Finally Got To Red on 4 PCs

Started with one last December and am up to four at home computers. A 2800+ (754), a 3000+ (754), the dually (1.6s) and a lone 2.8c. Today, after playing with settings for the last few months, the four computers have finally broken 1600 PPD and I am in the Red Zone. Now I know this is not earth shattering but "I run what I brung" as best as I could and I can not tell you how many times I have cussed after seeing a work unit locked up and lost. Finally they are all stable and have broken into the red. To top it off tommorow I shall break the second goal of breaching 100,000 points. Finally getting to where I wanted to go.

Now, if DFI will just come out with the AGP board, AMD with the X2 and Stanford with a QMD for AMDs, I might be able to hold off Travanx for a little while.

Good job. I've got a PII 500 thats about ready to be taken off line from instability.
My farm started flaking out the last week from instability.

congrats man, its summer, and all my friends that let me borg there computers have shut theres down for the summer, plus mine doesn't run much now, I'm like if I can get 100ppd. So Congrats

Wife won't let me have any more computers and I have to both recognize how patient she has been and try to make the best of what I have. I think there is more to be had by upgrading the 2800+ to a DFI 754 board, changing the four gig hard drive to a 10 or 20 gig, and getting some nicer ram for the Intel so that it can take better advantage of the high fsb. The xeons could get more with possibly a set of xp-90s but with the fsb being limited bandwidth would probably not make it cost effective. Would really like to know two things, when is Stanford going to program QMDs for AMD and if/when DFI is going to release an AGP 939 board. These things might allow the four boxes to break the 2g mark.

DaveK, remember when you came by. Nothing I could do as the funds were not there. Still keep track of you though and maybe one day......

dude, way to go. the best i could ever get with 7 folding at once for me 24/7 was about 1.3k points a day. all athlon xp's though....

Red is red.. congrats! And with 4 rigs?? thats quite efficient indeed

congrats

very stellar job... makes me want to take some time and see if I cant optimize my labs a bit more... hmmm......

A big Congrats from another "Run what ya brung" folder (no borgs)! I made Red with 4 also, but that was 3 P4s running QMDs and my lone A64. Looks like you're running very efficiently for those rigs. Keep it up.

And another congrats too from me. My production is almost exclusively from my own personal farm of 7 desktop and 1 laptop machines I have folding for Team 32. I have a couple of borgs out there configged for 32 but they very seldom turn in any work.

For a reasonably cheap folding rig, I've been building socket 754 rigs lately and using the DTR A64 3000+ procs. The first one I built is a CG stepping and will o/c to 2700 MHz and the second one I built is using an older C0 stepping (that I got a real good deal on though) at 2430 MHz. Plus, there will be a 90 nm upgrade path in the future for socket 754 with the upcoming Turion mobiles too, so there might be even more speed in the future. For mobo's, I've been using the DFI NF3-250Gb boards and last one I built I bought a gig of the OCZ Value VX. Using Thermalright hsf's (SLK948-U and XP90), my folding temps run in the mid to high 30's.

I don't feel so alone now. Thanks guys. Very small farms are not abnormal apparently nor is the lack of borging. As of this minute have dropped below 1600 PPD however a couple of completed units have not shown up as of yet. 100,188. Over the first hump. Next up is to make it to page two which should only take another day or two and then the long haul to page one.

That is pretty damn impressisve Silver.Hat's off to you!

11200 points a week is a large task. Even harder with 4 units.

Effeciency is key! Effeciency shows you really try hard.

Good job!

-Sam

Picked up a ddr booster to push the corsair xms a little harder on the p4c800e as 2.85v is not quite enough. Also picked up a DFI UT 754 board for $65 shipped off Newegg refurbed as the Epox is a real pain in the axx. Hopefully this will secure the 1600 PPD. Hopefully will pick up a 20gb from Mustang to use on the 2800+ as though it has no problems with big units or tinkers, it fails on the 364 point units due to lack of hard drive space on the 3 gig harddrive. Interesting, does seem the 364 pointers like the harddrive and they are good producing units that I do not have access to on that unit.

You can see where my 1.1kPPD comes from in my sig. I too am blessed with a wife that let me spend $4k over the last two years on computers. I only have 5 CPUs like you but the XP1700 is the weak link. That dated XP3200 Barton isn't nearly as good as my three Intel CPUs are. If I could get a couple more P-Ms or P4s, I'd be joining you in the red zone.

It is not a bad thing. She keeps me within reason on things. As a matter of fact folding has been a good thing for me. I was spending a good deal of money on competing in the 3d market and when asked by people I know "what are you doing with that power" I really had no good answer. I have really gotten back to what I consider the core of oc'ing with folding in that I get the cheapest effective solutions I can and oc the snot out of them at what are stable speeds. I have found that I can surf the net and fold big units at max speeds with a single 256 stick of ram on the amds. I put the dual xeons together in a $12 case with 99 cent fans folding at 3050 for $250 complete. The 2800+ is a $75 cpu on a epox board I had sitting around. The 2.8c was sitting around and only needed the xp-90 (which I got for $24 new) to attain some descent speeds. I picked up a refurb DFI UT board for the 2800+ last night off Newegg for $64 shipped along with a ddr booster for tighter timings on the p4. The 3000+ is what is left of the 3d benching so it has the 6800GT vid but the xeons have the ti4200 and I have found on the other rigs the vanta (read $9) vid cards work fine. As a matter of fact the 2800+ and the p4 are running on donated (from www.overclockers) 380 watt antec psu's and have proven to (while not holding the 12v at 12v but at 11.8v) very stable as no high power vid or multiple drives. They drop to 11.8v but hold there regardless of what I am doing speed wise. Cheap is now the name of the game while getting the highest pointage I can stable. I can honestly say that it takes longer (much longer) to get a high stable oc on a folding box than it does peaking to get a single 3d run. A LOT longer. Am now trying to push for 1700 to 1800 PPD on these four computers and am hoping to do better than that somewhere down the road (after all QMDs can not keep AMD out in the cold forever). Would love to see DFI come out with an AGP soultion on 939 as it would be a cheap avenue that would/might lead to the x2 processors. To bring the present four up (using existing parts, etc) has only cost me about $500. None of the machines are slouches (sp) by any means though not the fastest but cost per mhz is very good. A cheap AMD folder, case included can be built for $75 cpu, $20 psu, $64 mobo, $30 stick of ram, $12 case, $20 harddrive, $9 vid, can load windows by temprorarily placing a cd drive in then removing after loading to hd so cd is not necessary, an xp $24 and $5 better fan for it, $10 in case fans at multiples of quite 80 mm's. So we are looking at $269 shipped for a 2.6 ish AMD folder if you have to buy all the parts. Add 320 or so PPD per AMD folder. If you are lucky enough to have some p4 parts around you can build a good 450 PPD folder for roughly the same price using the same components.

Just a note, on the 364 point gromacs (3000+ has been getting a lot more of those) PPD is well over 400 at 2.655 Ghz. About 50 points under the p4. Remember the 3000+ is a 754 single channel. Need to get the 2800+ up into the same range.