Installed Seti@home on a new computer, and the screensaver does not animate; it comes up frozen. Other than that, the client appears to be working. And it works fine on all my other computers. I have reset the project a couple of times to no effect. Any ideas?

---

Seth

The screen saver (BOINC.SCR) needs to communicate with the BOINC core client (BOINC.EXE), and it does this via the TCP/IP loopback address (127.0.0.1). Make sure that the communication is not being blocked by your firewall program.

Next suggestion would be the graphics chip. The screen saver is not compatible with all graphics chips and can cause seemingly random lockups.

---

Thanks for replying. Firewall is disabled. GPU is Nvidia 8800GT. And graphics lockup is consistent every time screensaver loads. Also, I seem to recall it working fine at first, but then it quit at some point.

Messages since last restart follow:

1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Starting BOINC client version 5.10.30 for windows_intelx86
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||log flags: task, file_xfer, sched_ops
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Libraries: libcurl/7.17.1 OpenSSL/0.9.8e zlib/1.2.3
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Data directory: C:\\Program Files\\BOINC
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6750 @ 2.66GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 11]
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Processor features: fpu tsc pae nx sse sse2 mmx
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||OS: Microsoft Windows XP: Professional Edition, Service Pack 2, (05.01.2600.00)
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Memory: 2.00 GB physical, 3.85 GB virtual
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Disk: 186.30 GB total, 164.53 GB free
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Local time is UTC -6 hours
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM|SETI@home|URL: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID: 4125401; location: home; project prefs: default
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 17-May-2007 18:09:32)
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Host location: home
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Reading preferences override file
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Preferences limit memory usage when active to 1023.21MB
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Preferences limit memory usage when idle to 1841.77MB
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Preferences limit disk usage to 93.13GB
1/14/2008 5:28:39 PM||Suspending network activity - user is active
1/14/2008 5:33:40 PM||Resuming network activity
1/14/2008 5:33:40 PM|SETI@home|Restarting task 27dc06ad.16512.9072.10.6.117_1 using setiathome_enhanced version 527
1/14/2008 5:33:40 PM|SETI@home|Restarting task 27dc06ad.16512.9072.10.6.142_1 using setiathome_enhanced version 527
1/14/2008 5:37:00 PM||Suspending computation - user is active
1/14/2008 5:37:00 PM||Suspending network activity - user is active
1/14/2008 6:09:33 PM||Resuming computation
1/14/2008 6:09:33 PM||Resuming network activity
1/14/2008 6:11:14 PM||Suspending computation - user is active
1/14/2008 6:11:14 PM||Suspending network activity - user is active

Never mind. It seems to be working now.

Thanks.

---

Seth

Now it's not working. This problem seems to be related to the fact that lsass.exe is hitting the disk once per second indefinitely. My system is clean, with only XP, the mobo drivers, and the XP udates installed. I am researching this, but I am not having much luck. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

---

Seth

hi there seti@home community and admins, i used to utilize the old-school seti@home with my dad back in the late 90's, and i just thought I'd ask if there was a way to get the old orginal visualizer. i do enjoy the new 3d progression and animation but it moves around too much for me to comfortably study paterns for very long, is there anyway to lock the veiw angle on the screensaver / visualizer? or maybe customize visualizer preferences? any help would be much appreciated and if you could tell me if theres a way to get the old display aswell that would be awesome, anyhow its good to be back hope to hear from you soon
-Lucas

hi there seti@home community and admins, i used to utilize the old-school seti@home with my dad back in the late 90's, and i just thought I'd ask if there was a way to get the old orginal visualizer. i do enjoy the new 3d progression and animation but it moves around too much for me to comfortably study paterns for very long, is there anyway to lock the veiw angle on the screensaver / visualizer? or maybe customize visualizer preferences? any help would be much appreciated and if you could tell me if theres a way to get the old display aswell that would be awesome, anyhow its good to be back hope to hear from you soon
-Lucas

There is no way to get the old screen saver view back, but you can limit the oscillation of the 3D movement by clicking on Account -> Resource share and graphics SETI@Home preferences -> Edit Preferences. Change Graphics Preferences to Custom then click Update Preferences. Once you've updated the preferences, new options will be there if you click Edit again. Change all Oscillation preferences to zero ("0") and save preferences again.

The next time your BOINC Manager contacts the SETI@Home servers, it will download the updated preferences and your screen saver will stop wobbling.

---

After researching this further, I have discovered that lsass.exe is not the culprit. (Apparently it's normal for lsass.exe to show frequent I/O reads/writes when Task Manager is open.) When I view processes with Sysinternals Process Explorer, all processes are mostly quiet. Neither Systinternals File Monitor or Disk Monitor show any activity that correlates to my hard disk LED flashing once per second.

