How To Become A Folding Team Member - Intro and Install Instructions

[I.M.O.G.]

This is a work in progress I started 6/16/10, and it will never really be complete, but in its current state there is A LOT that needs to be added. Please post suggestions or feedback in this thread. I hope to have this in a more near-complete state by the weeks end.

harlam357 (7/23/10) - more work to be done but this cleans things up a little bit and get the guide links working. I need to clean up/rename the 'Intro' and 'FAQ' and maybe push some links from this to those threads... especially the 'FAQ' is has more in-depth info... something like "further info see here" kinda links might be good.

Table Of Contents

1. 3 Steps To Become An Overclockers.com Folding Team Member
​

2. How To Install Folding@Home

A. Windows Install Instructions
B. Linux Install Instructions
C. Macintosh Install Instructions
D. PS3 Install Instructions​

3. Monitoring
4. Folding Stats - Tracking Team Member Progress
5. More Information
​

1. 3 Steps To Become An Overclockers.com Folding Team Member

1. Download the Folding@Home client.
   
   
2. Install the Folding@Home client. During setup select a name for yourself and select team number 32.
   
   - Check the user stats database to see if the name you want to use is already in use.​
3. You are on the team! Post in the New Member Welcome Thread to say hello to everyone!

Once setup is complete, Folding@Home will utilize idle computer time to perform work which will earn points for you and the team!

Return to Table Of Contents



2. How To Install Folding@Home

Installing Folding@Home can be very simple, or very complex - it all depends on how you want to participate. The install guides are broken down by which Operating System you will use, then they are broken down by client type (Single CPU, SMP CPU, and GPU). Installing and running the client is very easy. Down the road you may want to optimize your setup to be as efficient as possible, earning the most points possible - that process can be quite complex. This guide aims to simplify the optimization process for you.

A. Windows Install Instructions

Official Install Guides

• Single CPU, SMP CPU, and GPU Install Guides by Stanford

Install Guides by Team 32

• SMP2 Install Guide by ChasR and harlam357

B. Linux Install Instructions

Official Install Guides

• Single CPU and SMP CPU Install Guides by Stanford

C. Macintosh Install Instructions

Official Install Guides

• Single CPU (Intel/PPC) and SMP CPU (Intel) Install Guides by Stanford

D. PS3 Install Instructions

Official Install Guides

• Playstation 3 Install Guide by Stanford

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3. Monitoring

Team 32 recommends using HFM.NET to monitor your Folding@Home client or multiple clients on multiple machines. It is a free, open source application for Windows and Linux that allows you to quickly see the status of your Folding@Home client(s) in one easy to use program.

• Official HFM.NET Website - Downloads, Installing, Help, and Support
  
  
• HFM.NET discussion thread on overclockers.com

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4. Folding Stats - Tracking Team Member Progress

These are our current team stats:



The team tracks its progress in several ways. The following links can show you your own stats as well as those of your teammates:

• Extreme Overclocking Folding Stats - Team 32 User List
  
  
• Kakao Stats - Team 32 User List
  
  
• Our teammate Jolly-Swagman keeps track of your Folding Milestones in the Milestone Thread

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5. More Information

Once you're up and running you'll be thirsting for more. Here are two repositories of information maintained here on overclockers.com that are bursting with Folding@Home knowledge and Team 32 goodies.

• The Official Team 32 Folding@Home Intro has links to many Folding@Home related threads and websites.
  
  
• The Official Team 32 F@H FAQ has answers to more detailed questions about Folding@Home, a detailed description of the project, and links to many Folding@Home related threads and websites.

Return to Table Of Contents

 

[I.M.O.G.]

This is a work in progress. Eventually, it will contain all the information the team has scattered across many different threads and stickies.

It uses jumpto's in the table of contents, as well as jumps throughout the document to send people back to the table of contents, making it easy to navigate through one massive post in an easy, organized way and quickly find the information you need... ALL IN ONE PLACE.

 

[markp1989]

thanks for doin this, it will be nice to have all the fah stuff in 1 place

 

[I.M.O.G.]

