Folding@Home Setup Guide: Illustrated for your pleasure

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

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The following are a collection of setup guides for the Folding@Home project. It would be an honor and privilege to have you and your CPUs on our Folding@Home team. If you want more information about Team OcUK then see the Team OcUK Forum where these guides and more are posted.

Cheers :)

So what is this Folding thing anyway?


Folding@home is a distributed computing project designed to perform computationally intensive simulations of protein folding. The project’s goal is to add greater understanding to protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. Such diseases include BSE (mad cow), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, among others.

Folding@home does not rely on powerful supercomputers for its processing; instead, the primary contributors to the Folding@home project are many thousands of personal computer users who have installed a small client program. The client runs in the background, and makes use of the CPU when it is not busy. In most modern personal computers, the CPU is rarely used to its full capacity at all times; the Folding@home client takes advantage of this unused processing power.

The Folding@home client periodically connects to a server to retrieve “work units.” These are packets of data upon which to perform calculations. Each completed work unit is then sent back to the server.

Getting Started

Log in to your computer with Admin/Root rights. If you try without Admin rights you will not be able to properly service install Folding. Go to Stanford’s site and download the appropriate client. Anyone with a personal computer running Windows 9x, NT, XP, Mac OS X, and Linux will find clients there. BSD users generally run the Linux client.

Picking a client
There are several different clients available; Text Console, GUI, and Screensaver.

As far as speed is concerned Text Console>GUI>Screensaver. Similarly the clients are different in speed as well; Windows>Linux>OS X. This is due to the availability of compilers for each platform. Much of FAH is written in Fortran and finding a decent OS X compiler for that has been a bear.

If you’re going for performance *DO NOT* run the screensaver version. It wastes approximately 15% of the CPU’s power just drawing pretty protein images. The GUI version has been known to interfere with some games through its use of OpenGL so I highly recommend the console version, especially to OcUK’s techier-than-average audience.

Below are the Set-up guides for various machines.


Table of Contents

"Oh my," you think. "This looks complicated. I haven't this much time to figure this out."
Have no fear! Joe42 has written a setup guide that has nothing but the basics. Check it out!
 
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Setup for single CPU

Once the console is downloaded, move it to a folder called something like C:\Fold. Open up Fold and make a shortcut to the client executable by right clicking on it and choosing "Create Shortcut".
shrtctocuk5fw.png

Click on the new shortcut and select properties to brink up the window shown.

In the box called "Target" after the .exe type a space and -configonly.
wintxtconfigonly4sz.png


Press OK. Run the shortcut. The client will go into config mode. That looks like this:
wintxtconfiging3iq.png


The configuration you choose will change depending on what sort of machine you’re using. This one is a very generic one. It is suitable for most modern machines.
  • User name enter a username pick one that no other OcUK folder had chosen
  • Team number 10
  • Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service yes
  • Ask before fetching/sending no
  • Use Internet Explorer settings yes/no yes if you have a proxy, else no
  • Use Proxy yes/no ditto
  • Allow receipt of work assignments and return of work results greater than 5MB in size (such work units may have large memory demands) If you use the machine for things other than F@H and have less than 256MB RAM no, else yes because these units get far better points
  • Change advanced options yes
  • Core Priority idle (this will not make FAH faster, just change it if it’s interfering with something else that runs at similar priority.)
  • CPU Usage 100
  • Disable highly optimized assembly code no
  • Pause if battery power is being used (useful for laptops) yes/no
  • Interval, in minutes, between checkpoints (3-30) I choose 30 becasue some WUs are very large and take some time to write to disk.
    *Memory, in MiB , to indicate (xxxx available) [xxxx] Don’t change this unless you want to trick it into thinking you’ve more RAM than you actually do. More on that later…
  • Request work units without deadlines no
    *Set –advmethods flag always, requesting new advanced scientific cores and/or work units if available Though this is the subject of much debate Yes. This is especially true if you have a Pentium 4.
  • Ignore any deadline information (mainly useful if system clock has errors) no
  • Machine ID ( 1-8 ) 1

The program will now exit because you used the –configonly command. You’re not done yet though. We still need to give it some commands and start it up.

Regarding the –advmethods option: It used to be that this had to be set in the registry. This is no longer the case with version 5.04. With it the client demands only the newest WUs ***VITAL ON P4S*** on P4s this, combined with Big WUs=yes will get you QMD work units. These use 300 MiB RAM for the first 1-2% then settle down into 200 MB after. Since they use so much system RAM, they receive *Bonus Points* These units are the best there are because they are so fast and so highly scored. If you have a P4 . P4 Celeron or P4 Xeon you can get these, so I suggest you do.
Sadly becasue Intel and AMD refuse to get along and play nice, AMD CPUs will never be given QMD units to crunch becasue they do not run at full speed. To do so would constitute a violation of Intel's compiler and science library license agreements.
 
