First thing: the state after complete reinstall

State after client reinstall and reset (and after finally downloading the packages) is much better, but still weird.

2004-10-07 09:30:40 - time of wu download
2004-10-21 09:27:44 - deadline for them

Means 14 days of deadline, while 7 days of cache set.

Seems ok, but...

It downloaded 39 workunits, estimating each for 06:43:23.

39 * 06:43:23 = 262.1991(6) hours = 10.92 days ~ 11 days

Okay, now it is luckily under the deadline, and hopefully will stay so.

But... the 06:43:23 time-per-unit is the same as with 4.03 seti application. Many people say on the forum that their 4.05 works slower than 4.03 by 25-40%. I hope it is rumour only, because if it is not...

...Then I may find myself again with more units than I can crunch in 14 days.

---------

Second thing: the "check if power is on?" questions and suggestions

> How much RAM do you have installed? The cheapest way to
> speed up a computer is to add more RAM.

512 MB

> What other applications are you running? What do you
> have running in the System Tray?

I know how to care for my system, how to make it running well and fast. please do not be afraid :P

Enough to say, my XP has one year since last reinstall (reinstalled because new hdd acquired). It is still the same smooth and fast it was the first day. I am of the kind that repairs, not reinstalls. Believe me, my system is well.

Anyone here tried to keep the Win95 running for 3 years without uninstall, while keeping it quite busy for all that time, installing and uninstalling a heavy load of software all these years?..

And I am running SETI@home since July 2001. I know how it tastes.

> Are you leaving BOINC_gui open? What tab are you
> leaving the display on?

No, BOINC sees the light of the desktop 1-3 times a day to get the "update" clicked (of course if there are no problems). All other time it sits in the tray..

> (...) select the "Projects" tab before you hide it.

Thanks, interesting. I don't thing it will make any visible change in crunchtime, but always worth to get used to.

> Click on my signature and do a little reading.

Already seen it. Read further...

---------

Third and final: the problem with understanding.

This topic was the second time I mentioned the same problem on these forums. The problem that the "connect every ..." has many imperfections and there is no real feature to lock it from being set above the general project deadline.

In both cases, I met people flaming or trying "to teach me how to use BOINC". Examples here?...

> IF YOU SET YOUR CONNECT EVERY DAY TO A
> REASONABLE TIME YOU WOULD NOT HAVE TO
> RESET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

> It seems that no matter how many people
> tell him he's doing it wrong and that
> he doesn't actually understand how the
> system works (...)

> Reading Threads like this, helps to explain
> why 90% of the work I've gotten today ends
> with a 3 or higher. (...)

> I know it is "un-cool" to suggest
> this ... :) But (...)

The second time no-one understands the overall problem, no-one tries to understand why have I posted this, most people choose to think "hey, look, it is a bastard, let's teach him or let's kick his ass".


You want my suggestion? Try to look at the problem this way:

For all people joined in SETI@home, nearly a small percentage reads this forum. Most people just find it a "nice project I want to support but I've got my own life and I do not wish to be a part of active community". Also, only a small percentage of people reads any documentation or FAQ or whatever of such style.

This generally means, that for one person talking about problem on forums, there are quite more people that have the same problem in mind but are not talking about it. And there are thousands of people that may have the same problem as I notice but do not realise that.

Think how many people will set their connection interval to a troublemaking one. Why? Because they do not know the magic "1D set = 1-2D real". The do not know about 14-days deadline. Actually, they may even not be looking at their clients.

Many people fit in this scheme. Many wu's are discarded in many different ways. The unclear situation with the connection interval setting and the deadline takes a big part in wasteing your calculations.

You may always say "Argh, why these moroons are so dumb they do not read documentation?". But remember, if there were a death penalty for not reading the manual, world population would be back below 1 Bilion. That should be another Murphy Law.


In my computer experience I met two programmist fractions. One was betting the user will read the manual or will be forced too. Second knew most of the users won't read the manual and made their applications having that in mind.

The second group had a much happier life.


Please. I didn't set this topic to have a flame war here, but because I wanted to start a discussion about a way to fix the problem that in my opinion is very important for all of us. Not to be teached how to fix my case.


Thanks for reading this long, long post :]

> Please. I didn't set this topic to have a flame war here, but because I wanted
> to start a discussion about a way to fix the problem that in my opinion is
> very important for all of us. Not to be teached how to fix my case.

