Search the Community

This has been copied from the original Community board, it will be updated shortly This will be a place for events within the Folding (and sometimes Boinc) community to be posted. It is also a good place to introduce yourself to the rest of the team and ask questions if you have them. If you have an event you would like to organize post it here and PM me about it. Current or upcoming events: In case you are actually living under a rock there is currently a global pandemic of COVID-19 which team LTT and folding@home is working to solve!!! (If you have an event you are trying to organize or would like to participate in please post in this thread and PM me) Nothing right now to announce. But a lot of changes have happened as we have a new Folding team leader: Congratulations to @GOTSpectrum Also check the badge thread as there is now also a diamond level badge for anyone with more than 1,000,000,000 points. If you need to check on final places or prize winners for Folding Month 2019 please check the blog post below as it will have all the information for you. Folding@home team LTT id#: 223518 Boinc teams are all called LinusTechTips_Team Results from past events: Folding month 2019!!! Sprint for 10th! BOINC Pentathlon 2019 LTT Official Folding Month 2018! First LTT folding week results (3/26-4/1/2018): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NerB4jOfgEG_l9mcxxMNTe6hboswk6V-hLiSLMDp7gc/edit?usp=sharing My folding story and also my reasoning for the first event: It was a long time ago when discovered this thing called distributed computing and a piece of software that will use your computer power to help fight against many diseases including cancer . When I started folding I also joined the Linus Tech Tips team (it was actually @Slick's old Ultimate Distributed Computing build that got me into it.) and considering that the mining craze had died down a bit and its still cold for those of us in the northern hemisphere. I was wondering if we could get the whole community together to donate as much of their compute power as they can to Folding At Home (yes it is true that every little bit helps) for some amount of time (title says a week but can easily be extended if we can do it). Obviously the encouragement is to fold to the Linus Tech Tips Team #223518 but since folding is a good cause no matter what there would be no complaints about folding for another team. But one of the pieces of this that really encouraged me was looking at the team ranking for LTT and realizing that we have dropped to 14th considering that when we started we were at least 11th. Long story short fold (preferably for LTT), get your friends folding get their friends folding and even if you bring in complete noobs we have a whole community here to help them. I will link the guides here as well as the video that got me into it. For those that still need some encouragement here's the video that started it all for me: New F@H (Folding@Home) FAQ & Guide for all info on how to install and use F@H: If you are too lazy for all of that here is a link to the site to download it https://foldingathome.org/#downloads If any of you have any questions or need help getting your system set up (there are some things that can be tricky at first and I know sometimes reading the guides can be tedious) please feel free to post here where people with more experience than I can help you or pm me if need be. TLDR: A team that folds together... stays together?... you know what I'm sticking with that one. Huge thank you to everyone involved from all of you and the moderators getting this pinned to people just helping each other out on setups and spreading the word to anyone here who is just folding. I never though that this was going to pick up any traction at all and now its an actual bonafide event. So thank you all and let the folding begin!

Hit us with some nice distributed computing Projects YOU like. Which ones are your favorites and why? everything from "completely charity": F@H (Folding at home) - (CPU / GPU) BOINC in general - (CPU / GPU) GPUGRID - (GPU) to somewhat "invest - return" based, if you want it: SheepIt - (CPU / GPU) to the more scetchy stuff: Tor - (Network) Freene - ( Network / Storage) Storj - ( Network / Storage) - I know not thaaaat controversial, please don't insult me over that categorization Please no standalone blockchain-crypto stuff. The general vibe should tend towards enabling science, people benefits eg. Protein folding, distributed storage, research, LLM training and less "Calculating Pi to the 1'000'000'000'000'000th digit", "Calculating all possible Go or Chess moves", etc.. (I know those are awesome too but don't match the stuff that I had in mind) keep it ethically harmless (Freenet pretty much goes too far - Torrenting is okay) I'm aware of the wikipedia lists but they are boring, unpersonal and looong Do you have a sick setup you want to share? Give us some inspiration.

