My computers have constantly whirring fans pumping out amazing loads of heat. So what is going on? Well they are contributing to https://foldingathome.org/ specifically for Covid-19. It is quite amazing to read on the screen just which projects my computers are contributing. All of us here will have computers with various capabilities. Do any of you have spare processing capacity that you could consider contributing?
73 Jim
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Iāve been running this for a couple of days on a Core i9 9820X processor (10 cores with hyperthreading; 20 virtual CPUs), mostly powered by the sunshine on my roof. Itās the first time Iāve seen this machine maxed out, or even breaking a sweat. It seems to be using the GPU too (Nvidia GTX 1660).
The application itself is very benign; it seems to have a small memory footprint and it just sits in the background computing. I havenāt noticed any degradation in interactive performance. The system builders installed a humungous CPU cooler and although the monitoring shows that the fans are running faster than normal, I havenāt really noticed much increase in noise.
The only downside is that it is making my āofficeā even more ridiculously hot than usual in this weather. Itās 31.2Ā°C at my desk at the moment.
Martyn M1MAJ
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Wow that is some processor. Mine are all a few years old now but at medium load I appear to have 16 virtual CPUs contributing between my desktop and laptop. If there had been more people interested I would have considered creating a Summits on the Air team. Unfortunately it could not have been SOTA team as someone has registered that and done absolutely nothing as far as I can see.
I heard about Folding@Home on a radio program some time ago, but it slipped my mind. My pc is now anonymously chipping in. If a team gets formed I would be happy to join.
David N6AN
Thanks for giving the āheads upā on the Folding@home.org website Jim.
It appears to be doing good work despite my initial suspicions which were ill founded. My malware and anti-virus software have not alerted anyway.
I have only registered recently although it appears to have been going for some years researching medical solutions (including Covid-19 more recently) which I chose to support.
If you feel willing to set-up a āSummits on the Airā team I would be happy to join it, thanks.
I use a 12 year old Dell PC XPS8500 with i7-3770 CPU @3.40 GHz
It runs cool day and night in background with no problems of overheating using all 7 CPUs and is barely operating any slower in pulling-up webpages than without Folding@Home working.
Maybe I have got a tortoise on the job?
Username Impress (my old company name)
OK since there appear to be 4 of us contributing, I have created a team named Summits On The Air with team number 265845. Just put that number into your profile. I will try to get the team name SOTA to substitute as it has been created but never used. We will start with zero points but at the rate Martin M1MAJ is generating them, if he joins the team that will soon shoot up.
73 Jim
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Just joined the team. Running it more or less frequently on my gaming / video editing desktop.
System Ryzen 1600X and Geforce RTX 2070
73 Joe
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Iāve just joined team 265845. My laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth but I guess itāll help.
73
John
G4YTJ
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Great we are off. The team has broken its duck with 552 points from me. I am hoping that @M1MAJ will join the team as he has already accumulated 1,055,662 points in just a few days. I managed 622,035 points with my previous ID before I switched to my call sign when creating the team. It is quite fascinating reading the project to which one is contributing but much of it is gobbledegook to me
Just signed up. Canāt remember what does the work in my current machine but itās chuntering away to itself 
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OK. I have changed identities too.
Now G0HRT not Impress and Team 265845 Summits on the Air
I was up to 55,000 points before the change reset back to nil but never mind the reset may encourage others in the SOTA community to contribute and speed up the research for a vaccine? The points have still assisted the projects hopefully.
Rob G0HRT
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I have signed up. I have no idea what my PC is. Itās a big black box on the desk.
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For W10ā¦ Start menu, click cog wheel, click system, click about. The number of hamsters and wheels that make it all work is displayed under Device Specifications.
Canāt remember how you do it for obsolete old tosh that needs recycling (W7, W8, Vista, XP etc.)
For Linuxā¦ cat /proc/cpuinfo gives the same kind of stuff but much more textier.
For Macsā¦ getting this info probably involves giving Apple more money.
Iād love to be able to donate the spare cycles of my lab machines at work where I have a bank of 8 machines each with 8core i7-7700 & 16GB mem plus 3 24core Xeon servers with 64,128 and 256GB mem. They sit essentially idle at evenings and weekends after a handful of regression tests have run. But even though this is a good cause itās outside the allowable rules and getting the data in/and out of the firewall is a non-starter. I could argue with the Security bods but the universe will have died from heat death before they agree. Whatās worse is there will be millions of similar high spec machines around the world sitting idle for lots of the time that could also be added to the project if it wasnāt for security rules. 
I suppose we can compensate for that by having lots of low power pcs beavering away. My best laptop is now running at 100% one cpu at a time and cycling through the 4 cpus. Temperature stable at just below 70deg C. I only signed up less than an hour ago so have little idea how the process will affect normal use. I have a spare PC that I could use but rather feeble by comparison. Come the autumn I could dig out some more PCs and stave off the central heating for a bit.
Signed up as m0jla on the 265845 team and now 5% into a work unit.
73,
Rod
Thanks Andy that led me to a wonderful trail of discovery (still donāt know what half of it means of course!) FWIW itās an i7 4 core operating at 3.6GHz with 16GB of RAM. According to the stats thingy itās running at about 95% utilisation of the CPU and 28% on the GPU. And is a very effective room heater :-s
Sounds suspiciously like yet another Peanut net to me 
Iāve joined, but it looks like the existing points donāt get transferred.
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Ive joined as well. Steve M5JSW
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That is unfortunately so. However I am sure you will soon build the team total.
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Further to Andyās point on old machines, I could not get the F@H software to download on my old XP laptop.
By the way Jim, I like the way the new Team name is a hyperlink to the main SOTA website. Free advertising?
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