Folding@Home FAQ's

[KarmaKiller]

So you've heard all of this talk about folding, and want to know what it is. Well my friend, this is the thread for you!

What is folding@home?
Folding@home is a world wide distribute computing project, ran by Stanford University. It uses advanced computing methods, on the millions of PC's running this piece of software, to try to figure out how proteins fold, or "misfold". When they misfold, it can lead to some well known and world wide diseases. (Examples being Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers.) This program tries to solve and cure these misfolding proteins.

How can I help?
You visit Stanfords page, here, and download the client that corresponds with your system. There are many different clients for the many different systems out there. Running this program some of the time, or all of the time will help. Any/Every contribution helps!

How do I join the TechIMO team?
You download the software, and upon setup, when asked for a team number, you type in 111. That is TechIMO's team number. It's that simple.

Which client is right for me?
It all depends on your system.
■Single Core systems:
WinXP/2003/Vista System Tray - Version 6.20 - Install instructions

WinXP/2003/Vista Console Client - Version 6.20 - Install instructions

Linux (x86) and BSD *combined uniprocessor and SMP client* (64-bit required for SMP) - Version 6.02 - Install instructions (single core) (SMP)

■Dual/Quad Core Systems:
See here
Folding@Home FAQ's

You can also run Folding on your graphics card too!
Nvidia cards:

Quote:

a GeForce, Quadro, or Tesla card that supports CUDA (G80 or later for the most part)
A CUDA capable driver, version 177.92 is recommend. Folding Application included with driver download.

Windows operating system (32 or 64 bit), XP or newer (better Vista and 64-bit support coming soon)

ATI Cards:

Quote:

2xxx/3xxx ATI Video Card, or newer
ATI Driver v8.1+, v8.3 or newer recommended
AGP GPU aperture size in the BIOS must be set to 128 MB or larger
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, with updates recommended
Windows operating system, XP or newer
Processor with SSE2 support to feed the GPU

[engracio]

This is for the Deino MPI client:

Folding@home - DownloadWinOther

-Stop the current client by pressing CTRL+C (either after completion or in the middle of wu completion).
-Open your current folder (that you used to run 5.91/5.92 smp client).
-Unzip the new 6.22beta2 executable in the same folder or unzip/extract the zip file to its own folder and copy all files to the 5.91/5.92 folder.
-Rename the new client 6.22beta2 executable to fah6.
-Run the new executable with the -configonly flag then check the configuration (there are some new fields added).
-Create a new shortcut for the new client and replace the old startup shortcut.
-Restart the client as usual.

-The old 5.92 client will expire tomorrow 2 Aug 2008.
-The 6.22 client is capable of being use as single core without the -smp argument or multiple core with -smp argument.
-The new client has several new -configuration field added. The client arguments like -smp, -verbosity 9, -forceasm or -oneunit. The argument can now be either put on the client config or on the shortcut like the 5.92 client.

The same process also applies to the GPU clients which also expires as the smp client.

Let's go FOLD!!!!!

[engracio]

Stanford have an official how to install for dual gpu clients under Windows XP. This instructions is for the Nvidia console version.

Folding@home - WinGPUGuide

-Install the first video card and Nvidia CUDA drivers with at least the 177.35 version as per instruction above.

-Ensure that the card is stable and able to complete wu.

-Install the second video card and install the driver.

-Right click on any part of your windows desktop and left click on properties

-Click on settings tab and click on number two or second display (you would not see this if you only have one video card installed)

-Click/check on box "Extend my windows desktop into this display". Click apply/ok and the second video card will be recognize by Windows XP. Vista is different and must have a dummy plug or actual monitor attached to video card before you can extend/recognize the second video card.

-On gpu0 folder run -configonly and change the additional client parameters to -gpu 0 for the first video card. The system recognizes the first video card as -gpu 0

-On the second video card folder run -configonly and ensure that the client have a different machine id other than the default id of 2 which is more than likely the machine id for gpu 0. Machine id 3 is acceptable.

-The parameter -gpu 1 must be added to again separate the first video card from the second. If you are lucky to have multiple video cards -gpu 2 or the third, gpu 3 are next.

