Just been told that the task my Mac is working on is overdue and I should consider aborting it as I may not get credit for it. When I was running SETI@Home a few years ago, the idea was to make use of spare CPU time. Now I appear to be being told that if I don't allocate enough CPU time, I shouldn't bother .....

While I have no problem letting 'spare' CPU time be allocated to SETI, I don't propose to run my computer specifically in the interests of the SETI project.

Or have I missed something?

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The point is to donate spare CPU time, but a time limit must be placed on tasks for a variety of reasons.

The biggest reason is because for every task a user downloads, two are actually sent out and both are needed to verify the results. If only one is received, the other person in the quorum will not receive their credit in a timely manor and must wait for the other result to come back.

To keep the database small, and to give out credit in a timely manor, a time limit was given to ensure the system runs smoothly.

This time limit depends on the complexity of the WU, but can be as much as four weeks away. With just a couple hours a day, this should be a very realistic time limit for any semi-modern computer to complete.


Another smaller reason why time limits exist is due to the fact that, back in the old SETI (before BOINC), many people would download a WU (a.k.a. "task") and not even return it. Without a time limit of some sort, this result would wait indefinitely and the science would go nowhere.

So, you see, just as spare cycles are important, so is the time allowed to complete so that actual science can be accomplished.

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The point is to donate spare CPU time, but a time limit must be placed on tasks for a variety of reasons.

The biggest reason is because for every task a user downloads, two are actually sent out and both are needed to verify the results. If only one is received, the other person in the quorum will not receive their credit in a timely manor and must wait for the other result to come back.

To keep the database small, and to give out credit in a timely manor, a time limit was given to ensure the system runs smoothly.

This time limit depends on the complexity of the WU, but can be as much as four weeks away. With just a couple hours a day, this should be a very realistic time limit for any semi-modern computer to complete.


Another smaller reason why time limits exist is due to the fact that, back in the old SETI (before BOINC), many people would download a WU (a.k.a. "task") and not even return it. Without a time limit of some sort, this result would wait indefinitely and the science would go nowhere.

So, you see, just as spare cycles are important, so is the time allowed to complete so that actual science can be accomplished.

Understood - but, what you seem to be saying is that unless I allocate the time you want, you aren't interested? Personally, I don't actually leave my computer on all the time - if I'm not actively using it, I turn it off, so keeping my carbon footprint down :-) At a guess, this means my 'spare' CPU time is probaly ~5% of the time it is powered up. As I said, I'm happy to donate 'spare' CPU time but I'm not going to leave the CPU running just to process SETI data.

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Understood - but, what you seem to be saying is that unless I allocate the time you want, you aren't interested? Personally, I don't actually leave my computer on all the time - if I'm not actively using it, I turn it off, so keeping my carbon footprint down :-) At a guess, this means my 'spare' CPU time is probaly ~5% of the time it is powered up. As I said, I'm happy to donate 'spare' CPU time but I'm not going to leave the CPU running just to process SETI data.

SETI@Home is interested in getting as much power as it can, but must still produce science in a timely manor.

Each user must decide if they can leave their system on enough to contribute to the program and still meet this deadline.

If not, then unfortunately, SETI may not be for you.

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You could try setting "Suspend work while computer is in use?" to NO. Most people do not notice any difference. The suspend work option stops BOINC from running whenever there is mouse or keyboard activity.

To find this option:

Click on 'Your Account' on the black bar at the top of the page.
Select 'General Prefences'
You should not see the option "Suspend work While....."
To change this, Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on 'Edit prefences'.

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SL

You could try setting "Suspend work while computer is in use?" to NO. Most people do not notice any difference. The suspend work option stops BOINC from running whenever there is mouse or keyboard activity.

Good advice, but I don't think that's his problem. He said he only has his system powered on about 5% of the time, then he powers it down. Unless I misunderstood him....?

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You could try setting "Suspend work while computer is in use?" to NO. Most people do not notice any difference. The suspend work option stops BOINC from running whenever there is mouse or keyboard activity.

