumbersome.

>??? Both CPUs are busy but they hover around 90-95%.

That's reasonable. There is some time spent waiting for communication between the 4 cores. I just used top to glance at the usage of my 4 cores and I see 64%, 49%, 46%, and 25% CPU.

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:45 pm

Great info, thanks bkh.

Checkpoints now every 30 minutes. Cool.

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Post by Webfire » Sun Aug 19, 2007 1:33 pm

So I just upgraded one of my computers. Hopefully my folding output will increase a little bit, but my fathers QX6700 isn't folding at the moment so my PPD took a big hit.

I bought a new E2140 for 60€ and it's a crazy CPU. On stock settings it runs with 1,6 Ghz and 1,325V Vcore but with a slight Vcore bump to 1,38V I can increase the speed to 3,2 Ghz. I think I can run 3 Ghz with stock Vcore but I haven't made any further tests. The only problem is the small cache of 1MB. The 2610 project runs with 683 PPD and 2651 with 1457 PPD.

But I find a 100% overclock quite impressive for such a cheap processor.

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What are PPD's?

Post by fastturtle » Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:03 am

Got a big question since I keep seeing it. What in heck are PPD's and how are the figured?

I'm currently running a C2D e6300 with 4GB ram and only getting 129 WU's for my efforts. Using 2 clients since Gentoo doesn't offer the smp client as yet but I am investigating the possibility.

On my f@h config, I've enabled the large work units since I have the 4GB of memory (no issues with them) and the system is on 24/7 (only off when power goes out) but I want to boost my completed WU's.

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Post by peteamer » Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:05 am

PPD is Points Per Day. Calculated by points awarded divided by time taken to complete WU.

No Linux version offers any F@H, you have to install manually.

Best way is to use finstall , it does a good job and can add monitors for you, though I would propose FahMon as a monitor.

Google "gentoo finstall" and there are many many hits.

The command line to provoke install is "./finstall smp" without the quotes.

Would also suggest to install as a service as most people find at least a slight PPD increase...


Proper SMP install with gather far more points per day than two standard installs...




Hope this helps, I'm in a rush as I have house duties to attend to,...
these duties do however allow me to live another day..

I quite like them really..... :D ...


Regards
Pete

EDIT: Command line quote
Last edited by peteamer on Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:26 am

Heh, heh--house duties.

For me, it's spelled more like "doodies" and it also lets me live another day (in addition to FAH points, also spousal points).

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Post by aristide1 » Tue Aug 21, 2007 7:39 am

peteamer wrote:The command line to provoke install is "./finstall smp" without the quotes.
The devil is in the details.

I like moving up in the ranks, but I'd like to see Buddabing start moving again :!:
For me, it's spelled more like "doodies"
I'm not sure how much of this is misspelled.
Duties?
Dooties?

"Who am I kidding? I'm Dooty."
Ross, "Friends"

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:19 am

"Doodies" as in doo-doo. Pumped-up Pampers. Huge Huggies. Dripping Diapers. You get the picture.

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Post by jaganath » Tue Aug 21, 2007 11:54 am

ahh, the pitter-patter of tiny feet....of course some people think it's cruel to put shoes on a cat.

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Tue Aug 21, 2007 4:51 pm

KansaKilla wrote:"Doodies" as in doo-doo. Pumped-up Pampers. Huge Huggies. Dripping Diapers. You get the picture.
Oh silly me, I should have realized, it's both!

It's dooty duty. :shock:

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 22, 2007 7:46 am

KansaKilla wrote:Heh, heh--house duties.

For me, it's spelled more like "doodies" and it also lets me live another day (in addition to FAH points, also spousal points).
Welcome to page 1 Kansakilla.

Ummm, what's a Kansa and why do you want to kill it?

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Post by bkh » Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:03 am

Cancer. He's working for understanding and for a cure -- to kill the cancer.

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Wed Aug 22, 2007 9:09 am

bkh wrote:Cancer. He's working for understanding and for a cure -- to kill the cancer.
Oh, man it looked too much like Kansas to me. Now I feel foolish, its a good name.

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Post by floffe » Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:50 am

peteamer wrote:No Linux version offers any F@H, you have to install manually.
Actually gentoo does have F@H packages available in the official repo (sci-biology/foldingathome). It does seem to have the SMP beta too, even if it has to be manually unmasked (in other words, that version won't install if you just tell it to install F@H).

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Post by Wibla » Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:58 pm

Just set the following boxen up to run F@H for spcr:

one Celeron 2.66GHz (colo in the us)
one Celeron 3.2GHz (home fileserver)
one AMD64 3000+ (colo in the netherlands)
workstation - E6600 @ 3.1GHz - one gui + one cli
one P3-933 (home gw)

hovering at about 400ppd i think, not exactly alot :|
Last edited by Wibla on Tue Aug 28, 2007 5:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Myth! » Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:24 pm

just wanted to say my main rig is back on this team. I tried setting up a WinMx team but after a month it was me with 50000 points and someone else with 9. So I'm back 8)

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:29 am

Welcome back! :)

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Post by Myth! » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:42 am

i DLed FahMon 2.2.2 and it shows progress, ETA and PPD, but not the work unit info on the right hand pane. Am I doing something wrong? F'H was aleady running when i installed FahMon

cheers

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:43 am

Yes, welcome back!

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Post by Myth! » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:29 pm

interesting, I went to Web > fahinfo F4 and it took me to a website, then when I looked again FahMon had all the details in the RHS pane :-)


[edit] you know, thinking about it, maybe i just hadnt clicked on the client on the LHS :oops:

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Post by aristide1 » Mon Aug 27, 2007 12:21 pm

Peoples :!:

We have about 10 days before we slip into slot 24. At over 600,000 PPD we're no match for DL.TV

But.....

Overclockers is getting ready to pass us as well, and their PPD is only about 1000 PPD more than ours. <- Hint Hint.

KansaKilla
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Post by KansaKilla » Mon Aug 27, 2007 1:59 pm

just added a c2d 6300 with smp to the mix.

what is interesting is that at 1.86, this proc with 2mb cache is doing better checkpoints than my Opteron 165 @ 2.7 (also 2mb cache, or 2 x 1mb to be more precise). the numbers are something like 25min vs. 30min.

bah. would be nice to start a farm, but don't think the boss would like that very much.

aristide1
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Post by aristide1 » Mon Aug 27, 2007 2:27 pm

Oh man, I was barely staying ahead of you so as it is.

Yes, I want it both ways. 8)

Seriously though good work. State your case to your boss with a passion, maybe he'll go for it.

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Post by KansaKilla » Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:45 pm

"Da Boss" thinks that my P4 2.4C from 2003 should be good enough for the next 10 years. I'll try, though. Once the whole job situation gets worked out, maybe she'll let me upgrade. Dunno how much diaper duty I'll have to do, though. She's still pissed that I spent about $1000 over my allotment when I built everything back in 2003. I might have to give up beer money or something. I already had to give up my allowance (along with copious mea culpas).

--kk

ps--aristide, I think that bolek is gonna pass both our butts here soon, anyway.

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Post by floffe » Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:56 pm

Yeah, I'll try to get the gf to install the SMP client on her iMac when she wakes up.

Btw, I'm back to folding, doing around 60-100ppd.

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