Sunday 01/02/04

The Race to 100K is starting to get interesting with team_clown still leading the way, but #thpam are closing in quickly and should provide a close finish in about 18 days time. The race for 3rd seems to be between pheon8x and Brainy.

Buzzards installer is gaining in popularity and for a good reason to, its so damn easy to use and it lets you set the console up as a service to. Grab it here.

Still now word from plext, but good news on the Silicon Wars front with a nice increase in their output this week. djr had a good week as well hitting 16,000 PPW it was only a short term thing but plans are in place to remedy that. Our old friend VooDoo has returned to the Fold and is starting to climb the ranks once again.

I have the bits to build the next 2 BYO FBOXes except for cases which I will purchase in the next few days. As promised last year with the XFBOX draw we would have a special BYO draw early this year.  The 2 BYO's will be built around the ABIT NF7-s motherboard and powered by a XP2500 CPU along with 256MB of Geil PC3200 ram. Thanks to Computer Alliance and Altech for supplying the parts at cost to the Folding team. All those members that took part in the XFBOX draw will be eligible to take part in BYO draw 6 along with those members who are eligible who have donated to the FFF. If you are named on both lists you still only get one number in the draw though. Once all the parts are in I will build them up and then we will have the draw, hopefully in a couple of weeks time. The BYO thread is here if you are interested in joining the list of names in the draw.

New Warning Message
Linux Chime Feature Fixed
Client.cfg Display Improved

Added a test to check to see if a protein image being saved is going to be overwritten. Added warning message.

User's trying to view a protein file using Chime module in EM could not do so because the file structure is different in the Linux xyz files. This issue has been fixed and Windows users monitoring Linux boxes can now view the protein with the Chime selection in EM.

There are some new additions to the F@H client.cfg file and EM now displays the latest internal configuration items. While EM does allow you to change a few of the settings, it is not usually a good idea to do so using EM unless the F@H client is shut down first.

A big thank you to everyone who has contributed a few dollars to help me keep the EM-DC web site up and running. Every little bit helps and I appreciate the donations.

Please check the protein page to see if you might have one of my missing xyz protein files.

Thanks!

Get the latest version here: http://www.em-dc.com
 

This weeks xylus 500 is here.

Sunday 08/02/04

This weeks xylus 500 is here.

Monday 09/02/04

The winner of FBOX13 is....

Forum name: Draebor (1190)
Folding name: ugocau

congratulations you have won FBOX13

Case: Midi Tower - Rob W/306 (ex FBOX6)
PSU: 300W ATX - yday
Motherboard: ECS K7S5A - afrank
CPU + HSF: AMD Duron 1300 - DarkShell
Memory: 256MB PC133 - Rob W/306 (ex FBOX6)
Video Card: PCI S3 Virge - afrank
HDD: Fujitsu 1.6 G - Bahamut
NIC 10/100 PCI - afrank

To receive this magnificent prize you must pledge to run it 24/7 and pay for postage. If you agree to these terms send me a PM and we can sort out delivery.

Tuesday 10/02/04

We now have cases to go along with the other goodies for BYO 6 and 7, also we have cases for FBOX16 and FBOX17 as well. I will build up these FBOXes next week so expect a draw towards the end of next week. So there is still time to get your donations in if you haven't done so all ready. The BYO thread is here for details
 

• Screaming up the ranks: Tragic, Brainy, BSS, Computer Alliance

• Surprise member: neevo

• Subteam: ZGeek.com

team clown and #thpam are fighting out a great race to see who gets to 100k first. With less than 2,500 points to go for team clown, #thpam are making a dash for the line and it is going to be really close at the end. Also Brainy has ramped tremendously and is now out producing #thpam and will come in third. This has been a great Gauntlet and it has been interesting to watch as the teams ramp up to out produce each other.
 

My stats have taken a beating just lately, due to a major overhaul of the proxy setup and me being too busy to reconfig all the boxen.

I shall make a largish return to the field within a couple of months though.

So it looks like things should return to normal when plext gets around to sorting out his proxy problem. I hope its soon that a couple of months though.
 

The winner of FBOX13 is....Draebor make that FreeFrag. Those guys in the ugocau team like to share it around.

I myself am unable to take this box and run it 24/7 as im just about to move, but FreeFrag has offered to keep it folding for our subteam


 

Friday 13/02/04

Police are searching for a team of burglars they believe broke into a science Department at Stanford last night. The burglars are believed to have been driving a red 2002 Mazda pickup truck, police said. The truck's license is MP-2400. It has a yellow tool box in the bed and the word "dually" written on the tailgate. The intruders gained access to the room where all the numbers were kept for all the teams and individuals. The numbers were placed into bags and dropped out the window where another of the thieves was waiting to load the bags into the pickup.