Summary A method for implementing scheduling Distributed Computing (DC) tasks to take advantage of Time-of-Use (ToU) Electricity rates. Introduction Once you start running multiple Central Processing Units (CPUs) and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) working on Distributed Computing (DC) tasks the energy consumed can become large and Utility power bills a significant burden. Many Utility power providers offer Time of Use (ToU) rates where electricity is priced most expensively at “On-Peak” times, more expensively at “Mid-Peak” times and least expensively at “Off-Peak” times. Depending on your goals and finances it may be convenient to suspend DC tasks during more expensive ToU periods and resume them during less expensive ToU periods. For example, my electricity provider in Eastern Ontario, Canada, defines ToU rates for summer (May 1st through October 31st) and winter (November 1st through April 30th) weekdays: Season Start Time Period Cost $/kWh Summer 07:00 Mid-Peak 0.102 Summer 11:00 On-Peak 0.151 Summer 17:00 Mid-Peak 0.102 Summer 19:00 Off-Peak 0.074 Winter 07:00 On-Peak 0.151 Winter 11:00 Mid-Peak 0.102 Winter 17:00 On-Peak 0.151 Winter 19:00 Off-Peak 0.074 As can be seen the electricity rate more than doubles during the On-Peak period compared to Off-Peak and is 39% more expensive during Mid-Peak periods. The rationale for the periods is that the “baseload” power during off-peak periods is supplied from always on-line Nuclear and Hydro-electric generation and during Peak usage more expensive generation using Natural Gas is employed. During summer the On-Peak period corresponds to the hottest period of the day and was likely established to encourage consumers to reduce set-points on Air Conditioning (A/C) to conserve electricity. The Winter On-Peak rates appear to target times when households are waking or arriving home from work and so appear to be encouraging use of high power devices such as drying machines and stoves earlier and later in the day. BOINC The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) client supports suspending applications and no penalty is incurred for suspending then resuming a task. The BOINC Manager application includes functionality for scheduling when during the day tasks should run: Note, however, that you can only schedule one period of activity per day and so may be unsuitable for more complex use cases. To accommodate needing to schedule more than one BOINC suspend/resume cycle in a day we can leverage the boinccmd application which can be used to send commands to a locally attached BOINC client or a remote client by specifying its IP Address and, optionally, a password. The BOINC client must first be configured to allow Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs) on the target client, the source of the RPC call must be specified and, optionally, a password. Linux/MacOS The examples used here are for Linux (Ubuntu 22.04) but can be used on a Mac. There is no command to suspend or resume all BOINC applications running on a host but the running applications can be enumerated using the tool and the results used to suspend or resume all running applications. For a locally attached client the syntax is: for url in $(boinccmd --get_project_status | sed -n 's/\s*master URL: //p'); do boinccmd --project ${url} suspend; done For a remote client the syntax is: for url in $(boinccmd –-host <IP> [--passwd <Password>] --get_project_status | sed -n 's/\s*master URL: //p'); do boinccmd –-host <IP> [--passwd <Password>] --project ${url} suspend; done On a local host the code can be placed in a script and launched at appropriate times using the cron utility. Create the script: sudo nano ~/all_boinc_tou.sh Adding: #!