Better to install normal F@H service instead of SMP in PCs using dial-up?

Hey guys,
Recently I bought my Mom a new PC and I had it my house for a few weeks while I added software and updated it. I installed SMP Folding@Home in it and WOW did my points fly up!

However, recently I gave my Mom her new PC and she has dial-up 56k at her house. Since giving her the computer almost 2 weeks ago, I have not seen one large WU turned in by that PC!!

I remember looking at the FAH Logs showing that it would repeatedly try and contact Stanford to turn in a completed WU over and over again over the course of 30 minutes sometimes. I think that works fine with broadband but dial-up is another story. Dial-up is so slow that you just don't have the bandwidth to try and contact Stanford's servers 20 times in a half hour.

I think that may be the problem because I have not seen one single WU finished from my Mom's new PC. I'm thinking about switching her F@H program back to the normal service client. That way I know its always working too because its so reliable. What do you guys think?

P.S. Because its a Dual Core machine, do I try and install 4 clients because of that hyperthreading? (I am assuming that Dual Cores have that same HT technology that came out with old 3.06 GHz Pentium IVs) I'm guessing that Wedo's "One-Click" service install for HT computers would work great? (or is there something new?)

If it is the WinSMP client, I think you would be better off switching to multiple instances of the 5.04 client. I remember reading somewhere that the SMP client will stop all activity if there is no networking connection present, and with dial up, I don't really think the necessary bandwidth can be provided by dial up.

I was on dialup up until a couple months ago, go with regular clients and small WU! Uploading +5MB on dialup means about 30 mins of not being able to browse the net at all, it chokes out the connection so much that outgoing requests from a browser etc get timed out. Using a program such as Netlimiter can make SMP wu's bearable, but it will take longer to upload. I removed F@H on the systems at my parents just for the fact that they are still on 56k and I don't want to make their connection any worse than it is.

WOW I didn't know that SMP needs that much bandwidth... OK, from here on out, if someone has Dial-Up, no more SMP. I'll just install the 5.04 client as a service. Rggh this sucks because that PC was pumping out over 1900 PPD to!

Edit: With all these tiny WUs lately that get finished in 5-10 minutes that may be a problem too. If you are not logged on to the internet except for 2-3 times a day you can finish your work too quickly. That PC is just goingto be sitting there idlely.

Yeah, F@H has just gotten too bandwidth intensive for dialup any more. But if you have access to a machine that only has dialup and you can't run F@H, just remember that this site's Seti team could use the help too. Unlike the F@H client, after you install BOINC, Seti only downloads and uploads small work units. Average download wu is around 360-370k and uploads are around 35-40k. Not trying to steal machines from Team 32 but if you have a machine you can't fold on because of dialup and would still want to help the OC Forums DC teams, Seti is a viable and low bandwidth alternative.

Sneaker netting is also an option. For years I sneaker netted WU to a machine that had no internet access. You would have to be diligent and be on top of it with the short deadlines with SMP, but it can be done.

Junebug

muddocktor said:

Yeah, F@H has just gotten too bandwidth intensive for dialup any more. But if you have access to a machine that only has dialup and you can't run F@H, just remember that this site's Seti team could use the help too. Unlike the F@H client, after you install BOINC, Seti only downloads and uploads small work units. Average download wu is around 360-370k and uploads are around 35-40k. Not trying to steal machines from Team 32 but if you have a machine you can't fold on because of dialup and would still want to help the OC Forums DC teams, Seti is a viable and low bandwidth alternative.

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That is good to know mudd. I had no idea that Seti didn't use that much bandwidth. I will keep that in mind if I am working on a rig for someone that is on dial up. Although I do think that setting up the 5.04 client as a service with out big WU's would probably work just as well. I can always ask the person which one they would be more interested in.

Junebug said:

Sneaker netting is also an option. For years I sneaker netted WU to a machine that had no internet access. You would have to be diligent and be on top of it with the short deadlines with SMP, but it can be done.

Junebug

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I think this option would work well, unless you are not able to be around all the time when the WU's finish. Also, the service install of the 5.04 client has much longer deadlines, so as long as the WU completes and is able to send you will still get credit for it. If the rig is in another town, or across a large town, sneaker netting would be kind of a pain. Especially with these gas prices, that 1900 PPD could end up costing a lot in the long run.