DEADLINES . . . PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE MESSAGE COMPLETELY . . .


@ All that keep stating that EVERYTHING is FINE with Them and that THEY "Don't have any Problems"

truth be told - i have been here @ SETI BOINC since the beginning - and i have had a few 'problems' here and there . . .

BUT - this present situation is something that i don't see anybody giving a clue as to what it might be that is wrong

for a number of us - AND there is a Problem . . . though with ALL the solutions that i have seen - NONE of them resolve

the problem that is @ hand . . .


i enjoy / and have enjoyed being a part of this Community and as well - a *Cruncher* - and stats don't mean 'didley'

to me NOR ever will . . . i work with the Science . . . and i find NOW - that there is a Problem with the Science here

and i would Sincerely like to see whatever it is - become Resolved . . . sooner than later . . .


ok - back to the Order of Things - anybody got a NEW Clue?


ps - This Present Problem is an 'anomaly' - i am quite sure of that . . . and should be checked out . . .


20 Results for user - nobody


< notice the dates - @ present - i am crunchin' the March 16th DATES - of which there are 13 more of that date to go -

i am quite positive i will not do all of them in time . . .


22 Mar 2007 Deadlines


Then - there are the others on these Berkeley Pages - dated for deadline = 17 on the Page previously showing 03 more

for March 22 deadline and also 03 for a March 28 Deadline on the first page @ Berkeley . . . THESE TASKS ARE NOT ON MY SYSTEM

INCLUDING NOT IN MY REGISTRY ETC . . . note: i keep 'hearing' *ghosts* - should i DELETE them or will they just go away on their own???

NOTE: BOINC Mgr. has only 16 TASKS on it - ONE (1) is workin' (regarding the March 16th DEADLINE . . . there are 13 tasks of this date)

and then in the BOINC Mgr. there are ONLY Three (03) Deadline Dates of MARCH 28th . . .

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

UPDATE: to my Post - i want to add . . . when i have been crunchin' in the Past - i use to OPEN TASK Manager (ctrl-alt-del) and Proceed

to look @ the BOINC using LOW Priority and i would change it to NORMAL . . . i found TODAY that this actually SLOWS the Task down -

whereas with LOW Priority - it Crunches quite a bit faster . . . NOW TESTING to see HOW LONG this will take ;)


[EDIT] i 'ave seen this Thread . . . RE: Ghosts, ghosts, and more ghosts...

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

First I'll preface this by saying that I've never had a WU returned late for any of the 15 projects I crunch for, so I'm a great believer that the Boinc scheduler is normally exceptionally efficient at meeting deadlines. But then I don't micromanage Boinc, I crunch 24/7, have a reasonable cache of .5 days and an always on connection on my main system. My slower computer has a 4 day cache since it run offline and I connect it to the net for UL/DL and reporting every day or two.

Now for your problem. We'll need a little detail about your operation to get some insight into what is happening.
What are your setting in general preference for...
Processor usage
Do work while computer is in use? yes/no
cache - 'Connect to network about every'
Use at most ??? percent of CPU time

Are you using a Preference_override file? Are you using local setting (Simple GUI preference setting). Any other tinkering like threadmaster?
Do you crunch 24/7 or only part of the day or when screensaver is on. How much time do you estimate Boinc gets.
What kind of Internet access? If modem or intermittent connection, how often is Boinc is allowed to report?

Computer details we are not privy to when checking your account.
% of time BOINC client is running
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed
Average CPU efficiency
Result duration correction factor

BTW: messing with the priority generally doesn't help. I believe it just gets reset to low priority after a WU is completed. Besides Boinc will use any free CPU cycle available anyway which should be in the high 80 to 90% unless you're running very CPU intensive application like video rendering.

---

Boinc V7.2.42
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB, GTX470

DEADLINES . . . PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE MESSAGE COMPLETELY . . .

<snip>

Then - there are the others on these Berkeley Pages - dated for deadline = 17 on the Page previously showing 03 more

for March 22 deadline and also 03 for a March 28 Deadline on the first page @ Berkeley . . . THESE TASKS ARE NOT ON MY SYSTEM

INCLUDING NOT IN MY REGISTRY ETC . . . note: i keep 'hearing' *ghosts* - should i DELETE them or will they just go away on their own???