"It was a sophisticated operation" said police chief T.H. Pam Hardyard. A spokesperson for Stanford Professor V.J. Foldmore said " the first we new about was when the main server refreshed the numbers this morning and they were all gone". "There is something fishy about this and it looks like an inside job" said Hardyard , "they new exactly what they were looking for and where to find it". "In broad terms, somebody got into this building, stole numbers that belonged to somebody else and that's what started this whole investigation," said Fred Addalotte, U.S. Number Inspector. The police also said the stolen numbers added up to millions and warned the public to be on the look out for people with huge numbers for sale at lower than usually prices.

Professor Foldmore said it will take a while to recover from such a loss  "we are insured and have backup numbers, but it will take a couple of days before we get everything back to normal". Meanwhile the police have issued a description of the "Number bandits" caught on security camera and from evidence left behind at the scene. "Funny thing that" said chief Hardyard "we found a red nose on the ground under the window of the numbers room, and we have a foot print from a size 20 shoe".

Later in the day after further investigation the police believe this break in was an attempt to steal evidence relating to a numbers racket some members of a leading team run. "They have these 'Gauntlets' and attempt to run at higher that usual rates" said the detective in charge of the investigation Chuck Thunderclap. "Don't worry we have a good description and its just a matter of time before their number is up and they will be exposed" added Thunderclap.

Related links:

Official Press release

Local Report

After effects from numbers theft.

Stanford have been working with the Gromac developers and AMD along with help from the some moderators from the Folding-Community forum to come up with a fix for the occasional lockups with AMD CPU's when processing the Gromac work units. Initially you will manually need to download the new core 1.56 until testing is complete, then it will be a automatic update when testing is finalised. A bonus with this core is it is just a little bit faster than the previous one for AMD machines but there is nothing in it for Intels.

We have been working with the Gromacs developers, AMD, and several mods to fix the AMD freeze issue discussed in the "Freezing with AMD and SSE - Discussion" thread in this section. In internal and beta testing, a newly prepared core has seemed successful thus far. For those who are interested in trying it immediately, we have made the new core available for manual download at http://www.folding.org/beta-core (instructions are listed there as well). Please note that you do not need to download now if you do not want -- if this core continues to look good, clients will soon automatically upgrade to it.
Some release notes:

- It is very slightly faster than the old core
- No bugs have been found in Gromacs, but this includes a workaround which seems to solve the problem
- The FAH team and the AMD team are cooperating fully to reach a final solution
If you check out the new core, please report any problems here.

Thanks,

The Folding@Home, Gromacs, and Forum teams.

It looks like #thpam have got there first piping team clown at the post. The stats being down didn't help and many missed the finish, like I did. So I declare the #thpam is the winner of this race to 100k with team clown a very close second and it looks like Brainy will be third. Thanks for a great race everyone it was great to watch and it amazing what efforts you all went to in racing for the finish line.

There are a couple more racing in progress now, 100k version 2 and 200k get in one now and join in the fun.
 

Sunday 15/02/04

Next we have a beauty in the shape of FBOX14. Its going to be tough to beat, so if you think you are up to it and you haven't already signed up, look here.


Case: AOpen Miditower- FFF
Motherboard: Gigabyte SINXP1394 - trotkiller
CPU + HSF: Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz - leonard
Memory: 256MB PC3200 - FFF
Video Card: PCI 2MB  - phoen8x
HDD: Quantum SCSI 9GB - RazorBack
Controller/Cable: Iwill / Rounded SCSI Cable - Xenon/trotkiller

This weeks xylus 500 is here.

Wednesday 18/02/04

Download page

Friday 20/02/04

Sunday 22/02/04

• Rising Star: Albeeny
• New Benchmark collection for FAH by Team Futuremark: Benchmark ORB (it says "The ONLY Folding@Home Benchmark collection!". Not so we have had one for a long time now, ours is here ).
• We have 3 races under way at the moment: 200k: 100k (ver 2) and mini 100k.
• The heat is taking its toll: How are people's boxen coping with the heat
• Its lucky threads don't have use by dates, 18 months for a reply : Active Desktop & Folding
• Tomorrow we will be 1 million points behind the [H]orde!!!

This weeks xylus 500 is here.

Sunday 29/02/04

This weeks xylus 500 is here.