[Shaktai]

It seems like the only way to get any decent production out of this team is to have a competition. Therefore I am issuing the following challenge to any and all willing to accept it. Within the next 2 to 3 days I should break the 10,000 point mark on Folding@Home. I challenge anyone to raise 5000 points for Team MacNN in Folding@home before I break the 15,000 mark.

To accept this challenge, you must post your participation in this thread - with your current "verifiable" starting number of points (as of the time when you post your intended particpation) and must raise 5000 points more then that starting point before I break the 15,000 point mark. The determining point count will be the official team stats at http://folding.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/new/teampage?q=16

To keep it interesting and fair, I will use only those computers that I personally own and operate out of my home. (no friends or business computers). It doesn't matter if you have zero points now (for MacNN) or 9000, just crunch 5000 more points before I break the 15,000 point mark. You may begin from the time you first announce your intention with your current TeamMacNN folding@home points.

And to spice it up a bit, the first three people to crunch 5000 points for Folding@home and TeamMacNN before I break the 15,000 mark, will be able to select any one of my computers to crunch for them for one week in the project and for the team of their choice. Obviously the 1st person gets 1st choice, the 2nd, second choice and the 3rd, third choice.

My current home arsenal is comprised as follows:
1 PowerMac 800, 1-iBook 600, 1- Athlon 2400, 1 Athlon 2200, 1 Athlon 1900 and 1-Celeron 1300. I do reserve the right to add to my personally owned home arsenal at any time, though I sincerely doubt my ability to do so before summer.

Any takers? Speak now or stay out of the way.

[Scotttheking]

What the hell, I could use your 2400 for a week

Starting score = 9180.65

[Shaktai]

Well that's one. How about it Krove, mikkyo, jbaldree, Raven, jbcool, cobramac? Anyone else? As of right now, I have to crunch 5270 to break 15,000, and can't boost my power unless I own it, and add it to my home farm.

Come on, give it your best shot. You have nothing to loose. Crunch 5000 using any resources you can scrounge up, before I crunch 5270. I estimate that it will take from 30-40 days for me to break 15,000, depending on what proteins I am lucky enough to draw.

Even if you have never crunched Folding@home before, you can do it. The project wins, the team wins and only I have anything to loose.

[Scotttheking]

The big question is, can we finally pass macrumors?

[DAlex]

Why not! 1409.08, not exactly steaming along but should be getting some new power shortly

This is such a juicy challenge that I've withdrawn my challenge to JBcool and Raven.

Just got to get the power now

DAlex

[Shaktai]

Well we got the following two brave souls at least.

Scott starts at 9,180.65 needs 14,180.65
Dalex starts at 1,409.08 needs 6,409.08

And of course I need 15,000

Any body else want in, just say so, don't be shy.

BTW, Nice power up there Scott.

[reader50]

Count me in. 89.3 score

At an average of 2 score per day, if you power down, I'll win in 6.85 years. That would be approximately January 12, 2010.

Looking forward to reserving the PowerMac 800.

[Welnic]

I might move my private farm over, I'll have to think about it. This is my current score

63 Welnic 343.4 14.11

[Shaktai]

Well this is a better start:

• Scott starts at 9,180.65 needs 14,180.65 and off to an amazing start. He must have been sandbaggin 73 pointers.
• Dalex starts at 1,409.08 needs 6,409.08 and always good for a surprise or two when you least expect it.
• Reader 50 starts at 89.3, needs 5089.3 - Sorry but I think a 6 year Pacific North West power outage is unlikely, but give it your best shot.
• Welnic a possible at 343.4 needs 5343.4 - hmmm! Don't know. Could I be in trouble?

Now we're starting to cook, but there is room for more at this feast.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
Well this is a better start:

• Scott starts at 9,180.65 needs 14,180.65 and off to an amazing start. He must have been sandbaggin 73 pointers.
• Dalex starts at 1,409.08 needs 6,409.08 and always good for a surprise or two when you least expect it.
• Reader 50 starts at 89.3, needs 5089.3 - Sorry but I think a 6 year Pacific North West power outage is unlikely, but give it your best shot.
• Welnic a possible at 343.4 needs 5343.4 - hmmm! Don't know. Could I be in trouble?

Now we're starting to cook, but there is room for more at this feast.

