Folding for heat? Heck yea!

[Atlblkz06]

Hey folks,

 

I'm a seasonal folder... It first started out with mining for LTC. I figured - I needed heat anyway, might as well make money while putting my GPUs to work!

Now I just fold 24/7 as a way to heat my home. MY two 980 Tis pump about about 400+W of steady heat, and its great!

 

Anyone else do this? If not, remember that you're going to spend the money on your power bill anyway so might as well contribute to humanity while you're at it.

 

My progress so far: http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/detail/3619411

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Atlblkz06 said:

I needed heat anyway,

Just gonna say it, there are much more efficent ways to get heat from electricity.

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just gonna say it, there are much more efficent ways to get heat from electricity.

there are but you are also helping people 

[Whaler_99]

Seasonal heating with Folding is quite common among many of us!

 

[Imakuni]

2 minutes ago, Atlblkz06 said:

Hey folks,

 

I'm a seasonal folder... It first started out with mining for LTC. I figured - I needed heat anyway, might as well make money while putting my GPUs to work!

Now I just fold 24/7 as a way to heat my home. MY two 980 Tis pump about about 400+W of steady heat, and its great!

 

Anyone else do this? If not, remember that you're going to spend the money on your power bill anyway so might as well contribute to humanity while you're at it.

 

My progress so far: http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/detail/3619411

 

Uh... that's Boinc. Not Folding.

 

Also, if you are folding for heat, there other things you can do. I was able to pull 380W with a single Gtx 970 (+ i5 6600k) doing PrimeGrid. I mean, sure, you can crunch for whatever project you think deserves your support; if you don't care for that, however, and you are just looking to dump lots of heat, join us at PrimeGrid for some sweet, toasty number crunchiness.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just gonna say it, there are much more efficent ways to get heat from electricity.

Not really. A PC is pretty much 100% efficient at generating heat. Yeah, sure, you lose a little on the fans and LEDs, but that's marginal.

[ARikozuM]

If I didn't leave in the Sunshine state, I'd totally fold for science.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

Not really. A PC is pretty much 100% efficient at generating heat. Yeah, sure, you lose a little on the fans and LEDs, but that's marginal.

Heat pumps are about 3x the efficenty of any restance based heater. They do require a raditor outside, but are much more effiecent if your willing to do that.

[Atlblkz06]

Heaters are 100% efficient at producing heat so you can't get much better than that.

7 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

Uh... that's Boinc. Not Folding.

 

Also, if you are folding for heat, there other things you can do. I was able to pull 380W with a single Gtx 970 (+ i5 6600k) doing PrimeGrid. I mean, sure, you can crunch for whatever project you think deserves your support; if you don't care for that, however, and you are just looking to dump lots of heat, join us at PrimeGrid for some sweet, toasty number crunchiness.

Not really. A PC is pretty much 100% efficient at generating heat. Yeah, sure, you lose a little on the fans and LEDs, but that's marginal.

Yea sorry I kinda use them synonymously since the purpose is the same. 

Thanks, I'll check out PrimeGrid.

[Imakuni]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Heat pumps are about 3x the efficenty of any restance based heater. They do require a raditor outside, but are much more effiecent if your willing to do that.

No, they are not. Pretty much all the energy that your PC pulls from the wall is converted into heat. Heaters might be more cost effective than a PC, but that's an entirely different measure; as far as being efficient in converting energy into heat, PCs are just as good as any other heater out there.

4 minutes ago, Atlblkz06 said:

Yea sorry I kinda use them synonymously since the purpose is the same. 

Thanks, I'll check out PrimeGrid.

Well.. I guess you could say "folding" if you were crunching for POEM@Home and Rosetta, given that they, much like F@H, work with protein folding. Though we commonly use "folding" to refere to F@H specifically.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Imakuni said:

No, they are not. Pretty much all the energy that your PC pulls from the wall is converted into heat. Heaters might be more cost effective than a PC, but that's an entirely different measure; as far as being efficient in converting energy into heat, PCs are just as good as any other heater out there.