NOTE: BOINC Mgr. has only 16 TASKS on it - ONE (1) is workin' (regarding the March 16th DEADLINE . . . there are 13 tasks of this date)

and then in the BOINC Mgr. there are ONLY Three (03) Deadline Dates of MARCH 28th . . .

OK, regarding Ghosts:

Simply put, any result which appears on your computer summary page which cannot be identified exactly by it's name on the host is called a ghost. There is nothing you can do about it from your end except let them expire and get purged from the list eventually. They don't have any impact on what your host is actually doing with regard to work it actually has onboard.

Regarding your apparent Scheduling Jam:

Forget the deadline dates for now. Looking at the Sent Date, I'm going to guess that you have all the results onboard that were set on Mar 4th, and none of the results which were sent before that date, correct?

If that's the case, then of the 17 results sent on the 4th, there are currently 13 in progress which are due on the 16th, and using the CPU time for the one returned already as an estimate this represents roughly 57 hours of flat out crunching to complete. So yes, you are really short on time for them, and if you don't normally crunch 24/7, then yes you will not make the deadline for all of them due on the 16th.

So at this point it's obvious as you say that something anomalous happened on or around the first of the month, as evidenced by the fact you spawned a new ID for the host a few days later. However the chances of determining conclusively what happened two weeks later are slim.

One thing which I'm not clear on is why the performance of the host is not up to what it was doing previously, as evidenced from your BoincStats data.

However the question remains as to what to do now. Personally what I would do is set the host to a shorter CI for now (the large number it DL'ed on the 4th and the 7 plus day turnaround indicates you normally run a larger cache setting). One thing to consider is the shorter you set it, the more frequently it will report completed results, even if it doesn't DL new work. This will help the performance metrics readjust quicker if they have gotten whacky for some reason.

Next I would abort all the results due on the 16th except for the one currently running and these:

117175664
117175669

The reason here is you've already spent time on the one running, and the other 2 don't have a quorum formed yet.

This should eliminate the scheduling jam, allow the host to get out of EDF mode, and help expedite it getting back to normal.

I'd also consider letting it run constantly until these three are out of the picture, and then you have 12+ days to get the ones due on the 28th done. There shouldn't be a problem if the host is working properly and you could go back to your normal uptime routine at that point.

Once that's accomplished and assuming everything is looking good, then start working the CI back to where you want it.

HTH,

Alinator

Processor usage

Do work while computer is running on batteries?
(matters only for portable computers) yes
Do work while computer is in use? yes
Do work only between the hours of (no restriction)
Leave applications in memory while suspended?
(suspended applications will consume swap space if 'yes') yes
Switch between applications every
(recommended: 60 minutes) 60 minutes
On multiprocessors, use at most 1 processors
Use at most
Enforced by version 5.6 and greater 100 percent of CPU time
Disk and memory usage
Use at most 30 GB disk space
Leave at least
(Values smaller than 0.001 are ignored) 2 GB disk space free
Use at most 30% of total disk space
Write to disk at most every 60 seconds
Use at most 75% of page file (swap space)
Use at most
Enforced by version 5.8 and greater 75% of memory when computer is in use
Use at most
Enforced by version 5.8 and greater 100% of memory when computer is idle

Network usage

Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 10 days
Confirm before connecting to Internet?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) no
Disconnect when done?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) no
Maximum download rate: no limit
Maximum upload rate: no limit
Use network only between the hours of
Enforced by versions 4.46 and greater (no restriction)
Skip image file verification?
Check this ONLY if your Internet provider modifies image files (UMTS does this, for example).
Skipping verification reduces the security of BOINC. no

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

just 'aborted' the rest of the 16th Date - 1/3 finished on last 16th

see settings below in last post . . .

