[CHALLENGE ENDED] Community Challenge: Folding@home

MeredithW
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

FOLDING@HOME BANNER.png

 

UPDATE: we crunched the numbers and have our winners! Based on the scores earned between November 11th at 11am PST and December 16th at 11am PST, the top three winners rank as follows:

 

1st Place: @MacConcierge (aka Joe_Peng) with 265,784,466 credits earned

2nd Place: @JanVincent (aka only1jva) with 234,754,337 credits earned

3rd Place: @Andrei_Cain (aka andrei.cain) with 182,541,729 credits earned

 

In addition, we randomly selected three winners from the entrants to receive a pair of Meraki Community socks: @PPP@LeaveNoTrace, and @Alex67.

 

Congratulations to all of our winners and a huge thanks to everyone who participated in helping to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease! Our closing rank as a team was 233 out of 255,607 (topping our 331 ranking from last round!).

 

UPDATE: this challenge has ended! Stand by for the announcement of the prize winners 🏅

 

The Community Folding@home Challenge is BACK! Last time we ran this challenge, the Cisco Meraki team worked together to rank at around 300 out of 250K teams worldwide, donating all of this processing power to COVID-19 research. 

 

ICYMI: Folding@home crowd-sources disease research. Participants share unused computer power to run calculations for finding potential cures to diseases. The software allows you to donate CPU/GPU cycles on your own computers/servers to run portions of these simulations for researchers and speed up results. By crowdsourcing processing power, researchers can complete simulations that would take days to weeks in just a couple hours.

 

This round, in honor of November being Alzheimer’s awareness month, we want to focus our team’s processing power on Alzheimer’s research.

 

Over the next 30 days, the three community members who achieve the highest ranks among fellow members by donating their processing power towards Cisco Meraki team 243108 will be awarded fabulous Meraki prizes. 

 

Check out our first, second, and third place prizes:

 

First Place — Osprey Ultralight Stuff PackFirst Place — Osprey Ultralight Stuff Pack

 

Second Place  — Magnetic Desk SculptureSecond Place — Magnetic Desk Sculpture

 

Thermal Water BottleThermal Water Bottle

 

In addition, everyone who joins the Cisco Meraki team and earns at least 200 "Credits" towards fighting Alzheimer's disease will be entered into a random drawing for one of three stylish pairs of Meraki Community socks:

 

Meraki Community socks (feet not included)Meraki Community socks (feet not included)

 

How to enter

If you have access to gaming computers, servers and/or even just a home PC, get started by following THIS link. Once you’ve set up your account and selected "Alzheimer's" as your cause, share your username in a comment on this blog post before 11 a.m. PST on Monday, December 16th. Only points credited to Cisco Meraki team 243108 will be counted. To join the team, simply enter “243108” into the client setup when you install the client. 

 

On December 16th, we will announce the top three ranking community members, as determined by Folding@Home’s scoring. We'll also announce the 3 randomly selected winners from the rest of the Folding@home Cisco Meraki team. That means, even if you aren't able to contribute at a high enough level to compete for the top ranks, you'll still have a chance to win sweet swag! 

 

You must post your username here to be eligible. Note that your comment on this blog post containing your username will be public and visible throughout the contest. If you already have credits to your username on the Cisco Meraki team, we will only be counting the credits you earn between now and December 16th.

 

The fine print:

 

For more information regarding Folding@home, please see useful links below:

 

Folding@Home FAQ

Creating a User and Joining Team 243108

More about "folding"

85 Comments
JoDawg007
Here to help

JoDawg007

BlakeRichardson
Kind of a big deal

I am having issues with getting this to run properly on a Mac, installer says it supports MacOS 10.7 so I am assuming that its code is out of date as system logs report that process is inefficient so the OS keeps killing it. 

 

Ah well good luck to everyone!

KaylaEik
Here to help

Kayla

jpauley1980
Conversationalist

jpauley1980

TimKud
Conversationalist

TimKud

 

Thanks guys! Cool cause and easy to partake

Mike_fbr
Conversationalist

Mike_b

Kennygd
Conversationalist

Constantine53

ellagraph
Conversationalist

Username: westcoastqueer. Seems to be running fine on macOS 11 Beta 9!

JMalcore
Here to help

Ppipanman - back on the hunt again! GL everyone!!!

Daniel-YC
Here to help

DanYC

Roberto_palafox
Comes here often

Roberto_palafox

ApappasitguyIL
Comes here often

ApappasitguyIL

KarstenI
Kind of a big deal

KarstenI

NightHawk
Conversationalist

NightHawk.ATL

 

Using a PassKey

chrisz
Conversationalist

the8igDog

rthiaga
Here to help

rthiaga sharing power

bryanssm
Conversationalist

bryanssm

MacConcierge
Conversationalist

Joe_Peng@Mac.com

 

Been folding since 2004

 

https://stats.foldingathome.org/donor/36543

arturbitt
Conversationalist

Artur

ar_migu
Comes here often

username: OhLAWDHeFoldin

 

Also Using a PassKey

 

Good luck to everyone!

minicoo
Just browsing

Been taking part in this for another team previously but have switched over to Meraki. 