It is important, and like many other things, is in the queue to be worked on. But, we are still doing some of the first things first (cross-platform GUI comes to mind). I did not get the impression that we had a flame war going yet.

But, scanning back through all of the posts I got the distinct impression that you were having a problem and wanted help for it. I think the others were also laboring under that impression. SO, we offerred advice...

There was, some, frustration when you seemed to be talking about getting resolution to your problem on your system and the fact that you did not seem to be responding to the advice offerred. Simple miscommunication.

> Thanks for reading this long, long post :]

No problems ... :)
<p>
For BOINC Documentation: Click Me!

> In both cases, I met people flaming or trying "to teach me how to use BOINC".
> Examples here?...

So you were not posting your question looking for an answer? You didn't want people to "teach" you how to use BOINC? Then what was the point of your post?

> The second time no-one understands the overall problem, no-one tries to
> understand why have I posted this, most people choose to think "hey, look, it
> is a bastard, let's teach him or let's kick his ass".

I'm sorry. I see several mentions along the lines of, "adjust your cache smaller so you won't miss the deadline" before the "flames" you use for examples...

Mentions were also made that the deadlines aren't being adjusted as you suspected.

The "flames" only began with your apparent disregard to what we were trying to tell you. You were given several "fixes", yet you didn't accept them.

Yes, the cache settings with BOINC aren't perfect, but they are all we have at the moment. So until BOINC is able to disallow downloading of more work than your machine can process before the deadline, the only "fix" is to use a moderate cache setting. Whether you understood the inner workings of BOINC or not was irrelevent. You were told how to remedy the situation several times.

Yes, the fault is ultimately BOINCs, but there is a very simple way to ensure that your problem doesn't happen.

Edit: "Please. I didn't set this topic to have a flame war here, but because I wanted to start a discussion about a way to fix the problem that in my opinion is very important for all of us. Not to be teached how to fix my case."

Well, whether or not you want to be taught how to fix your case, a problem that is very important for all of us is wanton client resetting. So whether or not you were looking to others for a resolution to your problem isn't really the concern here. Many of us jumped in because what you seem to feel is the proper method (resetting when you blow past a deadline) is actually hurting the project, and all of us who donate computer time to it. In this case, it is crucial to "teach" a user how to properly run the client...

If you set "connect to project every 3 days" you'll always have between three and six days of work. That will easily meet deadlines.

If you find that 3 days works well, try 4.

When you tell BOINC to connect every 7 days, it's going bounce between 7 and 14 days in the cache, and you may not finish all work before the deadline.

IMO, the "fix" is to limit the maximum time between connections to something less than 7 days -- and setting it higher is user error.

> But like I said I need the cache for several days in case of server problems.

> > In both cases, I met people flaming or trying "to teach me how to use
> BOINC".
> > Examples here?...

So your initial post are to "teach" people how to recreate your problem in their PC

> > The second time no-one understands the overall problem, no-one tries to
> > understand why have I posted this, most people choose to think "hey,
> look, it
> > is a bastard, let's teach him or let's kick his ass".

So most the people here read the manual or FAQs to make their system run better, which is against your believe. I havent found any programmer that can cater to so many people preference. Berkeley provide source code for free, maybe you can download, modify it to meet all your needs.

This "might" solve all your problems

Johann "onn" Bitsoenn,

You still seem to be ignoring the fact that people more knowledgeable about the BOINC CC and the SETI SC, have recommended that five days is the maximum value the user should set for the "Connect every" parameter. No, I'm not referring to myself. I was just trying to pass the information along to you.

> In both cases, I met people flaming or trying "to teach me how to use BOINC".
> Examples here?...

You haven't seen flames yet, Twinkie! I'll tell you if I start to flame you.

> But... the 06:43:23 time-per-unit is the same as with 4.03 seti application.

Those times are estimates, not necessarily accurate estimates, but still estimates. They are guesses based on your benchmarks.

Some people don't realize the impact adding more memory to the system has. Nor do they realize the impact of running every little thing they can download to their little computer, whether they need to our not. Since I don't know you, I have no idea what you might or might not know.

As far as the "check if power is on?" questions, they are standard troubleshooting questions. You start out with the simple stuff. I've had users who, for instance, didn't realize they had kicked the power cord out of the wall outlet. They just "knew" there was something "wrong" with their machine because it wouldn't power up.