Also, the Seti@home screen saver does not always come up frozen; sometimes it runs for about one secend or less before freezing. Again, this doesn't seem to affect the client's ability to process work units. It's just annoying.

Now it's not working. This problem seems to be related to the fact that lsass.exe is hitting the disk once per second indefinitely. My system is clean, with only XP, the mobo drivers, and the XP udates installed. I am researching this, but I am not having much luck. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

---

Seth

Neither Systinternals File Monitor or Disk Monitor show any activity that correlates to my hard disk LED flashing once per second.

File Monitor should show you on the drive that BOINC is on that it writes several times per second to client-state_next.xml, before copying client_state.xml to client_state_prev.xml and writing the last information scoop from client_state_next.xml into client_state.xml

It may take a bit of rereading that sentence to get it, but that could account for your activity.

---

Also, the Seti@home screen saver does not always come up frozen; sometimes it runs for about one secend or less before freezing. Again, this doesn't seem to affect the client's ability to process work units. It's just annoying.

If the screen saver is running then locking, this usually indicates an overheated video card. Make sure the fan is blowing fine and is free of dust.

A similar thing happened on my g/f's PC when her video card died. SETI@Home's screen saver kept locking up and she had lots of graphics distortion and other artifacts that indicated that the card had an overheated RAM module that went bad. Unfortunately, the card was out of warranty.

She's been using her onboard video for the time being, but it works correctly now.

---

Neither Systinternals File Monitor or Disk Monitor show any activity that correlates to my hard disk LED flashing once per second.

File Monitor should show you on the drive that BOINC is on that it writes several times per second to client-state_next.xml, before copying client_state.xml to client_state_prev.xml and writing the last information scoop from client_state_next.xml into client_state.xml

It may take a bit of rereading that sentence to get it, but that could account for your activity.

I don't think so. This (apparent) disk activity takes place even when the BOINC client is not running. It also takes place in safe mode and when nobody is logged in.

Off topic: Is that the ship from "Serenity" in your profile pic?

---

Seth

Also, the Seti@home screen saver does not always come up frozen; sometimes it runs for about one secend or less before freezing. Again, this doesn't seem to affect the client's ability to process work units. It's just annoying.

If the screen saver is running then locking, this usually indicates an overheated video card. Make sure the fan is blowing fine and is free of dust.

The computer and video card are brand new, so dust is not an issue, and the video card fan is working fine. This rig runs Call of Duty 4 just fine, so I don't think it's the video card overheating.

Edited for typos.

---

Seth

Off topic: Is that the ship from "Serenity" in your profile pic?

It's the Firefly from the Firefly series and the movie Serenity, yes.

I don't think so. This (apparent) disk activity takes place even when the BOINC client is not running. It also takes place in safe mode and when nobody is logged in.

OK. :-)

Then it could be that it's the way that the hard drive makes sure it is not overheating by leaving the read/write head rest on one sector for too long. It'll move the head to another sector to prevent the first sector from heating up due to friction. Although during normal running, the head isn't in actual direct contact with the platter, it still creates a bit of friction from the air cushion that floats it. This can produce heat if it stays there long enough. This occasional movement is built into the drive to protect it.

---

Off topic: Is that the ship from "Serenity" in your profile pic?

It's the Firefly from the Firefly series and the movie Serenity, yes.

Cool. I never saw the series, but I love the movie.

I don't think so. This (apparent) disk activity takes place even when the BOINC client is not running. It also takes place in safe mode and when nobody is logged in.

OK. :-)

Then it could be that it's the way that the hard drive makes sure it is not overheating by leaving the read/write head rest on one sector for too long. It'll move the head to another sector to prevent the first sector from heating up due to friction. Although during normal running, the head isn't in actual direct contact with the platter, it still creates a bit of friction from the air cushion that floats it. This can produce heat if it stays there long enough. This occasional movement is built into the drive to protect it.

I suppose that's possible, but this same disk didn't do this on my old system. I was running it in IDE mode on that system though. Now I'm running it in AHCI mode. Incidentally, the disk is a Maxtor 200GB SATAII/300.

---

Seth

The computer and video card are brand new, so dust is not an issue, and the video card fan is working fine. This rig runs Call of Duty 4 just fine, so I don't think it's the video card overheating.

Her video card was relatively new too. It was only a few months old, but it was an OEM card so only a 30 day warranty.

But if your other games run fine, then its probably not it.

---