 

Username: Moonk

ConnorL
Meraki Employee

Woo go SupportLabEMEA that's been buzzing away nicely since March!

Jerod
Conversationalist

JerdoPier

RobertMcCall
Conversationalist

RobMacabre on the grid.

Jerod
Conversationalist

Seems like when you choose "I support research fighting Alzheimer's" the client is defaulting to COVID?

Frankthetank
Here to help

FranktheTank907

 

Got a few servers and workstations folding away!

MrJeffAnderson
Here to help

MrJeffAnderson

 

I am also using a passkey!

MMoss
Building a reputation

MMoss

chathurangaonne
Conversationalist

chathurangaonne

Will_P
Comes here often

folding as: will.mlabs

GBi
Comes here often

Username: MeneerKrabs

Alex67
Here to help

Alex67

Enrico_Mancini
Comes here often

emancini

DSandele
New here

Willymazout

ShaunWakelen
Just browsing

registered as

 

swakelen

KeenLogic
Here to help

KeenLogic

 

I just need to change from the COVID-19 to Alzheimer’s

PPP
Here to help

username: PPP

nhnl3
Comes here often

username: otltlpw123

AdrianBoscu
Comes here often

just enrolled today! Good job guys!

 

username: boscuadrian

Greenberet
Head in the Cloud

It's me Greenberet =D

Mansoor
Comes here often

mansoorha

Daniel84
Just browsing

First time for me!

 

DaHoffi

JanVincent
Here to help

only1jva

 

I am going for that bag this time. I really want the bag.

Geekster19
Just browsing

JakeL(SFSD)

afp000001
Conversationalist

andreasforby

Convergint
Conversationalist

Slingshotz

Andrei_Cain
Conversationalist

I'm folding as:

andrei.cain

Team 243108

SAdLJr
Conversationalist

Let's help as much as we can

 

13:33:12: <!-- User Information -->
13:33:12: <team v='243108'/>
13:33:12: <user v='LKMurddred'/>

LeaveNoTrace
Just browsing

Jon_Duren

 

RJMoreno
Just browsing

Hi guys, my username is A_Non_Moose and I just started folding today. 😁

ekramer
Getting noticed

techerkramer

ChrisLaird
Here to help

I fold as Moravian_College, donor number 164722331 ✌️

KaylaEik
Here to help

@ChrisLaird  Holy moly, I was wondering who that was. My wimpy little laptop won't fold as much as you.  

KarstenI
Kind of a big deal

There seem to be some super-folders among us. 💪👍

And @JanVincent, I think you have to fold a little harder for the bag ... 😉 (I would be perfectly happy with a pair of socks).

JanVincent
Here to help

@ChrisLaird no fair. you got the bag last time. Let me have it this time lol.

ChrisLaird
Here to help

@JanVincent, I have no idea if I'll win this one since most of my folding apparatus is currently dismantled, but if I can get it back together and come in first again, and you come in second, I'll ask @MeredithW to send the bag to you instead.

Marlon1
Conversationalist

Marlon1

michelemazz
Conversationalist

michelemazz

chemafdp
Comes here often

chemafdp

MMoss
Building a reputation

Out of curiosity does anyone fold using their CPU? Score wise it's very little and it runs so hot it didn't seem to be worth it really. I tried running it in light and medium, but the best I could tell is it just ran on fewer cores not low power. I ordered some better paste since I was getting those thermals it couldn't hurt and might try again once I have it applied. Just wondering what everyone else's opinion was. Tried running it on my home server with the same results unfortunately. Not really designed for this application but likely it has the same thermal paste from factory 6 or 7 years ago.

JanVincent
Here to help

@MMoss I fold using the CPU across all my machines. Why not? It's there so may as well use it. Plus I need every bit of power to get that bag. 

Peter1
Conversationalist

ttrakker

also using a pass key

viralpatel7456
Comes here often

Conversationalist

Name - Viral Patel

CCOID viralpatel7456

MMoss
Building a reputation

@JanVincent 

 

I have a i9-9900k and the amount of power and thermals it kicks out is quite high, especially when you take into account the score of the 2. One might net 50k while the other 3M. If I had a had the ability to push it org wide then the effect would be multiplied, but as it's just my home machine I'm not seeing a large benefit. I'm teetering close to thermal throttling on some of my cores so I ordered some new Thermal paste, it's possible it's just poorly applied or I used a old tube I don't remember lol. Mostly I'm wondering if there are specific work units needed to be done using the CPU for some odd reason or if it's just a way for them to run smaller jobs and allow more people the opportunity to buy in on the program.

