Posts by Len

1) Message boards : News : Servers are back on line after Monday's outage (Message 1320454)
Posted 143 days ago by

Len

Thanks for the heads up. I shall just keep doing whatever my other chosen projects give me, if I can't get enough from you to keep those little crunching things inside the magic box from getting bored.

Its all automatic this end. If there's not enough time needed for SETI, work on other important things. SETI gets the first bite, then the rest fight it out between them.

Len

2) Message boards : News : SETI@home scheduler is down until further notice. (Message 1311515)
Posted 164 days ago by

Len

I now have errors in my results, all of which are down to two periods of server downtime.

Because these appear as errors, I take it that my machine has been plodding away for no good reason.

3) Message boards : News : SETI@home scheduler is down until further notice. (Message 1310147)
Posted 175 days ago by

Len

My 2 cents . . .

Here is an easy way for non-network types to understand it. Suppose you live near a forest. One day you chop down some tress, on your own, pull up the stumps, on your own, fill in the holes and level it off by hand. By using that road you save 30 min off a trip into town. All is good. You tell a few friends about the road and they start to use it was well. With the increased usage the pothole get bigger and road gets rougher and needs more repair. But you feel you’re doing a good thing so you keep making the repairs. Occasionally some one shows up with a shovel, and helps, but mostly your on your own. Pretty soon everyone wants you use your road. Pot holes must be filled in hourly, mud holes show up that must be filled in, and soon there is a two hour wait juts to get on your now, totally over used, totally tore up road. What can you do?? You can can’t build a new road, no money , you can’t hire someone to fix the road 24/7, no money. You simply tell the users to wait and be patient , that you’re working on, when you can.
...

Yes. Yes you do.

Traffic backs up all the time on overused roads. The road users learn that they either wait to use the shorter, overused road or they take another, less convenient route.

You not only chose to use another route, but also felt it necessary to honk your horn at those waiting patiently in line.

A network, much like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link.

As someone else has frequently said "You were the weakest link. Goodbye."

I shall wait patiently for something that I believe in to recover in its own time. Meanwhile my insignificant machines automatically get to work a little harder for other causes I believe in, while they are not working for me.

Len

4) Message boards : Number crunching : WASTING MY TIME? (Message 1307350)
Posted 182 days ago by

Len

Sadly, these last two days, my PC has got no work at all from S@H. It has done a ton of work folding proteins and putting them away in the POEM draw, but SETI seems to be under the impression I don't want work.

I read my last few requests in the log and was surprised I don't appear to be asking for work. So I tried suspending, then resumin work, but still it seems I am not wanting work!

18/11/2012 13:01:06 | SETI@home | work fetch suspended by user
18/11/2012 13:01:09 | SETI@home | work fetch resumed by user
18/11/2012 13:05:40 | SETI@home | update requested by user
18/11/2012 13:05:45 | SETI@home | Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
18/11/2012 13:05:45 | SETI@home | Not reporting or requesting tasks
18/11/2012 13:06:09 | SETI@home | Scheduler request completed

What has gone wrong? Anyone know?

I don't think I'm wasting my time. The proteins needed folding anyway, but I have it set so it should only get a quarter of the work SETI does.

Len

5) Message boards : Number crunching : Panic Mode On (77) Server Problems? (Message 1291394)
Posted 226 days ago by

Len

Yup, downloading is borked again :-(
and its taken uploading with it just to make sure we have a "good" weekend

... and its not just seti@home either.

I tried rejoining CPDN in order to get something for the CPU cores to nibble on during the day. All I'm getting there is project backoff, yet SETI is able to 'send 111 of those tasks that expire before the download is complete. This after a rash of tiny tasks that take longer to download than they do to crunch.

I could be a happier bunny I guess.

6) Message boards : Number crunching : Impossible deadlines (Message 1284760)
Posted 244 days ago by

Len

Thanks Richard & Clive. I shall relax and simply consider it a measure of how hard S@H as a whole is stressed. - And the speedy replies as a measure of the enthusiastic community we have. ;)

Len

7) Message boards : Number crunching : Impossible deadlines (Message 1284749)
Posted 244 days ago by

Len

I currently have 53 errors and they are all tasks that had deadlines within just a few minutes of the 'Sent' time. My machine is not up there on crunch time ranking like many of you, but even if it were it seems a big ask.

This seems to be something that is increasing rather than diminishing. It does not particularly affect my stats, and frankly I wouldn't really be bothered if it did, as all I am doing is releasing idle time to S@H. But it seems like an awful waste of valuable S@H Server time and bandwidth to me. It has been happening occasionally for months, but just seems to be getting worse.