/bin/bash for url in $(/usr/bin/boinccmd --get_project_status | sed -n 's/\s*master URL: //p'); do /usr/bin/boinccmd --project ${url} $1; done Type <Ctrl>+x to exit the editor saving the file. Make the script executable: sudo chmod +x ~/all_boinc_tou.sh Edit the root crontab: sudo crontab –e appending: # use /bin/bash to run commands, instead of the default /bin/sh SHELL=/bin/bash # Time of day BOINC # Summer: May 1st - Oct 31st # Mid-Peak 07:00 - 11:00 00 07 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh suspend # On-Peak 11:00-17:00 #00 11 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh suspend # Mid-Peak 17:00 - 19:00 #00 17 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh resume # Off-Peak 19:00-07:00 00 19 * * 1-5 /root/boinc_tou.sh resume # # Winter: Nov 1st - Apr 30th # On-Peak 07:00 - 11:00 #00 07 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh suspend # Mid-Peak 11:00-17:00 #00 11 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh resume # On-Peak 17:00 - 19:00 #00 17 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh suspend # Off-Peak 19:00-07:00 #00 19 * * 1-5 /root/all_boinc_tou.sh resume Here we have enabled BOINC applications to run during the current Season (summer) during Off-Peak hours from 7pm until 7am weekdays. Exit saving the file. If we wanted to run BOINC during the Mid-Peak as well as Off-Peak during the Summer we could do so by commenting out (prepending a “#” at the start of) the Mid-Peak line and un-commenting (removing the “#”) at the start of the On-Peak line. Windows Under Windows we can use the Task Scheduler to created two Scheduled Tasks, one to Suspend BOINC Tasks and the other to Resume them. Open the Task Scheduler (Start Menu | Windows Administrative Tools): In the Actions Pane at the Right click on “Create Task …” In the General Tab: Give the Task a Name and Description and make sure to select “Run whether the user is logged on or not” In the “Triggers” tab we create triggers to specify when we want the “Action” (suspend command) to run: Click on the “New …” button to define a new Trigger: Select “Weekly” and check “Monday” through “Friday” to have the Task run on Weekdays and set the “Start” to the time of day that BOINC should be suspended. Click “OK” to save the Trigger. Create Triggers for each time when the BOINC Projects should be suspended. Next we create an Action to suspend each BOINC Project we are running. These will require the Master URLs for each Project. These can be found by running in a Command Prompt: “C:\Program Files\BOINC\boinccmd.exe” --get_project_status | find "master URL" The leading “http(s)://” should be excluded. Click on the “Actions” tab: In the “Actions” tab click on “New” to create a new Action: Entering: Program/script: "C:\Program Files\BOINC\boinccmd.exe" including the quotes. Add arguments (optional): add: --project <master URL> suspend where “<master URL>” is one of the Master URLs found above using the “get_project_status” command. In this example we use: --project einstein.phys.uwm.edu suspend To suspend Einstein@Home. Click “OK” to save the Action. Add additional Actions for each Project you wish to follow this schedule. Click “OK” to save the Scheduled Task. You will be prompted for your Password so the Task can be run even if you are not currently logged on to the system. Following the same steps now create another Scheduled Task to resume the projects when desired changing the “argument” in the “Action” to: “--project <master URL> suspend” to “--project <master URL> resume” Holidays, when ToU rates do not apply. can be accommodated by editing the Triggers a few days in advance to not include the holiday and changing it back after the Holiday. Folding at Home For Folding at Home (F@H) things are a little more complicated. Folding at Home has a Quick Return Bonus (QRB) to encourage prompt processing of Work Units (WUs are like tasks in BOINC). If a WU is suspended the QRB, which is exponential in nature to reward participants with fast CPUs and GPUs, can dramatically decrease to the point where “dumping” the WU and starting another would net more points. “Dumping” is discouraged as it can interrupt the flow of work and progress of the Science being done. In informal testing pausing GPU WUs for more than a couple of hours is counter-productive. A better strategy for longer intervals is to evaluate the average duration of WUs for the GPUs in your system and then set the tasks to “finish” at 1/2 to 2/3 the average duration before the ToU period