Some Questions?

[KillerButler]

I have been looking around this section and I have to say I am impressed. Dedicating a machine for this is unreal. I have some questions:

1: What kind of hardware do you need to run this? I have an Old p3 450 that is sitting in my closet. Would that be fine for folding?

2: Do you have to have the latest and greatest hardware to fold?

3: Does folding take alot of bandwidth from your internet connection to run? I have looked around and really can't find anything that explains hardware requirements or bandwidth requierments.

I would like to fold for the horde, for the 2 years of free forum browsing that [H] has offered me.

 

[CBR]

I dont know the answer to the first question, though I have a suspicion it will be a no, if not then you will need to set it up for the timeless WUs.

2: Do you have to have the latest and greatest hardware to fold?

No. I am running a P3 800MHz, 192MB RAM, and have not missed a deadline yet. This is also my primary machine so quite often folding doesnt get all of my CPU power.

3: Does folding take alot of bandwidth from your internet connection to run? I have looked around and really can't find anything that explains hardware requirements or bandwidth requierments.

Not at all. When you finish a WU, it will upload the results to Stanford and download a new WU. Doesn't take long at all as the files never exceed a few megs. I'm on 56K and have never had a problem. It usually finishes a WU when I'm asleep and downloading overnight.

Welcome to team 33. Enjoy your stay and give the moose a hug.

 

[OSUguy98]

I have been looking around this section and I have to say I am impressed. Dedicating a machine for this is unreal. I have some questions:

1: What kind of hardware do you need to run this? I have an Old p3 450 that is sitting in my closet. Would that be fine for folding?

2: Do you have to have the latest and greatest hardware to fold?

3: Does folding take alot of bandwidth from your internet connection to run? I have looked around and really can't find anything that explains hardware requirements or bandwidth requierments.

I would like to fold for the horde, for the 2 years of free forum browsing that [H] has offered me.

1. There are timeless work units that you can use that PIII 450 for, but most of us look at the cost of running the box and how much work it can actually do. We try our best to benefit Stanford and their research as much as possible, with minimal cost to ourselves.... Many have boxen without monitors, hard drives,etc... all you need for a functioning folding box is the processor, RAM(more needed if you go diskless), a NIC or modem(most use NICs) and some form of video(be it onboard or PCI/AGP)...

The best advice I can give you, is to hang around here more, read back through some of the recent topics discussed, and learn what's best for you. I have 4 PCs folding for the [H]orde, all of which are primary machines to people, I have not yet ventured down the road of building my first folding farm (not that I haven't been pricing and debating for months)...

Just remember that any/all help is appreciated. Some have donated hardware to other folders, some donate their time/energy towards stats or monitoring programs for your boxen, most just have a PC or 2 or 3 folding quietly in the corner and stop by for the interesting conversations we tend to have around here.

2. and 3. were already answered quite well so I won't add much.

2. No... but it helps

3. Nope, but (at least in the older versions of the console client) WinXP can be flaky when it comes to letting F@H dial out... Cable/DSL/etc are prefferred for ease of sending/recieving... (but that goes without saying as we'd all love to have the speeds associated with those connections) .... dialup will serve you well... some even have boxen which don't have a net connection and will download the files on a disk and transfer them back and forth...


But anyways........ I'll stop my rambling... bear in mind that any addiction you may develop is all Relic's fault...


Keep on Folding!!

 

[KillerButler]

I have almost set the machine up. When I get home from owrk I will start my trek down the folding path.

I will add my little contribution to the horde and mankind that my little machine in a closet in a small corner of the world will help cure some form of illness.

Thanks for all the replies, now I can fold with confidence. I was afraid you had to have the latest and greastest to fold.

 

[OSUguy98]

Nope... we accept anything and anyone call us desperate

make sure you keep track of the WU it gets, there are deadlines that are unreasonably large for newer PCs, but can sometimes get a little too much for the slower machines out there.... as mentioned before, there are timeless tinkers... not to mention UD (which I know very little about) but you can help out the [H]orde just the same with UD


Keep on Folding!!

 

[Ibanez3434]

Nope... we accept anything and anyone call us desperate

make sure you keep track of the WU it gets, there are deadlines that are unreasonably large for newer PCs, but can sometimes get a little too much for the slower machines out there.... as mentioned before, there are timeless tinkers... not to mention UD (which I know very little about) but you can help out the [H]orde just the same with UD

Keep on Folding!!

Shoot I use UD on a Pentium 200 (Hey 16 WU's in 2 weeks isn't bad). There aren't any "Minimum Requirments", all you really need is an internet connection. It just takes longer to proccess WU's.

 

[BillR]

All of your questions having been answered, let me say welcome aboard. Glad to have you and all that.