Bad News - My computer still wants double Credit on 4.18 Units!

Like so many things in life, what we want and what we get aren't always the same.

The quorum system sees to it that on average, granted credit is:

1) the same for everyone doing the same work (the same WU)

2) on average, correct.

You may get "extra" credit on some work, and "cheated" on others. If your machine consistently requests too much, you'll consistently be granted less than you claimed.

... and while this is emminently fair and on-average correct, it has been the source of much angst -- which is why Enhanced spends more CPU time on accounting than the earlier versions.

[edit:] Short version: don't worry about it.

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hi Bill,
The long and short of it is don't worry about it. There won't be any 4.18 wu's around for very long and so the issue with their credits will become a nonissue. Just don't pay any attention to the credits. It's probably a result of your benchmarks on your particular hardware combo which is causing the problem and since the new enhanced app doesn't use benchmarks yours will be more in line with others, as you seem to already have found. Until then just ignore the benchmark figures. That's the reason for the dumping of "wild" credit claims inn the first place, so that unreasonable claims do not contaminate the final credit claims.

Thanks Jim,

I will keep a watch to see what happens when I get into the new 5.12 Units, which should start tomorrow sometime. As you say, hopefully the overclaims will 'go away' then.

Regards,
Bill_Mole

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Yes, damn, I forgot that was the problem in the first place. Yes, after you run out of work. Download and install the latest version of boinc, which hopefully will be 5.4.X by that time. then do the detach/reattach.

Thanks again Tony

I think I know what to do now! Maybe I'll get to understand these Electric Brains one of these days.

I need to wait a couple of days for the queues to drain now - then I'll tidy everything up . . .

Regards,
Bill_Mole

UPDATE:

Um . . . . I drained the queues, detached both projects, and completely uninstalled BOINC.

I then located the latest BOINC download and reinstalled from scratch; now Boinc Manager is 5.2.13.

Good News - I got some 4.18 Units and some 5.12 Units - I get to try the new Work Units!

Bad News - My computer still wants double Credit on 4.18 Units!

Sort of Good News, it claims more or less the same as everyone else (within reasonable variation) on beta Units - has done all along.

AntiVirus and AntiSpyware say my System is clean.

This is soooo embarrassing - any suggestions for reducing my PC's greed to normal please?

Regards,
Bill_Mole

hi Bill,
The long and short of it is don't worry about it. There won't be any 4.18 wu's around for very long and so the issue with their credits will become a nonissue. Just don't pay any attention to the credits. It's probably a result of your benchmarks on your particular hardware combo which is causing the problem and since the new enhanced app doesn't use benchmarks yours will be more in line with others, as you seem to already have found. Until then just ignore the benchmark figures. That's the reason for the dumping of "wild" credit claims inn the first place, so that unreasonable claims do not contaminate the final credit claims.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

Yes, damn, I forgot that was the problem in the first place. Yes, after you run out of work. Download and install the latest version of boinc, which hopefully will be 5.4.X by that time. then do the detach/reattach.

Thanks again Tony

I think I know what to do now! Maybe I'll get to understand these Electric Brains one of these days.

I need to wait a couple of days for the queues to drain now - then I'll tidy everything up . . .

Regards,
Bill_Mole

UPDATE:

Um . . . . I drained the queues, detached both projects, and completely uninstalled BOINC.

I then located the latest BOINC download and reinstalled from scratch; now Boinc Manager is 5.2.13.

Good News - I got some 4.18 Units and some 5.12 Units - I get to try the new Work Units!

Bad News - My computer still wants double Credit on 4.18 Units!

Sort of Good News, it claims more or less the same as everyone else (within reasonable variation) on beta Units - has done all along.

AntiVirus and AntiSpyware say my System is clean.

This is soooo embarrassing - any suggestions for reducing my PC's greed to normal please?

Regards,
Bill_Mole

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All about credit

Can anyone explain why my computer seems to want to claim around double the credit of anyone else - is it just being greedy?

Is there an easy way to convince it to get in line with the rest of the world? It's becoming embarrassing . . .

Thanks,
Bill_Mole

I wouldn't call this a bug.

The problem is that BOINC is trying to predict the future -- it is trying to predict how well the science application will run based on an artificial benchmark, and at best that number will be sort-of right.

It is an estimate based on two other estimates.

... it's also why BOINC throws out the highest and lowest claimed credits, the middle result(s) are probably reasonable.

There are other threads here on the boards where the calibrating client gets a little off kilter and makes wildly inaccurate claims -- because it is trying to adjust the apparent speed based on past work, and sometimes the unexpected will happen.

All of that said, the enhanced app. counts flops instead of estimating them based on clock-time. You can do the optimizations, and a month from now it won't matter.

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Yes, damn, I forgot that was the problem in the first place. Yes, after you run out of work. Download and install the latest version of boinc, which hopefully will be 5.4.X by that time. then do the detach/reattach.

