Team CFC: Folding@Home project

[Izipo]

I'm working on it.

I've convinced my stepbrother and girlfriend to install the clients. Now, I just have to make sure that they really are using them properly.

 

[plarq]

p4617_T0_villin-16_minout failed in my computer. Deleted.

 

[LucyDuke]

You are right and I would hate for anyone to burn up their laptop because they didn't know how hot it was running. I linked to the temperature monitor software for those who may not know their system temps. Strongly recommended for everyone - running F@H or not.

...should I be worried? My stupid laptop gets pretty hot.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

...should I be worried? My stupid laptop gets pretty hot.

Depends on exactly how "pretty hot".

Most laptops if actually set on your lap on bare legs will get uncomfortably hot. This is normal and nothing to worry about. Heat is the killer of electronics, but modern cpus and especially gpus are designed to run very hot - hot enough to burn us if we actually touched them, but still be within the manufacturer's safe operating temperature.

The only way to know for sure is to measure. The Core Temp link is to a easy little program that puts two numbers on your taskbar, the temps of both of your cores. That way if you do accidentally block a cooling vent or have a fan fail you will have a much better chance to catch the problem before your system overheats to the level of causing any damage.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Some mobile GPU's dont have a way to see temperatures on them too. If you have one of those, don't bother with F@H. You're risking too much.

 

[LucyDuke]

Depends on exactly how "pretty hot".

Most laptops if actually set on your lap on bare legs will get uncomfortably hot. This is normal and nothing to worry about. Heat is the killer of electronics, but modern cpus and especially gpus are designed to run very hot - hot enough to burn us if we actually touched them, but still be within the manufacturer's safe operating temperature.

The only way to know for sure is to measure. The Core Temp link is to a easy little program that puts two numbers on your taskbar, the temps of both of your cores. That way if you do accidentally block a cooling vent or have a fan fail you will have a much better chance to catch the problem before your system overheats to the level of causing any damage.

Hot enough that I'm paranoid about it!

I just installed the core temp program and it's fluctuating around 53C with F@H paused, after about twenty minutes of F@H running it's up to fluctuating around 66C. (I've only got one core.)

I installed the RivaTuner one too but I don't know how to work it.

What numbers should I legitimately worry about? Or should I run F@H only on the desktops to be safe?

 

[Genocidicbunny]

66C sounds fine for a CPU. Its also somewhat in the mid-range for a GPU
Personally, my CPU fluctuates between 55 and 63C on full load and the GPU goes between 65 and 75C, at which point the fan kick into 100% and drops the temperature down.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Some mobile GPU's dont have a way to see temperatures on them too. If you have one of those, don't bother with F@H. You're risking too much.

Between RivaTuner and GPU-Z there shouldn't be any modern gpu, mobile or otherwise, that can't be monitored.


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Hot enough that I'm paranoid about it!

Caution is healthy as long as it is based on facts. I heard that hot laptops are a breeding ground for Mexican Swine Flu?

I just installed the core temp program and it's fluctuating around 53C with F@H paused, after about twenty minutes of F@H running it's up to fluctuating around 66C. (I've only got one core.)

I second what GB said - 66C is fine. What cpu do you have? The reason I ask is if you have a P4 with HyperThread you can turn that on and run both a uniprocessor cpu client and a gpu client at the same time.

I installed the RivaTuner one too but I don't know how to work it.

Open the application. On the "Main" tab under "Target adapter" you should see your video card. Directly under your video card click the sideways arrow on the right side of "Customize...". Click the magnifying glass icon "Hardware monitoring". Some graphs will pop up showing clock speeds, core temp, fan speed, gpu usage, etc. Click the setup button on the lower right corner of the graphs window to add or remove graphs from the monitor. Move the sliders on the left to adjust to your systems monitoring range.

I hope that made sense.

What numbers should I legitimately worry about? Or should I run F@H only on the desktops to be safe?

That depends on your specific hardware. Some cpus are meant run hotter than others. What cpu and gpu do you have? As long as you stay within the temperature range running F@H on your laptop should be safe.

 

[LucyDuke]

Caution is healthy as long as it is based on facts. I heard that hot laptops are a breeding ground for Mexican Swine Flu?

