Is it worth using my old computers to fold?

Duncan · Post by **Duncan** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 7:46 am

I have a pentium pro 200, a p2 300, and a p2 400 doing absolutely nothing.. is it worth setting up F@H on these systems?

They are far from silent, but they live in a room of their own gathering dust. Once I get my main rig going, that will be folding too hopefully (it's only an XP2000, but that will be upgraded summer time-ish.

Duncan

miker · Post by **miker** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 9:33 am

All of those PC's will still fold, and every cycle counts. Don't expect them to give you a big boost, but FAH will benchmark the PC and give it an accordingly easy WU.

oogabooga · Post by **oogabooga** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:31 am

Just keep in mind, that if you pay your own power bills, that's three more computers running 24/7...

Otherwise, fold away!

miker · Post by **miker** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:34 am

Yep, definitely turn the monitors off. (if you have them hooked up)

Wrah · Post by **Wrah** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 12:20 pm

I once started the folding up on a p2-450 at work.. After the first frame I calculated that it would need 10 days to complete one WU. I decided to let the poor thing alone.

Every effort counts offcourse, but you'll have to decide yourself if 3-4 WU's a month is worth the electricity bill.
And better not let it run gromacs. Gromacs rely on SSE/3Dnow, without it they're dreadfully slow. A p3-866 (no SSE) I use at work needs 2-3 days to complete a tinker WU, but a gromacs WU can take up to a week or longer.

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Tue Jun 24, 2003 10:11 pm

Hear, Hear!

I installed Folding@ on my work computer thinking it would be a help.

A 250 frame WU - in over 24 hous it has only completed 25 frames.

Poor little Celeron!

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Wed Jun 25, 2003 9:28 am

I've got an extra PII-300 sitting at work that I thought I would use for folding. It took two weeks I think to finish a 500 frame WU. I didn't think it was worth it. Although the company is paying for the elec. (Maybe I shouldn't post that =).

My problem is that it appears that it can't get through the firewall to return the WU. It recieved it okay. But on return it keeps erroring out. Any thoughts on how that could be?

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 1:44 pm

Well - the little Celery is still pluggin along on the same WU - 247 of the 250 frames done in 10 days!

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 2:00 pm

Hey - I've co-opted a 233MHz pentium that has returned points for me. Currently on a 70 pointer that will take about 30 days. Seems futile for a while but on the day it turns in the points you are grateful!

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Thu Jul 03, 2003 3:28 pm

Finally finished - almost 10 days to the hour.

My home machine did @ 12 WU in the same time (about 500 frames a day)

Athlon Powers · Post by **Athlon Powers** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 9:32 am

Every little bit helps! Even if they chew out a whopping .5 PPD!

Hey I just realized something, if you underclocked your CPU when you get a new WU and then normal clocked it would you get more WU's per day in?! Hmmm.......

Zhentar · Post by **Zhentar** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 11:19 am

Maybe. But it wouldn't affect your points. And was that really worth dredging up an old thread like this?

miker · Post by **miker** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 11:27 am

He working on that "Banned" status.

Post by **Rusty075** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 12:05 pm

How would underclocking you CPU when you get a new unit help at all? The point value per WU is determined by the benchmarking Stanford does, not the benchmarking that goes on on your machine.