Welcome to PoppaGeek's 

Name:  Zach

occupation: College Student - EE and CS

area of world ya live in: Texas.

what got ya into crunching: Really, I just thought the concept of DC was interesting so figured I'd join and see what it was about.

why you still crunch: As I started to learn more and more about crunching, it went from an interest in the concept to a fascination about the science. First, it's awesome to be part of something so large that has the potential to touch so many lives (as we can see with the recent AIDS discovery). Second, I love learning and there is so much to these projects: there's hardware aspects, software with all of the difficulties in security, efficiency, reliability, etc. and even the sciences. You can look at genetics(Rice), protein binding(AIDS), organic chemistry(CEP), and so much more. And yet the best part - they're all on the cutting edge of innovation. Then there's the humanitarian aspect, and why not help someone else when it's of so little cost to you? In most cases that cost can't even be noticed, but the potential rewards are immeasurable. And all of the people on the XS forum are some of the best people you will ever meet, there's a sense of community and drive to make a difference that's just, well, awesome.

is it hobby, personal reasons or both: If you visit the XS forums, you'll see the word obsession fits well here... But really it's honestly more than that. I didn't know how to describe it until I was explaining it to one of my friends, and she dubbed it: Passion. I was a little surprised by that word, but when she explained what she meant it was absolutely true. Unfortunately I don't know how to put it into words, I wish I could talk to you about it: I can go for hours, because honestly, I absolutely love science, computers, and I have a passion for people.

NOTE: Zach has offered to discuss any questions or concerns about getting involved in a DC project. He can be contacted at XtremeSystems as Otis11.

Hello all my name is David, known by everybody as "Chicken Patty". I'm a steamship line coordinator living in Miami, Florida at the moment. When I first joined WCG in Feb of 2009 I really didn't know what it was to be honest. I joined because a member told me to help him out with the team and to get it going and stuff so I did. I had a i7 at the moment and since the team was fairly new the competition really got me going and as I learned more about the cause I really got into it. At this point I've built about 4 or 5 crunchers over time, two of which run at the moment. (Specs below). I'm pretty much addicted. I'll be building more in the near future.

The reason why I still do this is because knowing what I'm doing puts a smile to my face and keeps me going even through the toughest of times. It's definitely a great feeling knowing you are contributing to something in life in such way.

Here are the two crunchers I have running at the moment. 24/7, 100%.

Cruncher #1 - AMD Phenom II 965 C3 @ 3.4 GHz
Cruncher #2 - Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.1 GHz

My real name is Antero Kütt. So im 22 years old and i live in Estonia , in a city called Tallinn . Currently not working , but im searching it.

I started back in 2007. Since then i´ve been crunching. Well the reason i started is because of science and to use my computing power for some right reasons. And it has been growing into daily "work" but i like it to called another "hobby". Currently im using for crunchin just one rig . Cpu Intel Xeon 6 core L5640 , Motherboard Asus P6T6 WS Revolution, rams 3x2gb CSX 1600mhz DDR3, gpu Ati Radeon X600 (dont need any gpu power in wcg ) , psu is 700W Seasonic M12 , but its gonna change in to 380W CoolerMaster  . Usual people think that if the buy the most powerful pc , they can do anything . No they cant , they dont have support for these cores and gpus. So i would say : use your computing power and help save human lives. The End !

58 year old grandfather of 7 in Nashville, TN. I have 30 AMD cores and 4 GPUs working 24/7 on WCG, GPUGrid and F@H. I like feeling like I am participating in scientific computing projects  with the goal of reducing human suffering around the globe. I also enjoy the global aspect of our team. I've been with WCG since the first day and expect to on my last day. I was involved with other distributed computing projects before I.B.M. started WCG but they were not bio-medical research. I lost 2 people I love to cancer and have known children with cancer and have seen what it does to them and their families. I like feeling that I am doing something to make this a better world and reduce some of the suffering. And I am having some fun while doing it!

Name: Jonathan Horne
Occupation: Senior technician
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Reason for Starting: I used to run F@H, but it needed too much babying
Reason for Continuing: Give me one damn good reason not to
Reason for Crunching: Cancer is prevalent in my family, I lost my grandfather in '96

Hardware in use:

24/7 Rig - always Crunching and browsing the net, gaming, etc
Phenom 2 965 @ 3.63GHz, passive watercooling
2GB OCZ DDR2000 @ DDR1466 6-6-6-18
MSI 790FX-GD70, BIOS 1.4b2
Radeon 4670 512MB
AOpen 700w Quad Rail PSU
"Many" 1TB drives

Work PC - On for ~8 hours per day, heavy multitasking hurts PPD
Pentium 4 @ 3GHz
1.5GB DDR300
Radeon 9550
80GB IDE drive

Recently commissioned - Still being phased in.
Phenom 2 555 @ 3.5GHz 4 Cores
2GB OCZ DDR1600 @ 800MHz 8-8-8-24
ASUS Crosshair 3 Formula
GeForce 8800GT 512MB
CoolerMaster 550w
Seagate 160GB SATA 

Name: Michael R.

Forums name: D_A - XtremeSystems

Occupation: Industrial Electrician by trade, currently studying a degree in IT, majoring in Systems Administration, minor in database administration with readings in forensic science. I also cook and clean. Volunteer firefighter.

Location: Cowra, NSW, Australia

Reason for Starting: I started in '99 running SETI before deciding ET was a waste of time and switching to medical project work.

Reason for Continuing: Not done yet.