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Performing the registry edits

Note: Editing the registry, if done incorrectly, can seriously damage your system. You do so at your own risk. With FAH as long as you don't start mucking about in other registry entries you're probably safe. If you get lost, stop before you do something you'll regret. If you screw up these particular entries up the worst that could happen is FAH doesn't work until you fix it. Use your head and everything'll be fine, just like everything in life.

Open up regedit by clicking Start, Run then typing regedit in the Run command box.
wintxtrun8cq.png
.

Navigate in regedit to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\FAH@C…
regeditopen9um.png

regtyhere0us.png


You’re going to set keys in the Image Path. Right click on the title and select Modify.
regtymod9qk.png


After the .exe type a space and enter the following flags:

-verbosity 9 (outputs to the log file the most data that the client will allow)
-forceasm (forces F@H to use SSE and 3DNow! assembly optimizations)
regtxo9.gif


Click OK and you’re done with regedit.

The clients are now installed and configured - they are set to run as services and will work even when nobody is logged in.
You can stop or start the services manually by going into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services or by going to the Run dialog and typing in Services.msc. Find the service for FAH and click on Stop.
You will not appear on the stats system until your first WU is completed and the stats database updated (usually once an hour).
Often the first WU will take especially long, just try to be patient and look forward to getting a different WU afterwards.
 
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Setup for Dual Core, P4 HT, and Multi Processor machines

The setup is exactly the same as for a single CPU except for a few things.

Put another copy of the console in a *different* directory. Otherwise they’ll interfere with each other. I like to put one in C:\Fold1 and another in C:\Fold2. You do the same things as with a single client; same with the shortcut, same with the registry edits. It's just that you have to do each twice.

On the second installation you'll have to change the Machine ID. You need to go into the advanced settings and set the machine ID equal to some number not equal to 1 that is less than or equal to 8. 2 works but for some unknown reason I use 8. The machine ID only needs to be changed if you have more than one FAH process on a single system. If you've more than one computer running FAH you do not needto change the Machine IDs unless each machine has more than one process running.

It is not possible to use both cores/virtual cores with the GUI client so that’s another reason to use the command line version.

HyperThreading in Pentium 4s is very valuable. Running 2 clients at 100% will run slower than 1 client at 100%, but it will finish 2 units in the same time it took the other to do 1.5. Thus it is faster in the long run. On my P4 I fold 2 QMDs simultaneously with 512 MB RAM and it is perfectly stable. You might not be so lucky. If you do not want to receive QMDs for one process or the other, go back to your shortcut (with the FAH process stopped) and when it asks about -advmethods, tell it "no."

The nice thing about single processor P4 machines is that you can run F@H on one thread and run the OS, web browser, and the like on the other extra 15% that HT gives you. This means that you are not going to slow down your progress by using the machine.

As with all installations, verify that it's working by checking your task manager to see that it is running.
taskman7zg.png
 
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Running F@H

Disable any screensavers, as they rob you of valuable idle processing cycles. I set mine to go blank after 5 minutes, and off after 10 (to save electricity). Leave your machine 24/7 if you can take it. Computers that are off do not compute anything. Recruit others to fold under your username if you are persuasive.

You will appear on the stats page when you have completed a WU. The database servers update about every 3 hours so you might have to wait a few hours to see evidence of your units, but they’ll show up. You can monitor your progress with FAHMON or EMIII. I prefer FAHMON because it uses far less memory to run and starts up faster. EMIII is more powerful, features visualizations of the proteins, and is able to monitor multiple clients over a network. Use whichever.

To disable the service for gaming, compiling video encoding, or anything else that you want, run services.msc, scroll down to the FAH process(es), click on each and select “Stop the service.” Repeat this again to restart it. I game on my machine with F@H running, but if you’re going to do anything that really kicks your computer’s butt (Doom, Half-Life, that sort of thing) feel free to stop it.

Setting Up FahMon
By BigStan

FahMon is a Free/Open Source GUI tool for monitoring and tracking your Folding@Home processes. It will give the percentage completion, its best-guess completion time, and your ppd (points per day). It can monitor local installations and installations accessible over network shares. this guide will demonstrate how to set up FahMon to monitor a FAH process in Windows where the process is installed as a service.

Installing
Download the zip file from here and unzip to a folder of your choice (I use my F@H folder to keep everything in the same place) and double-click on the FahMon application to open it. You will see a box asking you to update the projects. Click on "Download current projects" and then click OK once it has finished downloading (a few seconds).
Image linked due to forum rules

The application will then open in a small window, resize this to whatever size suits you.
If you want to see the logfile then click on monitoring and select Show/Hide FAHLog (or press F8 - which I've just found :o)

Loading a client.
Right click on the blank space in the top pane and click add new client. The "client information window" will appear into which you must input the details for your client.

