using very old hardware to fold

[Steel Chicken]

is using old hardware to fold (with WU's taking a LONG time now) even worth it?
Ive got a P3 running for a week (@ work, free for me!) and still not close to completing on WU. Ive got a duron 600 at home that im deciding if I want to ebay/toss it, or spend alot of money on monthly 'trcity for maybe 2 WU's a month...

so, where is the cutoff for useful hardware....1Ghz?

 

[OSUguy98]

of course, the faster the better..... But it comes down to cost and how much you want to spend for electricity,etc....

a slower PC will most likely have a higher cost for points earned... (Tigerbiten, where are you? lol)

and of course there is a risk of them not meeting the deadline... however, you can choose to do timeless tinkers which eliminate that worry...

Basically... if you can afford to run it... run it... every little bit helps (as long as it meets deadlines)... if you can sell it off to someone and get a faster machine, all the better........


Keep on Folding!!

 

[BillR]

I agree, one or two completed units a month beats no work at all. The good part is older computer with smaller PSU's use a lot less power.

 

[unhappy_mage]

If the cutoff were 1ghz, half my hardware would be cut off.

They're Duron 900s, btw. They do the more modern WUs in a day or two, and I've got four of them; they make a nice addition to the farm. One is doing servering in addition. Old != bad, just slower.

I'd probably give up on anything AT rather than ATX, but other than that, it's all good.
edit:

 

[Steel Chicken]

whats the timelimit cutoff?

 

[p3n]

changes for diff WU's .. just turn off getting timed WU's

 

[OSUguy98]

Here is where you'd go to check your deadlines for protiens...


Keep on Folding!!

 

[Bodega]

my personal cutoff for a folding machine is p2. basicly anything below .5ghz. some people go a bit further in either direction... .733 for some, or just nothing AT for others.

 

[SmokeRngs]

My PIII 700 here at work has had no trouble with deadlines even on some of the bigger Gromacs core WUs. Then again, it is on 24/7 so it makes a big difference. It's been recently switched over to timeless WUs though. It has a lot to do with instant gratification since it will take 6-7 days to do a big Tinker and up to 10 days to do a big Gromac. I also don't like the loss of all that time if something happens to the WU and it's forced to start from the beginning again (has happened a couple of times due to power outages). It just chugs along folding though. Works just fine.

I also have a dual PII 266 system at home working on timeless WUs. Sure, it seems like it takes forever to finish even small WUs but it's still doing something. Besides, I keep it around to play with a bit and may eventually get turned into a fileserver. It just happens to be a pile of parts me and a friend had laying around. The sad thing is that my friend was going to throw the board and the one processor it had on it away. I saw it and snagged it since I've never gotten my hands on a dually before. I just wish I had gotten to him before he tossed the couple of PIII 700's he had. They were old Gateways and at least one of them didn't work. But the processor was still good. I could have made at least one good system from it and I think I have another system that could have used the second CPU.

Anyway, it's all up to you as to what you want to run or not. I don't see anything wrong with running something of the PII class or higher. Just make sure if it's a PII that you set it on timeless. It would have a hell of a time trying to crunch a large Gromac in time especially since you want SSE for Gromacs.