I think the reason nobody answered your previous questions is because we have answered them a whole lot of times, you probably also will come accross these questions in this thread. All of your question are already answered, but you have to look in this forum for the answers! Sorry for this answer, but it's getting old having to answer these questions every couple of weeks. But for the last time:
iDM said:
First off, I know that on the FAQ page it says that this program will not over heat your computer as long as it is properly cooled. However I am on a 2-yr old PB that is my main and only machine so with recent posts and threads talking about HD failure after a couple of years it gets me a little concerned. I assume however that this is not a HD intensive only processor intensive which I am more comfortable with but still I would like to know the realistic amount of wear and tear on which components of my machine.
It could make your PB very hot, and it's needs to cool down now and then. Shut it down for a night once in a while. Or use a cooling pad under it or raise it from one side so that air can flow under it. The hotter a machine gets, working for a long time on its maximum temparature, will wear it down faster. It's also HD intensive, it stores its results every 15 minutes (you can adjust this in your prefs), so your HD doesn't go into sleep mode.
iDM said:
Second according to my calculations the progress is 0.25 after 30 minutes of time. Wouldn't that mean this protein would take 200 hrs? (30x4=120mins(0.25x4=1%) 120x100=12000mins or 200hrs) My concern is not over the run time but over if this will even be useful data after 200hrs. I read somewhere that if the protein is not received in enough time then it can not be used and instead only the stats are added to the folding group which no offense doesn't mean as much to me as the scientific stand point.
Stanford has a time frame when they want the results back, a lot of people start folding and get sick of it very fast. When a WU isn't finished in time, they give it to someone else and you probably don't get credit for it. The time you calculated could be correct. Your PB isn't as powerfull for this kind of work as my G5. It depends on the processor and WU how long the WU is going to take. A WU could also have 400 frames (400 pieces of a big WU) this is instead of percentage which you now have (100% is one whole simulated and finished WU!).
iDM said:
Thirdly I understand that running the console uses more processor cycles and therefore isn't as efficient. With that being the case is running terminal the most efficient way?
Yes! It's more efficient, your processor doesn't need to help simulate a fancy picture.
iDM said:
And last which is least important and more of just a comment/observation, a dual-core or quad-core G5 must dominate these folding tasks. Anyone have any idea if those super computers around the world are doing these calculations? Like that one at Virginia - Tech?
Virginia Tech probably doesn't do folding, they rent their computing power to others. But this could be, you can install folding on super clusters. But, every processor has to fold it's own WU because folding is setup like this. It uses its own outcome to simulate its next step. In a supercluster it would go parallel, every processor has a little chunk and other computers puts it together to one big thing.