Hello! I just downloaded and installed BOINC for the first time and I can't find answers to some questions, probably because they're obvious or something.

Okay, so all I did was select the SETI@home project after installing and a progress bar is shown on the BOINC manager, and the screensaver shows some graphs.
My question is, is BOINC working the whole time my computer is on or only when it's idle (screensaver)? And do I have to keep BOINC manager open for it to work?

Oh I just noticed there's two "setiathome_enhanced" tabs on the manager at different states of progress. Am I doing this thing right?

Also, is there any additional setting up I can do to improve BOINC performance?

Thank you!

Welcome to the Seti project.

Boinc can be as simple as just letting it run. It doesn't need to be open (as long as it is running) to process the work. Clicking the X in the right hand corner will reduce it to a tray icon. Boinc is design be autonomous. It only requires the Internet to fetch the work, upload and report the results when ready. The screensaver is nice, but not needed.

Boinc does its thing depending on your account's Computing preferences. This is were you can tell Boinc how to use your computer. There are also projects specific preferences in your account. Some of the Web based computing preferences can be overridden in Boinc manager's local preferences.

Here are links to the official BOINC Wiki and to BOINC FAQ Service. There is also a link to the Unofficial Wiki in my signature below. Boinc is continuously evolving/improving so there are always new things to learn if you are interested.

You have downloaded 4 WU (Work Units). Since your system has two processors it will work on two WU at a time. You may wish to switch to the Advanced view to get a little better overview of Boinc's activity.

If you have any questions the Q&A section is generally the place to ask. There are usually users that will be happy to help and provide you with answers. You can read the other forums but they will only be available for you to post after you have earned some Credits which will happen once your results are validated against another users results.

Your may want to be aware that Seti usually goes offline for several hours of maintenance on Tuesday morning California time. Boinc communication with the project can continue to be somewhat intermittent for a few hours after the maintenance is over.

Seti is but one of many projects that use the Boinc system. In the future you may want to add one or two other projects. An overview of a few of these can be found at BOINC projects.

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

Thank you for your help and the links :) I have added some more projects too