Calling it Quits For Now

[Cole]

I'm tired of all the problems with folding. I've tried all the new clients, console and gui - they all give trouble. The latest episode of units that won't upload was the final straw. Stanford has some work to do. Trying to keep a large folding farm running smoothly could be a full time occupation. I haven't the time or the motivation for that. If and when they get things straightened out I hope somebody will let me know.

[Spode]

I personally have serious doubts about folding@home.

I put it on my dads machine and I won't go into how, but I swear it caused the failure of his harddrive.

I put it on my internet server and it won't connect to the internet most of the time. As in keeps dialing - and connects and then evenutally times out. And several other ISP probs. All sorted once I closed folding@home.

My father has also noticed more problems with it as well.

I still run it on mine. And god my machine is alwayus having problems. I am seriously considering stopping it.


Other Issues:

Is running at 100% all the time, REALLY safe?

Also, think of the electricity it uses! And extra heat!

[Random Nonsense]

i dont run 24/7 but never had probs so far.... guess im lucky!

i think it may not be clever to run 100% load all the time, i think it should be suggested that a method of pausing, say every 2 hours to let things cool off would be a good idea

[sfa ok]

Pausing every once and a while probably wouldn't be a good idea, the heating up and cooling off would stress the cpu, possibly shortening its life.

[Random Nonsense]

true, but always operating at maximum cant be good

[mookydooky]

I believe the nominal life of a CPU is 10 years of service time. That basically means 10 years of 24/7 being on. Let's say that running at 100% shortens life by 50 percent which by the way is how much a CPU life shortens by if you overvolt and overclock it by 50 percent. Now who among us actually expects our PC to last 10 years? How about 5 years? I would think that very few of us use a machine older than 3 years on a regular basis. If any of us has a machine older than 3 years it's probably nothing more than a file server or a folding or Seti box. Maybe an email box for one of our less computer literate friends. A friend of mine actually has a 386 from 10 years (?) ago. You have no idea of the ribbing he used to get for it until he got himself a brand spanking new P4 rig. Now he gets ribbed for that. :-) The point of all this is that running your machine at 100% is not going to kill your machine. At least not anytime soon. I ran a Celeron 566A overclocked to 850, overvolted to 2.0, for the last 18 months 24/7/365 running Seti. It's still running. I expect it'll still be running a couple of years down the line. I don't think I want it to be running 8 years from now.

Mook.

[Jazz]

Odd problems spode the only computer that didnt like folding@home was a k62500 of my friends and all my other boxes here havent had a single problem with the program or uploading work units. Come to think of it the only problem is that the k500's and my 400 is soooooo slow it takes like 2 days to do one unit.

[Spode]

I just find if a computer has the tiniest flaw, or crack in it's armour. It gets in that crack and opens it wide. You see?

Just stresses it too much.

[Pinky]

Sorry to hear that TC...

I had only a few issues, but I can certainly understand the frustration several uncooperative machines would cause me.

[Kris]

sorry to hear that Tim..

[kat]

Originally posted by Cole
I'm tired of all the problems with folding. I've tried all the new clients, console and gui - they all give trouble. The latest episode of units that won't upload was the final straw. Stanford has some work to do. Trying to keep a large folding farm running smoothly could be a full time occupation. I haven't the time or the motivation for that. If and when they get things straightened out I hope somebody will let me know.

its unfortunate that your giving up with little or no fight.......

[Southern Man]

Sorry to hear you are having such problems. It can get really frustrating after a while.

I might suggest this. Do you think you could keep at least one box folding and try and stabilize it. I bet you have at least one that has promise. I know keeping a whole farm going that is having the problems you have been experiencing is a real pain but keeping up with one or maybe even two couldn't be all that bad.

Sorry if I seem pushy here. We just need every box we can get right now.

[Lionfish]

Sorry to hear it dude

I know how you feel, I have come realy close to doing the same thing with just my two comp's

[Daniel ~]

SteveI had this really stupid Idea, that maybe my units were sending but Folding at home was just lying to me about it, but how dumb can steveI get!!

But I had a spare moment (while resting from my not stop "why poor me", screaming temper tantrum) and decided to humor Steve. (It's always good to have someone else to ridicule and point a finger at in times like these!!)

