Just wondering if a dual CPU setup is worthwhile? Apparently the 1800+ runs at 1.5ghz, so if I had two of those in one PC, could I run folding on each core, and effectively have TWO athlon 1800+ power, with one tower?

How does the dual thing work as well? Never even seen a dual system, let alone played with one.

... could I run folding on each core, and effectively have TWO athlon 1800+ power, with one tower?

Yes.

HTH

HTH

Just depends on the cost - what would you pay for a tower with just a MOBO, Dual CPUs and some tarty bits?

CPU: AMD Althon 1800+ (1.5 Ghz)

Motherboard: MSI K7D Master

Ram: 256MbRegistered (2100Mhz I think) Registered DDR

5 PCI slots (2 64 Bit slots) (3 standard 32Bit slot)

1 AGP Slot

PS/2 Mouse and Keybaord slots

2 USB slots on back

Printer port on back

Serial port

Network card (10/100) (PCI)

5.1 suround sound ports (on board) and other verious other ports

500 Watt power supply

4 Ram slots (up to 4Gb of memory can be installed)

20 Gb Hard drive

Sound maker value 5.1 surround sound card.

2 internal removable hard drive bays can hold up to 3 drives in each bay (1 bay has 1 cooling fan attached)

2 Rear fans

4 Front fans

4x CD RW also is a CD ROM

VIA chipset and AMD-760 MPX Chipset

Basic server case with fan built into door (giving case await for free with this item)

Lockable door.

£275?

Just depends on the cost - what would you pay for a tower with just a MOBO' date=' Dual CPUs and some tarty bits?

CPU: AMD Althon 1800+ (1.5 Ghz)

Ram: 256MbRegistered (2100Mhz I think) Registered DDR

20 Gb Hard drive

[/quote']

I got a single processor machine of that spec for

I'm running a dual Athlon 1800MP on an ASUS mobo, windows just recognises the other processor as additional hardware on startup but the folding client is not configured for SMP systems and there doesn't seem to be a way to force the client to run on a particular processor at startup without going to task manager and using the Set affinity option. However I run two instances of the folding client at 60% each and still use my machine for all the other day to day stuff without any issues.

The processors run very hot (> 60 c under 100% load) and if I run folding at 100% on both processors then occassionally I will get unexplained shutdowns...probably heat.

If you can still get hold of MP athlons then they are fine for a folding machine but probably topped by any of the current range of 64 x2 cpus.

Well, maybe

I just don't want to get something' date=' then find I've got no clue how to fully use its power for folding purposes. I keep thinking if I only have one ability to run it as a service on the PC as a whole, I need to set it to 200% of CPU usage! [/quote']

All you need to do is create two folding directories (folding1 & folding2) for instance - run the command line client from each one in turn and install as a service, give each one a different machine id and only allow one of them to d/l big or advanced WUs as apparently it can overwhelm your machine!

All you need to do is create two folding directories (folding1 & folding2) for instance - run the command line client from each one in turn and install as a service, give each one a different machine id and only allow one of them to d/l big or advanced WUs as apparently it can overwhelm your machine!

Forgot about the machine ID bit - so its just having two folders on C: folding1 and folding2, and have the console running in each one (so effectively 2 services then?)

Dr.Z? Ahem, where? Did it involve a lorry, and a back end?

Nope , posted a "wanted" ad on uk.adverts.computer and got a reply offering me a Duron 1100 machine. When it arrived it turned out the bloke selling it has the Bus speed set at 100 instead of 133 so it was misreporting the processor. One quick change and suddenly I had a much faster machine

Forgot about the machine ID bit - so its just having two folders on C: folding1 and folding2' date=' and have the console running in each one (so effectively 2 services then?)

[/quote']

If you were thinking of dedicating the box to folding alone why waste cycles on OS overhead by running the windows client? :confused:

OK so my OS of choice is OpenBSD for pretty much everything these days so I'll admit to being a tad biased but I doubt there's much else out there that uses so little in the way of resources which means more power for folding

I can dig that BSDs can be a bit scary to the uninitiated at first what with text based installers and all that but it's not too bad, honest, and the documentation rocks. Once installed there's not much more to it than learning to use a simple text editor and how to enter a few basic commands to get folding running from boot. Most folks even end up enjoing the experience

If anyone fancies giving it a go I'd be happy to do a bit of handholding, PM me if you like.

Back on topic for a mo, for a giggle I dug out a couple of old Compaq machines that had been collectng dust in the loft one dual Piii and a quad Pentium Pro. OK so they're almost museum items and I ended up shutting them down as together they draw about as much power as a steel plant but I was quite surprised by the amount of work they got through running one client per processor.

Oh, and seeing as I've just hit no 50 in the charts I think it might be sigimg time

...Once installed there's not much more to it than learning to use a simple text editor ...

Are we talking vi here? ...

Are we talking vi here? ...

Steady now...

I hear there are others...

All you need to do is create two folding directories (folding1 & folding2) for instance - run the command line client from each one in turn and install as a service, give each one a different machine id and only allow one of them to d/l big or advanced WUs as apparently it can overwhelm your machine!

Running 2 folding clients on my ht processor, which I know is technically not multi core and is possibly slower, both are set for big work units and it chugs away just fine...in fact I'm ripping a video of my camera as I type and it's dropped zero frames in 49 minutes.

Mind 1 gig of ram does help, 2gig even better as I've see nteh big wu's take 256 each at times.