What on Earth is going on?

Questions and Answers : Windows : What on Earth is going on?

Author	Message
Mark Davison Send message Joined: 22 May 03 Posts: 4 Credit: 407,329 RAC: 0	Message 10340 - Posted: 20 Jul 2004, 14:54:22 UTC
	I finally got my S@H client logged into my account, and it is quite happily processing units. However, this Boinc rubbish keeps requesting 84612 seconds worth of work and still keeps getting the response "Message from server: No work available". What's going on with that? Is it processing classical or Boinc units? Or, (and I hope not) have I made a God awfull mess of the installation? Why are the guys from S@H still so quiet over this. I am beginning to fear that they have discovered alien life somewhere "out there", but they have now been abducted by it.
	ID: 10340 ·

Santiago E. Diaz Send message Joined: 17 Jan 03 Posts: 4 Credit: 23,247,775 RAC: 11,526	Message 10370 - Posted: 20 Jul 2004, 16:23:41 UTC
	Don't worry, you haven't made a mess of the BOINC installation. Whenever you see the BOINC client requesting "X" seconds of work, it is sending a request to the BOINC server for several work units (SETI@home/BOINC keeps - if possible - several work units cached in case of outages, that way your computer stays busy). In my experience, the computer has the ability to process all those work units before "X" seconds have elapsed, therefore, the cache is an estimate of "X" seconds (86,400 seconds = 1 day). The "No work available" response from the server means just that. What's happening is that the splitters that SETI@home uses to generate work units for BOINC are not keeping up with the demand (I suppose this is a good thing in the sense that there are many people running SETI@home/BOINC). In addition, S@h has been having problems with the splitters and servers over the past couple of days (rumor has it that they were the victim of a virus). In any case, the "No work available" is the result of general equipment problems. Finally, you could say that the work units that your machine is processing using BOINC are "designed" for SETI@home/BOINC, but in reality they contain the same type of data as the SETI@home/Classic work units. The difference is that SETI@home/Classic has a "one size fits all" work unit, BOINC is supposed to send your computer work units that it can process in a reasonable (if not small) amount of time based on the computer's bechmarks. Hope this helps. Happy crunching!!
	ID: 10370 ·

John McLeod VII Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 22343 Credit: 439,209 RAC: 396	Message 10531 - Posted: 21 Jul 2004, 3:33:14 UTC - in response to Message 10370.
	> Whenever you see the BOINC client requesting "X" seconds of work, it is > sending a request to the BOINC server for several work units (SETI@home/BOINC > keeps - if possible - several work units cached in case of outages, that way > your computer stays busy). In my experience, the computer has the ability to > process all those work units before "X" seconds have elapsed, therefore, the > cache is an estimate of "X" seconds (86,400 seconds = 1 day). > Close. The amount of work requested will be exceeded by up to almost one full WU. It should not quite be completed in the time requested. If you have a multi processor machine, and one CPU is out of work, but the low water mark has not been reached, then BOINC will ask for 1 second of work, and will get 1 WU no matter how long it is scheduled to take. BOINC will refuse a WU that will take longer to process than the deadline. > > Finally, you could say that the work units that your machine is processing > using BOINC are "designed" for SETI@home/BOINC, but in reality they contain > the same type of data as the SETI@home/Classic work units. The difference is > that SETI@home/Classic has a "one size fits all" work unit, BOINC is supposed > to send your computer work units that it can process in a reasonable (if not > small) amount of time based on the computer's bechmarks. > Again, close. Different projects have different WUs, and some projects have several different WUs. If you machine is capable of crunching a particular type of WU before the deadline, then your machine isa candidate for downloading that type of WU. S@H currently has only one type of WU just like S@H1 had only one type of WU. Predictor has 2 types of WU which take very different times to process. All of my machines have downloaded all of the types of WUs for these two projects.
	ID: 10531 ·

Pascal, K G Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 2343 Credit: 150,491 RAC: 0	Message 10574 - Posted: 21 Jul 2004, 5:30:36 UTC
	Owner's manual Website Owner's Manual Bah!!! I am in it for the money. Message from the Head ;o) of the Horse Head Nebula Branch of Seti@Home, Check is in the mail
	ID: 10574 ·

Questions and Answers : Windows : What on Earth is going on?