starts. For example, if tasks on average take 3 hours to complete on your GPU and your ToU period ends at 07:00 then you could set your WUs to finish at 05:30. In this manner, on average, half the tasks would finish between 05:30 and 07:00 and the other half between 07:00 and 08:30. This can be adjusted to meet your needs as required. The FAHClient application can be used to send commands to a locally attached F@H client or a remote client. For a locally connected client the command to pause tasks is: FAHClient --send_pause to finish tasks is: FAHClient --send_finish and to resume paused or start new tasks: FAHClient --send_unpause For remote Clients you need to first configure Remote Access and then connect to the remote client using either the FAHClient remote console port (TCP 36333) and use a scripting language such as expect or Secure Shell (SSH) to send a remote command. We will use SSH and assume that the Clients are configured to authenticate using the SSH Public Key of the user on the system initiating the command. To pause tasks on a remote system we use: ssh <hostname> ‘FAHClient --send_pause’ to finish tasks on a remote system we use: ssh <hostname> ‘FAHClient --send_finish’ and to resume paused or start new tasks on a remote system: ssh <hostname> ‘FAHClient --send_unpause’ Linux On a local host the commands can be executed on the schedule using the cron utility with the commands placed in the root crontab. Edit the root crontab: sudo crontab –e appending: # use /bin/bash to run commands, instead of the default /bin/sh SHELL=/bin/bash # Time of Day Folding # Summer: May 1st - Oct 31st # Mid-Peak 07:00 - 11:00 30 5 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-finish #00 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-pause # On-Peak 11:00-17:00 #30 9 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-finish #00 11 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-pause # Mid-Peak 17:00 - 19:00 #00 17 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-unpause # Off-Peak 19:00-07:00 00 19 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-unpause # # Winter: Nov 1st - Apr 30th # On-Peak 07:00 - 11:00 #30 5 * * 2-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-finish #00 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-pause # Mid-Peak 11:00 - 17:00 #00 11 * * 2-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-unpause # On-Peak 17:00 - 19:00 #30 15 * * 2-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-finish #00 17 * * 2-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-pause # Off-Peak 19:00 - 07:00 #00 19 * * 2-5 /usr/bin/FAHClient --send-unpause Here we have enabled F@H tasks to run during the current Season (Summer) during Off-Peak hours from 7pm until 7am weekdays setting the running tasks to “finish” starting at 05:30. Exit saving the file. If we wanted to run F@H during the Mid-Peak as well as Off-Peak during the Winter we could do so by commenting out (prepending a “#” at the start of) the Mid-Peak line and un-commenting (removing the “#”) at the start of the On-Peak line. Windows In Windows we can use the Task Scheduler as described previously to create Finish and Resume Tasks which include in the “Actions” tab: Program/script: "C:\Program Files (x86)\FAHClient\FAHClient.exe" (including the quotes) Add arguments (optional): --send-finish (OR –send-unpause as appropriate.) Multiple GPUs If you have multiple GPUs in a system and wish to specify differing times to Finish WUs then simple append the slot ID at the end the "finish" command to specify the GPU to finish at that time. Conclusion We have maximized our production in Distributed Computing applications (BOINC and/or Folding@Home) while minimizing our electricity usage during more expensive Time-of-Use rates. Here you can see the results across seven systems with multiple GPUs with summer season ToU scheduler settings: We are just running Distributed Computing applications during the least expensive ToU rates here and setting Folding@Home to “finish” Work so on average power consumption is greatly decreased when the On-Peak period starts at 07:00.

