I have just joined this F@H team

[LaKraven]

Hi all,
I've just started F@H, and I do have a few queries.

Firstly... I installed the GPU folding client to use the available power of my 2x 4870X2s.... the display screen shows a lovely rendering of what I'm supposed to believe is a protine chain or some such thing....

Anyway.... my GPU fans are going nuts! The temperatures are getting higher and lower constantly as if I were playing a game.... should it be doing that?

Additionally.... I also installed the CPU client and am running that as well... do I need to be? or is the GPU client using the CPU as well?

I'd like to get it configured properly on this machine before I go and put it on the rest of the computers on my network (I have a LOT of PC's and laptops I can run it on.... almost all of which run 24/7). I also have a few Xeon servers I can run this on (since I'm no longer using them for anything else) Figure it might help!

Another thing I've noticed is my user name "LaKraven" as entered in the F@H config is not showing in the team stats list on the F@H site. Does that only happen when my first WU is complete? I'm assuming it does, either that or I have to be added manually?

Anyhow... once I have this set up properly on here, I'll begin installing it on the rest of my systems.

EDIT: I have set up CPU F@H clients on 2 servers, as well as having both CPU and GPU F@H clients running on my main PC here... there seems be a pattern emerging though! The CPU clients are only utilizing at most 50% of my CPUs! The other 50% is sat idle.... any ideas?

[sbohdan]

Originally Posted by LaKraven

Hi all,
I've just started F@H, and I do have a few queries.

Firstly... I installed the GPU folding client to use the available power of my 2x 4870X2s.... the display screen shows a lovely rendering of what I'm supposed to believe is a protine chain or some such thing....

Anyway.... my GPU fans are going nuts! The temperatures are getting higher and lower constantly as if I were playing a game.... should it be doing that?

Additionally.... I also installed the CPU client and am running that as well... do I need to be? or is the GPU client using the CPU as well?

I'd like to get it configured properly on this machine before I go and put it on the rest of the computers on my network (I have a LOT of PC's and laptops I can run it on.... almost all of which run 24/7). I also have a few Xeon servers I can run this on (since I'm no longer using them for anything else) Figure it might help!

Another thing I've noticed is my user name "LaKraven" as entered in the F@H config is not showing in the team stats list on the F@H site. Does that only happen when my first WU is complete? I'm assuming it does, either that or I have to be added manually?

Anyhow... once I have this set up properly on here, I'll begin installing it on the rest of my systems.

EDIT: I have set up CPU F@H clients on 2 servers, as well as having both CPU and GPU F@H clients running on my main PC here... there seems be a pattern emerging though! The CPU clients are only utilizing at most 50% of my CPUs! The other 50% is sat idle.... any ideas?

first off, Welcome to the team. your points with your name will appear as soon as you finished the 1st WU and the stats site has updated (provided, you set up the client properly giving the right team# and name).
your GPU fans are going nuts because the GPU is working on 100%. If I was you, I would take off the heat sink and reapply the TIM (AS5 or something similar). a nice aftermarket cooler would be the best of course but with 2 GPU cards that might be impossible (space shortage).
the GPU client uses the CPU but only slightly. your best bet would be to have 1 GPU2 client + 1 SMP client on this machine. from your setup I would expect about 6-8K PPD/day (provided you have it on 24/7). a regular client just uses 1 core, thus the 50% usage. I assume you have a 2 core CPU, in that case to utilize each CPU, you can have 1 client/core running but I would just go for 1 SMP client because that would give you 3-4 times more points than using regular clients. with the other machines you have, if the GPU isn't powerfull enough, than the SMP client would be more apropriate. just to give you an idea: my laptop has a C2D T7500 CPU and an 8600GT GPU. the SMP working on both cores, has the same PPD as the single GPU2 client which in this case is 1200 PPD. If I had a 8800GT, the PPD would be about 3-3.5x higher with the GPU2 client. so if you have a powerfull card, then go for the GPU2 client, if not than the SMP is your best bet (for CPU's with 2 cores or more). I hope this helped you out. polo might have more on this, since as far as I know he's got the biggest F@H farm here

Edit: I just saw you on stanfords HL team-list. that means everything is a OK your name should be visible soon on extremoverclockers stat site as well (there is a delay compared to stanford's). you can check your score clicking on your name in the milestone thread...