Heh, I REALLY need to pull out a surprise for this one

DAlex

[Shaktai]

I have now passed 10,000 (the first to do so), now the question remains will I pass 15,000 before any of the others, crunch their 5,000?

Mikkyo, you are nearly mathching my production. Want in on the race? Just post your starting numbers.

[JAmZ SeSSioN]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
I have now passed 10,000 (the first to do so), now the question remains will I pass 15,000 before any of the others, crunch their 5,000?

Mikkyo, you are nearly mathching my production. Want in on the race? Just post your starting numbers.

Many congrats from your pals at the POUND.


A fine accomplishment!
Keep on Folding.... W F W F

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
I have now passed 10,000 (the first to do so), now the question remains will I pass 15,000 before any of the others, crunch their 5,000?

Mikkyo, you are nearly mathching my production. Want in on the race? Just post your starting numbers.

You ready to get back into second place?

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
You ready to get back into second place?

Oh, you might knock me down a notch, but you are going to have to work to keep me there.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
Oh, you might knock me down a notch, but you are going to have to work to keep me there.

Yeah, yeah, details.

/me goes back to designing a new system, ponders if the xp2100 is really enough.

[DAlex]

Arghhhhhh, two of my remote machines are not reporting in - and I can't get to them as I'm off work! (-insert naughty language here-)

I'm hoping that all it means is that they are both working on 73 pointers

Still, should be getting a minor boost shortly.

In addition, is it possible to download a stack of proteins to crunch offline? I've got a chance of access to some serious crunching power but they are secure - they have been used for seti in the past by crunching units then downloading to a separate machine for uploading. Any thoughts? It's a stack of dual P4 servers (1.7ghz and up each).

I'm kinda relying on these to help me in the 5000 run

DAlex

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by DAlex:
In addition, is it possible to download a stack of proteins to crunch offline? I've got a chance of access to some serious crunching power but they are secure - they have been used for seti in the past by crunching units then downloading to a separate machine for uploading. Any thoughts? It's a stack of dual P4 servers (1.7ghz and up each).

I'm kinda relying on these to help me in the 5000 run

DAlex

No. F@H depends on the results that come in to make more. That's why they have deadlines on their WUs.


Hey Shaktai, I hit 10K. Stats say you have 3 days 10 hours left to keep first (again); I say 3 days.


Macrumors noticed my goal to pass them
So let's do it!

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Hey Shaktai, I hit 10K. Stats say you have 3 days 10 hours left to keep first (again); I say 3 days.

Congrats! You can celebrate after you break 14,180.65.

Macrumors noticed my goal to pass them
So let's do it!

Yeah, seems they noticed my challenge too, and are trying to figure out what to do for a challenge of their own?

[jarling]

I was looking at the MacRumors forum and it gave me a scary idea. What about a competition between teams where the losing team has to crunch under the banner of the winning team for a certain number of points or days.

Not now, of course, since were doing Shaktai's challenge, but just as a future posibility to really make it interesting.

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by jarling:
I was looking at the MacRumors forum and it gave me a scary idea. What about a competition between teams where the losing team has to crunch under the banner of the winning team for a certain number of points or days.

Now that is a scary idea. First we need to get our production up and keep it there.

It looks like Scott might pass me early Saturday morning. Of course, I don't mind if others do pass me. In fact I would be thrilled if I actually got knocked clean out of the top 10, because it would mean we have some serious crunching going on.

[Jbaldree]

just got a dual 1.42 G4

we'll see how this does.

It's got two 47 pointers to dump in a couple of days.

Doin' the best i can with what i've got

Jim

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by Jbaldree:
just got a dual 1.42 G4

we'll see how this does.

It's got two 47 pointers to dump in a couple of days.

Doin' the best i can with what i've got

Jim

Sweet!! I'd be interested in hearing how it does. My PM800 does from 5-7 points a day depending on the protein. I'm guessing you should get from 18-25 off of both processors if running 24/7.

[Jbaldree]

I was mistaken. one proc is doing a 47 pointer and the other one is a 55.5 pointer.

I'ts goin' about 1 percent an hour. To be more clear it's doing 2 frames an hour out of 200.

And it will run about 20/5 during the week and 10/2 during the weekend. I'll keep the console going, but i'm sure that video editing and gaming will push it aside a bit.

I thought it would be farther along by now. At it's current rate it will dump in about 3 days.