> Anyone here tried to keep the Win95 running for 3 years without uninstall,
> while keeping it quite busy for all that time, installing and uninstalling a
> heavy load of software all these years?..

Yes, probably several of us. In my case, on 2000-3000 computers, DOS, Win 3.1, 3.11, 95, NT 3.51 workstation and server, NT4 workstation and server, 98, 98SE, 2000 workstation and server,.... Want to go on?

> > (...) select the "Projects" tab before you hide it.
>
> Thanks, interesting. I don't thing it will make any visible change in
> crunchtime, but always worth to get used to.

I suggested this because the "Projects" tab, and the "Message" tab, are not updated constantly, as the "Work" and "Disk" tabs are should one of them be the active tab. Even minimized, it seems those tabs are still updated. And, yes, it does apparently have an impact on the processing times. I didn't suggest it because it's "always worth to get used to." Apparently, you thought I was just exercising my fingers when I typed that.

> The second time no-one understands the overall problem, no-one tries to
> understand why have I posted this, ....

While the "Connect every" parameter may or may not be a problem, most of us do not perceive it as a critical issue. We actually listened when someone told us how the system works.

Resetting the project every time the mood strikes you IS part of the problem, and we perceive it as such.

> ... most people choose to think "hey, look, it is a bastard, let's teach him
> or let's kick his ass".

I don't recall reading anywhere in this thread that anyone called you a "bastard.” You called yourself that. OTOH, since you do know yourself so much better than we do ....

What's wrong with attempting to teach something to someone? It may bring them up to speed faster than letting them learn it on their own, present case excepted.

Why would any of us want to kick your ass? The poor animal has never done anything to any of us. OTOH, according to one joke, the way to train a mule is to hit him between the eyes with a two-by-four (or your local equivalent), just to get his attention. Once you have his attention, you can start teaching him. Perhaps someone more local to you can do us the favor.

Stephen

> First thing: the state after complete reinstall
>
> State after client reinstall and reset (and after finally downloading the
> packages) is much better, but still weird.
>
> 2004-10-07 09:30:40 - time of wu download
> 2004-10-21 09:27:44 - deadline for them
>
> Means 14 days of deadline, while 7 days of cache set.
>
> Seems ok, but...
>
> It downloaded 39 workunits, estimating each for 06:43:23.
>
> 39 * 06:43:23 = 262.1991(6) hours = 10.92 days ~ 11 days
>
> Okay, now it is luckily under the deadline, and hopefully will stay so.

I you are want to know how boinc ask for work: (don't know if this is included in Paul's documentation)

((2 * [Days before connecting] * [second in one days = 86400]) - [second currently in cache]) * ([project resource share] / [Total resource share]) * [part boinc gets of total cpu time]
or if you reset the project:
((2*7*86400) - 0) * 1 * 0.78 = 943488 second or boinc expects to get 943488 of the total of 1209600 cpu sec available in the next 14 days (the other seconds are used by other programs or is pc down time)

the real value of [part boinc gets of total cpu time] is stored in client_state.xml under time_stats


>
> ---------

> > Are you leaving BOINC_gui open? What tab are you
> > leaving the display on?
>
> No, BOINC sees the light of the desktop 1-3 times a day to get the "update"
> clicked (of course if there are no problems). All other time it sits in the
> tray..
>
> > (...) select the "Projects" tab before you hide it.
>
> Thanks, interesting. I don't thing it will make any visible change in
> crunchtime, but always worth to get used to.

(as mentioned by Stephen) If the work tab is select boinc keeps remaking the content every second and windows keep recreating the visual part. if it is minimized on the work tab boinc still keep refilling the content (no visual update by os). On the message tab the content only gets added and no recreating.

> ---------
>
> Third and final: the problem with understanding.
>
> This topic was the second time I mentioned the same problem on these forums.
> The problem that the "connect every ..." has many imperfections and there is
> no real feature to lock it from being set above the general project deadline.

you're right the is nothing preventing someone from asking more work then his/her computer can handle. A simple check on saving the prefs could solve that. A secound solution could be to include the deathline in the scheduler response and let the boinc client do the work.


