So, yeah. There have been so many people folding that it's really hard to get work units. I suppose that's a good problem? If you leave it running, you'll get something occasionally. The retry algorithm backs off exponentially, so it can take a while. This is a pretty common sight:
There's a couple ways you can do it.. you can run a separate folder and service for each core, or get a SMP version of the F@H client (which I would recommend)..
see http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadWinOther
If you go into the BIOS, somewhere you should be able to disable the floppy drive. The computer is prolly searching for a floppy drive and giving you an error because it can't find one..
The DNS service automatically stores queries in a cache and updates them as necessary..
Setting up another pc with dnsmasq just adds another layer of caching. Kinda like having a computer dedicated to looking up ip addresses.
Unless you have a connection with really high latency, I don't think you'll notice much of a difference though. Especially if you regularly visit new sites
I suspect you occasionally are provisioned with the IP address of a banned member.. if you could send me your IP address when/if it occurs again I could probably tell you more