Guys,

Just got a new Dell 8600 Pentium M 755, 2 GHz, 1 GB, 400 FSB . I ran Seti both as a screensaver and directly and am getting pathetic speeds. Each WU is taking 10-14 hrs. Is anyone running under similar configuration. I have tried googling for a solution but have found none.

Thanks,

Yeppo

Hello Yeppo,
are you running classic and boinc at the same time?
Or what do you mean by 'both'?

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

> Guys,
>
> Just got a new Dell 8600 Pentium M 755, 2 GHz, 1 GB, 400 FSB . I ran Seti both
> as a screensaver and directly and am getting pathetic speeds. Each WU is
> taking 10-14 hrs. Is anyone running under similar configuration. I have tried
> googling for a solution but have found none.

Yeppo,

Ok, first, it does not surprise me that it seems slow. Laptops are not intended to be the fastest kid on the block. Power management and battery life conspire to make the machine not as fast as desktops of apparent identical speed.

So,

It is a laptop,
FSB is low - most desktops now are 800 FSB
clock speed is also low (most desktops are in the 2.8 GHz or better)

You also may be running into thermal throttling ... lift the laptop off the desktop and put a fan on it ...

---

> Hello Yeppo,
> are you running classic and boinc at the same time?
> Or what do you mean by 'both'?
>

Hi Sanger,
Jus the classic.

---

> > Guys,
> >
> > Just got a new Dell 8600 Pentium M 755, 2 GHz, 1 GB, 400 FSB . I ran Seti
> both
> > as a screensaver and directly and am getting pathetic speeds. Each WU is
> > taking 10-14 hrs. Is anyone running under similar configuration. I have
> tried
> > googling for a solution but have found none.
>
> Yeppo,
>
> Ok, first, it does not surprise me that it seems slow. Laptops are not
> intended to be the fastest kid on the block. Power management and battery
> life conspire to make the machine not as fast as desktops of apparent
> identical speed.
>
> So,
>
> It is a laptop,
> FSB is low - most desktops now are 800 FSB
> clock speed is also low (most desktops are in the 2.8 GHz or better)
>
> You also may be running into thermal throttling ... lift the laptop off the
> desktop and put a fan on it ...
>
>
What surprised me was that the figures seem really low even considering the low FSB but as you say the M's are built more for their battery life than power. All other apps seem run OK on it. Anyway to speed it up apart from overclocking.


Thanks,

Yeppo

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> >
> What surprised me was that the figures seem really low even considering the
> low FSB but as you say the M's are built more for their battery life than
> power. All other apps seem run OK on it. Anyway to speed it up apart from
> overclocking.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Yeppo
>

Hi Yeppo, your laptop should take 2-3 hours per WU. So there's something wrong.

Check your CPU speed first. You should have got some software with your laptop
that allows you to monitor and manage clock speed, battery, etc.

Another possiblity is to download SiSoftware Sandra and run the benchmarks.
It's free and comes with a comparision chart so you can check if your results
are OK.

Regards Hans

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As a reference point, my Pentium M, 1.6GHz, 512MB RAM runs workunits in a bit over 2.5 hours, so yours should definately be in the 2-3 hour range.

Doesn't look like you've returned any WU's in BOINC so we have no way of looking at your benchmarks... I just re-read a post of yours and it looks like you said you're only running Classic? If so, these are the BOINC forums and anything anyone suggests for times/options/etc would relate to BOINC, not Classic...

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<img border="0" src="http://www.boincsynergy.com/images/stats/comb-1140.jpg" /><img border="0" src="http://seti.mundayweb.com/stats.php?userID=768" />

>
> Ok, first, it does not surprise me that it seems slow. Laptops are not
> intended to be the fastest kid on the block. Power management and battery
> life conspire to make the machine not as fast as desktops of apparent
> identical speed.
>

Paul, That may be a bit of a generalization...

I crunch on SETI on 3 systems, an AMD XP2600 (Home built) an AMD 64bit 3000+ (home built) and a Dell Inspiron Laptop 2.0GHz.

The last 9 results returned by the laptop took between 1:54 and 2:09 - not bad by any standard.

In fact, the laptop is 25%+ faster than either of the home-builds - Seems I need to have a look at them - I wasn't expecting that result o(

---

> As a reference point, my Pentium M, 1.6GHz, 512MB RAM runs workunits in a bit
> over 2.5 hours, so yours should definately be in the 2-3 hour range.
>
> Doesn't look like you've returned any WU's in BOINC so we have no way of
> looking at your benchmarks... I just re-read a post of yours and it looks
> like you said you're only running Classic? If so, these are the BOINC forums
> and anything anyone suggests for times/options/etc would relate to BOINC, not
> Classic...
>

Thanks Hans, treznor,

Sorry if I have posted in the wrong forum. I am referring to the seti@home ver 3.08 which I guess is a part of boinc. My figures are a bit skewed as I had asked a friend also to use my id to check the WU nos. He is running a hyperthreaded P4 and he got very good nos. I used CPUID to check clock speed, FSB etc. The core clock speed cruises at 595.5 MHz and the FSB at around 99.9 MHZ with a multiplier of 6. When the Seti@home kicks in the FSB stays at 99.9 but the muliplier goes upto 20 showing a core speed of 1998 Mhz. I initially thought it was something wrong with the Processor but I guess that is not it as even a new one makes no diff. I will download Sandra and post the results.

