Put your unused CPU cycles to use

Printable View

10-12-2006, 09:58 AM
Shelby07

Put your unused CPU cycles to use

Check out http://folding.stanford.edu - It allows you to download a program that will use your computer to run computations on protein folding and the results will be sent back to Stanford and compiled for use in medical research. Have been running it for about a week with no ill effects. I had this running on my PC a few years ago but that site moved and I never did get the new site (for whatever reason) until now. If you decide to try it I would suggest that you configure the CPU to run at about 50% (on the configuration page) otherwise it may hog resources when you don't want it to. I have run it at both 50% and 100% and it doesn't seem to affect the speed of the computations too much, but my PC doesn't slow down at all at 50%.

Let me know what you think.
11-04-2006, 12:32 PM
Shelby07

Just curious. Has anyone checked this out? I have been running it for a while now and have found that it has a setting where it shuts itself down totally unless the screen saver is activated. I have also found that we can sign up as a group and keep track of how much our computers contribute to the medical research.

Basically here's how it works...

The program connects up to a central server and downloads a scenario to your PC that has to be computed. It then disconnects and spends the next few days using your unused cpu cycles to compute the resolution locally. When it has completed the computations it connects up to the server, sends the results and downloads another scenario.

I have my screen saver set to come on after about 15 minutes or so. So anytime I am active on my PC the program is dorment. When I am not using the computer for anything else, its unused cycles are put to good use.
11-04-2006, 07:03 PM
drew_goring

I tried it, but with my PC being right on the edge of being smooth, it doesn't work very well for me. I would run it if I had a faster PC for sure.
11-04-2006, 07:08 PM
Shelby07

Quote:

Originally Posted by drew_goring

I tried it, but with my PC being right on the edge of being smooth, it doesn't work very well for me. I would run it if I had a faster PC for sure.

Try going into the configuration menu and selecting the display tab. Then select "Run core only when screensaver is active". This will give normal performance whenever you are using your machine. You can also configure the software to only use a percentage of your cpu under the advanced tab.
11-04-2006, 07:17 PM
drew_goring

I'll give it another try and see what happens.