I am setting this up on my laptop so I type "Laptop" into the name box. To enter the location in the box, either type in the location of the folder containing your console (in my case C:\FAH) or browse for it using the browse button. You can add all the clients on your network in the same way.
fahmon23dr.png


Now you simply click on the client you wish to monitor and the details will be before your very eyes.
fahmon34at.png


As you can see, the client information is in the top left pane, the core and download information is in the top right and the logfile (if selected) is in the bottom pane. You can adjust preferences to suit by clicking on the FahMon tab and then preferences, there are options for proxy settings, auto updating the projects database etc.

If you want to see benchmarks for the WUs done, click on FahMon tab, then Benchmarks and you will see this:
fahmon48iv.png


You will see a list of projects worked on since FahMon was installed in the left pane. Clicking on an individual project will bring up a list of benchmarks in the right pane for each client which has done/is doing that particular project.

Clicking on the Monitoring tab and then "Reload selection" or "Reload All" (F5 or F6) will force a refresh of the status of either the client selected or all clients loaded respectively.

Most of it is pretty self explanatory but if you should have any queries there are usually one or two foldy types hanging around the forum who can help. Just start a new thread and we're happy to help.

There is other monitoring software out there but this is the most popular (for Windows anyway), if you find any other good ones, please let us know and we will consider including them.
 
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Overclocking

Officially, Stanford pooh-poohs overclocking because it can lead to instability of the simulation. However, this is Overclockers UK so I’ll discuss it. If your machine is heavily OC’d and you are seeing weird stats reported on the Team stats page i.e. 5 work units returned but 5 points granted, you probably are seeing early unit ends (EUEs). These are where the simulation reached a point where it could not continue. This is usually caused by an unstable OC, though not always. If this is the case you should turn your OC down a bit to lend stability to the system. An OC’d rig is no use to anyone if it is too unstable to execute code. It is certainly possible to OC and fold, just don’t over-do it. My Xeons are 200% overclocked and they're rock solid stable on air. Make sure that you stress test your machine then pay close attention to FAH for the first few post-OC WUs. If you machine is not stable with Prime95 and Memtest86+, it is not stable enough for Folding@Home.
 
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Setting up GUI Client - Windows NT/2000/XP

I suppose if you absolutely must you could run the GUI client. It is slower than the console, can only use one CPU, and it is known to interfere with games that use OpenGL for their 3D graphics. If it is causing you problems please switch to the console. It’s not that scary, really. Start a thread here about it and you’ll have nineteen sweaty nerds rushing to help you fix anything. :D

Setup
  1. Download the client from the download page - the current version is v5.03.
  2. Run the installer, click Next -> Yes -> Next to take you to the User Information tab. Enter the name you want to be known as, this will identify you in the stats.
    The name is case sensitive and must only contain letters, numbers, or the underscore "_" character as a space. You can search on the download page to check that the name isn't already in use.
    Don't worry too much about getting a totally unique name just as long as nobody in Team 10 (OcUK) is already using it. Just be sure to not have any spaces in the name.
  3. Keep clicking Next to install the client into the default location C:\Program Files\Folding@Home
    Installation is complete - click Next to start the client and view the readme.
  4. You should now see a little red protein icon in the Notification Area/System Tray.
    Right-Click the icon and select Configure... from the pop-up menu.
    gui1stocuk0pu.png


    On the User tab change the Team number: to 10 - this is OcUK's team number.
    On the connection tab you should be able to clear all the boxes for most internet connections.
    gui2nd1uh.png


    For a points boost you can choose to receive Large WUs, these require a lot more physical memory than the standard WUs. As such you will receive extra points for doing them.
    If you have 512 MiB or more of RAM you shouldn't have a problem running them along with your usual programs.
    To recieve Large WUs tick the box at the bottom of the connections tab in the client configuration - "Allow receipt of work assignments..."
    gui3rd1yq.png


    In the advanced settings tab you can dictate how much of the CPU FAH will request.
    Click OK to apply the changes.
  5. The client should now have downloaded a Work Unit and a suitable Core and should be working on it.

    The display shows a little information about what is going on and features OpenGL rendered 3D visualizations of the folding activity.
    guimainocuk2jn.png

    Click for fullsize (800 x 600)
    Double-clicking the red icon will bring up the Folding@Home Display.
    The left side of the screen shows information about the current WU including its name, the core, and an estimated finish time based on the work done on it so far (don't worry about this yet).
    In the bottom left corner if all is well you will see the word Working... if not then wait a few minutes as it may still be downloading and initializing.
  6. Locate the shortcut in your Startup folder and change its properties so the target reads:
    "C:\Program Files\Folding@Home\winFAH.exe" –forceasm -advmethods
    Disable any screen saver that is set to run - many screensavers will hog the CPU and make your WU take longer.
    Instead select Blank Screen or Turn off Monitor after XXmins from the power settings. The GUI client comes with its own screensaver however it is not required since the client runs extremely low priority in the background.