I don't nurse maid S@H, so I only ever see these as errors. Therefore I can't tell if it's true, but it appears that if the 'sent' timestamp came when the download started it might even have expired by the time it was on my machine. Even if my machine started it immediately it could not possibly finish by the deadline.

Len

8) Message boards : News : Bug in server affecting older BOINC clients with NVIDIA GPUs. (Message 1274255)
Posted 269 days ago by

Len

This explains the behaviour of my EEEBox starting to overheat. I shall await an update.

Len

9) Message boards : Number crunching : Apologies to wingmen: Hard Drive Failure all work lost (Message 1230094)
Posted 374 days ago by

Len

Well, I got them merged.
(I'd already tried, but Windoze had 'helpfully' capitalised the first letter in the new name, so it didn't work when I tried it before posting.)

Now to see if I get re-sends.

10) Message boards : Number crunching : Apologies to wingmen: Hard Drive Failure all work lost (Message 1229991)
Posted 374 days ago by

Len

Thanks. I shall do that. Shame to waste the processing time, but Hey Ho. I might even garner a positive reply before it runs dry. It got a whole herd of work already.

11) Message boards : Number crunching : Apologies to wingmen: Hard Drive Failure all work lost (Message 1229960)
Posted 374 days ago by

Len

My apologies to all those waiting on my results.
On the plus side it will now be working marginally faster once I have it fully up to speed again.

This Cruncher is the one affected, so all these tasks will time out. Sorry, but the damned drive just totaled on me but I decided to go with Windoze7 64bit as the replacement OS, so it should run that bit faster than the old 32bit XP OS.

12) Message boards : Number crunching : Hello Computer 6137511, control your machine (Message 1228596)
Posted 377 days ago by

Len

Given the limited bandwidth available and the abilities to analyse data, you would have thought there would be a way to track such a complete waste of bandwidth and stop giving it work until it sorts out its ability to compute valid results.

Sure we will all get an invalid result occasionally, either from bad data or a temporary host-side glitch. So I'm not saying that an invalid result alone should cause one's allocation to be lowered. However there should be some comparison done with valid V invalid results, that affects the allotment and takes it right down to a minimum in cases like this.

It is simply wasting valuable resources that others could put to good use. The system could then send a notification to the host as to why their allotment is reduced.

Len

13) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1227695)
Posted 379 days ago by

Len

Titanium too. Good choice.

That means, when future archaeologists, evolved from whatever inherits our world, go looking through the fossilized remains of our society, they will find our titanium watches you and I; even if nothing remains of our bones. My titanium watch is not nearly so fancy, but its body and bracelet will also outlast me by aeons. I've had it for many years, and it has withstood the test of time so far in pristine condition.

Go for it.

14) Message boards : Number crunching : Here's one for the overclockers. (Message 1221842)
Posted 391 days ago by

Len

My radiator does indeed sit at the top, and pulls in air just as you describe. It is the meat in a fan sandwich. The PSU also has a 120mm fan drawing internal warm air past its own heat producing gubbins, and exiting to the rear. Chassis fans front and rear pull and push the air in the appropriate front to rear direction, giving excellent air flow. Several side vents allow pressure equalisation. I believe the fact that my GPU temp has also dropped, shows that the cooling system works exactly as it is supposed to.

I'm afraid actual experience tends to disprove the theory that I should be attempting to cool the CPU with pre-warmed air. My rig works. Short of the lottery win, this is as good as it gets for my money.

Len

15) Message boards : Number crunching : Here's one for the overclockers. (Message 1221641)
Posted 392 days ago by

Len

Cooling the CPU's heat output, in this case my only real aim, is best done with ambient air, rather than air pre-heated by the GPU & chipsets. It is what Corsair recommends, and when you really understand why, it makes sense. With the air cooled fan blowing it all out to the GPU it was not exactly a Great idea before. This way my GPU is actually running slightly cooler too as an added bonus.

Mark is right, in that having the whole shebang outside the case would be a better , if uglier option. But for that I would be building something for a purpose to which I don't put my PC.

If I needed to go that far, I would have built a whole system from scratch, radiator outside, with a nice large reservoir that also had cooling fins. I would have had a separate pump, large enough to add multiple GPU heads (called blocks to some?) and chipset heads too. It would probably use a large aquarium tank as a heat sink too, so the reservoir would actually sit inside the aquarium filter/pump assembly to act as an aquarium heater. It would also sit inside the new house that I had purpose built for me just after I won the lottery.