A heat pump is 3x+ more efficent than a pc or any other restance heater. They don't work like most other heaters, and work by moving the heat from outside in. There basically a air conditioner in reverse 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump

[SnowyMus]

My room is located in a basement which gets pretty chilly during the winter (outside temperature) and summer (air conditioning). I can definitely say that after folding for a while on my GTX 1070, it does improve the temperature of the room by quite a bit, though you're certainly better off using this to help your room stay warm rather than having it as the only thing heating up your room.

 

On the subject of efficiency, electricity not converted into any other form of energy will be emitted as heat. Many space heaters generally consume around 1500 W, where a PC with a higher-end GPU and CPU will probably only burn around 500 W at 100% load, so you're not going to get quite as much heat out of it. You could also use a heat pump to transfer heat rather than generate heat as @Electronics Wizardy said, but that's if you have a place to get warm air. Otherwise, the only heat you're going to get out of it is heat from inefficiency, like the space heater. Also, a heat pipe and a space heater will not help in curing cancer, Alzheimer's, or other diseases, unlike folding, so at least with the PC, you're putting the wattage to more uses than just one.

[Madone6]

2 hours ago, Whaler_99 said:

Seasonal heating with Folding is quite common among many of us!

 

Did it last year, doing it with BOINC this year

[Atlblkz06]

Its been a while... I forgot how things go in the forums lol

 

Why not AMD? Because I'm tired of them, and my first objective is to game, not generate heat. We'll see if they can put out a product that can compete. I'm honestly tired of watching them shoot themselves in the foot by overpromising and underdelivering. I don't discriminate though, I've made money on both NVDA and AMD this year.

 

Heat pumps are cool but - hell man, how is that relevant to computers anyway outside of phase change cooling? lol But you're right - if you want to MOVE heat, heat pumps are the best way. However, a resistive element is 100% efficient when it comes to generating heat from electricity.

 

And regarding heating an apartment - don't write off computers too soon. I had 3X 290Xs at various overclocks to maximize GH/s. Curiously one of the cards would computer faster when UNDERclocked - another mystery I never figured out. The cards put out enough heat that I had the heat off and used a blower (Lasko U15701) with a quad rad to keep them cool (water loop). I even had to open the windows at times because it got so hot in the 750 square foot apartment. I literally burned through a 1KW PSU and eventually got a 1600W because I was pulling ~1200W from the wall. Added GFCI and a few other precautions...good times!

 

Cheers.

 

[Teddy07]

Using F@H for heat in winter with my i7 4790k and gtx 1070. My cpu produces the most heat because its pushed to 80°C

[Silitus]

I would like to use f@h for heating my room. But since it's main purpose is gaming, especially Battlefield 1(which won't run without newer drivers), i can't use my GTX 970 due to driverissues. Hopefully that will change in the near future, so i won't catch a cold

[Yamoto42]

15 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

A heat pump is 3x+ more efficent than a pc or any other restance heater. They don't work like most other heaters, and work by moving the heat from outside in. There basically a air conditioner in reverse 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump

While I agree with you that the energy expended per degree of temperature increase is far more efficient with a heat pump, they do have you on the technicality that they are talking about converting electricity into heat, not moving existing thermal energy from point A to point B...

While the observed result is the same, they are discussing the mechanism which is not.

Although...compressors can get a bit toasty...but I do not know off the top of my head what portion of their energy is converted to kinetic energy vs. thermal.

[Imakuni]

6 hours ago, Silitus said:

I would like to use f@h for heating my room. But since it's main purpose is gaming, especially Battlefield 1(which won't run without newer drivers), i can't use my GTX 970 due to driverissues. Hopefully that will change in the near future, so i won't catch a cold

PrimeGrid / WCG will gladly offer it's open arms to your wellcome 

 

While they don't fix the driver problem, give BOINC a shot. Imo, it's a much better platform than F@H once you know how to use it (kinda like Linux and Windows).

