Have you thought about putting that computer to use for a good cause...
I have setup a folding@home (https://folding.stanford.edu/) team in the name of twingo133.net (https://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?teamnum=210349&qtype=teampage),
If you dont know what folding@home is please read the following info below. If you are too lazy (Cough*Courtney*Cough) to read the whole post DrDrew gave a very nice round up of what folding@home is...
What is Folding@Home???
Folding@Home is a distributed computing project that is run by Stanford University. Their goal is to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases.
Folding@Home is a cilent that you install on your computer (windows/linux/mac are all welcome) to recieve Work Units. The client then makes use of the time your computer is sat idle for processing this data and send it back.
What are proteins and why do they "fold"?
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson's disease.
For a protein to fold or misfold takes very little time, but it is hugely complicated. Analyses of the folding of even the simplest of proteins requires significant super computing power. The amount of computing power required to perform these gargantuan calculations and to come up with any worthwhile results is massive and most supercomputers today would buckle under the pressure. This is where we come into the picture with the Folding@Home software.
Will Folding@Home make my PC run more slowly?
No it will not. When your computer would otherwise be idle, the software grabs the surplus cpu cycles for the benefit of this research and processes some of the data. When your computer needs to do some work for you the Folding@home program immediately stops.
Why would you want to do this?
For the greater good really, its a chance to get involved in possibly curing some of the worst diseases and conditions people face. The fun part is there are other car related clubs and sites (alfaowner.com, pistonheads, Renaultforums.co.uk) also have teams and lets give them a kicking in the leaderboards. We can also see who on 133.net has the fastest computer(s) for a bit of inhouse banter.
How do I set it up?
1. Download the cilent from here... https://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download . Most people will want the first one on the list.
2. Run the install, agree to everything, sign your life away, click close.
3. Run the application, it will firstly come up with a screen titled "Folding@Home Control Panel"
4. Enter a User name, anything will do, but if you use your forum ID we will know who is contributing.
5. Enter the Team Number, this is important as otherwise you wont be in the team. The number is 210349
6. Enter a passkey, you dont have to do this, it stops other from adding to your score. acts as a password.
7. Ignore the connection tab unless you use a proxy.
8. On the advanced tab, there is a tick box (power) for folding@home to pause if your folding on a laptop and its on battery, to prelong your battery life.
9. On the advanced tab, there is also a drop down menu for a "Machine ID", incriment this on any further computers you install on.
10. Click ok when you are happy with the settings and the client will go off to get some work!
Have you got F@H questions? I will happily answer them.
Have you joined?: let me know!
p.s. my computer will kick your computers ass!!
I have setup a folding@home (https://folding.stanford.edu/) team in the name of twingo133.net (https://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?teamnum=210349&qtype=teampage),
If you dont know what folding@home is please read the following info below. If you are too lazy (Cough*Courtney*Cough) to read the whole post DrDrew gave a very nice round up of what folding@home is...
DrDrew":3ml5ydio said:It's a distributed computing mechanism. Rather than having to crunch a big simulation on one massive super computer - if you can get enough people to volunteer their computers then you can do lots of distributed calculations over different machines instead.
However, each new PC will need to take at relative chunk, as it takes time for the initial scheduling to incorporate a new machine.
So in simple terms - instead of using one machine with 500 processor cores, you can use 501 PCs with 1 processor core each and distribute the work around, for example.
What is Folding@Home???
Folding@Home is a distributed computing project that is run by Stanford University. Their goal is to understand protein folding, protein aggregation, and related diseases.
Folding@Home is a cilent that you install on your computer (windows/linux/mac are all welcome) to recieve Work Units. The client then makes use of the time your computer is sat idle for processing this data and send it back.
What are proteins and why do they "fold"?
Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson's disease.
For a protein to fold or misfold takes very little time, but it is hugely complicated. Analyses of the folding of even the simplest of proteins requires significant super computing power. The amount of computing power required to perform these gargantuan calculations and to come up with any worthwhile results is massive and most supercomputers today would buckle under the pressure. This is where we come into the picture with the Folding@Home software.
Will Folding@Home make my PC run more slowly?
No it will not. When your computer would otherwise be idle, the software grabs the surplus cpu cycles for the benefit of this research and processes some of the data. When your computer needs to do some work for you the Folding@home program immediately stops.
Why would you want to do this?
For the greater good really, its a chance to get involved in possibly curing some of the worst diseases and conditions people face. The fun part is there are other car related clubs and sites (alfaowner.com, pistonheads, Renaultforums.co.uk) also have teams and lets give them a kicking in the leaderboards. We can also see who on 133.net has the fastest computer(s) for a bit of inhouse banter.
How do I set it up?
1. Download the cilent from here... https://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download . Most people will want the first one on the list.
2. Run the install, agree to everything, sign your life away, click close.
3. Run the application, it will firstly come up with a screen titled "Folding@Home Control Panel"
4. Enter a User name, anything will do, but if you use your forum ID we will know who is contributing.
5. Enter the Team Number, this is important as otherwise you wont be in the team. The number is 210349
6. Enter a passkey, you dont have to do this, it stops other from adding to your score. acts as a password.
7. Ignore the connection tab unless you use a proxy.
8. On the advanced tab, there is a tick box (power) for folding@home to pause if your folding on a laptop and its on battery, to prelong your battery life.
9. On the advanced tab, there is also a drop down menu for a "Machine ID", incriment this on any further computers you install on.
10. Click ok when you are happy with the settings and the client will go off to get some work!
Have you got F@H questions? I will happily answer them.
Have you joined?: let me know!
p.s. my computer will kick your computers ass!!