The team does a lot of good things, just doing it so that you guys know you are valued, and to help you guys keep going strong!

Got a start going today, I'll have to work on it quite a bit more and continue to expand it.

 

[harlam357]

Are green and orange the "official" colors?

Also, mark... there always have been repositories of information known as the Intro and FAQ up in the stickies. However, IMOGs format looks easier to understand. Less reading... more doing... sometimes I think people want things to be too easy.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Green and orange can be changed, they just stick out well.

I agree about people wanting things to be easy. The easier we can make the easy parts, the more time we have to spend on the hard parts... There is definitely plenty of advanced stuff you can do with the folding project.

Have you guys ever thought about doing a live stats thread highlighting the teams top 20? Last week I just talked hwbot.org into implementing an external api so that we can pull hwbot stats into the forums from their site - checkout the rankings/stats sticky in the benchmarking team lounge for example - its done using bbcode like [ hwbot=oc_forums]teamstats[/hwbot ]. I could probably try to get someone to make a similar external api available for folding stats so we can do cool stuff for folding too.

 

[Younglin]

I fold on my ps3 already but just with the life with playstation thing. Can I make it contribute to team 32?

 

[X@nder36]

just joined the folding team

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Great, welcome to the team!

Anything about the process of setting things up and joining the team which we could make easier in these instructions from the perspective of a new guy?

Unfortunately I haven't gotten a lot of stuff added to this sticky yet that I wanted to, but I hope to spend some time on it this Saturday. If you have any input, I'll be sure to see how I can work it in.

@Younglin: I'm not sure, but if you start a thread on it, I'll work the answer to your question into a section in this sticky!

 

[Younglin]

Just passed 10 000 points. Only been folding for 3 days, is that good?

 

[Shell]

Quick guide for 64-bit Ubuntu/Mint

Make sure the dependency is installed(chances are it already is); in a terminal type: sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Download the client; Linux (x86) and BSD *combined uniprocessor (CPU) and SMP2 client* (64-bit build)
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download

Create a folder and extract the 2 files in the tarball(.tgz).

Open a terminal and point it to the folder's location: cd /home/you/afolder/

Make the F@H program executable: chmod +x fah6

Start the program and set it up: F@H: ./fah6 -configonly -smp
Put in your name, the team number (32), when it asks for work size put in big.

Hooray you're almost d-
OH NOES AN ERROR - fah6: relocation error: /lib/libnss_files.so.2: symbol __rawmemchr, version GLIBC_2.2.5 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference
How to fix:
sudo apt-get install nscd
sudo nano -w /etc/nscd.conf
Find the line: enable-cache hosts no
Change no to yes; then save and quit. (Ctrl X , Y)
sudo service nscd restart

There, now it should work.

Want F@H to automatically start?
The maximum-noob method:
Go to Startup Applications and add this in command:

gnome-terminal --working-directory '/home/you/afolder/' --geometry=80x20 --title=Folding@Home --execute ./fah6 -smp

Congrauation, a winnar is you.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Thanks, I'll be getting that into this guide - it still has a lot further to go, but I've been really busy in real life lately.

 

[ihrsetrdr]

Quick guide for 64-bit Ubuntu/Mint

Make sure the dependency is installed(chances are it already is); in a terminal type: sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

Download the client; Linux (x86) and BSD *combined uniprocessor (CPU) and SMP2 client* (64-bit build)
http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download

Create a folder and extract the 2 files in the tarball(.tgz).

Open a terminal and point it to the folder's location: cd /home/you/afolder/

Make the F@H program executable: chmod +x fah6

Start the program and set it up: F@H: ./fah6 -configonly -smp
Put in your name, the team number (32), when it asks for work size put in big.

Hooray you're almost d-
OH NOES AN ERROR - fah6: relocation error: /lib/libnss_files.so.2: symbol __rawmemchr, version GLIBC_2.2.5 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference
How to fix:
sudo apt-get install nscd
sudo nano -w /etc/nscd.conf
Find the line: enable-cache hosts no
Change no to yes; then save and quit. (Ctrl X , Y)
sudo service nscd restart

There, now it should work.