[Ithanul]

On 11/27/2016 at 3:56 PM, Imakuni said:

Uh... that's Boinc. Not Folding.

 

Also, if you are folding for heat, there other things you can do. I was able to pull 380W with a single Gtx 970 (+ i5 6600k) doing PrimeGrid. I mean, sure, you can crunch for whatever project you think deserves your support; if you don't care for that, however, and you are just looking to dump lots of heat, join us at PrimeGrid for some sweet, toasty number crunchiness.

Not really. A PC is pretty much 100% efficient at generating heat. Yeah, sure, you lose a little on the fans and LEDs, but that's marginal.

O god, so true, talk about a heat box with two 980Tis under water doing PrimeGrid.  I had to aim the window AC at the poor rig because my water temps where almost hitting 50C (not bad for GPUs, but bad for the pump).

 

I tend to BOINC and fold harder in the Winter since the temps lower down here during this season.  Though, sure took long enough for cool temps to show up down here.  Still have to fire up the AC during mid day since temps still hit 79F inside.

[Silitus]

15 hours ago, Imakuni said:

PrimeGrid / WCG will gladly offer it's open arms to your wellcome 

 

While they don't fix the driver problem, give BOINC a shot. Imo, it's a much better platform than F@H once you know how to use it (kinda like Linux and Windows).

Yeah I will check it out and decide which project I would like to support. I remember Boinc beeing a bit more difficult to use, at least a few years back. But I am sure I will find good guides here for setting everything up. I would like to focus on projects with medical or enviromental research, which I can do in the idle times of my pc and over night. Any suggestions?

[Imakuni]

8 hours ago, Silitus said:

Yeah I will check it out and decide which project I would like to support. I remember Boinc beeing a bit more difficult to use, at least a few years back. But I am sure I will find good guides here for setting everything up. I would like to focus on projects with medical or enviromental research, which I can do in the idle times of my pc and over night. Any suggestions?

World Community Grid is going to be your main project for medical research. Currently, they are working on Zika, Tuberculosis, AIDS, Ebola, Cancer and Clean Energy (via solar cell materials). Only problem is that it's a CPU only project.

 

As for your GPUs, there are some on the medical area, but I'm not experienced with them to recommend anything in particular. If you are into maths, though, PrimeGrid can always use your help on a couple different projects for the GPU, and it can work as a nice CPU backup in case WCG's servers go down or something.

[BuckGup]

With a 6800K, 980ti, FX6300, 270X, and a 7950 all folding 100% I got my upstairs to about 93F.  NOT a good idea. The floor was hot, the walls were hot, I was hot, and I had so much condensation on the window from the cold winter air outside. I opened the window stuck a fan in it and got it down to 60F in a few minutes. 

[porina]

It's been frosty recently in UK and I think I need to put more crunchers on... all decent CPUs are going now. but I'm holding the GPUs in reserve.

[Kevo05s]

On 11/28/2016 at 3:39 AM, Teddy07 said:

Using F@H for heat in winter with my i7 4790k and gtx 1070. My cpu produces the most heat because its pushed to 80°C

it doesnt work like that  the CPU temp doesnt indicate the amount of heat outputted... it has a TDP of 84W, while your GPU has a TDP of 150W... the GPU outputs more heat, it's just managed better and dissipated better....

[SuperShermanTanker]

I have i5 4690k a RX 480 and a R7 240 in my machine for folding@home and a fairly small office so for me after about a half hour to a hour of folding it does warm the office a bit by a degree or two

[SuperShermanTanker]

I also have my ITX LAN Party/Spare machine that is on the other side of the room from my mains setup in my office and it has a i5 4590 and a 650ti (soon to be a even R7 370 4gb and I fold on that machine when I use it for homework since it's hooked up to a touch screen and my two printers