Want to fold...but

[Skiing Squirrel]

The only computer I have is my main computer. I can only have it folding during the nighttime, and about 5-6 days a week. I would want to fold more, but don't have the spare computers. Is there anyway I can build some really cheap computers without OS's or some free OS's and cheap cheap stuff? I have a few spare PSU's, and some random sticks of ram... Any links or anything? If I do do this-these will of course will be folding for team 32. :cool:

[mdcomp]

Arkaine get in here...lol. Overclockix or Overfoldix would solve your OS problem. You can build cheap machines, definetly. You don't even need a hard drive. Just peice things together and grab some refurbs or parts from the classifieds.

[plague]

Why can you only have it fold during the night time? Folding only uses spare cycles so you can still do anything with your computer and wont even realize that it's folding. It doesn't slow down games or any other intensive programs, it steps aside when something else needs the cpu. I only have 1 system, and it folds 24/7.

Sorry if you knew this already and you have other reasons for not being able to fold, just thought I'd inform if you were mislead.

[Skiing Squirrel]

I know that... But my mom, dad, and sisters don't. So when they see it running, either it be in the tray or screensaver, or whatever, they somehow always disable it... or kill it or whatever. I tell them not to, but they do. :(

[mdcomp]

Why not do the service install? Then they can't see it at all.

[Skiing Squirrel]

Originally posted by mdcomp
Why not do the service install? Then they can't see it at all.

I don't know how... I will look into that in the morning though.

[plague]

Originally posted by mdcomp
Why not do the service install? Then they can't see it at all.

Agreed, I have mine running as a scheduled task in Win2K. Easy to set up and invisible to family members.

Heh, you know we have solutions to every roadblock on the way to folding goodness :)

[Arkaine23]

Yeah, service install it on the win box. And if you want to build cheapo folders, I've got an OS that folds from a CD in a ramdisk. It's even easy to use and graphical and has thousands of applications. And folding happens out-of-sight as a background process in this OS, overclockix.

All you need is:

128mb of ram
cpu and hsf
motherboard with lan and/or video or videocard
cdrom drive
Overclockix CD (http://folding.octeams.com/oclinux/Overclockix.iso)
psu
and a place to put it

you'll want a monitor, keyboard, and mouse when you boot it, but after that you can unplug them...

It folds at startup. You'll want to run a command to stop folding and restart it so you can set your own config. But that's really easy. Click the icon of a monitor with a shell by it and type: cfgfold

[Skiing Squirrel]

Interesting stuff. Totally new stuff to me-running off ramdisks and all, but I think I might go for it. What would you consider a good speed to start folding at? 800mhz?

[Wedo]

Originally posted by Skiing Squirrel
Interesting stuff. Totally new stuff to me-running off ramdisks and all, but I think I might go for it. What would you consider a good speed to start folding at? 800mhz?

Hey Skiing Squirrel, welcome to the team. :D

800Mhz is a good place to start if you have the spare cpu's lying around. However, if you need to buy a cpu/mobo at anytime, go for something in the XP line up. They fold with more effeciency than other chips.

BTW: If you have family members that are using the computer as well, definitely install the folding client as a service. If you need help, ask away.

Cheers,

Wedo

[Skiing Squirrel]

I've been folding for about a year... Got about 200 WU's on various accounts. So XP's... I think some 1700+'s could do the job... Now its time to build and price. :D

[NiTrO bOiE]

What type of "random stick of ram" do you have laying around? Since you already have ram, you can pick up a m/b and XP 1700+ from newegg for under $100.

[Skiing Squirrel]

128 megs of pc-2100 :D. I do have a motherboard, but it is at a friend's house. I just need to get a chip.

[Arkaine23]

That's exactly why I made overclockix- to get those spare parts up and folding.

There are cheapo motherboards that use sdram and have video/sound/lan onboard for under $50. Plop a nice AMD CPU in them and a 128mb stick of sdram and you're set. (more ram is always better considereing the nature of this OS) Cd-rom drives are pretty cheap new, and even cheaper used. And you can go for an underpowered PSU since its such minimal hardware.

The cd boots and configures things in about a minute. There are some "cheatcodes" to set resolution and refresh rate and video driver (if its not auto-detected). It's pretty easy to get it going. If you like it, it might take you an hour or two to explore the graphical K Desktop Environment and some of its applications. It could take a little longer to get the feel for Linux itself though... But all the burn-in and Distributed Computing apps are easy to use. I put the instructions in a folder on the desktop called "Info".