Want F@H to automatically start?
The maximum-noob method:
Go to Startup Applications and add this in command:

gnome-terminal --working-directory '/home/you/afolder/' --geometry=80x20 --title=Folding@Home --execute ./fah6 -smp

Congrauation, a winnar is you.

Very nice & concise guide, especially for dealing with the "libnss relocation" business, which I had to stumble thru not long ago, with my Debian(testing) rigs.

 

[dfonda]

Multiple "Fermi" GPU's Installed in Windows 7 Guide

Here is an addition to installing the 6.32 System Tray client needed to run Multiple "Fermi" GPU's, in Windows 7
The MSI(Microsoft Installer) does all of the work for 1 GPU, but if you install 2,3 4 or more follow these simple additional instructions.
(These instructions assume you have unhidden all folders) Install the newest approved Nvidia Drivers, currently 260.99 (for the 400 series) and 263.99 (for the 500 series). You also should have HFM up and running and add the new clients right away so you can check that everything is working

GPU folding on one or more 'Fermi"GPU's

Required for "Fermi" Gpu's and can be used with older GPU's (tho the older Gpu's may take a performance hit so you may want to stick with 6.23). This is with the system tray Microsoft Installer(msi) client. This is for 2 GPU's but you can use it for more.

No force flags or dummy plugs used. Do the following steps after running the MSI install on client 6.32(which takes just seconds) in Windows 7.
If you have 1 "Fermi" already working you can '-oneunit' flag (console client) or "Pause when done"(System tray client) and then do all this after its done so you won't lose any work

1) I copied the shortcut, Out of Start/All Programs (where msi put it)to the desktop...twice.

2) The first shortcut on the desktop I changed(Right click and click "Properties") the start in: to C:\Users\Dave\AppData\Roaming\gpu0\ (Replace "Dave" with your user name!)

3) The second shortcut I changed the start in: to C:\Users\Dave\AppData\Roaming\gpu1\
4) Make 2 copies of the folder named Folding@Home-gpu located in roaming(where the work folders and other stuff was placed by the msi client) rename the copies gpu0 and gpu1. Leave the original Folding@Home-gpu as is.

5 Lastly I started gpu0 shortcut and "Right Click" the Protein(icon) running in sys tray then Configure/Advanced/Additional Parameters-Restart client to take effect" put -gpu 0 -verbosity 9 then restart. Start the gpu1 shortcut and in parameters put -gpu 1 -verbosity 9 and restart.
See Pic Now use HFM to make sure they are running properly


At this point go back in "configure for each client and put in your "user name" "Team #32" and change the other default settings. This includes different machine id's for each client including Cpu clients.(1, 2 3, etc) These "other" settings will be based on whether you are running bigadv or not(see pic), regular smp will barely effect the GPU's.

If you have more then 2 "Fermi" GPU's then do the steps again and name it gpu2, gpu3 etc. If you want the clients to start at boot stick the shortcuts or copies of the shortcuts in Startup in Programs and remove the one placed there by Microsoft installer(msi). Also at this point you can delete the f@h stuff in Start/All programs list. Just use your knew desktop shortcuts. I put mine in a Folder named "GPU shortcuts" so no one clicks them accidentally. I have only used this for myself, need testers! Let me know of any problems encountered. Thanks to Chasr for being the EDITOR!

 

[Hardass]

Back

Trying to setup on a 3930K rig. As soon as it starts download it looks like, the program stops working.

 

[Robert17]

I see you've installed v6.34. Have you considered v7 ? It sets up well in Winderz.

 

[Hardass]

Just want which ever will give max points.

 

[RyanCouch]

about to have a fx8350 at 4.6 ghz and 18 hours of freetime a day running on our team lets keep it going

 

[RyanCouch]

how long does one fold take on average?

 

[Robert17]

how long does one fold take on average?

A lot of things factor into the answer: the hardware in your rig, the type of Work Unit you get, the settings that you are running. Mix and match those enough and you'll get no idea what a good answer is.

My GPU is folding an 8900 WU at the moment, 5-1/2 minutes/frame; CPU is folding a 8567 @ 8-1/2 minutes/frame.