    Just as in the Console client, setting –advmethods and Large WUs on a Pentium 4 system will enable you to receive units that run on the QMD core (FahCore_96.exe). These can use in excess of 350 MiB RAM and should be avoided unless you want to maximize your point output. If that is the case you should seriously consider uninstalling the GUI client and switching to the Console version in its stead.


The client is now installed and configured - a shortcut has been placed in your Startup folder so the client will run automatically when you log in.
You will not appear on the stats system until your first WU is completed and the stats database updated (usually every three hours).
Often the first WU will take especially long, just try to be patient and look forward to getting a different WU afterwards.
 
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Installing on PPC OS X using InCrease

As a UNIX based system OS X is very configurable… provided you know how. Many Mac folders find themselves running the GUI version of FAH simply because they do not know how to install it as a service as Windows does. The boys and girls over at Team Mac OS X decided that this was a problem. Calxalot wrote a GUI program for FAH that would do pretty much everything possible. It manages the startup flags, installs a crontab (a startup service), downloads and updated the FAH client as necessary, automatically detects and uses multiple CPUs and keeps track of PPD stats. It’s fantastic. This magic program is InCrease.

Setting up InCrease is a breeze. As always, you must log in as a user with administrator rights. Begin by uninstalling and deleting any previous FAH installations. Download the .dmg from the InCrease web site and save it somewhere locally.
shrtctocuk8xx.png


Mount the disk by double clicking it.
mounted7gg.png


Drag the two applications in the image over to your Applications folder. One is InCrease, that is the engine for FAH here. The other is fpd, a WU visualization program. If you think that you don't want to look at pretty 3D protiens, don't copy it to your system. Navigate to InCrease in the Finder and execute it.

Setup
When it comes up it will run a scan to see if there are any WUs on the system along with looking for some other things. When that’s done it'll look like this and you’ll be able to click the ‘Preferences” button in the upper right corner of the window. Bring this up and click over to Clients. Type in your user name and team 10. Allow big WUs in the checkbox to the right and you’re done. Note that there are checkboxes for –advmethods –verbosity 9 and –local that are already checked by default.
prefsocuk7ar.png


Once your user is set up click "Close" to remove the preferences dialog. Now you're all ready to install the crontab that will begin FAH when your computer boots. Click the "Install” button on the main window of InCrease. This will casue the script to run in the main window. It will automatically download the FAH executable. When it’s done it will say that it’s ready to fold under (username), (team). Click the Start arrow at the top left of the screen. It will download a WU and a core and start working.
last5wo6cp.png


Upon restart it will run no matter what user is on the machine. That’s all there is to it. It takes less than a minute and is great to use for large installations.

To check to see if it's working without bringing up InCrease open up Finder ->Applications->Utilities->Activity Monitor. The CPU graph will look like so:
finalcpu4gp.png

We need some fishies to swim around in that blue water.

Tweaks
Note that there are options to disable FAH whenever certain programs are activated. there is also a big "stop" button right next to the "start" button you pushed for it to begin. if for some reason you want to manually disable Folding@Home, this is the method. Explore InCrease a bit. It has many, many features.

Running on Macs
The PowerPC G3 and G4 processors are fairly good genaral purpose CPUs. However, in some applications they fall short. There is a scientific core in Folding@Home that is written in Fortran called Tinker. Stanford has had a heck of a time finding a Fortran compiler that both produces binaries that are both fast and accurate. The one currently in use is very accurate but does not run very quickly. G4s are particularly disadvantaged in this arena becasue their floating-point performance depends heavily on AltiVec assembly optimizations. For this reason Tinkers perform very poorly on G3 and G4 Macs. Gromacs core units, however, perform very well becasue they take advantage of AltiVec. Stanford is trying to get more Gromacs core Wus to macs but they are sometimes rare. These CPUs are still useful to the project, of course. Once the addiction has set in you'll be willing to put FAH on anything. Just don't expect supercomputer performance out of your bondi blue iMac. : )

G5s, on the other hand, have much improved floating point performance. They perform at nearly the same evel with Gromacs or Tinker core work units. Add to this the fact that they generally have quicker system busses and RAM and one can see how they are excellent performers.

Happy Folding : )
 
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Linux setup using finstall part 1

To an inexperienced Linux user, running FAH might seem like something of a challege. Setting up a service in Linux, though not too difficult does take some command-line wrangling. isn't there some easy way to do this that doesn't take a UNIX sysadmin? Along came the finstall script by Ivoshee. It pretty much takes care of everything and should auto-detect your system to the hilt!

