Because I'm addicted to it.

Hi, my name is Ron, and I'm a Foldaholic.


Stanford set the system up very well to promote competition.

I started folding because I have many family members that have been affected by cancer, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. But I've also become addicted to it. It gives me a good reason to buy the latest hardware, and feed my inner enthusiast addiction for folding and nice hardware.

Interesting questions. There are a lot of different reasons to fold. Some people set up huge folding farms, with 30+ GPUs sitting on racks or bench trays, and never use them for gaming. Most of those guys are in it for the research, or because they have family members affected and they want to do what they can to heal their loved ones.
Most of us are folding on one or two rigs, and disable the folding program when we want to do something else.

I think the guys you are talking about, with multiple GPus past the point of 'gaming' are folding enthusiasts. As has been mentioned above there is an 'addiction' to folding when you begin to understand the competitiveness of folding. It was set up by Stanford to be just that. Teams that compete for the most points, and individuals on a team that compete against each other. In that scenario, all your GPUs help as do all your CPUs. Folding can be much like a game for many folks. Trying to set up the clients correctly, tweaking your OCs to that sweet spot that gets the most PPD without causing your system to go unstable. Racing back to enable a client that was disabled by another family member who disabled it, then forgot to enable it when they were done.

There are some who fold also for the incentive program that EVGA has generously put into place. You can earn up to $120 EVGA bucks in a year if you fold consistantly through the year.

I'll make a suggestion to you. If you have never done it before, set up at least one folding client, and wathch your name start coming up through the ranks. See if you can stop at one, and see if you don't get interested to find out how high you can OC your system to get the best points. The best way to understand what folding is about is to.....................fold. Once you have started, then you will understand.

I started Folding because my private tracker offers bandwidth for the PPD.  Then I started Folding for EVGA for the Bucks.  Once I discovered that my i7 920 and GTS 250 are formidable components for a good deal of PPD I started folding to try and see how hard I can push my PC to get the most PPD possible.  I discovered folding.extremeoverclocking and found my global stats and all sorts of info in regards  to my performance and now I fold for the thrill.  To start off in 1 millionth place or whatever and then see your stats rise significantly in a short period of time you start to see where you stand in the ENTIRE world as far as folding goes.  Sure there are nutjobs out there with a folding farm that generates millions of PPD and you'll never catch up to them, but to see that you are in the top thousands of the world and that you can predict when you will be number 100 or whatever out of EVERYONE who folds is an awesome feeling.  This is where the addiction sets in,  the human competitive nature.  I don't care about professional sports,  but when it comes to my folding stats or the stock market I get passionate. 

For a long time now, I have very much enjoyed participating in various distributed computing projects. I started with Seti back in 2001 with my first SMP system, which was a dual 1.0 GHz P3 setup. Since then I have been participating in quite a few other projects including folding@home. I enjoy contributing to these projects and also being able to work with the latest and greatest hardware. For the folding project, I like the fact that there are many different clients and processing cores available. Bigadv is one of my favorite projects and is one of only several projects I have come across that can take advantage of many processors and a large amount of RAM.

In addition to the distributed computing, I use the hardware for Linux development projects. I have them setup with a program called distcc which allows for compiling source code via processors in multiple systems simultaneously. 
 
I would like to also go the SR2 route at some point when I can. If not the SR2, maybe something similar. The new Intel 8-core Beckton processors should be coming out any time now and this technology looks promising. AMD's 12-core processor looks promising also.

"So, what are the reasons? Why do you do it? How much would or have you spent on either a dedicated folding machine or hardware that you cannot actually utilize in gaming or other productivity applications that directly benefit you?"

Because we want to cure cancer and rebuild the economy at the same time. And if that means buying 30+ gpus to fold on, then so be it. You can thank us later

I have  a story behind why I fold. I first started folding because of few guys over at computerforum were having a folding marathon. I figured i had a 275 doing nothing so why not put it to good use. After that was over I found out about team evga. and the evga bucks. I should have never found out about this folding. It has cost me more money that I thought, ( I added it up the other day). I then started building folding machines, to run big adv, now I have 2 big adv machines, and a bunch of cards. I fold because its fun, I learn alot of new stuff doing it and I fold for everyone who has caner, my grandfather died of cancer, My music teacher at school has just been diagnosed with cancer, and is having treatment as we speak, He is such a good guitar player it would be such a shame if he is taken from us. Good luck CD we are thinking of you. So thats my story.

i fold for my self and ALL others that want to fix things (people and computers)
i my self at age 23 2months ago found out i had cancer on my left tonsil after i had them taken out and got the ok
i got back in to folding as my way of helping others and helping science move along a bit faster i don't really care what my WU go to
i have lot's a crap doing nothing so i'm putting it to work in a farm (at lest this one don't smell)
atm my sig shows my first board going online today i have 6 more for a total of 21 GTX295 co-op's and 7 i7 920 at 3.8
will be doing a post soon to see if i can ask for some help from other folders as i am short 2 PSUs and a set of ram

and i might have to sell some of my stuff to pay may med bills from having my tonsils taken out but i might just sell my weekend car
(1969 cobra replica i built back in high school and yes it has a 427ci big block 644hp 731tq)

msmith5150

I fold because I want to pwn noobs.