I know I know "Tinker and macs"

Jim

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
It looks like Scott might pass me early Saturday morning.

Hmm, it's Friday morning.

Well, close enough.

This time you aren't passing me again any time soon

/me puts the pedal to the metal and blasts off.

[DAlex]

Well, my powerup is starting to emerge some are still tied up with big pointers but 174 today beats my usual average 30/40 day

Lets see what tomorrow brings........

Tuesday should be interesting too.....

DAlex

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Hmm, it's Friday morning.

Well, close enough.

This time you aren't passing me again any time soon

/me puts the pedal to the metal and blasts off.

Yep, you reaped the benefit of two consecutive multi-hour power outages last night. I lost a lot of production time. Plus got stuck with a shortage of gromacs and several big pointers that won't deliver for another day.


Last night was miserable. Got to sleep early, only to be woke up by power alarms on my UPS's going off. Trying to find my way into the living room with no lights, I ran full on into the edge of the bedroom door. Power was out everywhere around. Powered off what boxes hadn't already shut down, and went back to bed. Woke up about 2.5 hour later when lights came back on. (turned on the bedroom light switch to wake me when power came back) Got up, went about powering all my boxes up again. Just as I started up Folding on the very last box, the power went out again, and stayed out for another 4-4.5 hours. At that I went back to bed, slept till power returned again, got the computers all going again and then went back to sleep for one last hour before work. TGIF.

[Shaktai]

Wow! I just checked all my machines, and none of them will dump anything until very late tomorrow if at all, and that will be small. Sunday should be a pretty good day though. Seems all I have are big point tinker work units. Tomorrow's stats though will make me look pretty bad, and Scott look pretty good.

Oh, and Welnic, consider your power up noticed. If you keep that pace up, Scott will have some serious competition for the use of my Athlon 2400 for a week.

[mikkyo]

I would have joined the challenge had not all my linux boxes ceased to communicate a week ago.
They all boot, everything works, except networking.
It is the most absurd and annoying thing I have ever had to deal with.
I'm amazed the whole world hasn't converted to macs over all other OSes.
Nothing changed on my machines.
I hadn't even logged into them for 65 days.
Rebooting, reseting hubs, redoing all the network settings(a real pain), does nothing.
Reseting my base station didn't help either.
The machines are behind the firewall, which also hasn't changed, so I don't think anyone got inside and broke them.
All my macs work, with the same network settings.

At least on a mac, when I look at the network link light, and the Network Prefs are set to DHCP, I can be assured it will just work.
My linux boxes don't.
No workie with DHCP, no workie with static.
The NICs work, I can stick them in a mac and they are fine. And what is the chance they all die at once? Nil.
The interfaces are up, the link lights are on, but they couldn't find a route out of a wet paper bag.
It is just pathetic.
I'm sure something happened.
The OS killed itself, or some magic setting lost itself, but come on, putting in the correct settings should work fine and reset everything.
So Im about ready to set them on fire in the street and let the garbage man run them over(he likes doing that).

That is why I haven't joined the challenge, too much time wasted on BS.

[Scotttheking]

How odd.
If it were debian I could help you with it.
Maybe you should take this opportunity to setup netboot

If you really are going to toss them, please send them to me instead.

[mikkyo]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Maybe you should take this opportunity to setup netboot

Except they can't talk over the network, or to each other. So I don't think I could get netboot to work.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by mikkyo:
Except they can't talk over the network, or to each other. So I don't think I could get netboot to work.

Format them

[Shaktai]

3/15/03 at 10:30

Scott starts at 9,180.65 needs 14,180.65 - 3,995.95 to go
Dalex starts at 1,409.08 needs 6,409.08 - 4,665.51 to go
Reader 50 starts at 89.3, needs 5089.3 - needs 5000
Welnic a starts at 343.4 needs 5343.4 - 4,408.85 to go
Shaktai. - 4,486.8 to go

Looks like Scott and Welnic both have a jump on me and Dalex isn't too far behind.

Mikkyo, sorry to hear about your network card problem. Interestingly, the same thing happened to my Mandrake Linux box before I moved it over to Windows. Network card just stopped working (couldn't see it), and the video card was acting up to. Same box and config with windows, no problem. It had ran for months without a hitch, then suddenly nothing. Weird!! All my computers run behind a firewall with no outside access.

