I have three computers attached to the project, and I'd like to maximize the contribution of two of them, but I don't know the specifics of how to do that. If you look at my computers' stats, that should hopefully tell you something about what I'm working with; I want to keep the "NewUpstairs" computer basically where it's at because it's the one I generally use, and I don't want to tax it too much, but I'm open to help on that one, too. The other two can be max'd out for SETI.

Helpful suggestions welcome.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Which 2 computers are you referring to there Gordon and are you willing to do a couple of up grades?

Cheers.

Which 2 computers are you referring to there Gordon and are you willing to do a couple of up grades?

Cheers.

I'm referring to the two computers not named "NewUpstairs". I'm not interested in doing physical upgrades; just tweeking their performance.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Gordan, we don't get to see your computer's names. You can just tell us if it's the MAC , the one with the pentium or the AMD chip...

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Other than a more powerful GPU for the AMD system, as they are, running stock will get about as much out of them as they're capable of.
I noticed one of the systems had several restarts of the WU. And another the run time is almost double the actual processing time (usually an indicator some other programme is taking up a lot of CPU time).
Generally, for most people's use, it's OK to set the system to run BOINC all the time (don't suspend when system in use, or limit % CPU being used) & use 100% of the CPUs 100% of the time.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Gordan, we don't get to see your computer's names. You can just tell us if it's the MAC , the one with the pentium or the AMD chip...

It's the Mac and Pentium computers I mainly want help with. The AMD chip one I'm fine with, as it is.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I noticed one of the systems had several restarts of the WU.

Which one?

And another the run time is almost double the actual processing time (usually an indicator some other programme is taking up a lot of CPU time).

Same one, or a different one?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I mainly feel like the Mac should be doing more.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I noticed one of the systems had several restarts of the WU.

Which one?

The AMD.

And another the run time is almost double the actual processing time (usually an indicator some other programme is taking up a lot of CPU time).

Same one, or a different one?

The Apple.

The fact is, the AMD is the one that is capable of doing the most with the least mucking around- Drop in a GTX 1060 (if possible) & disable the onboard video & the CPU could process a lot more work and the GTX1060 would pump out a lot of work.

TBar has done a lot of work with the Apple applications, however with that hardware & OS I don't know if it is possible to do any better than it presently is. And if it is, I suspect it would take a lot of effort.

The Pentium dual core, if it can accept an addon video card such as a GTX1060 could put out a lot of work.

As they are, with the applications they have, their output is about as good as it can be- other than seeing if there are other programmes taking time away from crunching.

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Grant
Darwin NT

I mainly feel like the Mac should be doing more.

It certainly could be
One WU shows this-
Run time 5 hours 29 min 43 sec
CPU time 3 hours 51 min 42 sec

You're using your GPU to process AP work- and it take 6 days to do 1 WU. Just not worth it IMHO. And there's a good chance that the lost time for CPU crunching is a result of the CPU time required to help process the AP work on the GPU.

You might be able to get a 30-50% boost in CPU work by not doing any GPU work, however the age of the hardware is such that it really can't do that much work anyway...

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Grant
Darwin NT

As they are, with the applications they have, their output is about as good as it can be

Thank you; that's exactly what I was wondering.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Which 2 computers are you referring to there Gordon and are you willing to do a couple of up grades?

Cheers.

I'm referring to the two computers not named "NewUpstairs". I'm not interested in doing physical upgrades; just tweeking their performance.

I'm sorry, but in that case they're setup to run the best that they can already Gordon. ;-)

BTW I'm sorry that my reply was a bit slow, but I've been interrupted a couple of times while making this post.

Cheers.

Hi Gordon,
did you try lunatics for the Pentium cruncher, or did you decline optimized executables?
May be there could be a benefit to use advantage of the SS(S)E3 capability of your CPU.

If you low on budget or can't insert a GPU you can speed it up by replacing this Pentium with an Core 2 Quad,
based on the 45nm Yorkfield like Q9400 when your mainboard supports the 1333MHz bus-speed.
If not you may try also the legendary 65nm Q6600 with only 1066MHz bus-speed.

For the apple box I can't give any suggestions.

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Regards from nothern Germany
Roman

SETI@home classic workunits 207,059
SETI@home classic CPU time 1,251,095 hours