Alec
Comes here often

PizzaHutte

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Charles_Rayer 

 

Used to fold when it all started but haven't done any for over 15 years!

 

Not got any work units yet...

 

Edit: firewall issues stopped the cores downloading (not Meraki🙃) but I managed to copy them in manually, so off we go! 😎

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Added a passkey (so I may appear twice) and the points awarded for each unit have gone up by 2-3 times! 🤔

ChrisLaird
Here to help

I love that we're all doing this, and that Meraki is hosting this and encouraging us to participate, but did anyone else see the news today about Google's Deepmind AI making a massive breakthrough in AI-driven protein folding? While we all fold@home using tens of thousands of GPUs and CPUs, I wonder if we'll no longer be needed soon! Sad day for this competition, but great day for global humanity! If I read the articles correctly, I believe their Alphafold is able to predict with above 90% accuracy in just two weeks already, using just 100-200 GPUs.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/30/deepmind-solves-protein-folding-grand-challenge-with-alphafold-ai.ht...

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@ChrisLaird I did see the article and actually it made me feel good, it shows that the principle works and, you never know, they might leverage the folding@home resources in the future.  I bet it wouldn't even take half a day then!

MMoss
Building a reputation

I agree with @cmr on this, I'm actually hoping to see this folded into the Folding@Home if possible. I see no reason it couldn't be as long as it's not built on proprietary software or requires some sort of ASIC equipment. I've not gone far enough down the rabbit hole one this one though.

 

 

freshdrew
Comes here often

freshdrew

 

I have been heating my kitchen for two weeks and missed the part where i post my name here.

 

MMoss
Building a reputation

If we keep this up we are going to beat our previous ranking.

 

 

Rank: 245 of 25555


PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
BrechtSchamp
Kind of a big deal

Been folding as ScHAmPi :D.

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@MMoss we are up to 243 now out of 255564

 

More importantly (?), I'm up to 28,000 and closing in on you.... 😈

 

It really shows how computing has improved; back at the beginning of Folding@Home I used multiple high end workstations and servers to process 10,500 work units over a year or so, achieving  a score of 800 thousand.  In the last week or so I have used one PC (part time) and one server to process 573 work units achieving a score of 46 million!

MMoss
Building a reputation

@cmr 

 

You might catch me, or you might not. I used to have a few mining rigs running, but sold them off before the crash in 2018. Funny thing is that after running them for over a year I parted them out for a profit lol. Anyhow I still had a lot of the parts left over like Power Supplies, a Motherboard and such. I pulled it out and took an inventory and decided to build a folding machine. Folding is more intensive than mining since the CPU does a lot more work, but we'll see how it runs. Part of the fun is tinkering and trying to beat your old score after all 🙂 Once my RAM gets in today (I hope) maybe we will see that gap widen. Nothing wrong with a little competition even if we can't beat the current leader. 

 

What server do you Fold on if I may ask. I have one I spun up but it was hitting it's thermal throttle limits. I pulled the coolers off and redid the paste since I'm sure it was the original, but not spun it up again. Wasn't sure it was worth the power consumption.

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@MMoss always good to have someone to benchmark against 😀

 

The server is a Dell 740XL with the performance fan kit and three RTX4000s in it, the thermals seem okay, I just put folding on it to check the components were all working while we commission it for it's real life!

MMoss
Building a reputation

Mines just a Dell r620 so it's nothing special really. Because it's a single U the coolers are just hunks of aluminum around a copper plate. It has a line of those little hot swappable fans so it's not to bad I don't guess singe the airflow is over the heatsink still. Makes it hard to upgrade them though. Wouldn't normally need to in a home lab setup until Folding came along lol.

MeredithW
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

Well, we crunched the numbers and have our winners! Based on the scores earned between November 11th at 11am PST and December 16th at 11am PST, the top three winners rank as follows:

 

1st Place: @MacConcierge (aka Joe_Peng) with 265,784,466 credits earned

2nd Place: @JanVincent (aka only1jva) with 234,754,337 credits earned

3rd Place: @Andrei_Cain (aka andrei.cain) with 182,541,729 credits earned

 

In addition, we randomly selected three winners from the entrants to receive a pair of Meraki Community socks: @PPP@LeaveNoTrace, and @Alex67.

 

Congratulations to all of our winners and a huge thanks to everyone who participated in helping to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease! Our closing rank as a team was 233 out of 255,607 (topping our 331 ranking from last round!).

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Well done everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed the competition, and all for a good cause 🍻🍾

JanVincent
Here to help

ugh... lost the bag again.

PPP
Here to help

Surprisingly I won something - amazing Thanks Meraki 🎉

It was totally worth putting that small VM in Azure 🙂 

 

MMoss
Building a reputation

So, and this is the important question, when's the next folding challenge?

MeredithW
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

@MMoss only time will tell....

BlakeRichardson
Kind of a big deal

Well done everyone!