Len

16) Message boards : Number crunching : Here's one for the overclockers. (Message 1221518)
Posted 392 days ago by

Len

Well, its up and running. Very quietly compared to the old air cooling setup too.

I went with full power Push and the CPU controlled Stock Corsair pulling. Sucking in ambient air through the radiator. Lots of quiet expelling fans giving a good air flow. Improved airflow has even made the GPU marginally cooler.

100% usage on full voltage gives me a transient peak high of 48°c on CPU 0, the other four cores are under 45°c peaking at 46°c. Compare that to well over 75°c on stock air cooling. I have achieved the desired 30 degree drop. I am happy.

Idle temp does not appear to go below 37-38°c, which is also the sustained temp on its usual daytime diet of low voltage and S@H.

Thanks to everyone who commented. It was great to hear all sides to the discussion. I did listen to all the arguments before deciding. I have no idea whether the stock fan alone would have achieved the same result, because I never tried it on its own. I know the H60 pump and head is the same as the H80. The difference is only a 240 x 120mm rad with two 120 mm fans. I'm not overclocking, I just wanted to have it remain cool under full usage, and I have achieved that. Now I can come home and fire up whatever I want without worrying about snoozing S@H. Everybody wins.

Len

17) Message boards : Number crunching : Here's one for the overclockers. (Message 1220623)
Posted 394 days ago by

Len

Thank guys. Great feedback so far.

The board's CPU fan plug does control speed. The CPU does crunch, as does the GPU. I simply underclock most of the day. So the whole system is hobbled by reduced CPU voltage I believe. (Electrickery is not my strong point.) This also reduces fan speed on all the boards's chassis and accessory fan sockets.

When I want to use my machine for me, as well as S@H I turn up the speed to full. Then, S@H still takes whatever I am not using, so the CPU is running 100% on standard voltage. It is then that the heat goes up. It also usually means S@H gets marginally more CPU crunching done, but less GPU as the old GPU is not up to working for both of us.

If I read what has been contributed so far, a Y plug will allow both fans to work on a single plug. My spate 120 is not a matched fan, and the only reason to consider it is that I have it, so could use it.

I am still tempted to use the additional fan as an always on full power pusher and the stock fan as a puller. If the always on cools the CPU too much during restricted use, the worst that can happen is that ir reaches ambient temperature right?

Len

18) Message boards : Number crunching : Here's one for the overclockers. (Message 1220405)
Posted 394 days ago by

Len

Well, maybe not just overclockers, because I am not actually overclocking.

I am rebuilding my everyday box. It has a Q9550 CPU (Core2Quad 2.83GHz). No real fancy GPU, just a NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT (1023MB)and I specifically don't want a fancier GPU because the machine spends most of the day watching the security cameras for motion. If I get a better GPU it will start thinking something moved if someone in London turns a light on. Its already too sensitive and takes a picture if the sun comes out anywhere in England. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but its already too sensitive.

Anyway, the upshot is that the GPU is not a heating issue.

Now the CPU, with stock cooler fan, doesn't really like it if its on 100% at full voltage for too long. It starts getting hot. (Over 70°c I consider too hot.) So I have got a Corsair H60 liquid cooler for it. I can see the logic in having ambient air pulled through the radiator, and intend to have lots of expelling to compensate. I have a spare 120cm fan. Now for the question for those with a better mind, experience and know-how.

If I use the additional fan to create a push-me-pull-me flow through the radiator I am unlikely to get an exact match on pressure/flow rate. The kit's cooler fan will be plugged into the motherboard's CPU fan socket, and so its speed will vary with the CPU demand. However the other really can't really go in the same socket. So.

The ASUS P5K-E board comes with a nice 'underclocking' utility which I use to turn things right down during the hours when the unit is simply guarding the house and spending all idle ticks crunching for S@H.

Suggestions please.

Len

19) Message boards : Number crunching : AP task completed in January still showing in results (Message 1219626)
Posted 397 days ago by

Len

This unit http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=905649963
was completed in January. My wingman completed it in February, and we have both apparently got credit. But it still shows up on my list.

Anyone know why?

20) Message boards : Number crunching : The Kitty smoke stop fundraiser....... (Message 1202331)
Posted 441 days ago by

Len

Done and dusted. Rounded up for currency conversion.

Thank you for your gift of $40.00 via Mastercard on 03/04/2012.
Your gift was assigned to the following areas:

SETI@home - $40.00

Your confirmation number is:
90399

Welcome to the ranks of non-smokers Mark.

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