[Scotttheking]

/me mounts a telescope to his rear view mirror.

Anyone coming?

[Shaktai]

cough, cough!!! Did anybody see that truck that ran me off the road?

[Welnic]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
/me mounts a telescope to his rear view mirror.

Anyone coming?

I'm trying. Just figured out that you need the -advmethods switch to get the fabled Gromacs cores. That should help. Not enough, probably.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Welnic:
I'm trying. Just figured out that you need the -advmethods switch to get the fabled Gromacs cores. That should help. Not enough, probably.

Why are the gromacs better? Do they process faster?

DAlex

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by DAlex:
Why are the gromacs better? Do they process faster?

DAlex

Just a tad.
They are 2-3X faster

Edit: Looks like if my production keeps up I'll be at the finish line in a week.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Just a tad.
They are 2-3X faster

Edit: Looks like if my production keeps up I'll be at the finish line in a week.

OK, so how do I get my hands on 'em? Added three more machines so might as well let 'em loose

[Welnic]

Originally posted by DAlex:
OK, so how do I get my hands on 'em? Added three more machines so might as well let 'em loose

Add the switch -advmethods when you run the folding client.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Welnic:
Add the switch -advmethods when you run the folding client.

Sorry to be dense but add it where? (I have macs and PCs running it)

Thanks

DAlex

[Scotttheking]

On the PCs do './fahclientname -advmethods'
without the quotes.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
On the PCs do './<fahclientname> -advmethods'
without the quotes.

On the pcs and macs I'm not starting the client from the CLI, is there any way of adding -advmethods to the graphical clients?

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by DAlex:
On the pcs and macs I'm not starting the client from the CLI, is there any way of adding -advmethods to the graphical clients?

Not that I'm aware of.

[enola]

DAlex,

On the PC I added the option to the FAH shortcut that's sitting in my "Startup" folder. Add it to the end of the command in the target box. It didn't choke at start up and that PC did pick up a gromacs core after it finished the current WU so I assume it's okay.

Don't know about the graphical Mac client though as I'm running the CLI version.

[Shaktai]

No Gromacs for Macs yet.

The plan was to bring it out first for Linux and Windows. Once they get the bugs out (almost, just an occasional glitch) then they should start porting to Mac OS-X.

[Scotttheking]

Cripes, Welnic is going to pass me eventually.
If he has 5 dual athlon mp systems plus some other misc stuff, he should be able to overpower me. 5 dual mp 2000 systems is enough to keep ahead of me. I still claim that 2400 for a week though

[Welnic]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Cripes, Welnic is going to pass me eventually.
If he has 5 dual athlon mp systems plus some other misc stuff, he should be able to overpower me. 5 dual mp 2000 systems is enough to keep ahead of me. I still claim that 2400 for a week though

I have 2 dual athlon 2000MPs, and 5 2100XPs with 4 of those as nodes. I also added my work PC which is a 1.3 GHz P4. The Macs and the borged work PCs I've kept on dFold. The Macs don't seem to pull their weight in folding.

But I'll be moving all but a token machine back to dFold as soon as I beat Shaktai.

I will try to get Wine on the duals.

2400 is sweet.

[DAlex]

Anyone care to lend me some 30 or 40 machines? I've got a Welnic chewing up the road behind me and he's getting verrrry close

Watch out you guys up front, he's a comin'

DAlex

[Shaktai]

Sunday March 23 at 01:00 PM pacific time

Scott starts at 9,180.65 needs 14,180.65 - 1083.15 to go
Welnic a starts at 343.4 needs 5343.4 - 3067.19 to go
Shaktai. - needs 15,000 - 3437.2 to go
Dalex starts at 1,409.08 needs 6,409.08 - 3657.75 to go
Reader 50 starts at 89.3, needs 5089.3 - needs 4976.64

Looks like Scott will get the use of my 2400 for a week, and will probably reach his goal in 2 to 3 days.
Welnic will get second choice if he keeps up his pace.
DAlex is trailing only slightly but looking at his recent numbers, he might also get one of my boxes to crunch for him for a week also.

[DAlex]

Originally posted by Shaktai:
Sunday March 23 at 01:00 PM pacific timeDAlex is trailing only slightly but looking at his recent numbers, he might also get one of my boxes to crunch for him for a week also.

Hmm, that Athlon 1900 is starting to look tasty!