[Skiing Squirrel]

Well I'll be damned... I will have to try that out. So I would be running this off the CD... Now how am I going to get folding? I would need two CD's right? Or is the internet connected through this, and I just run it like I am running wondows right now.

[Charloz24]

Is it a good MB enough to overclock this XP 1700 thor very well since this cpu can be o/c very good.

[Charloz24]

Is it a good MB enough to overclock this XP 1700 thor well?? cause this cpu can be o/c very good....

[Arkaine23]

Overclockix auto-configures your internet connection in most cases. Dial-up and ADSL with no router sometimes require a little configuring and there are GUIs for that in the "start menu". It pretty much configures everything as it boots and drops you straight to a grapihcal desktop. Folding runs at startup. But you will probably want to change the default username (OC3d). All you have to do is click an icon in the taskbar (a pic of a monitor with a shell). This gives you something like a DOS prompt. Type: cfgfold
That will restart folding@home and let you set the user and Team and stuff. Folding happens as a background process, but you can verify its working by typing: top (which is like a task manager)
typing q quits top


There are some little probelms right now- EM3 can't monitor the clients in this version. I'm working on that. Logging out also reboots. Since folding happens in ram, rebooting will erase your current work unit. It is possible to save a work unit onto a hard drive or even a usb pen though, if you know you will be rebooting..... and restore it later....

When I fix the bug that is blocking EM3 form working, you could also save a work unit to a hdd on a windows computer on the same network (as long as the partition is FAT32).

The mobo I'm thinking of is biostar has zero OC features short of hard-coding the multiplyer on the CPU by connecting and breaking L3 bridges. There are actually several like this if you search on newegg...

You can spend a little more and get a kt266, kt333, kt400, or nforce2 that can overclock- but you will most likely need a cheap video card since those usually don't have onboard video, and possibly a PCI NIC, and maybe a more powerful PSU, and more expensive DDR instead of sdram. Sometimes you can find used parts in local computer stores. Where I am, Goodwill has a location solely dedicated to old computers and hardware, so i can find video cards for $5. the bottom line is that you can use this CD to make very cheap folding layers that don't overclock ort don't overclock much- or you can spend more and overclock. You might be surpirsed to know how 2 XP's at 1.46 running minimal hardware and not overclocked compare at folding to a more expensive single XP overclocked to 2.3; and by what the price difference is between going cheap but in volume vs buying quality...

I don't know the full extent of overclockix's hardware support either for that matter, since I took an existing Live Linux OS and tweaked it. But I assume it supports just about everything except some laptop components. I also can vouch that I have added the nvnet and bcm 4400 NIC drivers for onboard Nforce2 and kt400 NICs (some Nforce2 boards use gigabit NICs, which I don't have a driver for yet....) So far I know for sure the A7N8X deluxe NIC does not work in overclockix!

[NiTrO bOiE]

Charloz, when building farms. You don't really need overclocking options, because you want to run it as silent as you can, and you want it to be as small and cheap as you can. Small meaning 3 PCI slots, and onboard video, lan. The video won't be needed after you set it up for folding though. Just use EMIII, and monitor it over the lan.

[Skiing Squirrel]

I have an old kt266, 4 or 8 meg vid card, stick of 128 ddr, and 300 psu... When I get back in town I will start getting this thing folding.

[Arkaine23]

Sweet! I'll try to finish up the latest improvements to overclockix tonight and have the improved official version available tonight. The current version works great, but I really want to get 2 featiures fixed-

1. ability to save work units to a hdd or pen drive. (you can do this already, but I want to make it easily done or even automatic.)

2. samba for monitoring via EM3

Also addiing a windows virus scanner so you can scan windows hdd's for virii wihtout being booted in windows... overclockix is a pretty nice system recovery disk when you learn how to use some of its applications after all.....

Adding another burn-in type app- lucifer

Setting Xchat to have a Zirc server in its list for chatting on #ocfoldingteam. You can add the server to the list and get on zirc as it is now, but I'm just making things easier.

Remove the konqueror window that opens at startup. I was a little sloppy and forgot to remove some tmp files from the current version.