few questions.

[BunK]

what is this thing doing to my machine exactly?... i started running it, and at first i thought it froze, but it didnt, so i opened up system monitor to see if it was running, and sure enough 100% cpu usage or something like that. but what i really want to know, is how does what my system do, interface with what other people have done, i only have 56k dialup. so how do i hook up with what other people have done? also where do i find the stats page?

[The Guardian]

Stats page is in my sig

It downloads a packet of data to work with, which it then does for the next several hours (or more) in a total of 100 chunks (frames). Then it send the results back and gets another packet. I think.

[curio]

It uses your CPU power to render each frame - when your CPU is at idle, it will use 100% of your CPU power - so make sure your processor has some decent cooling and your system is stable

It will give you all the CPU power you need back to you when you are working on your computer - ie, folding will automatically slow down or won't run at all if another program is being used by you

[kL13nT]

[email protected] defaults to the lowest processing priority on your computer. basically when the computer has got nothing else to do, rather than just have system idle time, the [email protected] client uses the spare cycles to render frames. when you are running [email protected] you will ALLWAYS see 100% cpu utilization. it is a little disconcerting at first, but it doesn't degrade performance too much because it is such a low priority process. if you play games or start editing video i would recommend shutting down the client, but surfing and playing mp3s works like a champ.

you can use a program called Electron Microscope to automate the dial-up everytime a work unit is done. remember your computer only needs to be online when it is retrieving a new work unit or sending a finished work unit to the stanford server. let me know if this works for you, as many people with dial-up connections have problems getting this to work.

[BunK]

ok, thanks, is there anyway that i can download say 20 work units and have my machine run it for many hours, then send the completed work?, also anyone on 56k, how long does it usually take to send completed work? someone should make a better [email protected] program that has progress bars, or looks like a windows program. im sure this one was easier to make, but im a little too young to have lived in the DOS world, caught about 2 years of the end, enough to learn, how to type win to start up win 3.1.

even a program that just showed a precentange done would be wonderful, i hate not knowing if the program is working or frozen. it seems very stable though, ive run through one complete work unit and no freezes.

[BunK]

ok, i am having some trouble getting EM to work, it looks like a sweet program, but i just cant get it to show my progress. is there anything i should do?

[BunK]

hey, it just started to work, sweet

[kL13nT]

you can start multiple instances of [email protected]. basically you install [email protected] in multiple directories, then run them individually with '-local' after them. ie, make a shortcut and type 'fah -local' in the run field. the only concern here is that if you don't finish a work unit in 3 days, it expires, and you get no credit for it. so don't start so many instances that you can't finish 'em in less than three days. also electron microscope helps with multiple instances. just read through the help file. any more questions?

also, if you are running w2k or nt4 you can start [email protected] as a service. anyone interested?

[The Guardian]

That depends, what's a service?

I have Win2k but not installed..

[BunK]

im about to upgrade to win2k, what does running it as a service mean?