Folding@Home Weekly Team News - 11th November 2005

Wohoo, another (probably temporary) borg, and funky graphs to go with it...

fah.png


:D
 
Got my Opty set up, and once I finish finding the sweet spot/clock for this chip I'l have F@H running.

At college there must be over 100 P4 2.8-3.4GHz all lying around being idle for about 12 hours a day - It almost brings me to tears.

Need to have a word with the IT bloke there and give him a bottle of whiskey... or whatever he drinks ;) :D
 
I broke my P4 :(

I decided that since Citylink had failed me yet again, I would do some maintenance on the P4. It has been running a bit hot recently so I thought I would take off the heatsink and fan and give it all a good clean and re-apply the thermal compound.

I did this, successfully as I thought but now, when I switch it on, it won't even post :confused:

I won't be able to test everything until I get back from Shetland with the other P4 bits - also, I have no more Arctic Silver until my delivery from OcUK arrives.

Damn you City link, I am left running only the 1200 Duron for the next 4 days. My output is going to be nearly nothing this week :mad:

When I get back on Thursday, I am going to have a hell of a task - I have to find out what is wrong with the Prescott, set up the Northwood, build the new A64 machine and try to get the new fan on the Laptop - all in one afternoon, as I'm going offshore again on Friday morning :eek: (Fedex tried to deliver the new fan 3 days early whilst I was still offshore, now I'll have to wait 'til Thursday for that too).

Stan :)
 
Bad news dude. When I get back to Blighty and build the new Opteron rig I'll be chompin' at your heels again so you better start ramping up production! ;)
 
Trick said:
Bad news dude. When I get back to Blighty and build the new Opteron rig I'll be chompin' at your heels again so you better start ramping up production! ;)
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If Citylink hadn't ****** up, I would have been pulling away from you like a Ferrari now :p

Now's your chance to close the gap a bit.

When do you get back? Hope things aren't too bad out there.

Stan :)
 
Bigstan said:
If Citylink hadn't ****** up, I would have been pulling away from you like a Ferrari now :p

Now's your chance to close the gap a bit.

When do you get back? Hope things aren't too bad out there.

Stan :)
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Back on the 28th (touch wood), the place is 'relatively' chilled out at the mo, it's certainly a lot cooler now (maxes out at 25degs in the day, min 7deg at night) but the rains are on the way. And when it rains here, it REALLY rains! Back on topic, it's been harder keeping the pcs running happily whilst I've been away hence your overtake. I'm really going to set about borging eveything in sight on return and the Opteron should make a big difference.
 
Nice to see me in the top dumpers.

Output has been high for the last 2 weeks as my folks have been away on holiday. Was able to leave my rig on 24/7.

Now my rents are back, I'd expect my output to drop again:(

Also, whats up with the sigs?
 
Hmm - does F@H rely on pure processing power more than say, ram latency/speed etc?

My baby (Opty) is running at 2.8GHz (max I can get with these volts) but my RAM is running in single channel 64bit mode, for some ghey reason.

Also, is there anything I can do to tweak F@H to run best with this processor? I think I asked for big WU's (not advmethods I think).
 
some of the newer Gromacs WUs seem to rely heavily on RAM bandwidth, the 364 point ones for example score so much better on systems with high FSB, dual channel, and low latencies - Concorde_Rules had up to about 600 ppd from a 364-pointer with his overclocked SanDiego at about 290x10 and CAS2 RAM

with my 2200MHz chip (200x10) i get less than half that (about 255 ppd is my best) so you can see there's definately a lot more to some WUs than just raw MHz, L2 cache probably plays a part too as I've only got 256K and he had 1M :eek:

Me, Stan, and Mark have been talking about starting a few threads in here to collect Frame Times for a few of the more interesting WUs to see how different setups affect the speed the WUs are done - more on that very soon :)
 
Hmm, thanks for that.

Thing is, I can either get 2.5GHz stable, the RAM at 1T, fast timings etc, in Dual Channel or I can get 2.8GHz in single channel at 2T, slack timings blah blah.

I know at 2.5 this Opty will go a lot faster than my old Barton at 2.5 - well I hope so anyway! :D
 
Hurrah! All the bits got here today.

Bits arrived at 15:00, A64 was folding by 21.00 :D She's just picking away at her first WU as we speak - won't get a proper idea how she'll perform until she's done 1 or 2. I will leave her to settle down for a few days before I start to nudge her up a bit, running at 32 dgrees atm so should be quite a bit of scope for overclocking.

Full spec:

Case: Antec SLK3800BUK
PSU: 400W SmartPower
Mobo: A8N SLi Premium
CPU: A64 4000+ San Diego
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS3200XL Pro TwinX CAS2
Graphics: NX6600GT TD128E (to be uograded)
HDDs: 1x36GB WD Raptor (system), 1x250GB WD Caviar (storage)
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro (CPU), Zalman ZMF1 80mm (case)
Optical drive: AOpen DUW1616 Chameleon 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer (will be adding another)
OS: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Also brought the last of the bits for the Northwood 2.4 down with me and in a flurry of activity managed to get that thrown together by 23:00. It is now grinding it's merry way through it's first WU as well.

Quite a productive day, on the whole.

As I am not, now going offshore tomorrow, I will be having a tinker with the Prescott to try to find out what's wrong with that, hopefully nothing too serious and I can get that back folding as well.

There has been a bit of a delay with the fan for the lappy so it might be while until she's up and running again :(

Stan :)

Update: The Prescott has turned up it's toes :( Have put the Northwood in it's place for the time being as that rig has a better mobo and dual channel DDR RAm (instead of SDRAM).

Can't afford a new CPU atm as I spent all my money on the A64 and my trip home so I will get a new CPU and a better mobo for the Northy when I get money.

It is obvious that the Prescott was not very well for a while as it was running at about 60 degrees with the sides off the case and a desk fan blowing directly into it. The Northy is running at 35-36 degrees with the sides on the case and no case cooling at all.
 
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