Posts by BMH

41) Message boards : Number crunching : Got lax on my cleaning of Dust Bunnies... (Message 1126407)
Posted 680 days ago by

BMH

The downside to using filters in most of my PCs is that much dismantling has to be carried out to get at the filters... so I may as well not bother. I think my rigs last about 6 months before I have to strip things down, clean out and rebuild.

The most troublesome though are some graphics card heatsinks, where much dismantling is needed to de-clog those.

42) Message boards : Number crunching : Stable 560 Ti configuration? (Message 1126404)
Posted 680 days ago by

BMH

Can I be honest and say I didn't think about restarting until after I'd posted that?! :$

I get so used to leaving my computer running 24/7, and rarely needing to restart I forget all about that option!

I suppose a permanent fix will arrive in a driver update at some point. For the time being I'll leave the OCing alone on those cards.

43) Message boards : Number crunching : Stable 560 Ti configuration? (Message 1126374)
Posted 680 days ago by

BMH

I just triggered the downclocking issue on one of my GTX 560 Ti's :(

It was getting a bit chilly in my room, so with a bit of extra thermal headroom I proceeded to overclock... I took the GPU Core Clock up from 900MHz to 1000MHz (using the same process I use for my GTX 460 in another machine) and then noticed in GPU-Z that the GPU Core Clock for that card was now only 405 MHz. The other card remains unaffected, and even if I set the one I meddled with back to "Factory shipped frequencies" it's still downclocked according to GPU-Z :(

I'm using 270.61 drivers under Windows 7 and the Lunatics thingy.

Help!?

44) Message boards : Number crunching : All I get are Cuda WU's... (Message 1123324)
Posted 689 days ago by

BMH

Thanks from me too. I had the opposite problem - my CPU was loaded up but GPUs running cold, affecting my RAC :(

45) Message boards : Number crunching : Anyone ever have to replace capacitors? (Message 1121438)
Posted 695 days ago by

BMH

One time when I was investigating a client's computer stability issues I noticed bulging tops on the motherboard capacitors. I showed him this and he just shoved them back down again with his finger :| "sorted"

46) Message boards : Number crunching : Mobile Broadband Compression Corrupting Data (Message 1000142)
Posted 1082 days ago by

BMH

OK, the server is back up and I've had a chance to try again.

I put the following in place (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu):
seti_603.jpg
seti_609.jpg
ap405.jpg

Now I watched the list of messages as I fired up BOINC. It recognised that seti_603.jpg was already present and 'skipped' the download of that one. For some reason though, as I found out when I checked on the image files, seti_609.jpg had been replaced with a 0KB one and when I looked back to BOINC at the list of downloaded work units it had failed all the CUDA ones and now they're 'ready to report' straight away as before.

Success with with the standard work units (and Astropulse ones) though as they're working.

So as I've discovered (if I'm correct), the seti_603.jpg graphic is for the standard (CPU) work units, seti_609.jpg is for the (GPU) CUDA work units, and ap405.jpg is, well, for the Astropulse ones.

I'm not sure why the seti_609.jpg got downloaded, overwriting the already present file. I've repeated the process again and it did the same, I've also made it read-only and tried quickly aborting that download from the Transfers list. But now I've reached my daily quota again. I'm also getting HTTP errors regarding temporarily failed downloads but I'm not sure if that's my problem or just the backlash from the recent server outage.

47) Message boards : Number crunching : Mobile Broadband Compression Corrupting Data (Message 999560)
Posted 1086 days ago by

BMH

Thanks guys. I see also that seti_609.jpg is also present but with a size of 0 bytes so when the server is back up ready to provide work I'll try again with those in place and shall let you know the outcome.

