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When the pandemic started there was a big push in my tech channels to get involved in Folding@Home - a distributed computing set up to run protein folding simulations. Life on earth depends on *how* proteins fold when activated and they added COVID-19 to the usual list of important projects (like finding a cure for cancer). You could download work units - have your computer work on them in the background - then upload them back up to the source. Supercomputers are nice but expensive and millions of gaming computers are sitting idle from 9-5. I downloaded and starting folding on my main system - pausing it when I needed to do other stuff my system. However, the next update had a glitch in it and it no longer functioned properly on my system.
Since I've retired my old main system I decided put it to work and check out the software again. After a few missteps on my end - my motherboard *really* needed a BIOS update - I was able to download and successful run Folding@Home.
Pro tip for all you Linux users: before downloading the software from the Folding@Home website, check your repositories first. Ubuntu has it in their repositories which is good because the Debian/Ubuntu software on the website is outdated.
Pro tip for everyone: if you're running with a stock cooler for your CPU - rip it out and install the biggest, baddest cooler you can fit in your case. Using the defaults Folding will run the CPU (and some GPUS) really really hard. I'm using an Arctic Freezer 12 and it's just barely doing the job. Although I have a 4 core 8 thread Xeon I backed it off to just run 4 threads.
I'm not running it 24/7 yet. I want to tweak things then move the system into the basement where it's cooler.
-m
Since I've retired my old main system I decided put it to work and check out the software again. After a few missteps on my end - my motherboard *really* needed a BIOS update - I was able to download and successful run Folding@Home.
Pro tip for all you Linux users: before downloading the software from the Folding@Home website, check your repositories first. Ubuntu has it in their repositories which is good because the Debian/Ubuntu software on the website is outdated.
Pro tip for everyone: if you're running with a stock cooler for your CPU - rip it out and install the biggest, baddest cooler you can fit in your case. Using the defaults Folding will run the CPU (and some GPUS) really really hard. I'm using an Arctic Freezer 12 and it's just barely doing the job. Although I have a 4 core 8 thread Xeon I backed it off to just run 4 threads.
I'm not running it 24/7 yet. I want to tweak things then move the system into the basement where it's cooler.
-m
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