Yeppo

>
> I crunch on SETI on 3 systems, an AMD XP2600 (Home built) an AMD 64bit 3000+
> (home built) and a Dell Inspiron Laptop 2.0GHz.
>
> The last 9 results returned by the laptop took between 1:54 and 2:09 - not bad
> by any standard.
>
> In fact, the laptop is 25%+ faster than either of the home-builds - Seems I
> need to have a look at them - I wasn't expecting that result o(
>

Don't worry. The Pentium M has a fast floating point unit and 2MB of cache.
It's practically been built to crunch seti WUs :o)

Regards Hans

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> Paul, That may be a bit of a generalization...

Not a bit of a generalization ... a whole big HONKEN generalization... :)

But, that has been *MY* experience. However, it seems that the Pentium M has some good numbers ... as a matter of fact the posted numbers in this thread beat my P4 2.8 GHz (no HT) ...

SO, yes, I am taken aback! :)

> The last 9 results returned by the laptop took between 1:54 and 2:09 - not bad
> by any standard.

Noper, that IS quite good ... in fact I have to admit some envy of those numbers. They even beat my averages from my G5 (~2:32). I am eagerly awaiting my Dell so I can see what I can get out of it ...

---

This does really scare me as I too am running an Inspiron 2.0 GHZ. What is your entire config.

Thanks.
> >
> > I crunch on SETI on 3 systems, an AMD XP2600 (Home built) an AMD 64bit
> 3000+
> > (home built) and a Dell Inspiron Laptop 2.0GHz.
> >
> > The last 9 results returned by the laptop took between 1:54 and 2:09 -
> not bad
> > by any standard.
> >
> > In fact, the laptop is 25%+ faster than either of the home-builds - Seems
> I
> > need to have a look at them - I wasn't expecting that result o(
> >
>
> Don't worry. The Pentium M has a fast floating point unit and 2MB of cache.
> It's practically been built to crunch seti WUs :o)
>
> Regards Hans
>

---

> Sorry if I have posted in the wrong forum. I am referring to the seti@home ver
> 3.08 which I guess is a part of boinc.

Actually no, the Seti 3.08 version is not used when crunching Seti units under BOINC.

That version is a stand-alone application used to run Seti Classic. (for however long it still is active)

If you want to run Seti under BOINC, I suggest you start here, by maiing an account, waiting for the email to come in, download BOINC and follow Paul's sublime application install manual.

If you still want to keep on running Seti Classic though, you may want to repeat your questions at the Seti Classic forums. :)

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I got better speeds when I switched to the "Easy CLI Setup". You can find it here.(third one down)

http://www.seti.nl/content.php?c=downloadwin9x&language=1

It's the classic seti. You won't have the pretty graphics but it should speed things up. It's easy to install.

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Yeppo,
You should check you "Power Options" in the control panel. Make sure it is not going to sleep when you leave it alone for 20 minutes, and don't turn off your hard drives after 20 minutes either.

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> This does really scare me as I too am running an Inspiron 2.0 GHZ. What is
> your entire config.
>
> Thanks.
> > >
>

The spec bits that matter I guess are:
Dell Inspiron 9200
2.0GHz Pentium M
1GB RAM
Windows XP Pro
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
80GB HD

For a full spec, go to DELLs site and configure on to buy... select every option (choosing the most expensive when there is a choice) - that would be this box then :D

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> But, that has been *MY* experience. However, it seems that the Pentium M has
> some good numbers ... as a matter of fact the posted numbers in this thread
> beat my P4 2.8 GHz (no HT) ...

Pentium M is indeed a fast cruncher. For the reference, a bit off-topic numbers (at least for this forum ;) ) from CPDN:

Pentium-M @ 2GHz: 2.274 sec/TS
Pentium 4 HT @ 3.2GHz: 2.383 sec/TS (only 'half' of processor here)

I don't have any meaningful S@H numbers handy (all my recent WUs were done in less than 2 hours on -M).

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Metod ...

Check in the power managment their may be a way to configure to run for performence or battery saving.

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I Refuse to hold myself responsible for any of my actions.

si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

thanks for everyone's input. Sorry for delay in posting. I ran sandra and am getting comparable figures to the same config when i run benchmarks. The laptop seems to be ok otherwise but am at wit's end to figure this out.. Power setting was set at portable/laptop at which it runs at 600 MHZ unless an app like set kicks in, then it revs to 1998 MHZ. Tried changing power scheme to be "always on". Only diff is that it then runs at 1998 mhz all the time but my seti crunching does not get any faster..

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Am back from the dead as laptop had other issues in the meantime. As I had said earlier classic seti was running like a dog 10-14 hrs. Downloaded the Boinc version today and it is doing each WU in 2 hrs flat. Any idea why such a massive difference.

Thanks to all for all answers.

Yeppo

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