Donate your computers's idle time for medical or climate change research
Grid computing (or distributed computing) is a way of connecting thousands of computers and making them work together on a research project. You can volunteer your computer to work for medical projects like AIDS or cancer research or studying climate change. It requires very little effort on your part and it will not even slow down your computer.
When you use your computer, you rarely use more than 10% of your computers computing power. By using a free Grid computing software, you can take the remaining 90% and donate it to research. The grid computing software only uses idle CPU cycles and when your computer needs more processor cycles, the software automatically turns those resources back over to the program you are using. It starts automatically when you open your computer and runs quietly in the background. You just download the software, install it and forget it. That's it.
Is there a catch?
In earlier versions of windows the 90% of computing power was simply wasted and using grid computing applications did not have any effect on the energy consumption. In new operating systems however (Windows2000, XP and Vista) there is a "halt" command which stops the CPU when there is no work to do. What this means is if you use grid computing applications on newer operating systems your computers electricity consumption will increase (and it will also produce more heat). Therefore you must consider whether the gain is worth the extra energy consumption or not. The impact on energy consumption has been estimated to be the equivalent of an additional low watt light bulb (for more on this topic see: http://www.climateprediction.net/info/part_faq.php#q3.1).
As the electricity use increases so does the temperature inside your computer. Laptops can easily overheat if they are performing intense operations over a long period. It is therefore not recommended to use grid computing software on laptops. Most tabletop computers on the other hand can handle this extra heat, but if you are worried about overheating your computer you can download a free utility like Mother Board Monitor to keep an eye on the temperatures on different parts of your computer. You can also set the grid computing application to only use a certain percentage of your computers computing power to make it run a little less hot.
Another concern is noise. When your computer is getting hotter, some computers start spinning the fan(s) faster in order to cool down the computer. This can result in more noise coming from your computer - which you might find disturbing. In addition, heat is not good for your computer parts either. Excessive heat leads to additional stress and eventually wear.
If none of the above concerns bother you too much, then let's get going...
First, here are the three grid computing platforms that I know of:
Boinc - http://boinc.berkeley.edu
BOINC is currently supported on Windows, Linux, UNIX, and Mac OSX platforms, and is ported to various other platforms by volunteers.
For a list of various BOINC powered projects see:
http://boinc-wiki.ath.cx/index.php?title=Catalog_of_BOINC_Powered_Projects
World Community Grid - http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
Windows only
Grid - http://www.grid.org
Windows only
For more detailed information about grid computing platforms, please see: http://www.distributedcomputing.info/platforms.html
And here are some examples of the projects you can choose with each platform:
- Climate Prediction .net - Boinc
http://www.climateprediction.net
With "ClimatePrediction.net" you can help scientists study climate change by producing a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. You should only join Climate Prediction.net if you have a fast computer and use it regularly. The amount of calculations needed in this project are huge and it is not recommended to join Climate Prediction if your computer is on for only a few hours per week - because completing even a single work unit could take years. There are other Boinc projects which are considerable less demanding for your computer, so choose one of those instead (see http://boinc-wiki.ath.cx/index.php?title=Catalog_of_BOINC_Powered_Projects).
We have our own Easy Donations team at ClimatePrediction.net . You will automatically join the team (Easy Donations) when you go to ClimatePrediction using any of the links on this page.
Minimum system requirements:
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/tech_faq_boinc.php
ClimatePrediction.net uses Boinc as it's grid computing platform.
- FightAIDS@Home - World Community Grid
http://www.fightaidsathome.net
FightAids@home project is less demanding for your computer than ClimatePrediction.net and uses the World Community Grid as it's platform.
Minimum system requirements:
http://fightaidsathome.scripps.edu/faq.html
At the time of this writing:
Any Internet-connected Windows XP, 2000, NT 4.0, Me, or 98 PC with a Pentium 550 MHz or above, 256 MB of RAM or more, and 50 MB of Free disk space.
http://www.grid.org
Please visit Grid.org to see all projects you can participate in.
When you install the Grid software and create your user account you will be included in all current projects by default. If you wish to change your project selections at any time please follow the instructions contained in the Project Selection FAQ.
Minimum system requirements:
http://grid.org/about/gs/system.htm
At the time of this writing:
Intel Pentium™ processor or equivalent
At least 48 MB RAM
600 MB Hard Disk Drive with at least 100 MB available for use
The ability to display 8-bit graphics at 800x600 resolution
An Internet connection
Operating System: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5
Just as with ClimatePrediction.net, we also have our Easy Donations team at Grid.org. When you have installed the client, you can join our team by clicking this link:
Click here to join our team