[LaKraven]

Thanks for the info... as par your suggestions I am using the GPU2 client as well as the SMP client on my main PC. I paused the GPU2 client for the moment however to allow my GPU's to cool down a bit. I have also set up the SMP client on 3 more systems which are all still running it....

So far I've got it set up on:
Phenom 9850 BE Quad Core OC'd at 3.1GHz (the GPU2 client using 2x 4870X2's)
Intel Core2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5GHz
Intel Core2 Extreme @ 3GHz
An oldish AMD Athlon X2 6000 dual core at 3GHz (if I remember correctly... not reading this spec of the system as it's in the garrage ;))

Got a few Xeon's I'll set it up on (probably tomorrow) as well as some dual core HP laptops that are running almost all the time.

Again, thanks for the advice :)

[sbohdan]

Originally Posted by LaKraven

Thanks for the info... as par your suggestions I am using the GPU2 client as well as the SMP client on my main PC. I paused the GPU2 client for the moment however to allow my GPU's to cool down a bit. I have also set up the SMP client on 3 more systems which are all still running it....

So far I've got it set up on:
Phenom 9850 BE Quad Core OC'd at 3.1GHz (the GPU2 client using 2x 4870X2's)
Intel Core2 Duo T9300 @ 2.5GHz
Intel Core2 Extreme @ 3GHz
An oldish AMD Athlon X2 6000 dual core at 3GHz (if I remember correctly... not reading this spec of the system as it's in the garrage ;))

Got a few Xeon's I'll set it up on (probably tomorrow) as well as some dual core HP laptops that are running almost all the time.

Again, thanks for the advice :)

nice folding farm there
now, be careful with setting up the SMP client - its a little tricky. if not set up correctly (without -smp flag), it only uses 1 core (out of 2 or 4). the SMP originally was meant for multicore CPU's (2 and up, ideally 4). here is nice simple guide I found on extremesystems, that explains step by step how to set it up: SMP-install guide - XtremeSystems Forums
notice, how the client is being started from a shortcut that has the -smp flag added! if setup properly, all cores should be utilized 100% (check in the task manager ctrl+alt+del). if you didn't do it like this, just uninstall the client and reinstall it again.
I included this guide in the "welcome to..." thread as well...
again, welcome to the team and happy folding

[LaKraven]

I followed the instructions on that website to the letter.... the SMP client is now utilizing all 4 cores on my main PC, and the 2 cores on one of the laptops I'm running it on....

Thing is.... it actually appears to be 10 times SLOWER using all the cores than it was only using one of them! I was completing 1% every 60 to 90 seconds before, but now it's more like 1% every 20 minutes! Should it be doing that?

EDIT: Nevermind! I just noticed that the mutli core clients are working on bigger projects than the single core clients.... I guess this accounts for it being slower!

[sbohdan]

Originally Posted by LaKraven

I followed the instructions on that website to the letter.... the SMP client is now utilizing all 4 cores on my main PC, and the 2 cores on one of the laptops I'm running it on....

Thing is.... it actually appears to be 10 times SLOWER using all the cores than it was only using one of them! I was completing 1% every 60 to 90 seconds before, but now it's more like 1% every 20 minutes! Should it be doing that?

EDIT: Nevermind! I just noticed that the mutli core clients are working on bigger projects than the single core clients.... I guess this accounts for it being slower!

yes, and those bigger WU's get way more points too

[LaKraven]

I calculate that each WU will now take about 33 hours and 25 minutes on the multi-core systems.... which is quite a bit longer than I'd imagined ;) Makes my systems seem just that little more humble!

I wonder what'll happen when I hook up the Xeons and get those folding! Anyone on here using a Xeon server to fold? If so... how long does yours take per WU?

[PTRMAN]

First of all, welcome to our team. Very happy to have you. Sounds like you're bringing a lot of firepower, too!

When I ran the -SMP on my stock quad it would take somewhere around 30 hours or so to get one 1920-point WU done. OCed to 3.4 it now seems to be just north of 24 hours. The GPU 2 does one 420-point WU in about 2.5 hours.

The GPU will crank our the points day in and day out. I try to think of the -SMP as a bonus. Let 'em run and before you know it the points'll start adding up.

Again, great to have you join the team!

[Django]

Nice folding farm you got there dude, man it's been years since I did folding@home when I was very active over by MaximumPC. Good to see that F@H is still very active.

[WhiteEagle]

@Lakraven: Welcome to the team, and nice folding farm you got!