THGC - Folding@home team 40051 - Frequent Asked Questions

[EntityAnomly]

Here is a directory of threads answering common Folding@Home questions:
How can I setup Folding at Home to work on a Dual Core Processor?
Can I backup the WU I'm working on and move it to a different computer? - YES

Other Folding@Home threads of interest:
Main Folding Discussion Thread
Main Folding Discussion Thread #2
List Your Folding Rigs

Other Links:
Stanford University Folding Website Download
Tom's Hardware Guide Community - Team 40051 Stats Page
Stanford Projects List and Deadlines - Stanford Beta Testing Projects List and Deadlines
Extremeoverclocking.Com's Folding Statistics - Lots of neat charts and graphs
Great List of Monitoring Tools
How-To: Setting up a Folding Farm

 

[EntityAnomly]

I decided to start a FAQ for folding. I will update the first post with links to other threads that contain commonly asked questions about Folding@Home.

Feel free to make suggestions for topics and I can add additional links to the list up top.

If anyone from the team wants to write up some tutorials that would be great. I will probably work on some when I have time.

 

[Cunninglinguist]

There is a huge list of links HERE, with monitoring tools, third party apps, stats, etc. It is an older link, so not all of them are still active. Enjoy, EA.

My personal favorites are the farm How-To via overclockix.

If anyone is setting up a diskless farm, you will want the LTSP 2.1 release. The newer ones aren't stable for a folding farm (well they don't work anyways ).

 

[stefan]

hi cunning!
jep, that's the coolest link, I've come across so far! (I wanted to post it, too, but you were quicker!)

so, here's my promised how-to on how do I back up my work, when I switch client, OS, etc.?

X) go to your Folding@Home-Program-Folder.
X) identify those files:
queue.dat
unitinfo.txt
"work"-Directory
(FAHlog.txt - That's just, if you're interested in the history of your work)
X) back up the whole "work"-folder and the other files listed above to a different location
X) do what you have to do
X) when done and ready to start folding again, either simply copy and replace the files in the new Folding@Home-Program-Folder or back up the one's you replace again (in the event that there is already significant work-progress in the "new" folder. you'd want to use the config-switch "-oneunit" so that the folding stops after the current unit and you can switch back again...)

(I hope, it's comprehendable, errr, it's only my second language! 😳 )
edited sh|tty bbcode..(hopefully)...giving up the idea to have a hierarchy in a list...thx cunning 😉

 

[Cunninglinguist]

Hey stefan 8)

 

[Cunninglinguist]

Just thought of a few more:

Projects and deadlines are available at http://vspx27.stanford.edu/psummary.html and beta projects can be found at http://vspx27.stanford.edu/psummaryB.html

Off topic a bit, if my ebay auctions go well here soon, I may turn on the farm with double the clients for a few more months. Cross your fingers for me .

 

[Cunninglinguist]

How about sigs?

It's free to register (no email necessary either) at
http://www.dcsig.com/

I believe mine is "THG9" if anyone would like to use it.

The old one I made was called "THG", but that was before the banner size limit.

 

[EntityAnomly]

Setting up Dual Core Folding

You don't have to follow these instructions exactly, but here is an example of a dual core setup.

Prerequesites:
-download a copy of the F@H console client
-create two different folders ie C:\fah1 C:\fah2(one for each core)
-copy the fah504-console.exe into each of the two folders

Note: These instructions are for Windows 2000/XP

Now we're ready to setup dual core folding

Open a command prompt by going to Start->Run type CMD and hit enter

Make sure you navigate to the fah1 folder, you can do this by typing:
C: [enter]
cd c:\fah1 [enter]

Start configuring the first core by typing:
fah504-console.exe -configonly [enter]

Configure the console client:

1. First it will ask for your username, enter in the same username for all your folding computers so the work units are credited to your account. If you are a first time folder this is where you can create your username.

2. Next it will ask for your team number. Tom's Hardware Guide Community's team number is 40051. If you are joining our team make sure you get this team number typed in this field.

3. Then it will ask if you want the client to start automatically with windows, which will install folding at home as a Windows service. This is up to you as to your preference.

4. There will be a couple more user preference questions that you can make a decision on as the console asks, continue through them until you get to the questions asking if you want to Change advanced options say Yes to this question.

5. Here again you will be asked several more user preference questions. As before answer these as you'd like, and if you don't know what to do taking the default is usually best. Continue this until you get to the option for Machine ID (1-8 )

6. For each core you need to assign a unique Machine ID select a unique ID and hit enter. You now have completed the configuration of this folding console client.

You have your first core configured and ready to go. Now you can type this to configure your 2nd core:
cd c:\fah2 [enter]
fah504-console.exe -configonly [enter]

Follow the above instructions to Configure the console client only this time make sure that you give the second core a unique Machine ID. If you opted to run the consoles as a Windows service you should only need to reboot your PC to start them both up.

You can check to make sure they are running by opening up the Windows Task Manager and look at the Processes and Performance tabs to see if you have two copies running on each core.

If this is all done correctly you should have two different console editions running on each of the cores, giving you double the folding fun 😀