Folding a laptop

April 19, 2005 9:22 PM

Is it a bad idea to run the Folding@Home client on a laptop?

I have an 800MHz P3 laptop on which I want to run the Folding client. My question is... will it kill the computer? Is it safe to run a laptop at 100% constantly? I started it up an hour ago and the laptop is already very hot to the touch (bottom surface).

posted by knave to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

It'll run down your battery. Laptops go to sleep (suspend, hibernate) or ramp down the CPU speed to conserve battery power.

Running Folding, worthwhile as that is, prevents the laptop from doing that.
posted by orthogonality at 9:24 PM on April 19, 2005

Response by poster: Should have specified... The laptop is plugged into AC power. The battery is present, but hopefully it's smart enough not to mess with the battery when running on AC.
posted by knave at 9:33 PM on April 19, 2005

running a computer at 100% constantly is likely to have a detrimental effect on the hardware, given enough time. Ask any oldhand BBS operator -- the ones I knew experienced hard drive failure much more often than you'd expect from a PC used "normally".

however, that was nearly 10 years ago, and perhaps PCs today are closer to server-class -- but i doubt it.
posted by fishfucker at 9:52 PM on April 19, 2005

Laptops run hot, and you gotta know that diminishes component life. I turn 'em off when I can. Nice idea, but it isn't worth the cost to you.
posted by dhartung at 9:54 PM on April 19, 2005

The only component I'd be worried about is the system fan. The fans in most laptops don't run continuously, so they might not be as durable as their counterparts in desktops. That said, You'll be unlikely to see any problems unless you run the folding program for a couple years, by which time your computer will be obsolete anyway.

I wouldn't worry about the hard disk. If the folding@home client is anything like the other distributed computing programs I'm familiar with, it will rarely access the hard drive

The rest of the components in your computer are designed to deal with the heat generated at full load, and don't really care whether they are being used continuously or not. As long as the laptop is getting the ventilation it needs, I think it would be fine.
posted by yarmond at 10:33 PM on April 19, 2005

I wouldn't worry about it unless it starts crashing after running for a few hours, which would indicate the chips are getting too hot to work reliably (which happens a long time before they get hot enough for serious damage). Even then, you'll have a hard time killing the thing unless it's using the hard drive continually.
posted by cillit bang at 1:19 AM on April 20, 2005

I wouldn't do it. Laptops just aren't designed to be pegged at 100% for hours at a time; that's why it's getting so hot. It's detrimental to all the components of your computer, especially the hard drive. High temperatures kill hard drives. There's no doubt about that.
posted by zsazsa at 6:14 AM on April 20, 2005

Yes, it is a bad idea.
posted by Nelson at 8:47 AM on April 20, 2005

i have a dell inspiron 1.8 GHz laptop. no joke i've run seti@home on it almost constantly for about 2.5 years. i've had 1 hard drive go out about a year ago (covered under warranty) and they replaced my motherboard under warranty about 4 months ago. it does heat up more than when not running the program, but doesn't ever get too hot to touch or anything. i've always felt slightly guilty about running the program but i guess having the warranty to fall back on probably assuaged my fears. it's hard to say if running it has had a harmful effect...probably a bit, but who knows. the original fans are still working amazingly, but occasionally will make noise for a week or so and then stop.

my final conclusion: probably a bad idea in theory but maybe not something to worry about too much
posted by jacobsee at 10:51 AM on April 20, 2005

just re-read your question...an 800MHz machine is going to run SO much slower than a modern computer that maybe it isn't worth the risk. plus that hard drive must be pretty old by now?
posted by jacobsee at 10:54 AM on April 20, 2005

When I asked the gang on my F@H team about this a few months ago, they suggested turning the lappy on its side, to help with cooling. They also suggest I not do it with a laptop that I really cared about, and keep an eye on just how hot it got.

Lot of them did it, though.

If you actually use the laptop, you can configure it to only accept units that don't have a time limit (not a bad idea, since they tend to be smaller units, and 800 MHz isn't speedy), then just run F@H when you are either using it or can supervise it.
posted by QIbHom at 12:36 PM on April 20, 2005