Pentium 133 - even worth it?

[johan851]

I have a Pentium 133 (probably not even MMX) that I could donate to folding...but would the trouble of setting it up and the power required to run it full time even be worth it? FYI, I could probably overclock it to 166MHz...YEAH! :rolleyes:

[9mmCensor]

Throw on a vapor setup and reach 250mhz... sweet!

Probably not, you could use it as a router, firewall, email server, or something tto shoot tho.

[Quailane]

What kind of OS do you think it would max out on? Win98 with everything tweaked for performance?

[johan851]

I bet you could get it to run 2000...but you'd have to do some serious tweakage. 95 or 98 would probably be the most practical.

[bchur83]

I run 2000 on a bunch of machines with pent 133 and 64MB ram. It runs alright, not the fastest thing in the world, but it works.

[Fast420A]

I would run Smoothwall on it and use it as a firewall/router.

[NiTrO bOiE]

It could crunch SETI. I've tried folding on a P 133mhz and it took about 10 days for 1 WU...

[Quailane]

Overclock it. I'd overclock a couple of 180Mhz pentium pros with 256k l2 cache that I have, IF I knew how to set the multipliers. It has a group of jumpers and it tells you how to set everything except the multipliers. It says, "refer to manual on multiplier adjustments." Too bad they came with no manual. I lapped the sink and the heat spreader down to the solder, but I could put an 80mm fan if I wanted. I bet it could easilly do 250-300Mhz with AS5. Now that miht be worth it.

[9mmCensor]

Naw, throw a stripped down version of linux on, with a few tweaks you should have some decent production.

[don256us]

It's not MMX because the first MMX was a P-166. I would say that Win 98 is as high as you would want to go. ME won't even try to install, if you don't have a 150 it says something about it and shuts down.

As said above, firewall or mail server, print server, etc is a good use for the machine. I'm not sure that it would fold fast enough to work. There are time limits on WU's and all.

I think that I would use it to play with Linux. Smoothwall for example.

[David]

Barebones Linux + Linux client running Gah I think is the best idea.

[sean uk]

i've tried folding my cyrix k6-150+ rig it was really painfully slow
a real waste of electricty
it now runs 24/7 as a smoothwall box
and it will hold water reservoir and pump for my main rig when i get finished

[DaWiper]

Originally posted by don256us
It's not MMX because the first MMX was a P-166...

I've personally seen a laptop with P133MMX...

[Quailane]

I have gotten my pentium pro to 233Mhz and 66Mhz FSB. Do you think it could run FAH decently with overclockix running from cd? I have it running overclockix right now and it seems to be fine. I just need a network card to hook up to lan so I can fold, but I want to know if it'd be worth it. Also, does a pentium pro have any instruction sets that could help it with folding? I know its 256k of l2 cache running at full speed will definately help.

[Arkaine23]

No flags will help it. If deadlines are a problem for either gromacs or tinker units, you could switch it to do genome@home which is dog-slow but has no deadlines. You'd only need to edit the client.cfg and restart it with the foldon65 command.

[Quailane]

Does genome at home show results in the same place FAH? Or is it some totally different thing that just uses the same program? I think I'll steal a network card from my stepdad's comp to try it out. He has wireless card anyway so he'd never miss it. :):):):)

[Arkaine23]

A lot of wireless cards don't have linux drivers yet, but its worth a try...

G@H still counts toward your F@H points... the projects are related.

[Papsomax]

I have a P233 with 256MB on Win XP Pro, but folding stinks ie SLOW! and often does not make deadline. I also have a PII 333 (XP Pro 256 ram) [both of the latter two are laptops] with same slow results and an iMac 333 (OS 10) same slow results, so I don't use these as folder machines.


1. XP 2500 (187x12.5) 2. XP 2200 (140x13.5) 3. P4 1.7 (OEM) 4. P4 1.8 (OEM) 5. Dually in process

[Quailane]

I installed the non-wireless card from my stepdad's comp and it is booting right now. I'll see how it goes in just a minute. At first I booted and I coudln't use the mouse even though the bios detected it. I could use the mouse last night and I haven't changed bios. It showed a hardware setup error while booting, but not this time, after clearing cmos. I'll test it out right now. OMG what is going on? I can't use my ps/2 mouse anymore! I tried two and neither move the cursor on the screen. One is an optical wheelmouse, the other is just a generic wheelmouse. I've booted with and without the ethernet card and I get no mousal response. The optical lights up just fine and gets brighter when I move it, just like normal, but neither mouse seems to work. Weird thing is, THEY WORKED LAST NIGHT!!!

[fiji]

Originally posted by Quailane
What kind of OS do you think it would max out on? Win98 with everything tweaked for performance?

linux, you could get it all "twinked"

[Cjwinnit]

if it's still running you could do G@H. I think F@H needs 166 Mhz MMX at solid 1000% cpu 24/7 to do a work unit, so 133 won't cut it for F@H, sorry :(

Still worth making it a webserver/router tho :)

[lennytiger]

does overclockix actually help to increase folding speed???

[Quailane]

No, not really I don't think. It's just there to make F@H easier to do. Actually it might slightly, as I don't think arkaine23 put in a whole lot of useless services.

[Arkaine23]

Nah, it folds at about teh same pcae as windows - since it has both the linux and windows folding clients available to use. Using the linux client and folding tinker work units is a bit slower than using the windows client on tinker units but other than that the differences are nominal.

But it is virtually instantaneous folding- ie requires no setup. It is great to substitue in if your hard drive or OS ever dies, or to biuild cheap boxes with no hard drive.