It does the following:

  • Auto-Detects the number of CPUs
  • Creates the directories for each CPU
  • Steps you though each CPU client setup
  • Allows for easy editing of the flags (like -forceasm -verbosity 9 etc.) though a pill file called <fah_config>
  • Installs 3rd Party Monitoring applications for you.
  • Creates the service scripts for running at boot time.
  • Creates the Start, Stop, Reload, Pause Scripts for you.
  • Works for Red Hat, DSL, Debian-based distros (Ubuntu), Slackware, Gentoo, FreeBSD
  • Allow you to run it through WINE so that you can use the Windows client if you tell it to do so in the command line.
  • Asks you to if it should run manually or run the service scripts.
  • Has a "Backup-Utility" to ensure the state of your folding even if you nuke your files.

For this guide I'll go over the basics; setup and service installation using the Linux client. For other fanciness, see the finstall page at the official FAH Wiki. For this example I'm using Mandrake Linux with a user called bti. Your setup might be different but these instructions should work for most if not all distros. In code blocks I'll list the user inputs. For reference I've taken screen shots to help. I'll assume that you have basic experience with the folding@Home client. If not, you should read the Windows client setup guide as it contains many explanations that I will not duplicate here.

To begin, boot up and log in as a regular user not root. Open a terminal window (if you're using a GUI, othewise you're already at a prompt) and go to your home directory:
Code: 
cd ~
begin17tz.png


Create a sub-folder in your /home directory called foldingathome like so:
Code: 
mkdir foldingathome
Hit enter then change to that directory with
Code: 
cd foldingathome
make29lj.png


Then download the script like so:
Code: 
curl -O http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/finstall
on some other systems, including Debian and Red Hat, the curl command is not recognized. If this is the case for you use:
Code: 
wget http://ra.vendomar.ee/~ivo/finstall
Hit enter and it’ll download the files while printing a neat-o download meter to your screen.
downloading34zm.png


Next you need to make the file executable. Type
Code: 
chmod +x finstall
chmoded49tk.png


Now all that’s left is to execute the script. Type:
Code: 
./finstall
executing58yz.png
 
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Linux setup using finstall part 2

When you execute it a bunch of text will fly past your screen. It’s busy detecting things, making directories, and other fun things. When it stops scrolling it will ask if you want to read the FAQ. Give it a big ‘ol
Code: 
n

Next it will ask you to verify the download’s checksum. This is the checksum of the FAH504-Linux.exe file it downloaded from Stanford’s web site. Check to be sure this number matches the one posted on the Stanford download page. This check is to be sure nobody hacked your script and gave you a bogus client. If the numbers match tell it so.
Code: 
y
checksum86rv.png


It will now ask you if you want to use any third party utilities. Fd and fpd are pretty cool visualization rograms written by the late rhp_iv. However, I don’t care to see the proteins so I tell it:
Code: 
n
utilities103xs.png


Now the script is done. It will dump you off at the config screen for the client. This config is identical to the Windows client so if you aren’t sure what settings to use see the Windows console guide.
config115wc.png


When it’s done with configuration it’ll spit you out at a long explanation of how to set it to run as a service.
Image linked to fit regulations.http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/682/done136up.png

When I got to the end of this I cleared the text onscreen. You need not do this. Now it’s time to try the installation out. Note that you’re still in your foldingathome directory. If by some cruel twist of fate you discover that you’re not there anymore, you will need to cd to it.

When the script ran it put a bunch of programs and scripts in the foldingathome directory. One of then is called folding start you’re going to want to execute this now.
Code: 
./folding start
foldingstart144cc.png


It should now start the client, download a core and a work unit and begin crunching. You can observe it through an activity monitor like KsysGuard. This is the method to use if you do not want to install it as a startup service. To procede we’ll need to stop it though. Type
Code: 
./folding stop
It’ll sit there for a minute waiting to be sure that all the clients have stopped.

It is now ready for you to install the service. Along with folding start and folding stop there is a script in the foldingathome directory called installService. This is the one to run to install the service. Note the capitalization of the name and recall that it is caps sensitive. Type:
Code: 
./installService
installservice165hv.png


That’s all she wrote, folks. When you reboot it should fire up with the system and run silently just like it does in Windows. If you want to monitor it and keep track of benchmarks use FahMon. Download the source and compile it for your system with the detailed instructions included with the source.

Happy penguin folding : )
 
Tweaks for all OSes

A common question asked by new FAH donators sounds like this, "How can I squeeze the most performance out of each computer?" This is a short list of tweaks one can make to get an extra few percent faster. It might not be a lot but it is something. Most of these hints are duplicated from the above posts but are listed here for consistency's sake.

Screensavers
Screensavers are a waste. They burn quite a few CPU cycles just to show a useless image on the screen. The screens that need saving are CRTs, lest they become phosphor burned. These monitors while not being used are consuming quite a bit of electricity, especially monitors with large diagonal sizes. To maximize FAH performance and save a bit of electricity, set it to “blank” or “none” and set the monitor to sleep after a short while at idle.