IMPORTANT EDIT: Link to my website is incorrect as I am migrating to a new datacentre! Hi all! It's been a while, but boy have I been busy! Over the last few months, I have acquired my own server! A HP ProLiant DL380 G6 to be precise. While I will post about that separately, here I would like to show you just one of the things I am doing with it. Scientific research! I am using Folding@Home and BOINC to allow my server to do computing for the greater good of mankind. To join my World Community Grid team, click here to visit my website to take you to the appropriate links. (Please be aware that my website is unfinished) Thanks for reading!

Quick FYI, the World Community Grid via BOINC now has COVID work from Scripps Research via a new project "OpenPandemics - COVID-19", so you can work both those and Rosetta@Home on BOINC for COVID projects. https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/opn1/overview.do However, at least in my case, I had to manually opt-in for this project via the project web page (My Contributions -> My Projects, Check box marked OpenPandemics - COVID-19, click Save). There is an option in the WCG preferences to automatically opt-in to new projects and mine wasn't checked. I'm uncertain if this is the default setting, but If you are using WCG via BOINC and not getting OpenPandemics projects, enable the project in your preferences on the WCG site.

Summer Folding Sprint of 2020 Starts June 13th(00:00 BST) Ends June, 19th (23:59 BST) Sign up for the event here: Sign ups closed at 23:30BST, 11th June. REGISTRATION HAS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT! If you are unsure on how to fill in the form ask on the thread below. If you make a mistake filling out the form please use the thread linked below. https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1204086-folding-sprint-2020-correction-thread/ Folding@home team LTT id#: 223518 (This event is only for folding for team LTT you will not qualify if you are folding independent or for another team, sorry.) This event will NOT be eligible for F@H event badges. Please read the whole of this post before asking any questions and use the links provided at the end for help and support! If anyone is willing to help with data handling please PM me ASAP! Please follow this thread to keep up to date! Minimum Participation Requirements For Prizes 5 Days with activity* & 300,000 Points (*activity is defined as completing at least 1WU for the 24 hour period) Prizes!!! (More to come soon) Community donated prizes: 20x Random Steam keys - Community Pool 2x 20USD Steam Gift Card - Donated by @Zberg 2x 20USD Steam Gift Card - Donated by @Jawa_Juice Draw: All Ranks Summer is that time when it gets hot outside, just thought you may need a reminder with how long some of us have been in lockdown. Many of us on the folding front like to gear down a little during this strange mystical time of higher temperatures as we believe all our folding activities have heated up the world too much so we want to let it cool of a little. Seriously though, it can be hard to stay motivated during summer as the heat starts to climb, so to reward you for your efforts I like to run a small event. We have all the motivation we need currently with the ongoing crisis we face so I won't waffle on too much. I just want you all to know that your efforts are appreciated. What is Folding@Home Folding@home is a network of volunteer computers distributed around the world that aims to perform biomedical research with the single intent of helping to further understand and develop cures for a range of diseases such as; Alzheimer's, cancer, and Parkinson's and most recently COVID19. The exact research that is done is simulating the 'folding' of proteins in the body, this is important because the function of a protein id directly related to its physical shape. And this, when the protein is created in the body it needs to reshuffle its shape to get into the correct structure to perform its task. Many illnesses can be linked to faulty proteins in the body such as many cancers and neurological issues, along with a wide number of other general health concerns. Folding@home is one of the world's fastest computing systems, over the last few months reaching a speed of around 2.5 Exaflops due to massive support taking the fight to COVID19. Currently the network sits just over the 2 Exaflop mark, Making it four times faster than the top 10 supercomputers combined. PASSKEYS! (they're really important) Don't forget to get yourself a passkey from the link below to ensure that you hit the points requirement, the passkey is a feature that was added a while ago to the Folding Client that helps to authenticate each user on the network, an added bonus of this is the fact that it allows you to qualify for QRB(Quick Return Bonus) Points, QRBs are extra points you earn for submitting work units more quickly, such as if you have faster hardware or let the client fold full time, rather than on idle. QRB credit is awarded after 10 WUs have been submitted. You can get your passkey from the link below. https://apps.foldingathome.org/getpasskey Please remember that I will be writing my usual daily update blog once the event kicks off, the blog can be found linked below. https://linustechtips.com/main/blogs/entry/1853-prelude/ This is just a PSA for the new guys here, the folding team is historically a small close knit community, so here's a few things I'd like you all to keep in mind. It doesn't hurt to say thank you, if someone has genuinely helped you out don't forget to drop a reaction on their posts, help others where ever you can and finally we are a team first and always. Check your stats out here! Bare in mind it can take some time for your first WUs to appear so leave it a day or two. https://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/search.php

https://www.facebook.com/notes/advocates-for-health-in-scotland/how-distributed-computing-can-cure-diseases/1237809402984421 Thanks for taking the time to do so.

