Folding with elderly Core2duo

[peterjammo]

Just in case others are looking at the info that suggests that only recent, under 5yo ish gear is suitable, I just thought I'd post that I'm currently folding 4 wu on two elderly Fujitsu Core2Duo laptops, one about 8 yo the other probably 12yo. They're Running Linux Mint 18.3 and I have them on 24/7. Both are running well below the maximum allowed times, and I've been comforted by one of your admins that doing this slowly is still a worthwhile contribution.

The 8yo is my current "good" laptop, and I've resurrected another 12yo with a single core, which as I understand is not suitable, to use for my other needs. If I can find a spare C2D processor I'll swap that in to this one, get it folding too, and resurrect an even older laptop running Puppy to keep me browsing etc meantime.

Not efficient I know, but at least I feel like I'm doing something......

[Asgaroth]

rock on mate, as proven above, the elderly are useful, don't forget them

[JimboPalmer]

Intel CPUs from the Pentium 4 are supported. I use a dual core Pentium and two Core2Duos. (AMD aftfer 2012)

At some point the electric costs make it cheaper to buy a newer CPU, but if you got em, smoke em.

(an application my wife uses while scoring BBQ contests requires a full screen DOS window, so we can't replace them, or get rid of Parallel port printers))

[peterjammo]

Running these 24/7 will be for the duration of the crisis or whenever they die in action. Longer term I may well try building something more appropriate on the cheap. None of my old laptops support any newer more efficient CPUs unfortunately. The 12yo is running pretty warm, but has completed one wu in less than 24hrs, is part way through a bigger one on the second core working at about 1/2 speed, and got allocated a new one immediately for the 1st core. The newer one is level pegging two bigger work units with an estimated 2 day completion time, about 1/2 way through. I figure that anything completed on time has got to be worthwhile, as who knows which wu will be key to something helpful.

After having 2 just out of warranty laptops die with design faults, I gave up buying new stuff, went Linux full time, and find that approx 10yo C2D with Mint 18 does everything I need for almost no cost, but then my needs are fairly simple.

[Joe_H]

If I am reading what you wrote right, it sounds like you are running two separated CPU folding slots on the Core 2 Duo CPU's. They will complete WU's faster if you set up for one slot and assign both CPU cores to process one WU.

[peterjammo]

If I am reading what you wrote right, it sounds like you are running two separated CPU folding slots on the Core 2 Duo CPU's. They will complete WU's faster if you set up for one slot and assign both CPU cores to process one WU.

Thanks for the advice, but if I leave it on the default settings I only fold using one core, and the second core idles. I've used the slots tab to add the second core, resulting in second wu being folded by the second core. I don't see an obvious setting that will allow me to assign both cores. Am I missing something?

[anandhanju]

If you saw the second core idling one the first WU that you got, that sometimes happens. However, future WUs should use up all available CPUs. You can pause your 2nd slot and pause and start the first slot to see if it picks up both cores. If not, check the Slots tab under Advanced config to see if the Number of CPU cores is set to -1 (autodetect). You can try setting it to 2 if its already set to -1 to see if it makes a difference.

[Neil-B]

Worth putting the second slot you created on finish and once WU completed remove that slot and adjust settings for original slot as anandhanju described … As a wild guess - If you created a GPU slot to try and fold on that this might fool the automated routine into leaving a core free to serve that … If so and you are not using it removing that slot might help but adjusting CPU to 2 should work just as well.

[peterjammo]

Sorted. Followed both of your advice and had a wu almost complete. Once completed, paused the running wu, removed the now idle "cpu" and restarted with setting -1. Only 1 core folding. Paused and set to 2, now folding using both. No change to eta or estimated TPF, but maybe that won't update until the next wu starts.

I'll do the same with the second laptop once the first wu on it completes in 5 hrs time.

PS Thanks to all 3 for taking the time to get possibly the slowest folder working optimised

[Nathan_P]

Not at all, this is useful as someone else asked the other day and i wasn't sure. I think I said anything from the sandybridge era and up so now I know we have a wider cpu range to work with.

[peterjammo]

And that's a third Fujitsu Laptop up and folding. 2008, I think, Li2727 running an Intel T7500 Core2duo Merom limited to 1.6GHz because of an intractable overheating/shutdown problem at full clock speed. Original CPU was a single core Celeron from memory.

[peterjammo]

And thats my last Fujitsu spare parts laptop cobbled back together and folding. Thats 4 folding 24/7 now until they die, or crisis over, whichever comes first.

Last one is an Li2735 from about 2010 or earlier, running an Intel T5750 C2D @2GHz. Running Mint 19.3 on 1gig of ram! Seems to be running OK.

Only thing I've got left unused is a Samsung NF110 netbook running an Intel Atom N455. Puppy ID's this as a dual core, but some googling suggests its a 2 thread single core. Anyone know if this can be used. \i'd just try, but I'll have to put a 64bit OS on it to try and that could be a bit of a hassle.

[peterjammo]

Answered my own question. My IntelAtom N455 appears to be a single core 2 thread, but will run FAH. Currently running 13860,but as it's a 282 point wu with an estimated work time of 1.74 days I've set it to finish,and I'll uninstall. Too slow even for me. Suspect it's only using 1 thread, but can't get FAHControl to start, and not worth the effort of fixing the missing dependencies on Mint 19.3 for this one.

[peterjammo]

Intel Atom update. It appears to have dumped the first wu it was working on very slowly, and despite being set to finish in the web control, gone on to start a new wu. Looking at the log file for the failed wu, there were a number of entries of "work unit stalled" then it working again, before "too many errors" and "failed project".

It's now working away at a similar rate to my core2duo machines (1000 points, est <24 hrs), so I presume that the second thread is now being used. Any suggestions as to the best next step? I'm happy to retire it if that seems best, but given that my first attempt at setting it to "Finish" using the web control didn't work, and I can't get FAH Control working on this machine, I'd also need advice as to the best way to take it down.

[bruce]

That reminds me. I need to write an enhancement request. If you have set the Finish flag, it works fine if the WU does, in fact finish, but it it hits an error first, it bypasses checking the flag.