I second what GB said - 66C is fine. What cpu do you have? The reason I ask is if you have a P4 with HyperThread you can turn that on and run both a uniprocessor cpu client and a gpu client at the same time.

Open the application. On the "Main" tab under "Target adapter" you should see your video card. Directly under your video card click the sideways arrow on the right side of "Customize...". Click the magnifying glass icon "Hardware monitoring". Some graphs will pop up showing clock speeds, core temp, fan speed, gpu usage, etc. Click the setup button on the lower right corner of the graphs window to add or remove graphs from the monitor. Move the sliders on the left to adjust to your systems monitoring range.

I hope that made sense.

That depends on your specific hardware. Some cpus are meant run hotter than others. What cpu and gpu do you have? As long as you stay within the temperature range running F@H on your laptop should be safe.

I'd rather be neurotic than cook the computer.

NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G
AMD Sempron SI-42 2.10GHz

The RivaTuner is telling me it "hasn't been tested with the currently installed display driver" before it loads and then isn't giving me what you say it should... it shows up like this:

And I can't get anywhere from there.

At the very least, it's reassuring to see a steady temperature in the tray so I can disprove the temperature increases in my head. Thanks for that especially!

Is it reasonable to assume that if that (core) number doesn't get out of hand, that the other thing isn't too hot either?

 

[plarq]

You certainly want to upgrade your Forceware version, 176 is pretty old.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Between RivaTuner and GPU-Z there shouldn't be any modern gpu, mobile or otherwise, that can't be monitored.

HD4670 mobility -- I cant check the GPU temps. RivaTuner doesnt give me anything, GPU-z doesnt either. Its possible its an MSI thing though.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

I'd rather be neurotic than cook the computer.

NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G
AMD Sempron SI-42 2.10GHz

Your hardware should be fine to run either F@H client with. If you are uncomfortable running the gpu client then just run the uniprocessor cpu client alone. You won't produce as many points, but will not have to worry about monitoring the gpu temperature.

The RivaTuner is telling me it "hasn't been tested with the currently installed display driver" before it loads and then isn't giving me what you say it should... it shows up like this:

You are running RivaTuner correctly, there should be more icons in that row. As plarq suggested new/current drivers may solve the problem and give you full features.

At the very least, it's reassuring to see a steady temperature in the tray so I can disprove the temperature increases in my head. Thanks for that especially!

You can use the temperature numbers to make sure F@H is running OK too. If the numbers go low and stay there then the client may be hung or be paused trying to communicate with the Stanford servers. As long as the temps are steady and warm then you can see that the F@H client is happily folding as it should be.

Is it reasonable to assume that if that (core) number doesn't get out of hand, that the other thing isn't too hot either?

The core(s) are what generate almost all of your laptop's heat. As long as they are being cooled and stay within the safe range then everything else should be cool enough as well.

I honestly wouldn't suggest running the gpu client if I didn't believe it was safe to do so. That I run it myself on two laptops also supports my point.

Here are some links to threads about laptop folding from the Folding Forum:

SMP on a Laptop
Can I use folding@home on a laptop
Laptop Cooling


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HD4670 mobility -- I cant check the GPU temps. RivaTuner doesnt give me anything, GPU-z doesnt either. Its possible its an MSI thing though.

That card may be too new. RivaTuner says Dec. 08 and GPU-Z says Jan. 09, so your card may not be supported yet. I wouldn't think MSI would cause either program to not work correctly, but proprietary stuff can get weird so I could be wrong.

 

[plarq]

I revisited VM SMP folding, they're talking about folding in Windows, but I'm Linux native.

 

[AlanH]

I'm folding with the Mac OS X native SMP client. The Linux client on the Stanford download page claims to be a combined Uniprocessor and 64 bit SMP client.

 

[fezzic181]

You don't want to assume that because your cpu is running a decent temp that the cooling for the gpu is adaquet. If you can't get the temp from the gpu to show then you don't want to run a gpu client. Though I would suspect that the riva tuner forums could help you with figureing out what your particular rig isn't showing you numbers.

