• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Persuading School Admin...

E

ethraax

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 11, 2008
Messages
174
So yea. My high school has a TON of new computer labs (2.8GHz single-core HT, about 300 in the school total). They are used maybe 20% of the time (average). I would like to convince the network admin to allow me to borg them out. I was thinking something along this for an email...



Dear Pat Lannen,

Hello, my name is Ethan Levine, a student at STMHS. As everyone knows, there is a great deal of new technology in this school. The school has more and newer computers than any of the other New London public schools.​

Most of this technology, however, isn't being put to use. The computer labs sit idle for the majority of the day, still running. These idle computers could be used for something great...​

Stanford University runs a program called Folding@Home (http://folding.stanford.edu/). Folding@Home is a program that is downloaded and run on a computer (as a service) to use spare CPU clock cycles to simulate protein folding. These simulations are done to gather data about protein misfolding, which is linked to many serious diseases such as "Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes." By studying the complex ways proteins fold, and misfold, discoveries can be made to someday cure these diseases. So far, Stanford University has published 54 scientific papers based on data gathered from Folding@Home clients all over the world.​

This is far from a small project either. People all around the world participate in this. In fact, so many people have helped Stanford University out that they won a world record for the fastest supercomputer by connecting millions of computers together - they had the power of a petaflop, or a quadrillion floating-point operations a second, at their disposal. People even build server farms dedicated to "folding." Still, every little bit counts, and with the computing power of even three quarters of the computers at STMHS you'll be contributing far more than a "little bit."​

The cause is great, and the logistics are just as good. Folding@Home will (upon request) install itself as a service to be run whenever Windows starts up. It can be uninstalled at any time. It runs at the "Idle" CPU priority under Windows, meaning that all applications get to use clock cycles before Folding@Home, so it has absolutely no impact on system performance. It runs completely in the background and automatically patches itself.​

Of course, this also means that all idle CPU clocks get devoted to Folding@Home, so the CPU is more or less always under 100% use. It is possible to tell the Folding@Home client to use only a specified amount of processing power if need be. However, this does not consume as much power as you might think. Running a monitor uses about five times as much power as running a CPU at full capacity (as opposed to letting it idle).​

If you're still not convinced, or would like to read more about it, there are plenty of resources at the main website: http://folding.stanford.edu/ I'm aware that our tech department is a little stressed at the moment, but I would be glad to setup and maintain the clients on the machines myself. If you want, I can set it up on only one classroom and see how it performs as well as to prove that it is completely unintrusive. Thank you for your time and consideration.​

Sincerely,​

Ethan Levine​


What do you guys think? Should I include more details about results, more about the logistics of setting it up and maintaining... I know a computer forum might not be the best place to ask for linguistic help but still >.>

Also, on another note, if she DOES accept and give me permission to borg all the computers, is there anything I should keep in mind as I set them up? I was going to simply set up each client (I have free time since AP tests are over) -- is there something I'm missing (since it seems so simple)?

Of course, all of them will fold under Team 33... probably under a different name though...

EDIT2: Fixed some grammar. Added a paragraph here, expanded one there, cut out the bit about admin priv's.
 
Sounds pretty good to me. I'd agree! :D

If she is worried about the computers, you can suggest that a sample of them
be tried out first. Then, see if there are complaints or problems. We know that
issues will be a minimum, especially if you use the console client. Show here
that you are cautious and concerned and tell her that many many people are
contributing to the cause, but that each protein folded is a small step for science.

Hope you are successful.

Fold on!


 
you might want to mention that fah dosent have to run at 100%, you can set it to whatever you want

if they use ghost its easy to deploy using an AI package or even a ghost task to push the client/config/registry settings...
 
you can add this:

P.S. : It would be unwise to turn down my proposition. btw how is your son (if he doesn't have a son, insert other relative) doing? I hope he's okey, would be a shame to see something bad happen to him, there are a lot of psychos out there, you never know. :)


just my two cents ;)
 
leSLIe said:
you can add this:

P.S. : It would be unwise to turn down my proposition. btw how is your son (if he doesn't have a son, insert other relative) doing? I hope he's okey, would be a shame to see something bad happen to him, there are a lot of psychos out there, you never know. :)


just my two cents ;)
Click to expand...

Weaksauce...

/me delivers a facepalm.jpg to your front door but yeah ;) You never know...
 
leSLIe said:
you can add this:

P.S. : It would be unwise to turn down my proposition. btw how is your son (if he doesn't have a son, insert other relative) doing? I hope he's okey, would be a shame to see something bad happen to him, there are a lot of psychos out there, you never know. :)


just my two cents ;)
Click to expand...

You know some of my relatives in Detroit? :confused:

 
leSLIe said:
you can add this:

P.S. : It would be unwise to turn down my proposition. btw how is your son (if he doesn't have a son, insert other relative) doing? I hope he's okey, would be a shame to see something bad happen to him, there are a lot of psychos out there, you never know. :)


just my two cents ;)
Click to expand...

leSLIe, you are one scary lady sometimes :p

Yeah, if that idea don't get her attention we can always go to the next step of "cement over shoes" and "how well can you breathe under water ?". :D

FOLD ON !

 
leSLIe said:
you can add this:

P.S. : It would be unwise to turn down my proposition. btw how is your son (if he doesn't have a son, insert other relative) doing? I hope he's okey, would be a shame to see something bad happen to him, there are a lot of psychos out there, you never know. :)
Click to expand...

