Is it worth it?

[Shelnutt2]

I maintain computers for a private school my mom works at. (I do it for service hours) Well the school year is about to start and I got thinking I've had acess to these all the time, should I install FAH on them, and sneaker net them WU's.

The computers are as following,
2x AMD K6-III 450MHz
Celeron 400MHz
Celeron 533Mhz
P3 900Mhz
P3 500Mhz
P2 233Mhz
Duron 800Mhz
Althon 1.5GHz (This one is unlocked too) 512Mb DDR.

Those are all I can remember, there is a total of 12 computers though. With the athlon being the only one that >1Ghz and running XP pro, rest run 98SE.

Is it worth it? I know TT's are getting rare. I'd be able to get to the machines ~ twice a month, unless there is a problem with one, then I'd be there sooner.

[ChasR]

Any machine that supports SSE or 3dNow+ will make decent points on optimized WUs and thus are "worth it". The slower ones only barely worth it.

Here's my take on the list:

2x AMD K6-III 450MHz No
Celeron 400MHz No
Celeron 533Mhz Barely
P3 900Mhz yes
P3 500Mhz Barely
P2 233Mhz No
Duron 800Mhz Barely
Althon 1.5GHz (This one is unlocked too) 512Mb DDR. Yes

[Shelnutt2]

Ok, well then amybe I can get a few hundred points a month from these guys. How would I go about setting this up? I've never moved more than one WU to another machine at a time.

[WarriorII]

You can only queue 1 WU at a time.

The program can do it, itself. (seperates it)
but as far as you queueing 10 WU's up on one machine,

I don't think that's possible.

[TalRW]

yes it is possible to queue up 10 work units at a time. I do it on my grandparents PC because they have dial up and only connect to the internet basically when I'm over there. What you have to do is download the text client from the folding.stanford.edu site and answer the questions. When it asks if you would like to download WU's that have a deadline say no because it will only allow you to queue up work units that don't have headlines because these are less important WU's that don't really have to be returned ASAP. Once you answer that it will ask if you want to download WU's in batches of 10 say yes. You can technically queue up to 80 WU's if you use this method and basically set up 8 folding clients like you would if you had 8 processors. The only reason you would EVER want to do this is if you were planning to take your PC somewhere without internet for a LONG time and you actually had time to fold all those WU's before you ever got access to the internet again so you could upload all 80 once you got an internet connection again.

Also I agree you should probably only run it on the P3 900 mhz and the 1.5 Ghz athlon box. The rest would be a waste and it would take too long for a WU to complete in time for it to be worth it.

[ChasR]

If there were any Timeless Work units available, you could queue 10 per box. You'd make points but not do much if any science. All the WUs queued will pass the preferred deadline and be reassigned and completed by someone else before you turn them in. You'll get the points but someone else will be doing the science. Note that the prefered deadline on p1110 and p1112 (server .120) is only ten days. A dedicated p2 400 takes 12 days to fold one.

[Shelnutt2]

If in the end they aren't going to do much for science then I will not bother.

[ChasR]

The P3 900 Mhz and the XP are definately worth it. 40 or so ppd on the P3 and the XP should make 80 to 110 ppd on scientifically important WUs. This is not to say Tinkers aren't scientifically important but, if you're running past the prefered deadline, it's not likely you're the one performing the science.

[Shelnutt2]

Ok so tomorrow or Sunday I'm going back up there to install FAH on the two computers.

One other thing is there is also a Mac that they have. Is it worth installing FAH on it? I made a thread in the Alterative OS section about it.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=469140

[WarriorII]

I believe Macaholic would probably say.....Yes.

:)

[Shelnutt2]

I believe Macaholic would probably say.....Yes.

:)

I wonder. Hey Macaholic would you borg this 180MHz PowerPC 603rev? If you would I will.

[WarriorII]

180mhz.......

well, then again.

No more TT's.

[Captain Newbie]

180mhz.......

well, then again.

No more TT's.
Still has a ballsier FPU than its x86 counterpart, but with a complete lack of SIMD capabilities (and not to mention that there's not a non-OSX client for F@H) I would say no.

[Shelnutt2]

Still has a ballsier FPU than its x86 counterpart, but with a complete lack of SIMD capabilities (and not to mention that there's not a non-OSX client for F@H) I would say no.

Err, didn't realise the only Mac client was for OSX. I guess that puts the last nail in the coffin.

[AlabamaCajun]

All workunits must be worth something for science. I would say that lowpoint and timeless units are of lessor value. If you send in something past the time limit I can see it being of little to no use. What I do think and is all units are run in duplicate or triplicate to verify results knowing a lot of overclockers are folding and some people may still have the old pentium bug chips (though rare).

[ChasR]

Duplicate WUs are only issued when a WU passes the prefered deadline. This project is run serially. One copy of run 0, clone 0, generation 0 is issued and when it is returned, one copy of generation 1 of run 0, clone 0 is issued. Delay a single WU and you delay all subsequent WUs of that run/clone. In the case of early ends of a given r/c/g, severol copies of the WU are issued to determine quickly if it is a WU or computer problem.

WUs have no scientific value if they already been succesfully completed and returned by someone else before you do. You'll get the points, unless you pass the final deadline.

[AlabamaCajun]

How do they now that your overclocked math didn't bork the numbers but still complete the WU.

[benbaked]

some people may still have the old pentium bug chips (though rare).

some people might've disobeyed Intel's request and held onto 'em (i'd sure like to have one just because it is a piece of history) but i doubt anybody is folding on a Pentium 60.