How to: Set up a folding farm with the minimum of hardware and software - Overclock.net

*CyberDruid* · 08-23-06

How to: set up a Folding Farm using the minimum of hardware, software and power.

If you have almost enough old stuff laying around to fire up another Folding Rig but lack a PSU or HDD, extra Monitor, Keyboard or OS to get going this is the FAQ that might tip you over the edge and get you started "Farming" those Work Units!

First thing to know is that you don't need a hard drive to run your PC. By using a Live CD like Ubuntu or a Distro of DSL you have the option of running from RAM or mounting the OS on a USB keychain flash drive. Although it takes a little bit of work to figure this out, we now have some excellent guides about how to Fold with Linux.

The Second thing to know is you can run two motherboards from a single PSU! By splitting the 24 pin and 4 pin motherboard power and only running the minum of peripherals I have found that a single 350 watt PSU with a solid 12V rail (26A) will power a pair of microATX motherboards (with onboard video) and 2 HDDs at a moderate OC. Check for my recently submitted FAQ on how to do this safely and easily.

Third thing you need to know about is RealVNC and how easy it is to set up remote desktops on all your machines. Simply download the free SW from realVNC and install it on all the machines. Read this FAQ and follow the step by step instructions. Be sure to manually configure your IP adresses too. Now you are ready to access your Folding Farm to check their progress from a single station.

So a little ingenuity, a spare CDROM drive, or Flash drive, a free OS and you are good to go!

Hope that helps tip a few of us Folding Fanatics over the edge into full time Farming!

CyberD

**Burn** · 08-25-06

Quick suggestion- Knoppix also comes in a Live CD flavor- I tried it and it works beautifully. If you download the big honker (4GB) and burn it to a DVD, it comes with more programs than you'll ever use.

Nice FAQ!