 

[Quintillus]

I've undervolted my CPU and temperatures are much more reasonable now - I've been running the CPU client for several days and 73ºС is the maximum it's hit. Haven't been running the GPU client since it's causing very noticeably slower screen refresh rates (even when all that's running is something as simple as Notepad) and with the short deadlines for the GPU it doesn't run enough when I'm not using it to meet the deadlines. CPU doesn't cause a noticeable performance hit, so I'm fine leaving it running 24/7.

Already up to 2500 points though!

Also enlisted an old Pentium 4 for the CPU client. It's nowhere near my Core 2 processor in speed, but it's churned out several work units the past several days.

Found out that the requirement for a Windows password is why the SMP client wasn't working for me. TweakUI will let me auto-logon, and I've got extra hard drive space to reinstall if Windows forgets my password like it did last time I set one, so I think I'll go ahead and try it. Switched versions of Windows after that, though, so I expect it to work a bit more smoothly this time.

Already up to 2500 points though! Takes awhile to get 'em but it's worth it!

edit: Okay, got the SMP client set up. Not entirely sure if it's configured right, though. The problem seems to be with getting workloads that support more than one core. At first I just ran fah.exe and got FahCore78, which is uniprocessor only. I cleared that from the queue and ran fah -smp 2, and got FahCore_a1, which appears to be MPI (or at least that's what the error messages I got said). After clearing the queue positions I ran fah -deino -smp 2. I still had FahCore_a1, and it still said, "Work type a1 not eligible for variable processors", but it's been running at 100% CPU, spread across four instances of FahCore_a1 (though I have but two cores). I've also got five DeinoPM.exe's running. FahMon 2.3.99.1 picks it up though, saying it has SMP Gromacs core version 1.76. No PPD or ETA estimates yet (been at 0% for about 7 minutes, so not too surprised).

So I'm a bit concerned about the whole FahCore_a1 not suitable for variable processor thing, and that I've got four processes running rather than two. I think "fah -deino -smp 2" is what I want though? But it's been running for 7 minutes now, and the maximum CPU temperature it's hit is only 74ºC (one more than with the single-core version), so as long as this configuration is right it looks like I'm set for the SMP client.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

avast! just popped up a warning about something in the SMP work folder being viral, specifically of the nutcracker virus family. Hopefully this is just bad heuristics.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

...Haven't been running the GPU client since it's causing very noticeably slower screen refresh rates (even when all that's running is something as simple as Notepad) and with the short deadlines for the GPU it doesn't run enough when I'm not using it to meet the deadlines.

Some gpu WU's can be much more demanding of resources than others are. If I notice a screen lag I simply turn the gpu client off, and just turn it back on when I'm done.

You should have a day or two of slack in the deadlines. Our very similar 8600M GS is still able to easily finish before the preferred deadline.

Already up to 2500 points though!

Also enlisted an old Pentium 4 for the CPU client. It's nowhere near my Core 2 processor in speed, but it's churned out several work units the past several days.

There's nothing wrong with folding on older hardware. The bulk of Stanford's contributions come from such machines. State-of-the-art is nice (IglooDude ), but Stanford gladly welcomes all contributions.

... it still said, "Work type a1 not eligible for variable processors"

Congrats on running a SMP client.

Don't worry - that warning can be ignored. Here is the answer from the Folding Forum (FahCore_a1 is Windows, FahCore_a2 is only available for non-Windows as of yet):

"It refers to the ability to spawn differing numbers of FahCores: using the -smp x flag with FahCore_a2 will allow it to spawn any number of threads so long as its an even number (I think) and bigger than or equal to 4. FahCore_a1 can only spawn four threads regardless so it is "not eligible for variable [numbers of] processors".


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avast! just popped up a warning about something in the SMP work folder being viral, specifically of the nutcracker virus family. Hopefully this is just bad heuristics.

Avast! gives a false positive for F@H as a virus.

Trojan in Core??? [No. False Positive from AVAST]

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Avast! gives a false positive for F@H as a virus.

Trojan in Core??? [No. False Positive from AVAST]

Ah, I was looking for something like that. I assumed it wasnt anything bad since if it was, it would have popped up on the F@H forums already, as well as on [H]

 

[Sahkuhnder]

...as well as on [H]

Those guys rock. They have the top folding team as number one contributor. Nobody on our team would even make it into their Top 20 Producers.