Hi everyone, I’m the founder of Good Ai Lab and we have just launched our new product Cluster One. It’s a very big project that heavily depends on a community of people being involved and I would love to get your feedback on it. At Cluster One we are trying to help advance science by building the world's largest AI supercomputer. We understand how much computing power is wasted every day (around 10 billions hours!) and we feel that with our expertise, and if we all join together, we could really make a difference in advancing scientific research. The product has just launched this week and so I would love your feedback on the site to understand if everything makes sense and would it be something you would want to try, and if not what would stop you?

LTT Folding Sprint!!!! Starts June, 17th (00:00 BST) Ends June, 23rd (23:59 BST) Folding@home team LTT id#: 223518 (This event is only for folding for team LTT you will not qualify if you are folding independent or for another team, sorry.) This event will not be eligible for F@H event badges. Please follow this thread to keep up to date! Summer is the time many of us wind down our folding production, as the heat rises and power consumption for many of us goes up due to air conditioning we try our best to help keep the bills and heat low... Well... Now this time! Welcome to the summer folding Sprint! We are within spitting distance of 10th place for team LTT and as much I think we can make it! So its time to fire up them cards, take the heat and get that sweet sweet 10th place. As usual there will be a spreadsheet to sign up for so that we can track your folding progress over the course of the week, with bragging rights at stake. There will be daily updates just like the folding month written by me so you can all keep track of your progress, please please keep it friendly and remember we are Team LTT first! To help you guys with some encouragement I will be personally giving away 5 steam keys to random people who have taken part in the event using googles random number generator function to pick the winners! These keys are unknown to me so please do not ask what games are up for grabs. Can we all thank @Den-Fi for offering a 50USD steam gift card for a random participant from the top 25! To qualify for the giveaway you will need to submit at least 14WUs, and be active on six of the seven days. You must be signed up for the event by June 16th, noon, if not you will not be eligible to enter. Sign up for the event here: Sign up now: https://forms.gle/1eH48sf25HxceTSJ9 Sigh up for our Distributed Computing event Newsletter(I will message you about upcoming DC Events): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1gduOZEKLf5jm0ZiSQK3lAqT70sHC6WnfDCVikpjTccE FAQ/Tips and Tricks: Facts and Fiction (ideal config help): Folding Community board:

I've been using F@H for a bit over a week actively (I think) at this most recent go at it, and at the same time I started to dabble with BOINC. Right now I have CPU in F@H paused, only running GPU jobs. BOINC is using the CPU. I noticed that at no point with F@H does my GPU utilization go over about 40%. I'd like BOINC to use the GPU as well, but only another ~40% or so leaving some cycles for me to play light games. However, I see noting in BOINC manager to throttle GPU aside from the option to only use GPU while the computer (keyboard and mouse) are idle. Is there a good way to do what I would like to do, or do I just need to enable GPU, let the computer figure it out, but not have any extra GPU cycles left to play with?

Was thinking of taking up F@H. I did some coin-mining for a couple months some time ago and my GPU doesn't seem to have suffered for it. I'm curious if on average the load placed on the CPU and/or GPU is about the same as other distributed computing projects and mining. I'd prefer to not massively accelerate the wear on my components as I don't have much for part replacements at the moment, but I'd like to contribute. Please point me to an appropriate thread if this question has already been answered.

So this is something I've always wondered - the world is moving to thinner laptops, tablets etc. There's been less focus on performance for standard users (Not gamers/video production). What I wondered is can you give performance of one pc dynamically to others? In essence could you have a beefy server which then donates performance to devices with slower processors so they can be smaller in size but still have that incredible performance. This is basically a step further from LTT 7 gamers 1 cpu. Thanks

So, I just saw the distributed computing build on LTT and thought to myself, that is a really good idea. A chance to help out a good cause pretty much effortless. I have run the program folding@home all day and had HWmonitor on in the background. The temps are pretty much a constant at 70-80c. Since it uses 6 threads at least, and even at medium folding it maxes out my CPU. The GPU workload sits around 90% @50calsniper (custom WC loop) so in that case I´m not worried. The 240mm AIO for the CPU could crunch down the temps to a solid 70, but the fans would bother me. So, to my real question. Could the CPU handle these temps day in and day out for a long period of time or should I perhaps force down the folding software to only use 4 threads? I´m only day 1 so I´m not that worried. What temps are we talking about on Devils Canyon before it starts to degrade? And when Im already writing, I have a small OC on my CPU. 4.6Ghz on Auto v-core. I just checked the volts in cpu-z, 1.327. Isn't my MB a bit overzealous at the moment? Feels like I should be able to handle 4.6GHz at 1.25-28. I will try to lower my volts manually and see if it helps with the temps. http://snag.gy/2GUiP.jpg (pic of current temps) System validation:

