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Folding@Home - protein folding to defeat COVID-19 and other diseases. It's a distributed computing system networking lots of machines to deal with complex problems.
Download the three programs - available in Windows, Mac and Linux.
Start the client. This gave me few moments of confusion because in Ubuntu they placed it in the Educational slot on my menu. I'm in team Anonymous! (Which is the default.)
It also may take a few minutes to connect to the servers and download the work. Then launch the control program to set the strength of your folding power. My main system is an 8 year old i5 750 (old quad core-socket 1056!) so I set it for Light. As long as I'm not doing heavy work like video editing I don't notice any difference in performance.
I'll be running my system 24/7 now.
Do keep an eye on the cpu temperatures. I pushed it up to full power for about an hour last night and hoped to run it full bore overnight - but I wasn't happy that my cpu was getting a bit on the warm side. I dropped it down to light folding. I only have a stock cooler on my machine. The motherboard can fit an i7 (socket 1056) and they're rather cheap right now. A cpu upgrade and a new heatsink would be nice. It won't be much of an upgrade but at the moment it's cheaper than assembling a whole new system.
If you're geeky like me and don't mind spending a little more on electricity, hook up your unused systems and start folding. I've got two even older quad core systems - one in pieces - that I hope to have up this weekend.
It's not much compared to other people and companies hooking up massive servers and mini super computers to Folding@Home but I'm doing my part and it makes me feel I have a little bit more control of the situation.
-m
Download the three programs - available in Windows, Mac and Linux.
Start the client. This gave me few moments of confusion because in Ubuntu they placed it in the Educational slot on my menu. I'm in team Anonymous! (Which is the default.)
It also may take a few minutes to connect to the servers and download the work. Then launch the control program to set the strength of your folding power. My main system is an 8 year old i5 750 (old quad core-socket 1056!) so I set it for Light. As long as I'm not doing heavy work like video editing I don't notice any difference in performance.
I'll be running my system 24/7 now.
Do keep an eye on the cpu temperatures. I pushed it up to full power for about an hour last night and hoped to run it full bore overnight - but I wasn't happy that my cpu was getting a bit on the warm side. I dropped it down to light folding. I only have a stock cooler on my machine. The motherboard can fit an i7 (socket 1056) and they're rather cheap right now. A cpu upgrade and a new heatsink would be nice. It won't be much of an upgrade but at the moment it's cheaper than assembling a whole new system.
If you're geeky like me and don't mind spending a little more on electricity, hook up your unused systems and start folding. I've got two even older quad core systems - one in pieces - that I hope to have up this weekend.
It's not much compared to other people and companies hooking up massive servers and mini super computers to Folding@Home but I'm doing my part and it makes me feel I have a little bit more control of the situation.
-m