This problem is especially important on Macs because the default OS X screensaver, flurry, is very CPU intensive. Most OS X installations don’t offer the ability to turn off the screensaver entirely. If this is the case for you, set it to “Computer Name” as this is the lowest demand of the default screensavers.

Checkpoint Frequency
This setting in FAH determines how often the process will put itself on hold to back up to hard disk. While it may only take a second or two with an average WU it can take much longer with large WUs like QMDs where compressed they measure 60 MiB and uncompressed in RAM they measure 350 MiB.

Set your checkpoint frequency to the highest setting possible, thirty minutes. You need not worry about losing your data when you restart. Whenever you tell the service to stop it backs itself up. That is whether you requested it manually or by requesting a shutdown. If the system crashes it will resume from the most recent checkpoint if that checkpoint is intact. The most common cause for a corrupted checkpoint, and thus corrupted WUs, is that the system crashed or hung whilst it was writing the WU to disk. By stretching the frequency of the checkpoint action it will spend less time doing it and will thus lower your likelihood of having it crash while you’re checkpointing.

Fast User Switching
This feature in Windows and OS X allows quick switches between different user profiles. The way it accomplishes this is by not ending each user's programs before starting the next user's programs. It is possible for one user to be consuming a great deal of the system's resources even if the currently active user is doing nothing.

Disabling this means that only one user is able to have their tasks running at one time (yes, I know this is not true of the Mach kernel, cut me some slack).

In Windows you can find the control in the User Accounts area of the control panel. Click the link to "Change the way users log on or off" then uncheck the box for fast user switching.

Log Out
Using the same reasoning as the previous point about fast user switching, this one is obvious. The system starts all a user’s services and tasks only at login. Before that it doesn’t know which user to start. It follows that if you do not log in to a particular user only system tasks will run. This means that the CPU has more time to run FAH. Wired network controllers almost always are active at this stage so you need not worry about whether it’ll be sitting at idle if it finishes its work. Sometimes with wireless networking this can get a bit dodgy. In my experience it’s about 50/50 getting WLAN authentication working before a user logs in. Try it out and see if you can.

Run Timeless WUs in the background
by rich99million, edited by BTI

You might be thinking, “But folks, what if the universe explodes and takes out my Internet connection? How will I possibly cope with the prospect of having my crunchers sitting at idle for hours!?”

How indeed. You can set up a backup client running deadlineless WUs at lower priority than the other FAH process(es).

Go to your regular FAH installations, stop the services, and run them with –configonly using your shortcut as described in the above guide. Go down into the advanced settings and raise the priority from “idle” to “low.” This will put the main FAH instance so that it runs at higher priority than the new one you’re about to set.

1. With the main service still stopped put a fresh copy of the console into a directory separate form the one(s) that already contain FAH. You can create a sub-directory in the Folding@Home directory and name it "backup"

2. Run the console to start the configuration just as you did when installing the originals. Install this as a service just like the other.
3. Configure the backup client to request work without deadlines <yes>, the next question will be about reducing network usage by downloading work in batches, select <yes> again. Finally set the machine ID of the backup to some number you haven’t used yet. Note that Machine IDs can only be integers between 1 and 8. This means that you can only have 4 main clients and 4 backup clients. It’s not an issue for most of us.
4. If set to run as services stop both clients and restart them either through the services.msc or simply reboot (never hurts :p).
5. When the service starts it will download a batch of 10 Tinker core WUs. It will begin to crunch them but it won’t get far. The main client will take all the CPU cycles that this one wants because it is running at higher priority.

This certainly works. Though the deadlineless work isn't worth as much as the top-dollar work, in the event of a connection failure it's better than nothing, it's also better for the science than running two normal clients since the WUs with deadlines will be being returned as quickly as possible.
Running the extra client on my computer only uses an extra 11MB of RAM on my machine as the deadlineless WUs are a lot smaller and use the older Tinker Core that isn't as memory dependant so you shouldn't see much of a performance hit.
 
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Controlling Your Windows FAH installations with Batch Files

So you’ve got FAH installed now and you’re crunching away. You think to yourself, “What do I do if (gasp!) I ever want to turn off FAH?” The first thing that usually comes to mind is using services.msc. This, however, gets tedious if you have several FAH installations. Here is a way to automate the starting and stopping of your service-ized folding installations. Batch files are simply scripts that communicate with the Windows command line enabling you to script commands for it to execute at a single click. They can also be combined with a scheduled task to start and stop your FAH instances based on time of day and day of the week. This can be handy when installing on office computers.

Beginning
In this example I’m running Windows NT 5.1 on dual HyperThreaded Xeons, for a total of four clients. The consoles are located at C:\Folding@Home\ in four folders numbered 0 through 3.

Starting and stopping these whenever I went to compile, render, or game was becoming tedious. Batch files to the rescue! Let’s get started.