> The second time no-one understands the overall problem, no-one tries to
> understand why have I posted this, most people choose to think "hey, look, it
> is a bastard, let's teach him or let's kick his ass".
>
>
> You want my suggestion? Try to look at the problem this way:
>
> For all people joined in SETI@home, nearly a small percentage reads this
> forum. Most people just find it a "nice project I want to support but I've got
> my own life and I do not wish to be a part of active community". Also, only a
> small percentage of people reads any documentation or FAQ or whatever of such
> style.
>
> This generally means, that for one person talking about problem on forums,
> there are quite more people that have the same problem in mind but are not
> talking about it. And there are thousands of people that may have the same
> problem as I notice but do not realise that.
>
> Think how many people will set their connection interval to a troublemaking
> one. Why? Because they do not know the magic "1D set = 1-2D real". The do not
> know about 14-days deadline. Actually, they may even not be looking at their
> clients.
>
> Many people fit in this scheme. Many wu's are discarded in many different
> ways. The unclear situation with the connection interval setting and the
> deadline takes a big part in wasteing your calculations.
>
> You may always say "Argh, why these moroons are so dumb they do not read
> documentation?". But remember, if there were a death penalty for not reading
> the manual, world population would be back below 1 Bilion. That should be
> another Murphy Law.
>
>
> In my computer experience I met two programmist fractions. One was betting the
> user will read the manual or will be forced too. Second knew most of the users
> won't read the manual and made their applications having that in mind.
>
> The second group had a much happier life.

Nobody is perfect (look at my poor spelling ;) ) . If you want to help the developpers you can always download the boinc source code and report sugestions and improvements.

> Please. I didn't set this topic to have a flame war here, but because I wanted
> to start a discussion about a way to fix the problem that in my opinion is
> very important for all of us. Not to be teached how to fix my case.
>
>
> Thanks for reading this long, long post :]

Looks at entire thread, shakes head and leaves thread..............
My name is Pascal and this message has no meaning, but still has my approval...

It is 10 oclock, do you know what your WUWUs are doing tonight...

> (as mentioned by Stephen) If the
> work tab is select boinc keeps
> remaking the content every second
> and windows keep recreating the
> visual part. if it is minimized
> on the work tab boinc still keep
> refilling the content (no visual
> update by os). On the message tab
> the content only gets added and
> no recreating.

(and simmilar)

I assumed the advice was to switch to "projects" before minimising.. to tray (by closing the BOINC window), not minimising to taskbar.

---------

> You still seem to be ignoring the
> fact that people more knowledgeable
> about the BOINC CC and the SETI SC,
> have recommended that five days is
> the maximum value the user should
> set for the "Connect every"
> parameter. No, I'm not referring to
> myself. I was just trying to pass
> the information along to you.

(and simmilar)

I understand you all wanted to help in my case. But.. maybe it was not straight anyway, but my point was to be that.. you may explain it to me (as to one dude that has posted the problem). But that advice will not reach many people. That I hoped to be my.. not a point, but.. dunnow how to say it.. a background point :]

Okay, generally what I have learned by this topic the most is to make my post more straightforward next time and I will not try to have original posting concepts :]

Thanks for all posts, thanks for understanding me a bit better :]

> > In both cases, I met people flaming or trying "to teach me how to use
> BOINC".

> You haven't seen flames yet, Twinkie! I'll tell you if I start to flame you.

> Stephen

Name-calling is abusive. It has no place here.

> I assumed the advice was to switch to "projects" before minimising.. to tray
> (by closing the BOINC window), not minimising to taskbar.

Good, bad, or indifferent ... the Windows GUI does not adhere to the strict standards of most windowing programs where if the window is not active and visible, it is not updated. In Paul's opinion this is froth on my life's wake and is nothing to get upset about.

As a matter of fact I close the BOINC Work Manager (clicking on the red "X") and have proved to my satisfaction that the updates do occur. So, because it is going to switch to it anyway I select the Messages Tab then close the BOINC Work Manager.

Heck, the GUI standards of the past call for those parts of the window that are obscured should not be updated until they are revealed.

Reading a lot into Rom's post, the new cross-platform GUI will operate in a different manner, in essance it will have the BOINC Work Manager connecting to the science applications that will be command line versions or installed as services (whatever) with the GUI commnunicating to it using the RPC Calls.
<p>
For BOINC Documentation: Click Me!