What does your PC do whilst it is idle?

[Stool]

This is something that interests me alot. The avg PC idles alot during the day and with 400Watt avg power supplies its a huge waste of resources on the grid.... so it might aswel do something useful i say....

Distributed computing.
Certain research groups needs pc's to analyse data to solve complex problems such as finding a cure for AIDS,cancer,muscular dystrophy and also other projects like climate prediction for the decades comming.

How it works is the program downloads small packets of data of the net to be analysed. It uses your cpu for the job when it senses it is idle and "backs off" immediatly when it senses the user is interacting with the PC again. Some programs you can set to only work whilst your screen saver is running and they come with snooze buttons to deactivate them for a period of time. When its done analysing the data it uploads the results and restarts with new data. The packets i noticed from United Devices was always about a 1MB download once a day with 200KB uploading.

Personally i like the cancer and muscular dystrophy projects cos i see loved ones suffering from it day to day and finally i can do something more about it.

Well i suggest you read these few pages if you interested. Stumbled across these new projects today.

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
http://www.distributed.net/
http://www.computeagainstcancer.org/
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/
http://www.climateprediction.net/index.php
http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/
http://athome.web.cern.ch/athome/
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/
http://www.distributedfolding.org/

WarGeeks has a team setup with the 1st link 'worldcommunitygrid'. BOINC clients can also participate by joining team #16594

see http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=21G6QNL3S1 for team score/information details :)

[rainy]

I have been doing Seti@Home for years now, and I recently joined the Einstein@Home and Rosetta@Home projects. My PC happily does number crunching when it doesn't have anything else to do.

[Stool]

Glad to hear that Rainy :D

My stomping grounds now is the World Community Grid :).Nice stable client

[rainy]

I don't want to run more than one client, the projects I mentioned all use BOINC (http://boinc.berkeley.edu).

[Ruslan74]

How does this crunching affect your cap btw? Just curious coz my PC also does nothing whilst I am away.

[Stool]

Project start (downloads project data ~1.2MB)
Analyses (offline)
Project complete (uploads results ~200KB)

That whole cycle takes about a day or two per project

[Ruslan74]

Not that major. Thanks for the info will browse the forums when I get home.

[SlappY]

I want mine to scan for aliens!
Then we can go invade them.... and they will be like.... aaarghh.. the Aliens are invading...which is funny cause they are actually the aliens.

[Ruslan74]

I want mine to scan for aliens!
Then we can go invade them.... and they will be like.... aaarghh.. the Aliens are invading...which is funny cause they are actually the aliens.


:wow: :cuckoo:

kinda worried about you Slappy.

[sss]

mine runs a screensaver, i like to look at it sometimes

[Stool]

only silly thing i found with this distributed computing idea is that these developers dont program to take into account computers with more than "1" cpu.

i got this lab pc with this "hyper threading" shyte. So i look at the processes and my number cruncher is only using "1" cpu. 50%

silly silly silly

[rainy]

I think BOINC can use multiple CPUs.

[Stool]

I think BOINC can use multiple CPUs.

yeah i was tempted but they dont do the muscular dystrophy program so not really for me

[rainy]

Stool, I see that the World Community Grid is also using BOINC. BOINC is a universal client. And in your BOINC preferences you can set how many CPUs the app should use. In your BOINC client, select your project, then click on Preferences, which will take you to a website. There find "General Preferences", and off you go.

Edit: I just saw that the Muscular Dystrophy project is only available for the UD agent. Tough then. UD only supports single threads, so no multi CPU support there.

[Stool]

thanks for the heads up tho :),good to know they did something about the cpu issue

[rainy]

If you're into quick results, don't go climate prediction. I reattached to the project today, and now I know why I stopped. It tells me the work unit has got 2430 hours of CPU time left to finish processing. However, deadline is only next year April :phew:

[TG]

I like the idea of the BOINC client, but none of the listed projects is for cancer research... which is where I would want to contribute computing time.

[rainy]

I think Rosetta@home is closest to that idea.

[Stool]

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

Ok with TG 's permission I went and created a "War Geeks Clan" team with the above site link. Reason? It's the client I am using and it would be fun to see what the Wargeeks can contribute I thought. No pressure tho.

If someone using the BOINC client can just please tell me it they can also join the same team that be great. You'd have to set it up on the website interface tho.

NOW!
If I lost anoyone that read this thread about "getting your pc to do valuable medical research" then please contact me via pm and I will use one of my messengers to talk you through it all.

[TG]

I'm doing it.

[TG]

If you're already on WorldCommunityGrid, use the following link to join the group: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=21G6QNL3S1

[FeralBanana]

I'm joining now :)

[Albereth]

I have been doing Seti@Home for years now, and I recently joined the Einstein@Home and Rosetta@Home projects. My PC happily does number crunching when it doesn't have anything else to do.

A guy I know in the UK, Carl Crook, had also been doing the SETI thing. One lunchtime some of the guys created a fake screen that said CONTACT SETI NOW!!!

Poor guy went ballistic trying to get hold of SETI to tell them that he had found something.

[sss]

lol

[{lostmarble}]

I'll be adding my cpu's time later tonight...

[Stool]

shot marble :D

[FeralBanana]

Bleh!!

We had the breakin while I was running it on both my PC's. Now they both gone/broken.

Ironic that the burglar probably had AIDS or some other disease and I was 'trying to find a cure' :p (yes, i'm generalising but I'm still a bit frustrated. D'oh...)

I may still reinstall the program on whatever new PC I get.. maybe...

[GeroW4lll]

I'm in there too now. That makes 4 of us..... you guys have been averaging more than 2000 point per day - kewl

[rainy]

Someone give me the skinny on WCG. I have been using BOINC basically since it came out, and I currently have 3 projects running in there. Would love to join the team. Does WCG run SETI, Rosetta and Einstein? Is it basically just another client for these projects? Or is it a completely different thing?

[Stool]

to be honest i have just seen the WCG client so dont know the differences.... however if you read the website that the link points to in post #21 then you will see it noted that the BOINC team ID is 16594.

Cab you add that in your BOINC client anywhere?

WCG doesnt run SETI, Rosetta or Einstein. Seem like a completely different client but shares a common backbone with BOINC

[GeroW4lll]

I thought BOINC was the client, and WCG is a sort of portal for the projects. You can add WCG as a project just like you do Seti, and then you'll run the projects that are active with WCG at the time. Atm there's an aids one, muscular dystrophy and some other biochemistry thing. I guess I'm going to add some other non-WCG projects too, depending on how much time I end up having available on this.

[TG]

I'm running a BOINC client on my linux server. It calculates the points in an odd way. The WCG client on the other hand seems to do the job fairly well. The "info" screens for the various projects are interesting too.. although I mostly see the aids project, and I've seen one of the other ones once or twice.

[rainy]

Added the project and joined the team.

[Stool]

Just a kind warning for all you people who run this on the machine you are gaming on. I did say the program backs of the CPU when it notices other programs like MSword or BF2 wants CPU time..... however last night I noticed it does not back off on the memory already committed.

My physical memory usage for just the WCG program was at 300MB, and with me running a gaming PC of only 1GB RAM my BF2 struggled.

Just rather exit this utility before any gaming. Who knows you might just have the perfect headshot lined upon Rainy to make him cry cry cry... only to have WCG start downloading a new 2MB project and ur lag goes through the roof.

[TG]

Just set it to screensaver mode.

[Stool]

i like my pc to be "busy" at all times
just not during gaming :)

besides i mess around on my pc too much for a screen saver even getting a chance to kick in