So, I recently started folding after seeing the distributed computing build guide by LTT. I have dedicated my gaming rig to run Folding@Home during the school day in addition to as many citrix servers as I can commandeer. However, I want my system to turn on at a certain time. So I hopped into my BIOS and put in a test time about 5 minutes later. I then waited, but it never turned on even after it had been saved multiple times. I then realized that my alarm date had been set to 0. Is there a way I can tell it to turn on no matter what the date is?

Why don't you guys (Linus, et al) mention BOINC anymore when you do videos about number crunching machines? Only takes a moment to drop a line about it at the same time as Folding@Home. It's just as worthy a cause for computing power and many of the projects have the same goals as Folding@Home. E.g.: Protein folding, mapping cancer markers, etc. @LinusTech @Slick @nicklmg

So, after seeing the ULTIMATE Distributed Computing Build Guide, I decided I would join the LTT team. Since this has something to do with Folding@home, I put it here, but it is not exactly completely related to that. What I want to do is have my PC (running windows 7) come on at a certain time and start folding. I then want it to turn off at a certain time. I know that you can use task scheduler to do things at certain times, but never really figured out how to do it. So my question is, how can I have my PC turn itself on at one set time and then turn off at another set time? Also, since my school has its own servers that we run citrix off of, I got permission to run Folding@home off of the server full time (I spend literally 3 hours a day in the schools tech office so they know how crazy I am ). It is not the greatest thing, but is still a 6 Core Xeon with 12GB's of RAM.