Reason for Crunching: Had several friends die from cancer plus being involved with emergency services raises the risk of needle sticks and hence HIV for myself and people I know.
Hardware in use:
All rigs 24/7
My work station:
Opteron 185 @2.66 (mobo doesn't 'clock well)
2GB dual channel DDR400
XFX 7600GT (customised cooling)
250GB SATA HDD (Seagate)
64bit linux, custom kernel
"Boys" PC
Opteron 170 (recently resurrected thanks to ... you know who you are )
2GB dual channel DDR400
Onboard nVidia 6100
250GB IDE HDD (WD)
64bit linux, generic kernel
"Girls" PC
Athlon XP2600+
1GB DDR400
graphics card of some description
20GB IDE HDD (OS)
40GB IDE HDD (swap partition and music files)
32bit linux, custom kernel
Headless machine 1
Athlon XP3000+
Foxconn mobo (linux antagonistic so running XP Home SP3 ... I feel so dirty )
1GB DDR400
250GB IDE HDD (what came in it)
manged via VNC

Headless machine 2
Athlon XP2400+ (mobo won't take Thorton XP2600+ I have spare )
512MB DDR333
40GB IDE HDD
32bit linux, generic kernel (server edition)
managed via SSH

Name: Thomas P.
Occupation: College student (at time of writing, a Junior)
Location: Providence, RI, USA

Reason for starting: I thought (and still think) that distributed computing is a fantastic idea. If not me, then who?

Reason for continuing: Free electricity is a big one. :lmao: A bit of additional heating during winter, too. But really, I recognize that I, along with others, will probably had a serious medical problem in the future. My family history states that it's probably going to be diabetes or high blood pressure. In that regard, I'm lucky. Cancer, in my family, has never been a major problem.
Reason for crunching: The Silver Rule. "As to diseases, make a habit of two things—to help, or at least to do no harm."
Hardware in use:
24/7 rig (doing everything; crunching, daily use, gaming)
Pentium E6300 @ 3.8GHz (400*9.5)(picture)
6GB DDR2 800 CL5
Abit IP35-E
Radeon HD 3850 256MB
Corsair 750TX power supply
320+320+1000GB hard drives
Win7 Professional x64

Name: Nicholas P.

Occupation: Freshman in High School

Location: Arcadia, California

Reason for Starting: Looking for some ways that I can do to benefit humanity, stumbled upon Rosetta@Home and worked on it for a couple days. Later I learned about WCH through XS forums and liked the cause.

Reason for Continuing: Well, I just can't find a reason "stop." Why not? Only thing that holds me back from going full-bore is electricity price. I will go further once parents has more $$.

Reason for Crunching: Most of my relatives and friends had suffered cancer. Fortunately some of them were able to be cured, but a couple died from it. At least their lives were affected by it.
Hardware in use:
24/7 crunchers:

• Athlon II X2 240 @ 3.6Ghz
  9800 GTX+
  2x 1TB drives 
  
• Pentium 4 HT @ 3.0Ghz
  
• Athlon X2 TK-53 Lappy

• Core 2 Quad Q8200 @ stock
  GT220 
  1x 1TB drive
  
• Xeon X3210 @ stock
  2x 320GB drive
  
• Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 3.0Ghz
  9400GT
  2x 500GB drive
  
• Some more laptops and Macs that belongs to my friends.

Name: Tyler
DC name: trn-xs
Age: born in 1980, currently 29
Occupation: Industrial Designer
Location: Live in South Florida
Why crunch: I'm a newer member here but recently got into crunching because its a way of making something useful out of my hobby of Overclocking and building computers. I hope to be crunching for years to come
Hardware: Changing as often as I can get my hands on new hardware. Currently i'm concentrating on ecconomical i7 rigs and trying to put some spare 920's I have to use. Oh and the new 980x is tempting me although probably not the best use of $$ 

I have visions of building a few more quad i7's with reasonable air OC's (4.0GHz) and using them for work for as a rendering farm and in their mostly spare time WCG crunchers.

Name: Mike F. born ‘56
Occupation: I work as a maintenance electrician
Location: UK
Why: My boy got rushed to ER then a specialist children’s hospital when he was 2…we were lucky but I saw other kids that were far worse off
I became aware of Folding at home first then at XS I saw the possibility to tailor my interest in computers with this and maybe help kids like those above. 
As long as I can…I will try to do my bit
I currently run around 10 GPU’s and 4 “old” 2/4 core type rigs. I have most of the parts now for another newer 4+HT and a dual processor rig, so I will likely retire the one dual core when these are up and running because for me there must also be some consideration of green issues with power use…I don’t expect to ever run many more rigs but I do expect to try to upgrade to the most power efficient

Name: Francis
Location: UK
Occupation: Cisco Tech Support
Reason for Starting: I've stumbled over a post of Movieman promoting Wcg and thought I'd give it a try
Reason for going on: know too many that lost the battle against cancer
Crunching HW: I7 920, Gigabyte X58-UD5, 6GB Ram, Radeon 4870, Seasonic 700W Psu, Windows 7, all Watercooled.

Name: Gary
DC name: Lu523 & Lu523_TR
Age: 38 born 11/11/1971
Occupation: Flexo operator in corrugated box plant.
Location: Covington GA.
Reason for starting: loonym's sig. is what got me going.
Reason for continuing: Still alot of work to be done. That and I have had several family members die of cancer.
Reason for crunching: same as for continuing.

Hardware: 1 sammy rig, and for the time being 4 i7 rigs.

Name: Brett
DC name: burn.intel
Age: 16
Occupation: High School Student
Location: San Diego, CA
Reason for starting: Found out about DC projects and thought to myself, "why not?" and haven't stopped since.
Reason for continuing: Cancer hasn't been cured yet. And the competition has gotten me addicted
Hardware:
CPU's:
Core i7 @ 4.1Ghz
Q6600 @ 3.2Ghz
GPU's:
9800GT
2 8800GT
HD4890
2 8800GS's awaiting PCI-E slots