Obviously, to control our FAH services, you’ll first need to have it installed as a service. When you use the FAH console to install the service it gives it a long, gibberish-y name that relates the entire path to the executable. Though you can change this I prefer not to. Open up services.msc, find a FAH installation and click properties.
batchproperties4jx.png


Then copy the entire name of the service. This is the hardest part of the procedure. Yes, that does imply that it is an easy procedure.
shrtctocuk1ao.png


Make your batch files
Open up notepad from START>All Programs>Accessories. In a new document type
Code: 
CALL NET START “<name of service>”
Repeat as necessary for all your services. Changing the named path as necessary. When you’re done save it to someplace convenient like the desktop as start.bat. Be sure that it’s start.bat and not start.bat.txt. Windows wants to hide the extension by default. You can disable that if you like (I do for security purposes). When you’re done it’ll look like this.
batchnetstart7uv.png


Now change the “START” to say “STOP” so it reads:
Code: 
 CALL NET STOP “<name of service>”
Save it as stop.bat. When you’re done it’ll look like so:
batchnetstop8pl.png


Testing your shiny new batch files
Now test it by stopping (or starting) the services by double clicking the appropriate file. It should pull up a command window for a few seconds while it starts or stops. It’s probably ten times faster than doing it manually.
batchrunning0xi.png


That should do it. If you like, you can schedule the batch file as a scheduled task so you can set it to do all sorts of things, like fire up a second console on the weekends on your work PC or any number of other things. I find that scheduling a batch action is more reliable than setting the actual executable to run. Why? Who knows, Windows is a mystery.

Enjoy thy Folding : )
 
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How to process FAH WUs on non-internet-connected computers.
Stolen without shame form the Official F@H Wiki.

First, it must only be used for a limited number of projects known as "deadlineless" WUs. The deadlines for Regular WUs are critical, and sneakernetting introduces unacceptable delays to the process, actually damaging the scientific process.

One machine must have internet access and you'll need whatever hardware is necessary to move data between that computer and each of the other computers.
  • Download console client to machine A (networked)
  • Make a separate directory for each client you plan on running. Use whatever directory names will avoid confusion about which machine they're associated with. For this discussion, we'll call them A, B, and C.
  • Copy the client to each directory and create shortcuts called A, B, and C to run them. Add the -local flag. creating a shortcut to the FAH executable
  • Start client A and in the Advanced section, specify that you want Deadlineless WUs and that you want to minimize networking. (That's not essential for Machine A, but most people are comfortable if they're running similar WUs.) Client A can be left running.
  • Before you begin, the offline machine(s) will need a registry entry. From Stanford's perspective, they will be treated as a separate CPUs on your internet-connected machine. Run regedit.exe to search for the key UserID (in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PandeGroup\Folding@home"). Export that key. (Be careful not to make any changes to your registry.
  • Copy that file to the other computers and import that key by double-clicking on the file. This part only needs to be done once per off-line machine.
  • Start each client B and C and set the appropriate config settings. Be sure to say YES to Ask Before Connect.
  • Also, in the Advanced section, choose Deadlineless WUs (If you're running v4, they were called GAH), set YES to "Minimize Networking," and set a unique machineID for each client. (1-8). Presumably machine A is still set to the default value of 1. Each client will connect, download 10 WUs, and begin processing that work. Stop clients B and C with a CTRL-C.
  • Transfer an exact copy of folder B and shortcut B to machine B and do the same for C. Start each client with the shortcut.
  • WATCH each client and harvest the results when it indicates it is finished by asking for a network connection. On slow machines, that may be a week or so.
  • When the client asks for a network connection, do not say OK, but change to the regular FAH-console window and enter CTRL-C.
  • Move directory B from machine B back to directory B on machine A.
  • On machine A, create a new set of shortcuts: B-sendall and C-sendall which are copies of shortcuts B and C but which have the command line tags -local -send all added to the target.
  • Start B-sendall, say OK to network, and wait for the results to upload.
  • Start the shortcut B and wait for new WUs to be downloaded, stop the client with CTRL-C again.
  • Move the new batch of work back to machine B and restart the client on machine B.
  • repeat as necessary.

Even though they are timeless, there is still a set deadline before they are reissued, and the scientific value of the unit diminishes somewhat with time. It is better to get them back as soon as you are able.

Most of the time, Stanford has timeless WUs on only one server, and in rare instances, that server may be down. You'll see repeated messages trying to download work and failing. There is nothing you can do about it but wait. They will not send you WUs with deadlines.

To simplify the procedure, I've suggested that you need to move the entire directory back and forth. Certainly that must be done initially and you may eventually find it needs you to copy a new core, but most of the time it is enough to move queue.dat and the entire WORK folder.

NOTE: DO NOT attempt to upload completed units over and over. It will not do you any good. Once they have been sent in, and recorded by the stats server, you WILL NOT get credit for uploading any units a second time. You would only be wasting your time and bandwidth. When you move the WORK folder between computers, you should empty the receiving folder before the new contents are inserted.