OMG...leSLie has a dark side going on here guys! :eek:

But to be on topic, I think the proposal is decent. I'm the tech coordinator for my school system, and I'd be willing to go for it.

On a side note though, there are a lot of school systems (including mine) that have a lot of energy awareness going on. Our budget this coming year is looking to be rather tight because of the additional costs of electricity, fuel and heating going through the roof. Its going to take probably another $275k next year to allocate funds for that, and we're just a small school system. There is a chance they might shoot it down simply because of that. I know - you aren't asking them to be on all day, or in fact any more than they normally would, but anything additional that is perceived as a waste of energy might not fly. I understand it, and would support you all the way, but those above me in administrative positions might not see it the way I do.

Just my two cents worth, though...

 
You can set it to run at under 100%? I didn't know...

I think my main concern here is for the heat. The majority of the computers are low-profile and have terrible cooling (most of it is passively cooled). Even under normal operation they can get a little toasty. I'm worried that running them at 100% all the time might not be the best idea because it might break a couple - and once one breaks because of the folding all the blame is on me (Um... whoops...).

How do you set it up to run under 100%? I'm thinking of setting it to about 75% or 80%. It's still plenty but won't abuse the systems. I mean there are lots of computers, but none of them are excellent...

Also, about the power thing - does anyone have links to research involving power consumption while folding versus while idling? Any concrete evidence would be really instrumental...
 
ethraax said:
You can set it to run at under 100%? I didn't know...

I think my main concern here is for the heat. The majority of the computers are low-profile and have terrible cooling (most of it is passively cooled). Even under normal operation they can get a little toasty. I'm worried that running them at 100% all the time might not be the best idea because it might break a couple - and once one breaks because of the folding all the blame is on me (Um... whoops...).

How do you set it up to run under 100%? I'm thinking of setting it to about 75% or 80%. It's still plenty but won't abuse the systems. I mean there are lots of computers, but none of them are excellent...

Also, about the power thing - does anyone have links to research involving power consumption while folding versus while idling? Any concrete evidence would be really instrumental...
Click to expand...

thats the problem i was having with certain SFF machines... so those i set the client to use 50% CPU
 
You need to convince them not only of the benefits but that it wont give them extra work. I'd suggest a sample (as mentioned) be tried first, go for 50% CPU usage from the get go, no bigpackets and no advmethods. This will more than likely be completely transparent to the end user and hence what the IT staff are looking for.
 
True. Again, I know she won't say "yes" unless I install it myself. My city is rather poor (most of the land is owned by churches + no tax on churches = get pwned) so the school's been hit with budget cuts for the last decade. IT is far understaffed and they have no money to hire new people, so I also need to convince her that she can trust me to install JUST F@H. That can be done after she decides to do it though..

Anyway, I'll go for 50%. That seems fine. Still though -- How do I set this? Is it a flag, in the advanced options, or somewhere? I don't remember seeing it when I set up my box...
 
ethraax said:
You can set it to run at under 100%? I didn't know...

I think my main concern here is for the heat. The majority of the computers are low-profile and have terrible cooling (most of it is passively cooled). Even under normal operation they can get a little toasty. I'm worried that running them at 100% all the time might not be the best idea because it might break a couple - and once one breaks because of the folding all the blame is on me (Um... whoops...).

How do you set it up to run under 100%? I'm thinking of setting it to about 75% or 80%. It's still plenty but won't abuse the systems. I mean there are lots of computers, but none of them are excellent...

Also, about the power thing - does anyone have links to research involving power consumption while folding versus while idling? Any concrete evidence would be really instrumental...
Click to expand...


My systems at idle all pull around 130-150w under full load they see anywhere from 145-189.. so I would guess 30w for full load... 15w for 50% load... per machine... which would translate to about $2 per machine per month that you borg... depends on your energy costs there too etc.. but that gives you a rough idea.

I have 9 quads and each quad runs me $20 to run per month. Avg Wattage is 175w at 100% so again 1/10th the load for 50% should cost you $2bucks per machine per month or $24 per year per machine borged.

50% usage is in the adv methods section if memory serves me

 
Just as a reference, I have borged 15 Dell sff boxen (similar to the 210 series) at my wifes clinic...and the only failure we've seen in about 3 months is one dead PSU, and that I don't blame on F@H. They are "older" machines, and I have them running 24/7 at 100% with -advmethods set....and like I said, no real problems at all.

I wish I could give you some power consumption data, but I don't have any. The bills are paid by their corporate office, and there have been no complaints from the powers that be regarding additional expenses....

Good luck man, I hope all works out well for you!!

Fold On!!!

 
jws2346 said:
leSLIe, you are one scary lady sometimes :p
Click to expand...

hahaha!!! :D
we'll i posted that at 3:00am !!
i was getting some work done, and well, drank too much coffee :eek:
the caffeine has that effect on me :p

good thing the next days are gonna be holiday around here, finally i'm gonna be able to sleep!!
 
leSLIe said:
hahaha!!! :D
we'll i posted that at 3:00am !!
i was getting some work done, and well, drank too much coffee :eek:
the caffeine has that effect on me :p

good thing the next days are gonna be holiday around here, finally i'm gonna be able to sleep!!
Click to expand...

Yeah sure, that's what all the cement for "over shoes" mixers say when they're mixin' cement for your little swim wearing cement "over shoes" :rolleyes:

Please don't loose all those great pics you posted in this years CC for next years CC :D

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top