God Bless'em SteveI was right! Checked my stats and they read as follows:

Daniel_Edgar_(www.aoaforums.com)

Member Since 2001-08-29 17:00:03
Date of last work unit 2002-01-13 14:00:09
Active processors (within a week) 3

So how come all YOU other guys didn't spot this, tell me that!?
I guess SteveI and I are just a bit smarter that the rest!
All kidding aside, you have stopped my bad dreams SeveI!
Many many thanks from all of us frustrated Geeks!

BTW I've picked up 10 WUs in the last 26 hours so this would seem to be conclusive.

(I'm breaking our single post rule here in order to get the word out as several others have been hit by this.)

[SteveI]

Cole,
I don't mean to dis' you in any way, but I can't find your name in stats. I was hoping to learn something, but no dice.

If there's anything in particular your having problems with, you'll get plenty of help here. Are you getting WUs backed up on your HDD? Stanford seems to have that problem for a few hours a week, but it usually clears up on the next upload.

We'd love to help, if we could.

[William]

Cole is folding under TC i believe.

[Spode]

Originally posted by Daniel ~
SteveI had this really stupid Idea, that maybe my units were sending but Folding at home was just lying to me about it, but how dumb can steveI get!!

But I had a spare moment (while resting from my not stop "why poor me", screaming temper tantrum) and decided to humor Steve. (It's always good to have someone else to ridicule and point a finger at in times like these!!)

God Bless'em SteveI was right! Checked my stats and they read as follows:

Daniel_Edgar_(www.aoaforums.com)

Member Since 2001-08-29 17:00:03
Date of last work unit 2002-01-13 14:00:09
Active processors (within a week) 3

So how come all YOU other guys didn't spot this, tell me that!?
I guess SteveI and I are just a bit smarter that the rest!
All kidding aside, you have stopped my bad dreams SeveI!
Many many thanks from all of us frustrated Geeks!

BTW I've picked up 10 WUs in the last 26 hours so this would seem to be conclusive.

(I'm breaking our single post rule here in order to get the word out as several others have been hit by this.)

what single post rule?

[Allan]

As team captain I cannot possibly support the idea of leaving the team. However, if running the Folding@home application causes you grief and anger, I can see why you feel like quitting. Just remember what it is you are quitting... not a search for green men, but the search for cures for HIV, Alzheimers etc. This is what helped me stick with the project when I couldn't download units half a year ago.

As for the CPU life... I must agree with what mooky said.

As for stability. Folding@home never caused any problems on my computers, and never made them unstable - but I know that all machines aren't alike. However, I feel that if a computer is unstable with Folding, then it is indeed unstable and then it is perhaps time to lower the overclock a bit? I think of folding as a stress tester as well as an application to help mankind. So if the computer goes unstable with folding, perhaps something was already wrong with it in the first place? Bad hardware, whatever.

Try addressing your folding related problems in this forum. Perhaps we can work something out? Worth a shot, IMHO.

I hope you decide to stick with us. If not, I thank you very much for your work units and all your efforts. You are all good people that I hold in great respect.

Peace!

[Southern Man]

Originally posted by Allan
As for stability. Folding@home never caused any problems on my computers, and never made them unstable - but I know that all machines aren't alike. However, I feel that if a computer is unstable with Folding, then it is indeed unstable and then it is perhaps time to lower the overclock a bit? I think of folding as a stress tester as well as an application to help mankind. So if the computer goes unstable with folding, perhaps something was already wrong with it in the first place? Bad hardware, whatever.

For the record I think I'm the one that brought up the word "Stabilize". I was referring to the client and core. I agree whole heartedly with the fact that there is probably something going on with the overclock, but that would be second guessing a situation I don't know anything about for lack of info from Cole. I have to agree also that we may be able to help a bit if we knew what exactly was happening with his boxes while running folding. Cole is a big boy and can decide what he needs to do. All I can do is hope he might decide to try and keep running on at least one box to sort through the issues he is experiencing.

[Daniel ~]

Originally posted by Spode


what single post rule?

I said it badly Spode. One is not allowed to post the same message in more than one topic at a time. I guess I really didn't do that as both threads I put my little missive in are in the same topic....My Bad!!":O}