Folding@home

[Alert]

I doubt you guys have heard of "Folding@home" but it's a program that does research for a college university (I know this sounds kinda weird) but our local high school is doing it for points(you get points by letting the program work on its own)- the person with the most points wins. The link to our High School team is here: http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/m...&teamnum=42608

Several of the guys at our high school started this a while back and up until recently I was competing with them and was only a few points behind... but then they started installing the program at the local library and their works (with permission of course) and I fell behind.

As your may have guessed I was hoping that you guys would help me out

http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

At the above link is where you can download the software which will run ONLY when your computer is idle (I can run half life 2 with it in the backround touble free).

After the program is downloaded (download the first one down for windows) install it as you would any other program. Now here is where you can either support our high school team or support both me and the high school team (your choice). There is a small red icon in the lower right of your screen (the taskbar). Right click it and hit configure.

Either select team 42608 for our high school, and type in "Masta911" which is my name to support us both, or make your own team and name. Either way your computer is being used when its at idle to support reasearch.

Just remember: You can always uninstall this program fully from add/remove programs and it wont even be noticable that its running- if you want you can even add limitations to the program in terms of cpu usage even while the program is at idle!

Just give it a try.. thanks guys

[WicKeD_WaYz]

wait I dont get it how do they use my computer for research when im not on it?

[Python14]

When your computer is on, but not in use, it is using maybe 1 or 2% of your CPUs possible cycles. F@H uses the remaining 98%/whatever cycles to crunch these folding problems(mostly figureing out algorigms and logs). Once it finishes a work unit, it sends the data to Standford.

It is on 24/7 and is constantly working. It automatrically adjusts itself for your CPU usage. I have it on all the time and get no difference in performance of games and apps. It's great.

Currently I have my 2.4ghz rig folding, my moms 1.8ghz, my dads 999mhz, 3 of my friends 2.8 ghz Dells, plus maybe half a dozen other computers at 2.8 ghz folding. It's all for a great cause so what the hay.

[Alert]

What it does is uses the processor to do math calculations of how proteins fold.. I dont know what that means but I can tell you when it does it.

I assume you leave your computer on while your reading the forums, correct? If the page isnt loading and your just reading it will start working in the backround, then when you load a new page it will stop and restart. The more it works the more points you get... some people leave their computers on all night so it can work non stop.

Hopefully that made sense :)

***edit***
The above post was made at the same time as this one, sorry for double posting

[Python14]

haha actually your post spawned something.

This whole folding things relates to how proteins behave. Proteins change or "fold". Sometimes something happens and the proteins fold incorrectly, or not at all. When this happens, bad things can occur. Things like cancer, tumors, fibrosis, and about a bathtub full of other conditions are caused, at their roots, by incorrectly folding proteins. The idea here is to simulate the folding to understand how, why, when, etc proteins fold incorrectly. With this, better cures for these things can be found.

The reason it is done thru distributed computing is because a single processor just doesn't have the power to do it. There is no processor in the world that could replace the combined efforts of all the folders around the world. For the end user, F@H can actually benefit your computer. By running at 100% all the time, your CPU enjoys a longer life. Parts last longer because they aren't being sped up and slowed down constantly. They are running at a consistent speed all the time. It also offers overclockers and benchmarkers a chance to gauge their improvements. Going from 2.1 ghz to 2.4 ghz on my computer netted me about a 30% gain in productivity. It's really became a competition to be honest. Teams compete for WU points all over the world. Currently the biggest fight is waged between Hardforum.com and some Australian overclockers group. Both groups have literally thousands of people, some with several CPUs, contributing to the cause. The great thing is, the results of this friendly competition benefit us all. Someone you know has probably been affected by the research and knowledge gained from this project.

So to everyone on AO, I supremely suggest yall start Folding!

[Alert]

Just remenber this: It helps cure cancer and alziemers while you dont even notice its on your computer yet you can uninstall it easily from add remove programs :)

Nice folding team there Python :)

[Chipper]

Aight, this seems pretty cool. I'll try and pass it on to some of my friends too.

[SlartyBartFast]

There is no processor in the world that could replace the combined efforts of all the folders around the world.

The SETI team has been doing the same:

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/

Look at how much data they've gone through: Total CPU time 2241197.632 years

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/totals.html

[felony]

fold for team 32 over at ocforums.com

[Python14]

Fold for team 1971

[Alert]

Fold for team 42608 as username Masta911

[Python14]

what is team 42608

[Alert]

Team 42608 is my local high school... we just started folding in the last 2-4 weeks (depending on which memeber you are looking at) but have already moved into the top 5% according to team rank.

If you do support our team change your username to "Masta911"... thats mine We turned it into a competition even between our team and some of the top dogs are almost 2000 points ahead of me now- I wanna show em I can catch up without installing F@H on the schools computers :)

[Warewolf50]

Ive been folding for along time now i am on xmetals team, we were ranked in the top 300 for a while but have droped down to about 360, the way it works is that it just uses you idle processor like if i am using 50 percent it does. It does fight with games sometimes though.

[xmetal2001]

I've long resisted the urge to recruit from AO onto my my team (mainly consisting of my Highschool). I'm a folding nut, but I like to keep my highschool team exclusive to my highschool.