These are unusual times in the world and it’s had a large impact on local businesses across the United States. Many business owners have been trying to find ways to offer good and services over the last week as well. Another way for people to help fight COVID-19 is to join a project called Folding@Home. Currently, researchers are looking for vaccines, analyze the virus and search for a resolution to this situation. However, their compute power to accomplish this is limited. That’s where Folding@Home comes in.
Folding@Home is a project that utilizes a computer’s unused CPU and GPU (video card) resources. You install a small program on your computer which then runs in the background to manage everything. The program connects to the team’s pool that you’ve selected to join (or one that needs help the most if you don’t choose a team). It will then download the data that needs to be calculated and begin to utilize unused resources on your computer. What about if you are still using the computer and don’t want it to slow you down? Well, there’s two things you can do to avoid that.
First, it uses resources that are not being used. This means that if you’re only using 20% of your CPU, it will use about 50% of your CPU. This gives you a buffer of about 30% in case you suddenly need to do something more taxing on the system. Second, you can set Folding@Home to run when your computer is not active. The software will then detect your computer has not been used for a length of time and start up. Finally, you can set the application to be low, medium or high utilization. Low means that it’s not a top priority, while high means to always provide it the resources it requests.
Okay, so lets say you want to join, but you’re unsure of how to pick a team to support. You can head on over to the Folding@Home blog where they explain the different teams and what they are working on. You can reach through and enter your team name in your applications options menu.
Why should small businesses consider having this on their computers? Well, the sooner we can find a solution to this pandemic the sooner we can get back to normal business. Now, when you leave your office at night, you probably have your computers just sitting there. Joining Folding@Home allows you to help researchers find a solution without doing anything. Please make sure you post on your social media outlets to share with your customers and other companies as well to spread the word.
If you’re interested in getting this setup in your business please feel free to contact us. We are happy to help businesses during these unprecedented times so that we can all get back to normal business. Feel free to email us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns you may have on this.
Recent Comments