Well today sucks...

O

OSUguy98

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2006
Joined
Oct 8, 2003
Messages
3,959
Well, I lost 2 P4 2.66GHz PCs here at work today... all because my moron of a coworker complained saying "my internet is really slow" and so my immediate boss looked and saw Folding@Home... asked what it was (even though I asked him (my boss) before I installed it almost 2 years ago).... and the aforemention moron said "Randy put it on there... some cancer research thing... I think that's the problem" So off the PC F@H comes... on my PC (here at work) too...

This is the same moron who bought a dually xeon 2.4 for his 13 year old kid and recently bought a 2.8GHz Dell... and flat out refuses to even consider running F@H on those PCs because his 13 year old son said he "doesn't wanna"....

I knew when I got up this morning that today would suck... that was reinforced on the drive to work (fellow coworkers who drive 100+ on the interstate, weaving,etc,etc,etc).... and again in our monthly meeting when the above-mentioned moron told me about Al and Randy (my bosses) wanting F@H off the PCs....

Recap: Because Hudson had 5 different excel sheets, 3 different web pages, 4 word documents, 2 massive pdfs and 2 instances of Microstation running and said "my internet is slow", the [H]orde has lost 5.32 Ghz


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
He has a point, it does slow you down a bit

For example, I have one user that loves to keep all the emails he got that day open (between 40 and 60 emails), all the word documents (2-6 or so) and all the excel sheets as well (another 10 instances probalby by the time the day is done). His taskbar is a collection of hundreds of windows by the time he's done, lol

I simply could not run F@H on his 3.2 HT P4 running at 50% (one instance)

Is it reasonable to have all that stuff open? Sure it is, because at least it shows that he's utilizing the PC to its full extent. It's NOT reasonable to tell him that he can only have 10 things open at a time because of an external application doing cancer research, that will get you fired in no time.

On the other hand I have many users that have F@H on their systems and they never know any better since all their systems run is outlook, one or two IE windows and maybe a word document. In that instance F@H is never even noticeable.

NEVER..... EVER put F@H on your bosses machine, even if he agrees to it... everytime something will go wrong with his machine he'll blame it on F@H and you have experienced the final result.

My advice is to pick workstations that are VERY underutilized and put F@H on those, leave any users with half a clue alone as it's only asking for trouble.
 
ZROUT said:
My advice is to pick workstations that are VERY underutilized and put F@H on those, leave any users with half a clue alone as it's only asking for trouble.
Click to expand...

No it is the ones without half a clue that are the problem.
 
As a side note, always keep your mouth shut about F@H, lol, don't lie when asked but don't brag about it to company CEO either.

At any company there is always that one guy concerned about increased use of electricity etc...

Rule of thumb: if the user is smart enough to recognize what process is taking up so much CPU time then don't put F@H on their system unless they beg you to, and even then it will come back and bite you in the ass.
 
Spectre said:
No it is the ones without half a clue that are the problem.
Click to expand...

There are people that actually use most of their system resources, engineers with CAD applications would be on top of that list. Putting F@H on their systems is flat out nuts. You need to be smart about it and it's for the best when anyone questions F@H to quickly remove it off they systems so they are satisfied and don't cause more problems. Think first, install F@H second.

Some people are sheep, if someone at a water cooler mentions that his pc now runs much better since you got rid of F@H (even though it's because he actually restarted for the first time in 9 months) then it will spread and soon you won't have any boxen :(

If you are still dead set on having F@H on there, talk to them about running it during off-work hours and weekends (use the windows scheduler for that). That way it's a compromise and you get them folding most of the day anyway (better 16 hours a day then not at all).
 
ZROUT said:
There are people that actually use most of their system resources, engineers with CAD applications would be on top of that list. Putting F@H on their systems is flat out nuts. You need to be smart about it and it's for the best when anyone questions F@H to quickly remove it off they systems so they are satisfied and don't cause more problems. Think first, install F@H second.
Click to expand...

I have run it on systems that are using around 90% of their system resources with no adverse problems. These are mainly doing genome alignments.

Some people are sheep, if someone at a water cooler mentions that his pc now runs much better since you got rid of F@H (even though it's because he actually restarted for the first time in 9 months) then it will spread and soon you won't have any boxen :(
Click to expand...

That is my point these people don't have half a clue.
 
I run Microstation and excel and word and adobe while running F@H here at work... I've never experienced a slow down because of something F@H did... now, opening a 250MB pdf file will slow you down for awhile... as will having 75+ windows open (of any program).... those two things are completely independent of whether or not F@H is running or not... step 1 in the investigation of "My PC is running slow" is to see how many things are running (task bar icons, windows, etc).... If you ignore the fact that there are 25 memory intensive apps running on the taskbar, you'll point the finger at whatever else you're unfamiliar with...


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
I hate the people who blame their own problems on the "easy patsy" (ie. F@H). And then to make themselves seem smart (and you a moron) they brag about how much better it is without it on there! God dumb people piss me off!