credit

Next 20
489398653 117175700 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:40:01 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398639 117175688 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:40:47 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398627 117175684 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:42:10 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398623 117175691 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:29 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398609 117175680 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:49 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398607 117175679 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:49 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398601 117175683 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:08 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398597 117175687 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:40:21 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398579 117175682 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 16 Mar 2007 21:13:58 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- --- WORKING
489398575 117175676 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 9:02:39 UTC Over Success Done 15,788.73 32.25 32.25
489398556 117175672 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:08 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398554 117175655 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 28 Mar 2007 15:17:25 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- --- still to do
489398508 117175669 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:29 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398490 117175664 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:42:10 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398481 117175658 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 14 Mar 2007 19:41:08 UTC Over Client error Aborted 0.00 0.00 ---
489398467 117175650 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 28 Mar 2007 15:17:25 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- --- still to do
489398459 117175657 4 Mar 2007 14:40:25 UTC 28 Mar 2007 15:17:25 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- --- still to do
486791567 116550399 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791550 116550386 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791539 116550384 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---

Previous 20

486791527 116550388 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791526 116550381 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791512 116550380 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791481 116550376 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791462 116550367 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791440 116550364 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791424 116550356 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791410 116550351 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791393 116550349 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791288 116550325 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791267 116550323 1 Mar 2007 0:25:06 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:10:20 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
486791229 116550316 1 Mar 2007 0:25:53 UTC 22 Mar 2007 8:11:07 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
484460321 115997584 25 Feb 2007 21:17:21 UTC 22 Mar 2007 17:43:51 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
484460308 115997575 25 Feb 2007 21:17:21 UTC 22 Mar 2007 10:49:38 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
484460283 115997564 25 Feb 2007 21:17:21 UTC 22 Mar 2007 17:43:51 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
484460172 115997536 25 Feb 2007 21:17:21 UTC 22 Mar 2007 10:49:38 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---
484460158 115997531 25 Feb 2007 21:17:21 UTC 22 Mar 2007 17:43:51 UTC In Progress Unknown New --- --- ---

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Computer information

IP address Show IP address
Domain name LeonardosPentium240GHzSystem
Local Standard Time UTC -5 hours
Name LeonardosPentium240GHzSystem
Created 4 Mar 2007 14:39:21 UTC
Total Credit 15,449.55
Recent average credit 15.63
CPU type GenuineIntel
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz [x86 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 1] [fpu tsc sse sse2 mmx]
Number of CPUs 1
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition, Service Pack 2, (05.01.2600.00)
Memory 1023.48 MB
Cache 976.56 KB
Swap space 5533.6 MB
Total disk space 128 GB
Free Disk Space 117.43 GB
Measured floating point speed 992.25 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed 1694.7 million ops/sec
Average upload rate 5.2 KB/sec
Average download rate Unknown
Average turnaround time 6.37 days
Maximum daily WU quota per CPU 88/day
Results 37
Number of times client has contacted server 27
Last time contacted server 14 Mar 2007 19:42:10 UTC
% of time BOINC client is running 99.4215 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 99.9863 %
Average CPU efficiency 0.1108
Result duration correction factor 0.756333

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Network usage

Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 10 days

Part of your problem may be that you are attempting to cache 10 days worth of work, and as Allinator said, previously your computer could handle this but now for some reason cannot and so it will miss some deadlines.

One thing you might want to try is lowering your cache to around 3 days or so. This should prevent BOINC from downloading too much work and effectively overloading your computer with workunits due.

---

Thanks to Each of You . . . here's mi specs

edit - changed to 'every 3 days' - as suggested ;)

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name LEONARDO
System Manufacturer Not Available
System Model Not Available
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 5 GenuineIntel ~467 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. 4.51 PG, 7/5/2000
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory E:\\WINXP
System Directory E:\\WINXP\\System32
Boot Device \\Device\\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)"
User Name LEONARDO\\Richard W. Lubrich J
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 896.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 119.60 MB
Total Virtual Memory 1.27 GB
Available Virtual Memory 768.00 MB
Page File Space 919.96 MB
Page File D:\\pagefile.sys
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name LEONARDO

System Manufacturer

Gigabyte P4 Titan GA-81PE1000-G Intel 865PE / 1CH5 / FSB800 P4 Socket 478 / ATX / AGP 8X 4 DDR400

