We had a few extra minor planned outages this week (nothing as severe as I warned on the front page) for repairs down at the colocation facility where most of our servers are kept. Quite simply, they needed to replace some backup power circuits that were "out of tolerance" (i.e. not up to high standards for availability in case other circuits failed). In theory we didn't really need to bring servers services down, because most of them have multiple power supplies spread over different circuits. But (1) we used this as an exercise that all of our system will indeed stay afloat if power was suddenly cut to one of its supplies (all systems passed this test!) and (2) we have some systems which only have one supply, and thus had to be moved onto safer power for the repairs. Also (3) if the databases and servers are off, the systems are pulling much less power, thus lessening the impact when power was moved around during the procedure.

Anyway, everything went smoothly, we're back on line (still recovering a little bit as I write this sentence). As you were :).

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

It is good to hear when things go well.
As always, Thanks for taking the time to give us an update.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

Thanks much for taking the time to write the update Matt.

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Thanks for the explanation Matt,

Claggy

It is good to hear when things go well.
As always, Thanks for taking the time to give us an update.

+1
Thanks Matt :)

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Thanx for the update Matt:)

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

Thanks for the info, Matt!
The colo continues to be a fine home for the Seti servers, indeed.

Meow!

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Thank you Matt!

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Pluto will always be a planet to me.

Seti Ambassador
Not to late to order an Anni Shirt

Thanks for the news post Matt, things have certainly been going well since this service happening housed at Colo.

I have one question in regards to when sending data to Colo to be split, is the data downloaded on a computer through an Internet browser like we download Boinc and is the data compressed or is it transferred with no compression? Example tape 17au08ac is 10.29 GB

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I have been with SETI for a long time and my one issue is heat. I am presently running an Intel 6 core machine and thinking of going to their new 8 core box. BUT that is over a grand and I hate to toast it with SETI. Is there anything at all that can be done about the heat that SETI creates? It is the application that generates the heat and you are one of the programming gurus so fix it already!

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Any day above ground is a great day!

I have been with SETI for a long time and my one issue is heat. I am presently running an Intel 6 core machine and thinking of going to their new 8 core box. BUT that is over a grand and I hate to toast it with SETI. Is there anything at all that can be done about the heat that SETI creates? It is the application that generates the heat and you are one of the programming gurus so fix it already!

You might do better asking in the Number Crunching forum, that is where the technical "gurus" mostly hang out.

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I keep getting Communication Deferred over and over when trying to connect. Do I need something?

I keep getting Communication Deferred over and over when trying to connect. Do I need something?

The project was down for a while. Every time your computer would try to contact it would get no answer and then back off for 1 hour. That’s when you would get the communication deferred” message.

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Anyone knows what was the problem?

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Hi Michael,

Checking your hardware I see you have 12 virtual CPU's + an NVIDIA GPU.

The project started using the Intel GPU too. So, if your PC is like mine, it will it will have an Intel GPU for your PC's video. So you could be running 14 simultaneous work units. I will ignore that possibility here.

So, by default, if you do nothing else, you likely are running 13 simultaneous work units. Nice - very nice indeed! You get tons of work done, lots of credit! But, like you say, and like I do too, you get lots of heat. In this case more heat than you want.

And that is by default. I assume you do not use an app_config.xml file to further boost the number of simultaneously running workunits > 13.

In your online BOINC configuration, you can tell the system to NOT use your NVIDIA GPU. That will knock 1 simultaneous work unit off.

You should be able to use the optional app_config.xml file to reduce the number of simultaneous work units running. But I have not tried that.

So, you might start by checking how many simultaneous work units you actually have running. On the BOINC Manager Screen, choose the tab Tasks. Count how many work units (Tasks) are running. Then reduce that number to the point your CPU doesn't run so hot.

You may also be able to reduce that number by configuration changes in your online account SETI@home preferences.

There are some times during the hot Summertime I shut down cuz' I am afraid I'll smoke the PC. So, I understand the problem.

Hope this helps!

--BB

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"It is often darkest just before it turns completely black."

Is there anything at all that can be done about the heat that SETI creates?

You may:
- use better cooling
- use TThrottle

It is the application that generates the heat and you are one of the programming gurus so fix it already!

There is nothing to "fix" - any optimized computing will heat the computing device (CPU/GPU/...)

Try to encode a video in AVC (x264 codec)
http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

Try a 'heavy' game

Try Linpack
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?201670-LinX-A-simple-Linpack-interface

(all the above will heat)

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

Newer chip sets draw less power and are faster. My Mac Pro draws about 65 watts with no load and adds about 8 watts per thread of load. Server grade hardware is designed to take the heat load full time. My G5 Mac tower was purchased in 2006 and ran SETI full time for 8 years with the only hardware failure being the hard drive. It still functions todays but it is so slow. By the way, make sure that every 6 months to a year you blow the dust out of it. The dust will kill it fast if you get to much build up.

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