"Computers should be like college, you need to pass a test in order to buy one" - Me

Fold on fellas!

 
chileman said:
"Computers should be like college, you need to pass a test in order to buy one" - Me
Click to expand...

I've always said they should require a liscense to own and/or operate one. Like a car.

Luckily I haven't had a problem at work. It's a good thing too, since only 2 of my boxen are not at work.
 
sandmanx said:
I've always said they should require a liscense to own and/or operate one. Like a car.

Luckily I haven't had a problem at work. It's a good thing too, since only 2 of my boxen are not at work.
Click to expand...

How about having kids for god's sake?
 
Spectre said:
How about having kids for god's sake?
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Agreed... MANY tests should be given before humans should be allowed to conceive...

Not to turn this into a Soapbox thread, but the welfare system should stop saying "we can give you more money if you have another kid"

back on topic..... losing boxen sucks!!!


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
OSUguy98 said:
I run Microstation For the [H]orde!!

Click to expand...


(smacks forehead)

<waterboy's' mom voice> microstation is the devil! </waterboy's' mom voice>

ya i agree, i have a 3.4HT with 2 instances maxed out.. autocad runs smooth as butta
 
I was forced to learn Microstation here at work.... I grew up on AutoCAD... Microstation is becoming ever-more like AutoCAD.... more levels, naming of levels (rather than 1-63 as your level choices)... It's not the devil (anymore)...


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
Spectre said:
That is my point these people don't have half a clue.
Click to expand...

no clue unfortunately doesn't mean that they can't make a lot of noise. Sadly enough it's the exact opposite... it's the dumbest sheep that are the loudest.
 
.. set it to screem saver only and have the turn monitor off in the power properties come on before the screen saver....
 
OSUguy98 said:
I run Microstation and excel and word and adobe while running F@H here at work... I've never experienced a slow down because of something F@H did... now, opening a 250MB pdf file will slow you down for awhile... as will having 75+ windows open (of any program).... those two things are completely independent of whether or not F@H is running or not... step 1 in the investigation of "My PC is running slow" is to see how many things are running (task bar icons, windows, etc).... If you ignore the fact that there are 25 memory intensive apps running on the taskbar, you'll point the finger at whatever else you're unfamiliar with...
Click to expand...
Up 'til about three months ago, I'd have agreed with you on the "Never blamed F@H for a slowdown" side of the argument. Since it's my desktop, and my network segment for maintenance, I'll run whatever I damned well please on it.

Then, QMD moved in, and life hasn't quite been the same since. Godzilla's nuts, what a resource hog! Start off with three SecureCRT sessions, toss in Outlook 2003, add in the usual dreck of antivirus / antispyware / VPN tunnel, and things are already snug. Start Opera with about eight tabbed panes, and then try to work in MS Access 2003. Uhh uhh, time the app with a sundial.

Hell, if my Windows-impaired boss can see the chug and ask "Whazzup?", then you know something sucks. Shutdown F@H, and the desktop gets afterburners. What I *need* is physical RAM (512M just doesn't cut it any more). What the budget has is bupkis. :(

So, what's a techie to do with F@H slowing his desktop down?

Break out the fsckin' sundial and grab a soda, what else? :D

Fold On!
 
I wasn't running QMDs on his PC... I was on mine.... you should see the ppd difference... The only time I ever experienced a slowdown on my PC (besides our servers dying, or printing failing, or adobe locking up) was the first 5-10 frames of a QMD... any other time it was always the same as it is right now (since I've been forced to remove F@H).....


Keep on Folding!! For the [H]orde!!

 
you know whats kinda funny? is that i cleaned a friends computer up (removed spyware virus's blah blah blah) and then installed F@H and they were like wow this is the fastest it's ever been! whudda thunk it
 
84gthatch said:
you know whats kinda funny? is that i cleaned a friends computer up (removed spyware virus's blah blah blah) and then installed F@H and they were like wow this is the fastest it's ever been! whudda thunk it
Click to expand...
"See Jimmy... SSE BOOST.... this F@H thing is like a turbo button..."
"Ohhhh....."
 
This could have been a good opportunity to make the guy look stupid. You can ask him to show you it being slow, then check the folding logs to show that it's not sending or receiving at the time and then proceed to diagnose the real cause of the problem as you give him the "nice detective work, Sherlock" look.

The only time I've seen folding cause a problem is when it happens to do something quirky with one particular program. I've never seen it in our office on any of our workstations or servers. I have seen a couple of games chug a little bit, but that's why I stop and start it at home when I'm gaming.

I only run big WU's on machines that don't get used much or are lightly used since that will make the computer slower once you run out of RAM. On all other machines I run without the big WU option and have never had a RAM problem related to running FAH. If you're so close on RAM that closing a small WU folding session actually helps, then you better get on the phone to the Smithsonian to see if they want your machine as a museum piece.
 
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