I have the same problem. Brand new installations of win98SE. Loaded Boinc version 4.05 and it ran the first seti work unit to about 20%. After that, everytime the client wakes up from suspend, the system goes to 100% CPU usage, he seti client no longer responds, the mouse behave eratically, and I ahve to kill BOIN to get the machine back. A few time I was not quick enough and had to kill the whole machine. Could not even CTRL-ALT-DEl it.

HAve uninstalled BOINC and re-installed several times with no affect. System runs fins as long as BOINC is disabled.

I have also noticed that on about 1 out of 3 re-boots, the BOINC icon does not appear in the system tray, but the process is listed in task manager, (with no way to access it other than to kill it). Other times I wind up with multiple BOINC icons.

Folks, I was tying to write up a decent response to this thread but i'm fastly becoming overwhelmed by the number of threads about this issue.

Can we take this to one of the threads here until I can get this nailed down and fixed?

http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=10

Yes I know this seems backwards considering this is the question and anwser section but...

----- Rom
BOINC Development Team, U.C. Berkeley

> MS toys OS: Win95, Win98, WinME, WinXPhome (FAT)
> MS pro OS: WinNT4, Win2K, WinXPpro (NTFS)


Why on earth would you use FAT with Win XP Home? Win XP Home can even use ~gasp~ NTFS, and even ~gasp~ handle multiple virtual processors (HT). Wonders never cease.

Please let me add that my system is not corrupted, and after a thorough scandisk/defrag
I have reinstalled BOINC in a effort to re-create the problem (perhaps I can get some more usefull information).
BOINC in NT4 didn't crash my system (it wasn't doing anything at all), and the volume it was running on is FAT16.
I have not yet run BOINC under Linux or W2K - thoise boxes are still running the classic command line versions.
It's too early to be drawing conclusions about what happened.

> I'm going to attempt to use Norton's RescueDisk to boot the system and run
> DiskDoctor to fix the FAT. If that fails, then I have no choice but to do a
> Windows reinstall, wiping out everything. I'm not a happy camper.

MPBroida - you may not have to wipe out everything even if Norton fails to fix your system.
As long as your partition is intact, you can simply rename WIN.COM
then perform a re-install of Windows (either into the same directory
-risky - or a new directory - safe. No need to lose user data

> Surely BOINC do not require NTFS, but NTFS protect you from a beta application
> like BOINC (and many other bad apps ourt there).
>
> X MR Linux: Credits come for most from CPU power not from OS.
> Probably you have a P4 CPU or run for more time than me or have a lot of PC.
>
> I have Linux 2.6 (and I'm an open source programmer and pro) on my PIII-666
> (only 2 PC run seti) but it, with GUI, run slower that Win2K.
> On Win32 architecture the graphic/windows server is in "kernel" space
> toghether the VGAdriver, not like Xfree86 that is a normal apps.
> So the performance in linux+GUI are less.
>

Ye man, here are the real DINOSAURS...

GenuineIntel 662MHz Pentium Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition, Service Pack 4, (05.00.2195.00)
126146 2 15.52 231.19 GenuineIntel 797MHz Pentium Microsoft Windows NT Workstation Edition, Service Pack 6a, (04.00.1381.00)
151292 3 0.00 0.00 GenuineIntel 662MHz Pentium Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition, Service Pack 4, (05.00.2195.00)

people tend to jump to conclusions too fast! ;-)
CPDN/BOINC from the start was not compatible with Win98 & NT4, so it's not some "hidden secret." My guess is the new task switching is what 98 & NT4 hate, since old Windoze wasn't that great for threads & processes. As a BOINC programmer I can safely say that all we are using is the common C functions fopen/fclose etc. There's no "secret NTFS functions" or anything; you can just download the BOINC source code and see for yourself! :-)

> > I'm going to attempt to use Norton's RescueDisk to boot the system and run
> > DiskDoctor to fix the FAT. If that fails, then I have no choice but to do a
> > Windows reinstall, wiping out everything. I'm not a happy camper.
>
> MPBroida - you may not have to wipe out everything even if Norton fails to fix
> your system.
> As long as your partition is intact, you can simply rename WIN.COM
> then perform a re-install of Windows (either into the same directory
> -risky - or a new directory - safe. No need to lose user data

Well, there's only one partition and the FAT is corrupted. If ScanDisk or DiskDoctor can't fix that, then ANY file access could hit the corrupted area of the FAT. A Win9x re-install requires a fully clean/functional FAT partition.

But thanks for thinking about me. :)

>>>It seems to me that with all your fancy new OS'es you cannot match my credits
>>Credits come for most from CPU power not from OS.
>>Probably you have a P4 CPU or run for more time than me or have a lot of PC.
>Ye man, here are the real DINOSAURS...
Yes I know that I'm right when I'm say something:
You use for sure a P4 CPU, a lot of Computer and you can run those more than I can.
OS is a little % on crunching cabability!