Thanks again Tony

I think I know what to do now! Maybe I'll get to understand these Electric Brains one of these days.

I need to wait a couple of days for the queues to drain now - then I'll tidy everything up . . .

Regards,
Bill_Mole

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Should I uninstall/reinstall BOINC?

Regards,
Bill_mole

P.S. I now have to go to work for a bit (Client calls). Back later

Yes, damn, I forgot that was the problem in the first place. Yes, after you run out of work. Download and install the latest version of boinc, which hopefully will be 5.4.X by that time. then do the detach/reattach.

there are many places with instructions on how to optimize, but if you want to get back to normal, do this:
1)set all projects to "no new tasks/work"

2) run yourself out of work

3) highlight Setiathome on the "projects" tab, then pick detach

4) reattach to seti, all needed files will download automatically, even the new enhanced applications/work if it's available.

you won't loose credit or anything.

tony

Hi Tony,

Yes, I think I'll go back to basics.

I've set both projects to "no new work" (SETI Std & Beta - that's all I'm running). It will take a couple of days to run down.

Should I uninstall/reinstall BOINC?

Regards,
Bill_mole

P.S. I now have to go to work for a bit (Client calls). Back later

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Bill, didn't you install a crunch3r boinc client the other day? If so, did you also install the optimized seti application? I see your benchmarks are about twice what mine are for a similar machine:

Measured floating point speed 2698.47 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed 7664.51 million ops/sec

If you just installed the optimized boinc client, then that explains why your claims are twice (or better) than what they should be. You should also have installed the optimized application along with it.

tony

Hi Tony,

I did give it a try a short while back, but got 'out of my depth' fairly rapidly, and ended up thinking I had got back to my original position - obviously not. Is there an 'easy recovery' route without losing my account/credit ratings?

Regards,
Bill_mole

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(otherwise a fourth computer is called in).

In reality a 4th computer is always called in. If the first 3 were good enough, the 4th result in is not needed nor used in the canonical result. But by God, you get the credits.

All about credit

Can anyone explain why my computer seems to want to claim around double the credit of anyone else - is it just being greedy?

Is there an easy way to convince it to get in line with the rest of the world? It's becoming embarrassing . . .

Thanks,
Bill_Mole

Yes. Make a back-up of your Boinc folder. Download the TruXoft Calibrating BOINC Core Client. Stop running Boinc. Copy the downloaded files into your Boinc folder. Restart Boinc.
After crunching about a dozen WUs or so your claimed credit will be around the 32 mark..

Cheers,
BF.

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Can anyone explain why my computer seems to want to claim around double the credit of anyone else - is it just being greedy?

Short story: It's a bug. Maybe even a feature. Don't sweat it.

Longer version: The accreditation system in use rules out the highest and lowest claims and grants the middle one when all three return the same results. As long as all three computers agree on that, you'll get credit (otherwise a fourth computer is called in).

OK! Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

Now I'll go back to letting things work themselves out.

Regards,
Bill_Mole

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Can anyone explain why my computer seems to want to claim around double the credit of anyone else - is it just being greedy?

Short story: It's a bug. Maybe even a feature. Don't sweat it.

Longer version: The accreditation system in use rules out the highest and lowest claims and grants the middle one when all three return the same results. As long as all three computers agree on that, you'll get credit (otherwise a fourth computer is called in).

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All about credit

Can anyone explain why my computer seems to want to claim around double the credit of anyone else - is it just being greedy?

Is there an easy way to convince it to get in line with the rest of the world? It's becoming embarrassing . . .

Thanks,
Bill_Mole

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I was just wondering about the credit asked/granted thing. I'm not complaining because I'm mostly just doing this to help. However, I've noticed that when I look at my result info, that even when I have a successful file done before deadline, I seldom get the full credits that were "submitted". I would just like to know how this is calculated.

Thanks,
dawn

All about credit

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me@rescam.org

I was just wondering about the credit asked/granted thing. I'm not complaining because I'm mostly just doing this to help. However, I've noticed that when I look at my result info, that even when I have a successful file done before deadline, I seldom get the full credits that were "submitted". I would just like to know how this is calculated.

Thanks,
dawn

Basically, here's how it works. Once a quorum of 3 results of each work unit are returned and are validated the high claimed credit and the low claimed credit are dropped and all three people are granted the middle number of credits.

Example Host 1. claims 35 credits. host 2 claims 30. host 3 claims 25. 35 and 25 are dropped and all three hosts are given the median amount of 30 credits.

Consult the BOINC WIKI about credits. There's more in there about it than you probably care to know.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I was just wondering about the credit asked/granted thing. I'm not complaining because I'm mostly just doing this to help. However, I've noticed that when I look at my result info, that even when I have a successful file done before deadline, I seldom get the full credits that were "submitted". I would just like to know how this is calculated.

Thanks,
dawn

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