Dual-CH / 8-CH Audio GbE / 2 SATA / 8 USB2.0

Intel Pentium 4 Processor 2.40A GHz 1MB L2-Cache 533 MHz FSB PGA-478

System Model Not Available
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 6 Stepping 5 GenuineIntel ~467 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Award Software International, Inc. 4.51 PG, 7/5/2000
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Windows Directory E:\\WINXP
System Directory E:\\WINXP\\System32
Boot Device \\Device\\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)"
User Name LEONARDO\\Richard W. Lubrich J
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Total Physical Memory 896.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 119.60 MB
Total Virtual Memory 1.27 GB
Available Virtual Memory 768.00 MB
Page File Space 919.96 MB
Page File D:\\pagefile.sys

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

SETI@home preferences

Resource share
If you participate in multiple BOINC projects, this is the proportion of your resources used by SETI@home 100
Should SETI@home send you email newsletters?
Emails will be sent from boincadm@ssl.berkeley.edu; make sure your spam filter accepts this address. yes
Should SETI@home show your computers on its web site? yes
Default computer location home
Graphics preferences
Select Custom to edit individual parameters Minimalist
Color preferences:
Select Custom to edit individual parameters Tahiti Sunset
URL of background image
This image (JPEG, Targa, BMP or PPM format) will be displayed in the background. none
URL of logo image
This image (JPEG, Targa, BMP or PPM format) will be displayed in the lower corner. none

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Network usage

Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 10 days

Part of your problem may be that you are attempting to cache 10 days worth of work, and as Allinator said, previously your computer could handle this but now for some reason cannot and so it will miss some deadlines.

One thing you might want to try is lowering your cache to around 3 days or so. This should prevent BOINC from downloading too much work and effectively overloading your computer with workunits due.

The other thing which caught my eye was the 11% CPU efficiency. This could be a real show stopper if accurate with a large cache, even if the host is running all the time.

Alinator

The other thing which caught my eye was the 11% CPU efficiency. This could be a real show stopper if accurate with a large cache, even if the host is running all the time.

Alinator

i 'ave to go do some work for now - but - when i get back . . .

Q. What would you suggest i do here re: CPU Efficiency ?

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Well, taking a Hypocratic approach to the problem:

Since the CPU efficiency is defined as the ratio of CPU Time to Wall Time, and the other performance metrics indicate you're running it pretty close to 24/7, the only thing which would normally drop the efficiency that low would be something else grabbing massive amounts of CPU time. The other possibilty is the science app is stalling out for some reason, even though there is not another process looking to use the CPU excessively.

A quick and dirty check would be to watch the timers in BOINC Manager closely for a bit during a run and make sure they're moving more less in lockstep. BoincView can show the efficiency in near real time so you could go that route to monitor it for a while.

In any event if you have been running 24/7 and don't use it for anything particularly heavy duty on what I'm assuming is a Northwood P4, it should be doing over 100 for RAC even on the stock app. This doesn't appear to be the case for the interval I can observe on BoincStats, even before this latest problem occured and indicates something screwy has been going on for awhile.

For example, my 2.66 P4 is a Northwood pullng 350 on the Coop 2.2B SSE2, and is a family daily driver (meaning it gets gamed and abused teenagers and other assorted careless folk <shudder> doing other typical home based activities). Taking the best estimates I've read and my own experience on Core Duo, this app is roughly twice as fast as stock app. Since yours is only a couple of hundred MHz slower than mine, I think you can see where I'm going here.

So at this point if you find that the efficiency figure is accurate, you'd have to get into examining all the other processes running concurrently. A typical candidate is commercial internet security/privacy suites. In their case, I have found their kernel level drivers can be overly paranoid and particularly obnoxious about poking their nose into what other processes are doing and generally slowing things down, especially something like BOINC which will give up the machine when virtually anything else asks for it.

Alinator

Also a 10 day cache with deadlines that are 4.5 days away is a recipe for occasional disaster. If the cache is really full (10 days of actual work) and all of the deadlines are 4.5 days from now, more than half of the work is going to be late - guaranteed.

---

BOINC WIKI

Also a 10 day cache with deadlines that are 4.5 days away is a recipe for occasional disaster. If the cache is really full (10 days of actual work) and all of the deadlines are 4.5 days from now, more than half of the work is going to be late - guaranteed.

@ John - there are ONLY three (3) in the cache @ this time and they deadline on the 28th . . . the fourth (4) one is a little over 1/2 done since around 10 AM EST . . .

@ Alinator - i will check out BoincView later tomorrow . . .