> > MPBroida - you may not have to wipe out everything even if Norton fails
> > to fix your system.
> > As long as your partition is intact, you can simply rename WIN.COM
> > then perform a re-install of Windows (either into the same directory
> > -risky - or a new directory - safe. No need to lose user data
>
> Well, there's only one partition and the FAT is corrupted. If ScanDisk or
> DiskDoctor can't fix that, then ANY file access could hit the corrupted area
> of the FAT. A Win9x re-install requires a fully clean/functional FAT
> partition.

Turns out that my C: drive has physically bad blocks. Odd that the disk was fine until I installed BOINC 4.05, but it's EXTREMELY unlikely that BOINC could have --caused-- them.

The BIOS can't even find boot blocks on the hard drive. I did manage to boot from the Norton Rescue Disks, but ScanDisk is not on them. But I was (barely) able to "cd" to the right spot on the C: drive and run ScanDisk.

I let ScanDisk run and fix everything it could find. It decided that the FAT entry for my C:\Windows directory was "broken" (as were a few subsubdirs), so it fixed it by creating a new DIR0002 directory. But everything that was in the Windows dir is GONE; files left as lost clusters, subdirs "re-discovered" and renamed to DIR000x but no longer inside the Windows directory.

I can read the whole disk, but the dir structure is mostly gone. I'm gonna compare it with a Win98se system and try renaming files/dirs into the right place where I can see a match, but all my installed apps are trash and I'm sure a bunch of other stuff will never be restored to the right place. I was able to save a lot of my data files (e-mail, spreadsheets, etc), though, and I'll get them to CDs or floppies ASAP.

End result: I'll cleanup what I can and then try to re-install WinME from CD. THEN it'll take a few weeks to reinstall my important apps, not counting any games.

> > > MPBroida - you may not have to wipe out everything even if Norton
> fails
> > > to fix your system.
> > > As long as your partition is intact, you can simply rename WIN.COM
> > > then perform a re-install of Windows (either into the same
> directory
> > > -risky - or a new directory - safe. No need to lose user data
> >
> > Well, there's only one partition and the FAT is corrupted. If ScanDisk
> or
> > DiskDoctor can't fix that, then ANY file access could hit the corrupted
> area
> > of the FAT. A Win9x re-install requires a fully clean/functional FAT
> > partition.
>
> Turns out that my C: drive has physically bad blocks. Odd that the disk was
> fine until I installed BOINC 4.05, but it's EXTREMELY unlikely that BOINC
> could have --caused-- them.
>
> The BIOS can't even find boot blocks on the hard drive. I did manage to boot
> from the Norton Rescue Disks, but ScanDisk is not on them. But I was (barely)
> able to "cd" to the right spot on the C: drive and run ScanDisk.
>
> I let ScanDisk run and fix everything it could find. It decided that the FAT
> entry for my C:Windows directory was "broken" (as were a few subsubdirs), so
> it fixed it by creating a new DIR0002 directory. But everything that was in
> the Windows dir is GONE; files left as lost clusters, subdirs "re-discovered"
> and renamed to DIR000x but no longer inside the Windows directory.
>
> I can read the whole disk, but the dir structure is mostly gone. I'm gonna
> compare it with a Win98se system and try renaming files/dirs into the right
> place where I can see a match, but all my installed apps are trash and I'm
> sure a bunch of other stuff will never be restored to the right place. I was
> able to save a lot of my data files (e-mail, spreadsheets, etc), though, and
> I'll get them to CDs or floppies ASAP.
>
> End result: I'll cleanup what I can and then try to re-install WinME from CD.
> THEN it'll take a few weeks to reinstall my important apps, not counting any
> games.
>
>
Glad to hear you can save most of your files... trying to resist must not weaken oh hell sorry can not help it BACKUP BACK UP hehehehehhe I am glad though....
When Asking for help, please post the following;
Type of PC
How much memory
Type of Operating System
Type of connection to Internet
Projects You are Running
Version of BOINC

M7 Seti@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club ©

> Glad to hear you can save most of your files... trying to resist must not
> weaken oh hell sorry can not help it BACKUP BACK UP hehehehehhe I am glad
> though....

Yes. I should DEFINITELY have been doing backups of my personal data, at least. I've been a baaad boy. ;) I didn't even create System Restore Points often enough, though they probably wouldn't have helped in this case.

If I can't get WinME running correctly again on that system, I'll just turn it into a Linux box with a new harddrive, and put the old/creaky harddrive as a data drive on an even older Windows box. :)