Official LTT BOINC FAQ & Guide NOTE: Still a work in progress for now. As the old BOINC FAQ was a bit of a mess, we have decided to replace it with a new one. Massive thanks to @tobben, as well as @Liquidus, @Brainiac777 and @Patramix for their contributions. Also thanks to @Me1z for notifying me of some broken links. Unlike the old thread, this one will not serve for discussion, if you have a question or issue, just create a new thread in this forum section, that's what it's for after all. Also, the target audience for this, at least for the time being, will mostly be beginners. What is BOINC? Boinc is a collection of various distributed computing projects, it gives you the opportunity to lend your unused processing power to do calculations in the name of science and progress! This can be to help medical science, physics, mathematics, better understand nature, or pretty much anything you can find a corresponding project to, it's up to you to decide what you want your computing horsepower to be used for, this gives scientists the chance to gather big ammounts of data by giving them access to hundreds or thousands of computers, all of this is achieved by running some software on your computer, there is also software avaliable for smartphones. Getting Started Well, first you need the program, don't you? The BOINC binaries can be downloaded from BOINC's website here. Alternatively, if you're running GNU/Linux, you probably already have BOINC available in your repositories and can it install from there. If your distro has a wiki/help page on it, I recommend reading that, since there can be some slight differences between distros with regards to setting everything up. Account Managers Vs. Local Configuration BOINC has something called account managers, for instance BAM! Their primary purpose is to consolidate administration over multiple projects and computers into one central location. It allows you to join projects from one single place, attach and detach computers to specific projects and set all kinds of different configurations from one without needing to go to every computer and configure it separately. You can read more about it on their website (see link above). For now, we'll be sticking to the other variant, which is configuring stuff locally, as it is a bit simpler for beginners. Joining Projects and a Team For each project in which you take part, you will have an account on the project website itself as well. Alternatively, if you're not running multiple machines or are a bit confused by account managers, you can also administer BOINC for each PC locally, which is what we'll cover here for the sake of beginner friendliness. Open the boinc manager, it should be the basic viewer by default, click "Add a project" (screenshots are from tobben, hence why not English, but it should still be understandable): If you wish to use an account manager, you can click "Use account manager" here, then enter the URL of your account manager of choice, your PC should then sync with the account manager. Alternatively, for not using an account manager, click "Add project" You will then be presented with a list of all available projects. This is probably where you'll spend quite a bit of time, figuring out what kind of research you wish to support. You can join multiple projects and have them active on your machine at the same time, BOINC will just distribute computing power and time among them. Pick the project you want, click "Next" and proceed to make an account. This will create an account for you on the home page for the project you choose. You will have to make a account for each of the different projects you want to join, if you already have an account on the corresponding poject click "Existing user" and log in. After you have done this it should take you to the web browser and give you some options to join a team and configure your settings. Joining Teams can be a bit tricky. You can join a different team for each project, so you need to join the team of your choice for each project separately. For some teams this can be done from within the BOINC manager program, but sometimes that doesn't really work correctly, and in those cases you need to go to the project's website, log in to your accout and set your team membership there. To join a team in the BOINC Manager Program, click on "View" and set it to "Advanced view". In the advanced view, click on the "Projects" tab, here, you will find a list of your projects. Click on one of your projects that you want to join the LinusTechTips_Team and on the left side under "Project web pages", click "Your account". If that doesn't work, you need to go via your account on the project website: Go to the community section on the right and find the field that says "Find a team" and click on it. Search for the LinusTechTips team and click on the result that is our team, LinusTechTips_Team from Canada, then click "Join this team" To confirm you're on the team, go back into the BOINC Manager, go to the projects tab in advanced view and see if it says "LinusTechTips_Team" under the Team header. If it doesn't, update the project. If it still doesn't work after that, something has gone wrong and you need to start troubleshooting. Some More BOINC Manager Info Most configuration in the BOINC manager as well as more detailed information will be done through the advanced view. For some configuration in the basic view, go to "Tools" -> "Settings". From the advanced viewer you can see your point statistics, see uploads/downloads the current projects you are working on etc. In the projects tab you can stop and start receiving work units for each individual project you are working on among other things, Something particularly useful in case of trouble is the event log, located in the "Advanced" menu at the bottom. Why isn't boinc doing anything? Often that is because BOINC by default is set to only work when your computer is in idle. You can change this in the "Activity" tab in the advanced viewer, select the options you wish. Alternatively, you can go to "Tools"->"Computing Preferences" in the advanced viewer, which will give you much more fine-grained control over when BOINC should do what. Using GPU and CPU for different Projects/ Editing Project Preferences To edit the project preferences you need to go to your account on the specific project you wish to configure. In the "preferences" section, select preferences for the project. Click "Edit preferences", from there you can set if you want to use a GPU or CPU if not both for the projects, how many resources you want to dedicate to the project and so on. Badges In order to be rewarded with the Boinc Team badge, please note the following requirements. (subject to change) Contributor - When you have contributed more than 25,000 credits, your will qualify for this badge, to show your commitment to LTT and the team. Bronze Contributor - When you have contributed more than 1 Million credits, your will qualify for this badge. This reflects your serious and continued support of the team. Silver Contributor - When you have contributed more than 25 Million credits, your will qualify for this badge. This reflects your serious and continued support of the team and your very generous donation of resources. Gold Contributor - When you have contributed more than 100 Million credits, your will qualify for this badge.. This reflects your dedication and continued support of the team and your very generous donation of resources. You are now a legend! That's it. Once you hit one of the milestones, PM your Boinc ID to one of the moderators, preferably Whiskers, who will update it in due time. Links Boinc home page http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ Stats Link: http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/team/detail/b85bbff1c6df413a4b44cfb82854273f/ GPU Project Lists: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/GPU_computing DC-Vault Link (site that links numerous project teams into one global score) http://www.dc-vault.com/showteam.php?team=547 The Old FAQ