48) Message boards : Number crunching : Mobile Broadband Compression Corrupting Data (Message 999502)
Posted 1087 days ago by

BMH

Here's what keeps happening when I start up BOINC:

29-May-2010 08:03:11 [SETI@home] Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
29-May-2010 08:03:11 [SETI@home] Requesting new tasks
29-May-2010 08:03:16 [SETI@home] Scheduler request completed: got 2 new tasks
29-May-2010 08:03:18 [SETI@home] Started download of seti_603.jpg
29-May-2010 08:03:18 [SETI@home] Started download of 28no06ai.6076.32392.11.10.19
29-May-2010 08:03:20 [SETI@home] Incomplete read of 4250.000000 < 5KB for seti_603.jpg - truncating
29-May-2010 08:03:20 [SETI@home] Finished download of seti_603.jpg
29-May-2010 08:03:20 [SETI@home] Started download of 28no06ai.28608.32392.9.10.48
29-May-2010 08:03:20 [SETI@home] [error] File seti_603.jpg has wrong size: expected 9068, got 0
29-May-2010 08:03:20 [SETI@home] [error] Checksum or signature error for seti_603.jpg
29-May-2010 08:03:23 [SETI@home] Finished download of 28no06ai.6076.32392.11.10.19
29-May-2010 08:03:26 [SETI@home] Finished download of 28no06ai.28608.32392.9.10.48

But under Tasks it states for each work "Download Failed", and the log continues:

29-May-2010 08:04:21 [SETI@home] Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
29-May-2010 08:04:21 [SETI@home] Reporting 2 completed tasks, requesting new tasks

And so it goes on downloading tasks and failing.

49) Message boards : Number crunching : Mobile Broadband Compression Corrupting Data (Message 999304)
Posted 1088 days ago by

BMH

Tried the "Skip image verification" online in my account and within the BOINC application with no change. It's compressing images and any work units it downloads it fails and it 'finishes' them straight away and uploads them. If I leave BOINC running for a few minuites it reaches its daily quota of work units.

50) Message boards : Number crunching : Mobile Broadband Compression Corrupting Data (Message 999292)
Posted 1088 days ago by

BMH

Hi all, I've been participating in SETI@home for a number of years now. I have always had to take my work units into work to upload/download as I didn't have internet access at home.

I've recently signed up to mobile broadband (with T-mobile) in the UK and was looking forward to running BOINC without having to mess about with taking work units into work etc. but BOINC fails to successfully download/upload data and reports errors relating to checksum errors and the like.

The problem it seems is because T-mobile compress the data. This is obvious when viewing web pages because images are heavily compressed. Their software includes a broadband accelerator which I have disabled with no effect. It is possible to view web pages uncompressed by refreshing the page (F5) whilst holding Ctrl but I can't tell BOINC to do this!

I have e-mailed T-mobile and await a reply. Can anyone here offer some suggestions or has anyone else had a similar experience. Thanks!

51) Message boards : Number crunching : Early SETI contributors - who's still around? (Message 968053)
Posted 1201 days ago by

BMH

Fear not, the owners of the computers know BOINC is running :D

52) Message boards : Number crunching : your least liked motherboard brand (Message 967692)
Posted 1203 days ago by

BMH

I have an AM2+ board from Gigabyte which is blowing the tops of its capacitors so that's going to make me a bit wary of that brand for a while.

I've used a few ASUS and MSI boards over the years which have seemed pretty solid. Not many issues with ASRock but I've always seen them as a cheap option and thus not seen them as long lasting - I don't know how true that is.

A lot of boards now have solid state capacitors which is reassuring, the only other issue is how hot the chipset heatsinks get on some board (I avoid ones with fans because they wear out).

53) Message boards : Number crunching : Oiling computer fans? (Message 967690)
Posted 1203 days ago by

BMH

I've tried oiling fans that have become noisy only to find they don't last long before needing oiling again. I'm not sure which oil would be best (I've tried light oil, engine oil and grease with no long term success) but it's easier just to replace the fan, especially if you're keen to minimise down-time!

80mm fans are cheap enough while 120mm fans aren't as cheap. I sometimes use used fans if they look like they haven't had much use and then as soon as they get noisy they go in the bin.

A fan controller is a good way to prolong the life of a fan if that fan doesn't need to run at maximum speed all the time.

54) Message boards : Number crunching : Early SETI contributors - who's still around? (Message 967688)
Posted 1203 days ago by

BMH

I've been around since 1999. I was at college at the time and 'borrowed' a couple of computers during I.T. lessons to run SETI@home plus my trusty AMD K6-2 at home. Now working in an office surrounded by 6 computers I have them all running SETI@home, plus a handful of computers at home.

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