Good advice, but I don't think that's his problem. He said he only has his system powered on about 5% of the time, then he powers it down. Unless I misunderstood him....?

No, it reads that spare CPU time is 5% of the time that it is powered up. Meaning is that only 5% of the time that the machine is on is BOINC getting any CPU time. This would mean that the setting change might work.

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BOINC WIKI

Good advice, but I don't think that's his problem. He said he only has his system powered on about 5% of the time, then he powers it down. Unless I misunderstood him....?

No, it reads that spare CPU time is 5% of the time that it is powered up. Meaning is that only 5% of the time that the machine is on is BOINC getting any CPU time. This would mean that the setting change might work.

I presumed 5% was total time using his spare cycles while powered up. He did not specify that it was 5% idle. I made this presumption based on the fact that he said he powers down his system, which most people do when their done with their system. Some people just don't use their computers that much.

Unless he can clear this up for us...

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I have to say that this "you have to have shiny new ultra-fast processor and donate 100% of time, always powered up, or just go away, we don't need you" policy really sucks :-(

I just noticed that my computer is idle, so I looked into the log what happens and I see:

2007-08-25 15:38:04 [SETI@home] Requesting 35998 seconds of new work
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: No work sent
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: (won't finish in time) Computer on 77.4% of time, BOINC on 100.0% of that, this project gets 25.0% of that
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 11 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: requested by project
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 3 hr 29 min 45 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: no work from project
2

oh, great - my computer in on nearly 100% time, I use it as remote storage, where the 77.4% number came from?

and it's Athlon64 @ 1.8 GHz - that is so slow machine that it won't finish a workunit in time? don't let me laugh, at another place I am using old 700 MHz Duron with no need to upgrade, it is sufficient for any job that I need

so, in your opinion, it is better to let such a vast computing power in vain (I repeat: the CPU is always on and idle at the moment, SETI would get 100% of time, not the 77,4*25%), just because some competitive users need to know their creait without even the slightest delay?

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I have to say that this "you have to have shiny new ultra-fast processor and donate 100% of time, always powered up, or just go away, we don't need you" policy really sucks :-(

I just noticed that my computer is idle, so I looked into the log what happens and I see:

2007-08-25 15:38:04 [SETI@home] Requesting 35998 seconds of new work
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: No work sent
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: (won't finish in time) Computer on 77.4% of time, BOINC on 100.0% of that, this project gets 25.0% of that
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 11 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: requested by project
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 3 hr 29 min 45 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: no work from project
2

oh, great - my computer in on nearly 100% time, I use it as remote storage, where the 77.4% number came from?

and it's Athlon64 @ 1.8 GHz - that is so slow machine that it won't finish a workunit in time? don't let me laugh, at another place I am using old 700 MHz Duron with no need to upgrade, it is sufficient for any job that I need

so, in your opinion, it is better to let such a vast computing power in vain (I repeat: the CPU is always on and idle at the moment, SETI would get 100% of time, not the 77,4*25%), just because some competitive users need to know their creait without even the slightest delay?

No, this is a bug in the server code that is left over from the time that the client scheduler was much less capable. I am trying to get someones attention to get it fixed.

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BOINC WIKI

2007-08-25 15:38:04 [SETI@home] Requesting 35998 seconds of new work
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: No work sent
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Message from server: (won't finish in time) Computer on 77.4% of time, BOINC on 100.0% of that, this project gets 25.0% of that
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 11 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: requested by project
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Deferring communication for 3 hr 29 min 45 sec
2007-08-25 15:38:09 [SETI@home] Reason: no work from project

No, this is a bug in the server code that is left over from the time that the client scheduler was much less capable. I am trying to get someones attention to get it fixed.

ok, thankyou for the explanation ... I was confused by this thread

so I'll have to wait - and do not tell me I should register other projects :-)
(either they are constantly out of workunits or they do not like 64bit Linux)

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