==========================================================

dav1d said:
Reinstalling a Console Client From a Backup

Before you begin: To be able to carry on folding with settings, WU count and log from a previous installation, you will first need to backup your F@H folder (wherever you installed it - usually C:\Program Files\Folding@Home) before it is deleted/you wipe your HD.

I also recommend creating a backup of the registry settings for the service. To do this, go to Start->Run and type regedit. Navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and right click on the F@H folder. Then choose Export, save it to a suitable place and back it up. Do this for any other clients you may have installed.

Restoring your backup: Copy the F@H folder you backed up to where you want it to be (usually C:\Program Files\Folding@Home). To install the service, you will need to run the configuration again by running the executable with the -configonly flag.

To do this, the easiest method is navigate to the folder with the F@H executable in (named FAH502-Console in my installation), right click and choose Create Shortcut. Right click on the newly created shortcut, choose Properties, and under the Shortcut tab, modify the target by adding -configonly to the end, outside the speech marks. Now you can run the program with this shortcut, answering the questions in the configuration, and the Windows service will be installed.

If you have backed up your registry settings for the service as well, navigate to your .reg backup file, and double-click it. This will restore the settings to the registry.

Hopefully, you'll be able to carry on folding as before like nothing's changed :D
Click to expand...
 
Team OcUK Folding Stats Signatures
Garp said:
Roll up, Roll up ladies and geeeeentlemen.... annoucing the creation of an F@H Stats signature generator, conforming to this 'ere very forums exacting sig rules, being as it is an image of 400x75 pixels, and weighing in at a sweet 3.5kb.

For the moment I've used the OcUK Logo from the forums, and kept its current colour scheme to produce this image, however if anyone else has an image they'd prefer to have in place it is certainly possible to arrange it. I'm investigating what I might be able to do as a way of distinguishing people who've passed certain benchmarks. Shouldn't be too hard. Feel free to come up with suggestions

Data is updated at 7am every day (server time.. no idea whether thats GMT or BST, or other!) it can be made more often, but from what I understand the data is only dumped by its source once a day, so not much point!

To utilise the system insert inside of tags the following address:
[url]http://bliss.paulgraydon.co.uk/fah/fahsig.php?id=[/url]

after the = sign, put your F@H username.
Et Voila, all should be working.
I'm now creating a separate offshoot for testing / improvement purposes.. I'm going to leave this one alone for now![/quote]

[b]Adjusting the color of the text in the sig[/b]
[Quote="Garp"]
If you want it white, just tack the following onto the end of the file you call:

&r=255&g=255&b=255

those values (unsurprisingly) are for red, green and blue repsectively. Feel free to experiment.[/quote]

==========================================
If you have got it right, it should come out looking like so:
[img]http://bliss.paulgraydon.co.uk/fah/fahsig.php?id=Garp&r=255&g=255&b=0
==========================================

All thanks to the one and only Garp - with a little help from the AOA folding team guy. If you can't seem to get it to work, try nicking someone's sig you already see and changing the username.

EDITED Dec 06 due to Garp's hosting change. :)
Click to expand...
 
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Like the GPU Client. ;)

UPPDATE
The GPU client is still in public beta and is a bit rough around the edges. It is offering donors very high PPD so if you feel you're up to it you should find the experience rewarding. the most comprehensive instructions and tips can currently be found on Stanford's official page for the GPU client. Joe42 has done a quick guide to the GPU client in his setup guide. Check that out if you're interested.

This guide will expand as the client matures into an official release.
 
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Epilogue and Helpful Links

Now that about wraps it up. Wow, that was longer than I expected. I'd like to thank all the people whose work I stole when making this including BigStan, Calxalot, Garp, Ivoshee, Joe42, KE1HA, and most especially rich99million. I hope that this guide makes it easier and faster for FAH rookies and veterans alike to get their systems up and working. If anybody has anything they'd like to add to this, feel free. If anybody has any requests for setup guides for different systems or situations, I'd be glad to write them and add to this body of knowledge.

Great stuff folks, now let's go cure some diseases! :D

Links to Important Sounding Things

Official Website
Folding@Home website

Client Downloads
Download Page
Current Preferred Windows Clients:
GUI client V5.03
Text-Only Console Client V5.04

Stats Pages
Stanford Stats Portal
Official Team 10 OcUK Stats Page
EOC Stats OcUK Team Summary
EOC Stats OcUK World Ranking
StatGFX Folding Signatures
FAH Stats OcUK Active Members

WU Information/Progress Monitoring
Electron Microscope III (EMIII)
FahMon Folding Monitor
Project Summary Page - vital stats about all WUs currently in circulation, including point values
Server Status Page

Help
Team OcUK Distributed Computing Forum
Folding Community Forums
Official Folding@Home FAQ
 
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