-Create a shortcut for each client i.e. gpu60 and gpu61 and add to start up and monitor both gpu client until satisfied they are stable. Watch ppd increase in the next couple of days.

On my 8800GS I am able to OC the first video card using the EVGA Precision video card overclocking proggie. I use RivaTuner on my second video card as the overclocking proggie.

[KarmaKiller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sky King

When you install folding, all it does is place two executables in the folder you install into: fah6 and mpich. There really is no extension (like EXE) in linux. Files are files, and any file that can "run" will have the execute attribute set in its properties.

I have a folder called "folding" that the 2 files ended up in after install. It is located in my default user profile or "home" folder, which is where you end up by default when you open a terminal session or file browser.

So, I open a terminal window. (In the applications menu under accessories). This opens with a command prompt (not unlike DOS or CMD in windows) with you sitting in your home directory. So step one, I go to the folding folder:

> cd /folding

Then I execute the folder:

> ./fah6 -smp -forceasm -verbosity 9

If you just want to set the configs the first time, you go

> ./fah6 -smp -configonly

If you want to configure it the first time and then just start running:

> ./fah6 -smp -forceasm -verbosity 9 -config

It creates the work files, the queues, etc. by itself.

One note... on linux, the A2 core does not clean up after itself correctly and thus each WU leaves 2 files behind. Once 9 pairs of these files stack up (9 WUs) you have hanging problems, so every few days I go in and manually delete the 2 stranded files per WU.

To share the folding folder so that FAHspy can see it, right click on it and select sharing and select the options you want. If SAMBA isn't running, it downloads it, installs it, and sets it to autostart for you all with one click. Sweet. But at first it didn't work. It tursn out that FAHspy must be able to see your config file, and for some reason I had to manually set the share permissions on that one file manually, who knows. But once set you can use fahMON or FAHspy to monitor just like any Windows box.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

OOooooh, I didn't know that there this thread was here...

I'll add it to my sig before I forget....

[RobRich]

I have edited the forum welcome private message for newly registered members to include a Folding@home mention and a link to this thread for more info.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

Thanks RR...!

[KarmaKiller]

Awesome. Thanks RR.
I'll get on making a full SMP/GPU guide now.. lol

[KarmaKiller]

-How to setup and run SMP-

**note, this is how I personally setup/install SMP. You don't have to follow these exact steps, but this is the easiest way I've found

Step 1:
First off, make sure you have a password for your Windows User Account. You can set this up via the control panel>User accounts.

Step 2:
Make sure you disable any firewall to begin with. Later you can go back and add exceptions to allow SMP through it.

Step 3:
Create a folder named "Folding" and with in that, Create a folder named "SMP"
-- I usually create the folder under "My Documents"
-- I would advise you keep this out of "C:/Program Files" for Vista/7.

Step 4:
Download the corresponding SMP download for your system.- also currently there is a drop in Binary, make sure you also download that.

Step 5:
UnZip the folding download to your "SMP" folder you made.

Step 6:
Drop in the new binary into your "SMP" folder
--you should be prompted to "Move and Replace" which is what you want.

Step 7:
Open up a command prompt window. Make sure you open it as admin for Vista/Win 7.
A) Navigate to your "SMP" folder. You do this by typing "cd C:/file path"

B) Once your in the "SMP" directory, type in "install.bat" and hit enter.
--You should be prompted to "allow" here, click yes.
C) Hit "enter" once for the username (should already be set) then when prompted for the password, enter your windows user account password. If done properly, you should see "MPI is working" 2 times.

Step 8:
Now that MPI is setup, we're almost done. Now navigate to where you placed you "SMP" folder, and right click on the folding icon, click on "create shortcut"

A)Right click on the shortcut that you just made, and go to "properties"
B) At the end of the "target" line, add in 1 space, then "-smp"
C) Click "Apply"


Step 9:
Double click on the shortcut to run SMP. You should be taxing out all available CPU cores.


Questions, comments welcome.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

Thanks for that Karma, I'll set to swapping over the multiple instances, as long as it is still possibubble to run it as a service - otherwise I think I shall be leaving them as they are...
(If you can just confirm that...)