I fold because of the tax write off on all the gear I buy.

WHAT  Is it really a tax write-off?  Please tell me this is true.  I do my taxes tomorrow.

I fold because this is the most efficient way I can help to make a difference in people's lives.

+1

I fold, because 90% of the time my PC is just sitting here wishing it was doing something.  Instead of having such a valuable resource sitting idle, I choose to put it to good use for the benefit of everyone.  Hopefully I can contribute some infinitesimal amount to the cure of some horrendous disease by allowing my PC to work when I don't need it.

24/7 a single 260 on your cpu run -smp can hit 250k if not touched

forgive me but thats about 3k-4k ppd a day for your CPU and 7k+ on a 260 216core at 626mhz (can you tell i have one lawl)

i have duel 295's running in my desktop atm no sli running on just 3 of 4 gpu's (forth is for team-mediaportal and HD movies)
and smp cpu on 7 of of the 8 HT cores (VMware)
and it's done 58k in 31hrs

(note this is just my Media center PC not used for TV just Anime and Movies  no i hate windows media center)
and yes you can write off the cost of power to run the rig if it's metered not the rig it's self (get a Kill A WATT)

As far back as I can remember my Grandfather (mother's dad) had Alzheimer's.  I don't have a single memory not knowing that he was "forgetful."  Between the ages of 9 and 12 my mother used to take me to see them once, sometimes twice a week (they lived out of town).  During these visits I would stay with him (he was still in the early stages) while my mom took Grandma out of the house to give her a break from the constant questioning. 

I can say that during this timeframe, I watched as the man slowly drifted away from the person he once was.  The constant questions would come like clockwork about every 30 minutes.  Then as the weeks passed, went to 25 minutes, 20 minutes, 15.... until he was quite literally asking the same set of questions every 5 minutes (you could almost set your watch to it).

He had with him a notepad he would keep in his front pocket to write himself messages - and later we realized that he was trying to keep a log of what was going on in his daily life so as not to be a burden on anyone.

It was pretty hard to watch as a kid, as both my mother and grandmother would get angry and yell at him in frustration for a disease he couldn't control.  As I grew older I realized they were dealing with the disease in their own way, and it was very much like watching someone you know die right in front of your eyes.

By the end of his life (when I was ~ 14) the only person he remembered was his wife, and that was hit and miss- some days he did, most he didn't.

That's why I fold.  Because it's genetic, and there's a pretty good chance I'll have to watch my mother slip away - and eventually wait for my turn.

kaninja

WHAT  Is it really a tax write-off?  Please tell me this is true.  I do my taxes tomorrow.

 
My wife and I have our taxes done professionally every year. Three years ago I mentioned the folding thing, explained how it works and would the parts I buy be able to be written off as a charitable thing and she said yes. Been turning in receipts ever since. 

I fold b/c my grandmother has Alzheimer's, and even though it's too late for her now, I would like to contribute to the cause of helping other people.

I just read this entire thread because I never really knew what folding was. All I knew is that it was some sort of set up that allowed others to use some of your compute power when you were not using it. Thats about as far as I ever looked into it and kinda slammed the door on the idea a long time ago. I had no idea. I commend all who fold and will soon join the cause.

As I type this my father is in a bed upstairs in the final stages of terminal cancer. It started as prostate cancer about 2 years ago and was said to be inoperable due to age and other health issues. The 3rd type of chemo that he has been through (Docs called it the big guns) didnt even slow it down. It has spread thoughout the liver, lungs, neck, legs .... the doctor went on but my mind drifted. They said they didnt think he would survive a month on marh 11th and sent him home under hospice care 2 weeks ago friday on the 26th.

I havnt left the house since and pretty much just sit by his side 24/7. He hasnt opened his eyes in 3 days now and stopped taking food of any sort 2 days ago. The only water he can manage is the tiny bits dripped from an eye dropper.

Cancer is an evil that I wish to help rid the world of. At least help do my part.

He was an IBM programer for 32 years  and retired back in 92. His pc will be a deadicated folder as will all of my  pc's that are unused and this one when I dont need it.

Thank you to all you folders for doing what you do. I look forward to joining the cause.

there was a very good long thread on this subject on the old forums wonder what happened to it and why it never got transfered was worth the read.

There is many reasons people fold but the big hitters most times have a good reason. both my mother and father have dealt with cancer and as of mar 8th 2010 I lost my father age 67 to cancer that started in his bladder and after several surgeries spead to every organ in his body.

lung cancer is what put him on life support in ICU and a week later he passed. I have been dealing with everything for him but he was prepared for a couple years now that this was comming.  

I don't care what team you fold for or how many points you put up, but if this folding ever turns out to help cancer I thank you, who knows folding now may save your own life in the future.