Installing cpu client on two hundred E8400's.

[geokilla]

You work with the TDSB? You guys got E8400 in your Dells? The TCDSB has only Celerons and Pentium 4s.... well my high school and elementary school anyways.

I suggest using SMP. They should complete them no problem. Of course, you should make sure that they're stable and won't interfere with any work the tachers and students have to do.

Is the TDSB letting you do this? How are you going to run it? You want to share?

Maybe you can help the admin out with how to keep the computer up to date and everything as well.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by geokilla

I suggest using SMP.

SMP is the wrong choice. If this is to be run on school computers, it must be completely transparent to the end user. That can only be done by running the standard client as a service.

[Rison]

there is a huge issue with installing this on regular desktops - no matter the business, school or institution.

I strongly recommend not installing them at a school site - because there will be issues, and you will lose your job when upper management/school board finds out. It's not allowed, even if it's not specifically written down anywhere. Distributed software that runs processors at 100% and uses network bandwidth = bad.

[0o0]

Originally Posted by Rison

there is a huge issue with installing this on regular desktops - no matter the business, school or institution.

I strongly recommend not installing them at a school site - because there will be issues, and you will lose your job when upper management/school board finds out. It's not allowed, even if it's not specifically written down anywhere. Distributed software that runs processors at 100% and uses network bandwidth = bad.

That's a complete different situation than the one I'm in. I'm actually a compsci student... I didn't take gr10 compsci but the guy is letting me join his class next year. I'm actually only good with hardware, I don't know about software but I think I'll survive. oh yea and UT runs it, they haven't had any problems so far. That's not a problem, they won't expel me or anything, we're still writing a letter of proposal for the principle, who will probably contact the higher ups. The admin has already approved of it. Why not? These are idling e8400, the difference is 50 to 75 watts. It's actually going to use 80% and yes it uses some network bandwidth, but so does everything else on your network. Unplugging everything would ease the load on the network... but that's not going to happen right? Every loggon, the entire 'users/document settings' folder is transfered over the network, and there are a couple hundred logons a day over the 1000base-T network, so I don't see any problems...

I asked the guy today, and I just found out that all the desktops support vPro, something that the school isn't using right now!! I've done research on what vpro is, does anyone here know how to use it, such as configuring? Would this be our solution to shutting down and starting computers on schedule? (right now they're set to sleep in 5 minutes so they 'sleep' throughout nights and weekends) Would vPro allow a batch command such as running the folding client with -oneunit flag on fridays?

[geokilla]

Try asking on the Folding support forums. They should have lots of info on how to do this.

@Zero. Windows XP can run SMP folding as a service no problem. It's Vista and 7 that can't.

[0o0]

Originally Posted by geokilla

Try asking on the Folding support forums. They should have lots of info on how to do this.

@Zero. Windows XP can run SMP folding as a service no problem. It's Vista and 7 that can't.

hey cool, my schools running xp 32bit no really they are, cpu-z tells me that there's 3.25gb of ram which means 4gb is installed. Multiply that by 200 computers, that's 150gb of ram... imagine running a ramdisk on 150gb lol.

I'll give folding support forums a try maybe in a few days, it's just that I don't have any posts there so they'd probably think I'm a troll or something... but I'll give it a shot. Linking them to this thread would probably be good...

[geokilla]

Originally Posted by 0o0

hey cool, my schools running xp 32bit no really they are, cpu-z tells me that there's 3.25gb of ram which means 4gb is installed. Multiply that by 200 computers, that's 150gb of ram... imagine running a ramdisk on 150gb lol.

I'll give folding support forums a try maybe in a few days, it's just that I don't have any posts there so they'd probably think I'm a troll or something... but I'll give it a shot. Linking them to this thread would probably be good...

Ask now. Lots of newbies and regular users make repetitive threads over there. Heck I find this to happen on all forums...

Wow I thought TDSB is poor. Intel E8400 plus 4GB RAM per Dell... We're running like 6 year old computers here!

[chrisk]

My guess is that you could have a batch file run on startup, which will edit the config file, but nothing that will automatically stop the client as you suggest.

I appreciate the enthusiasm; It will be a minor miracle if you can get this approved. I do know that the TDSB is broke, laying off teachers and closing schools, selling assets, etc. This is important, as anything that will drive up the hydro bill will not be approved. TDSB schools were ordered to lower thermostats 1-2 degrees to save money. Also, I can't imagine the heat generated in the labs, and students will be complaining big time that their little brains can't work in the heat. There are other issues involved, especially if you have TDSB board techs working on your school's image. As much as I love folding, if I were a school tech guy, I would be very wary of running this for monetary and political reasons.

Let me know how this goes; not saying it will happen, but I really doubt it. :)

[0o0]

hmm yea that's a good point, worst case scenario the principle would read over the letter of proposal and just bluntly say that it's not possible. TDSB is quite poor, they're spending money on useless stuff and not spending enough on others. I bet some Dell sales rep just told them that they 'needed' these computers and made it sound so good. The monitors are 16" or something (just a tad smaller than 17"), and are running at the wrong resolution because everything is blurry. We got these computers last year, just before e8400 became 'meh' but still when it was $200. That's where tax money goes.

I'm going to wait for the principle's response before trying anything else. We do our own reimaging stuff, our students basically maintain our school except for the washrooms and the infrastructure lol. On literacy test day, every other school had the 2nd half of the day off. We were still going for the 2nd half. Our school is kinda weird, in a good way I guess...

[chrisk]

I think the worse-case scenario would be that someone without technical knowledge approves of the request, not knowing the impact on the utility bill and classroom heat. These issues come to light, and the principal or teacher/technician who went along with it gets in trouble.

I would be as forthright as possible about the extra hydro and heat this will involve, so that the admin can make an informed choice. :)