Who here runs Distributed Computing on laptop?

Hey guys,
I was wondering who here regularly runs a Distributed Computer program such as seti@home, Folding@Home or einstein@Home on their laptop? This would be projects that could take advantage of both your CPU and your GPU to help science.

I've been running a combination of all 3 on my Asus G50VT for almost 3 years on my CPU, and for about 1 year on my GPU. Constantly running whether I'm using the computer or not (unless I'm gaming). I always leave it on overnight.
GPU temp stay below 85 Celsius usually and CPU temps on my P8700 is always at 67 or lower.

Should be interesting to see how many years the GPU and the chipset will last!

Crunch for science!!

 

Supporting Folding here, but not overnight on my notebooks

cheers ...

 

I don't crunch on my laptop, i have enough number crunching of my own to do . I used to fold though.

 

Nope. I am a conspiracy believer and do not offer help if I am not 100% aware of what I am used for!

Even if I could be 100% certain, I still wouldn't open a door to my private computer, not knowing and not being able to control what and who goes in and out through it without authorization.

 

Well the Folding@home was developed by Stanford University and Seti@home was designed by Berkeley.
You can choose what types of work units you want your computer to compute and it won't do anything besides what you specify.

With seti@home, at least the 'classic' version of it, you could take any work unit that the client downloads, and you could use a piece of software that converts that work unit into an mp3 file so you could hear the radio telescope data personally.

I'm not sure if your worried about what they might use the computational power of your computer for or if your worried about the project being compromised.
Either is nothing to worry about, I mean, neither project has ever been compromised (from what I know) and I can see what data is transferred to/from the client to/from their servers..

 

Means nothing. Enough evil has been produced there (under or over the table) too

Yes. And USA, a financially very sick country, is only fighting the petrol countries to revenge for 9/11 They "almost never" do anything besides what people vote for. Simple as that

Even if that was possible to 100% which I don't believe it is, this means investing personal time in this too. And I don't have such to spare for monitoring purposes.

That's the point "From what we all know". And there is so much we don't know.
I just don't want to get involved in anything I am not fully aware of.


The overall idea is great and I support it. But people are pigs (and I'm sorry this comparison is even offensive to the poor animals!)!! This is being proven every single day somewhere on this planet. And before the next big proof becomes ....@home, I'd rather stay out of it.

 

bump10rahc

 

bump10char
vote!

 

I agree totally with Gracy123, I have enough problems with my ASUS G73 and slow internet connection,

ickibar123 , no offense intended to you or any Yes posters, but many have surely read this thread and the fact that they have not voted may indicate their hesitancy to get involved with distrubuted computing.

 

I'm the first "Other" voter. I run the World Community Grid, and have been off and on for 3 years or so. I tried Folding@home, but the deadlines were too short since my laptop isn't always on, and the GPU/CUDA version made my computer less responsive - I don't think my GPU is cut out for CUDA even though it's technically capable of it, as I noticed the same problem when I wrote my own CUDA code. Plus it's a GeForce 8 series, so it's a bit of a miracle that it's still alive at all.

Teperatures aren't a problem as long as I clean the vents every 18 months or so. They stay around 70C with undervolting and slight overclocking at 25C ambient, and I also leave it on overnight occasionally.

Philosophically, I don't really trust the government, but I don't think being paranoid about everyone out there having ulterior motives is a productive way to move the world forward, either. There are people out there who have genuine good intentions, too. You can never be completely 110% sure who's who, but if you don't decide at some point that someone is trustworthy, you'll never help those who do have good intentions. In this case, the WorldCommunityGrid, between IBM and various (mostly academic) research groups, meets my threshold.

 

I actually set fire to a Dell C600 doing Folding@Home. Fortunately, it was on a desk that was fireproof, and I didn't have a battery in it at the time (running from the PSU). So yeah, I am a little nervous of leaving it running on a laptop.

 

Well, now that is entirely a laptop/hardware issue and has pretty much nothing to do with the software. This is not supposed to happen even if every single component in your laptop is loaded 100%.

I am not worried about my hardware at all.

 

I realise that, but Folding@Home runs everything at full speed all the time, which laptops are not designed for. The C600 had (though I didn't know it at the time) had some issues with cooling over prolonged periods. It's not alone in that respect, I've seen quite a few laptops that have heat issues.

If you're running something heavy and you're near the laptop, you notice it getting hot, and can intervene. If you're running something that kicks in and runs hot when you're not around, then if something happens (as it did here) you don't know about it.

Unless you have a known good quality laptop that you keep well maintained, cleaning fans etc. regularly, the risk of component damage from running something that drives a system in ways it wasn't designed for can reduce its useful lifespan.

I neither want to reduce the life of my system, or put it at higher risk.

 

A modern laptop will shut itself off/throttle if it overheats. Fire should not be at all possible. If your computer has the possibility of catching fire, you shouldn't be using it in the first place!

Was it your AC adapter that blew up? Maybe it didn't have overheat protection, which it should.

Even cheapo $300 laptops don't have any fire risk if they are heavily loaded. Silicon is quite resilient to heat and will last for years upon years unless temperatures are insane.

Any laptop must be designed to run at 100%, or else when someone is gaming or encoding videos or watching HD youtube or whatever, the consumer should expect the laptop to fail? If your talking about the difference between running a laptop at 100% for a short period of time (say an hour), versus 24/7, there is no difference in terms of heat. Temperatures reach their peak rather quickly and stay steady.
Reliability? If your laptop is so crappy that the silicon gets insanely hot, then you shouldn't have bought it in the first place.

 

Had I known it was a possibility, I wouldn't have been! Like most people though, I just assumed it would have been fine, as it often got warm, but never hot enough to burn.

No, it was the CPU area that melted.

Not necessarily. The CPU and GPU will heat up quick, as will the heat sinks by design, and the fans pull that heat away. If the fans are not pulling that heat away efficiently enough, you can get a gradual increase in heat over a prolonged period.

I've seen systems (eMachines is one brand that springs to mind) where the fans are not really up to the job - somewhat underpowered - and over time the laptop gets hot enough to be uncomfortable to hold.

There was also a rather amusing case back in 2002 involving a Dell that burnt a rather sensitive part of a person's anatomy...
Man burns **** with laptop

I can't think of anyone that goes around retail stores performing heat-tests on laptop systems before they buy them, and if you buy mail order it's impossible.

Also, you're ignoring the very real-world possibility of component failure. If modern laptops are that much better, it can only be a good thing. I'm still not confident enough to bet almost £1000 of new laptop on it though.