Thanks to Each of you for your input ;)

fyi - there are NO Processes showing in Windows Task Mgr. that are doin' anything out of the 'ordinary' . . .

a NOTE: MOST of the PROBLEMS started when i started Crunchin' Einstein - my RAC went from close to 200 (started present crunchin' w/ zero credits and now have a Credit: 16,259 w/ RAC: 15 - and this is from JUNE 28th 2006)

sigh . . .

richard

[edit] i am using TW / RR Internet w/ CA Internet Security Suite software also

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

@ John - there are ONLY three (3) in the cache @ this time and they deadline on the 28th . . . the fourth (4) one is a little over 1/2 done since around 10 AM EST . . .

@ Alinator - i will check out BoincView later tomorrow . . .

Thanks to Each of you for your input ;)

fyi - there are NO Processes showing in Windows Task Mgr. that are doin' anything out of the 'ordinary' . . .

a NOTE: MOST of the PROBLEMS started when i started Crunchin' Einstein - my RAC went from close to 200 (started present crunchin' w/ zero credits and now have a Credit: 16,259 w/ RAC: 15 - and this is from JUNE 28th 2006)

sigh . . .

richard

Ah, OK I didn't look to see of you were running more than one project, but it doesn't look like you've been running it lately. FWIW, I run EAH as well and the credit rate is actually a little better there than here when you run the stock app here, and the two have always run together fine, at least in my experience.

One other thing I noticed when reviewing your system specs, was whatever was reporting that data was showing the processor being clocked at less than 500 MHz!!?? I'm assuming that it was from Windows System Info utility, and it's not unheard of for Windows to not have a clue what the hardware is really doing, but that would certainly kill performance if it actually was running that slow.

Verifying with CPU-Z and/or confirming the speed selection settings in the BIOS is easy enough to do, and should eliminate that one way or another. I've seen plenty of auto-config MB's default to their slowest speeds when they don't recognize what's in the socket, so you may have to overide them manually. Given the date shown for the BIOS that could be a possibility, so checking for an update for it might be something to look into as well.

Anyway, I guess we've given you enough to poke and prod at it with for at least a couple of days or so. Good luck bug hunting, and I'm sure you'll find the problem eventually and release all that sleeping crunching power. ;-)

Alinator

<edit> I see you're running CA ISS, and I can tell you the newest version is a real burden on my old timers, but I wouldn't think it should kill a P4's performance that much. Still it couldn't hurt disabling ISS and reenabling XP's firewall and see what happens just for laughs.

Alinator

<edit> I see you're running CA ISS, and I can tell you the newest version is a real burden on my old timers, but I wouldn't think it should kill a P4's performance that much. Still it couldn't hurt disabling ISS and reenabling XP's firewall and see what happens just for laughs

eh Alinator - i am Runnin' both ZoneAlarm Pro (CAs EZ Firewall v 5.1.039.004) AND MS Windows Firewall @ the same time (always) . . .

i 'ave been posting - previously mi SPECs from CPU-Z . . . i will do it again later on and Post here . . .

i 'ave *Flash* bios on MB available - THOUGH i haven't done that sigh

so much to do with mi normal day and THIS . . . will Post & look into each etc . . .

edit: CPU-Z Report

CPU-Z version 1.35.


CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1

Name Intel Pentium 4
Code Name Prescott
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Family / Model / Stepping F 4 1
Extended Family / Model F 4
Package mPGA-478
Core Stepping E0
Technology 90 nm
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3
CPU Clock Speed 2411.6 MHz
Clock multiplier x 18.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 134.0 MHz
Bus Speed 535.9 MHz
L1 Data Cache 16 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Trace Cache 12 Kuops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache 1024 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed 2411.6 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits



Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Motherboard model 8IPE1000-G/L, x.x
BIOS vendor Award Software International, Inc.
BIOS revision F5
BIOS release date 08/19/2005
Chipset Intel i865P/PE/G/i848P rev. A2
Southbridge Intel 82801EB (ICH5) rev. 02
Sensor chip ITE 6001
FSB Select 533 MHz
Performance Mode enabled

Graphic Interface AGP
AGP Status enabled, rev. 3.0
AGP Data Transfer Rate 8x
AGP Max Rate 8x
AGP Side Band Addressing supported, enabled



Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 167.5 MHz
FSB:DRAM 4:5
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 7 clocks
# of memory modules 4
Module 0 DDR PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 1 DDR PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 2 DDR PC3200 - 256 MBytes
Module 3 DDR PC3200 - 256 MBytes



Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c

---

BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

Okie dokie, this lateset data looks to have knocked a few candidates off the list of possibilities. The most important being it hasn't been clocked down to K6-2 status. That's progress! ;-)

Regarding the firewalls:

I'm fairly familiar with ZA and ISS, and although for the most part ZA is pretty accomodating about playing nice with other firewalls, the version CA puts out has been modified. I haven't tried it out on any of my XP boxes yet, but my experience on 9x/NT/2K inidicated that it wasn't too happy when there was other stuff hooking the network stack. This lead to problems ranging from instant reboot "panics", to BSOD's, to triggering lengthy stalls of the Windows UI.

Therefore a real easy thing to try would be to just disable the XP firewall for awhile and see what happens. This shouldn't result in any significant reduction in security since there aren't any externally vulnerable security exploits for ISS I'm aware of at the moment, and would eliminate a variable from the equation for troubleshooting purposes.

Alinator

<edit> One other thing just to make sure we are on the same page here is, you are running it full time and it does have a full time network connection available, correct? I know the pref shows no network restrictions, but you don't manually disable it from the Manager do you? Some folks do that when they aren't around on broadband.

Okie dokie, this lateset data looks to have knocked a few candidates off the list of possibilities. The most important being it hasn't been clocked down to K6-2 status. That's progress! ;-)

Regarding the firewalls:

I'm fairly familiar with ZA and ISS, and although for the most part ZA is pretty accomodating about playing nice with other firewalls, the version CA puts out has been modified. I haven't tried it out on any of my XP boxes yet, but my experience on 9x/NT/2K inidicated that it wasn't too happy when there was other stuff hooking the network stack. This lead to problems ranging from instant reboot "panics", to BSOD's, to triggering lengthy stalls of the Windows UI.

Therefore a real easy thing to try would be to just disable the XP firewall for awhile and see what happens. This shouldn't result in any significant reduction in security since there aren't any externally vulnerable security exploits for ISS I'm aware of at the moment, and would eliminate a variable from the equation for troubleshooting purposes.

Alinator

<edit> One other thing just to make sure we are on the same page here is, you are running it full time and it does have a full time network connection available, correct? I know the pref shows no network restrictions, but you don't manually disable it from the Manager do you? Some folks do that when they aren't around on broadband.

24 / 7 - CABLE BROADBAND . . . NO NETWORK RESTRICTIONS - even had MS Firewall w/ exception for ISP of SETI@home / BOINC Manager w/ 2 ISP Listed (allowed lately)


ps- turned OFF MS Firewall . . . sigh ps - whenever i Re-Boot - BECAUSE of CA ZA . . . MS Firewall was always Dis-abled and i would ENABLE it each Re-Boot . . . i'll let 'er ride for awhile . . . see what happens /

also moved Windows Task Mgr. to 'Set Priorty' to NORMAL - it starts w/ LOW usually - so when a New Task Starts - i put it to NORMAL EH . . .

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BOINC Wiki . . .

Science Status Page . . .

I have noticed a similar problem to that described by nobody.
I'm currently running SETI on an AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ with 2GB Ram, XP Home SP2. The CPU Efficiency is appallingly low for this machine, and I don't know why! On stats the CPU efficiency is rated as around 31% for a completed WU.
BUT....
When I open WindowsTaskManager it shows System Idle Process fluctuating between 62-74%,70 processes running(67 of them at 0),and the 2 SaH 5.15_KWSN's running between 13-19%. Both are autoset to LOW PRIORITY, and any attempts to change this, results in warnings of system instability-the machine then freezes and reboots, setting both SaH threads back to low priority.

The other PC I'm using is an Intel Celeron 2.66Ghz (1CPU)with only 512MB RAM,again with XP Home SP2, & under Win Task Manager the process is using 98% CPU!!

What can I do to get the supposedly more powerful PC to operate at the same CPU efficiency level as the Intel?

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