Maximum PC

As I once promised, I have returned. But it is with great sadness that I return You see, I was browsing the forums a couple weeks ago after a very long break from everything when I learned of the passing of one of the world's most important people and his wife. I am of course talking about Gordon & Rose Many will never fully know just how big of an impact Gordon had on the folding world. But I think all who knew even a little about him would agree that he made an impression on everyone. I was pleased to see the outflow of support which is a testament to G's character, and I even made a small contribution to the new servers.

But I found myself in a quandry... things haven't been going as I had hoped... things at work have deteriorated, my side business is pretty much stuck on zero, planned upgrades never happened (mom's Christmas/birthday computer, etc...), but I still wanted to be able to do something...

So I'm sitting there that weekend thinking 'what can I do' I'm broke, there are no prospects for the future at that point in time, & I've already donated all I can to the server fund. Then I found myself asking WWGD... what would Gordon do? And the answer was simple... FOLD, and so, I overlooked my troubles & started looking at folding again....

Long story short, I suddenly found myself with 3 computers in the shop for repair, knocked them out in 3 days. Gave half the money to my mom to cover the house payment, & bought new parts with the rest to finish her new PC, plus a 120GB SSD for myself

I also found out we have a new V7 folding client, so I download it, but had trouble getting it working. I finally gave up this weekend & reinstalled, and suddenly it's working.... don't know why, but now it just seems to work... mostly... except that the GPU client doesn't want to stay running... and the client will not give up CPU cycles when I use the computer...

Don't know how long I'll be able to keep it up, but for at least this week I'm folding double 24/7 & possibly till Mothers Day.

Mom's new system - current config: (6400ppd - 13800ppd reported by V7 client)
NOTE: Bolded items will be in final configuration
Antec Sonata II case
120GB Mushkin Chronos SSD
Windows 8 Customer Preview Edition 32bit
Gigabyte A75M-D2H socket FM1 motherboard
2GB DDR3-1600 RAM
AMD A8-3870K APU - 3GHz Quad-Core CPU with integrated Radeon 6550 GPU (Overclocked to 3.2GHz for stability testing)
Antec NeoHE 550 PSU*

Additional hardware / software for final config:
250GB SATA II main hard drive + 750GB SATA III Storage drive (currently in her 6 year old PC on an SATA I controller)
Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit (she has a lot of old stuff that just doesn't work right with 64bit version)
4GB DDR3-1866 RAM
LG UH12LS29 SATA Blu-Ray reader/DVD Burner
Office Professional 2010

*I'm planning on building a wooden case but time is getting short... if I can pull off the case build before mothers day, I'll be using an Athena Power AP-TFX35 350W PSU (3.4" x 2.5" x 7") to cut-down on overall case size, but if I have to shell out for a case (missing half of the Sonata II), then I'll stick with the NeoHE 550. So basically another $70 will either go to the mentioned PSU, or to a Silverstone MILO Series ML03B Micro ATX case.

Also folding is my main rig which hasn't changed since I last folded, but oddly enough the V7 client is reporting up to 33,400 ppd I'm pretty sure it's a bit off...

Don't know how long I can keep up 24/7 folding on my main rig, since it pulls over 300 Watts from the wall while folding SMP & GPU. But should have mom's rig folding 24/7 up till a day or two before mothers day, Overclocked to 3.2GHz it's only pulling 140 Watts while folding SMP & GPU.

So for now, as promised, I'm back, though how long I can keep it up remains to be seen.

EDIT: Holy cow... I cannot believe it has been over a year since I made the "I Shall Return" proclamation

Welcome back!

Check some of the recent posts about v7 client updates and driver versions. Running the latest drivers on nVidia cards seems to cause problems. May have to roll back to get stable.

p.s. Any good pictures taken while you were gone? I remember you had a knack for photography.

Miraculously, last night, all the troubles I was having with the V7 client disappeared without any intervention on my part.

Sadly no, instead photography, I've been focusing on the house, business, & woodworking. Though I did have a yard visitor a couple weeks ago that prompted me to grab my camera while the opportunity was fresh...




Just wish I could afford a higher end lens with lower aperture to blur out the background more without using photoshop.

My first guess was peregrine falcon. The markings on the wings don't seem to be the same as what a Google search returned for images. Must be another type of falcon.

I hear you on the lenses. Though I'm generally pleased with my DSLR, I think the optics that came with it and the zoom I purchased are a little underwhelming. I would like to do an A-B comparison between the kit lens and a high-end lens on my camera to find out if that is the weak link of my system, as I suspect.

Good to hear the client problems cleared up!

I'm pretty sure that it's a young red-shouldered hawk, notice the reddish brown diagonal bar on the back/shoulder of the wing, quite common here in Florida. First one I've seen from less than a couple hundred feet though.

I thought it was a red-tailed hawk...sunlight obscuring the tailfeather color. Anyhow, glad you are back chaosdsm.

I bet if G saw this, he'd start up another 'name that pic (or part therof)' thread. I have no time to devote, so I can't do it, but anyone else, feel free

Red-Tailed Hawk was my first though too when I saw it land, but it's only about 10" tall from tail to head. Of course without the photos I would have thought it was just a fresh out of the nest Red-Tail & never known the difference, especially since there was a red-tail nesting 1/2 mile away in a cell phone tower last year.

Feels good to get back folding again . Hopefully I can keep it going, even if I have to cut back to just when I'm using the PC. Every little bit helps, unfortunately I hadn't been very helpful the past few months.

Those were lots of fun, but takes lots of patience & time, something G had in spades.

Chaosdsm! I'm back as well, for a bit, at least. Just about to graduate with my seven-years-in-the-making BSes, and since stress has lowered a bit (some anyway, I'm also planning a wedding and working), I've decided to re-up with folding.

I'm stress testing the 580 I recently got, though apparently the new drivers aren't so great, so I'll change that later...and I'm stepping up to the 680, so hopefully, the v7 client that supports it will be out by when I get it.

My homecoming, like yours, is a bit bittersweet with the passage of G. His soul, though, lives on in this team, you can tell.

Grats on everything & welcome back 7 years for BS(es)... I hope that's for at least 3 different ones

If you're referring to the 301.24 beta drivers, they've been hit & miss. In my case, they work exceptionally well, for others, not so much so. Also, I believe the current V7 client supports the new 680's.

Two, computer science and physics. I think those count as three to most people, right? Actually, there were several rough spots with family, so I couldn't handle it properly at a couple of points. Now, the job hunt, though! That's scary!

Welcome back, Ilander, and congratulations on your accomplishments! Good luck with the job hunt, too!