Average credit going up and down

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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1756325 - Posted: 14 Jan 2016, 16:29:10 UTC

Up until the upgrade to V8, my average credits just continued to climb. Since the upgrade to V8 I saw my credit over 1100, then down to 1050, then up to 1075, currently at 1090 something. Why would my credits go down ?
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Profile Jord
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Message 1756338 - Posted: 14 Jan 2016, 17:17:23 UTC - in response to Message 1756325.  

Your credits go up all the time as long as you keep returning valid work.

Your RAC, recent average credit, will go up or down depending on how much credit per day you cache in, and vetted against half-times of the previous days how much those are halved and halved and halved.

All the moments you don't return valid work, your RAC will go down.
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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1756355 - Posted: 14 Jan 2016, 18:03:26 UTC - in response to Message 1756338.  
Last modified: 14 Jan 2016, 18:06:00 UTC

So any idea what would be causing work to be returned invalid ? It's "possible" I just never noticed this before but I'm pretty sure it's only been happening since the upgrade to V8 and only using GPU. Before I noticed the numbers going down, I was wondering why the work was going so much slower than it was before. Then I remembered checking it before I went to bed and it was over 1100. When I checked in the morning it was all the way down to 1050 something. That was about 4 days ago and I haven't broken the 1100 mark since. My gut tells me something is not right. Maybe I should just go back to using CPU instead of GPU and going back to my original preferences instead of seti preferences. Unless someone has an idea what may be happening. Maybe I should just delete everything and start over with a fresh download of V8. Just today I checked it at 11:48am EST and the count was 1070.92. At 12:42pm EST, it was 1068.10. Anyone have any ideas ?
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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1756588 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 16:00:24 UTC - in response to Message 1756355.  

Checked this morning and after almost 24 hours of processing, my average credit went from 1068 to 1072. If no one else has any suggestions, I'm going to uninstall everything and start from scratch.
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Message 1756616 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 16:55:11 UTC - in response to Message 1756588.  

Why? What about the average in Recent Average Credit do you not follow? It's not a set value, the credits you receive for valid work are not all of one value only, they differ.

You see problems where there are none.
Your credit went up by about 2,000 since I last posted, but that credit is divided among tasks that were granted 95, or 100, or 110, or 124, or anything in between. If you manage to grab an Astropulse and have it get credit, that's an extra 200-500 credit, depending on its angle range.

When driving to a fixed place, do you always drive there with exactly 65 miles an hour, and take exactly 23.5 minutes to get there? Each day? Come weather, traffic, your mood, etc.? No. So same thing with the RAC, it changes, it has small deviations up and down.

It solely depends on how much credit you managed to get in in one day, and one day your wingpersons return their copy of the task within minutes of you so the tasks are validated immediately and granted credit, where the next day you have wingpeople who have a huge cache and haven't returned any of the tasks you returned. So then you do not get credit granted yet, but the RAC is recalculated and going down because there's no credit gained.

It is nothing to worry about. Seriously, there is nothing wrong.
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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1756634 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 17:51:27 UTC - in response to Message 1756616.  

Ok so here's where I'm coming from. Every since signing up with Seti, I've had a pretty old, slow computer. Took forever to do work units. Recently I bought a new fast computer that's pretty much dedicated to Seti. I was looking forward to processing more work. And, in fact, during the first couple of weeks, my numbers shot up. Climbing steadily every day. This computer was processing work "way" faster than my previous one. Then after a couple of weeks (and I want to say it happened right around the same time I changed from "my preferences" to "seti preferences" things seemed to slow down. My goal was to get into the top 25% so I was watching the numbers every day. That's why I was seeing how fast the credits were building and also why I seemed to notice a slow down. Then for the first time I saw the numbers go backwards and thought there must be something wrong. I've been bouncing around from the 1050's to low 1070's for a week. Does it seem right that after a full week of processing I can't seem to get past about 1073 ? I have no idea. That's why I'm here asking. I'll let it keep on trucking and see what happens.
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Message 1756658 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 19:08:09 UTC - in response to Message 1756634.  

I've been bouncing around from the 1050's to low 1070's for a week

Normal fluctuation.

You have Validation pending (20) (20 finished by you tasks wait to be confirmed by other computers)
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=7853935&offset=0&show_names=0&state=2&appid=29

RAC is speedometer but it don't show "your speed" immediately, it depends on other people/computers to confirm it.
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Message 1756664 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 19:18:26 UTC - in response to Message 1756634.  

You're running only tasks on the CPU, which goes slow. To see credit and RAC go way way up, you'll have to use a dedicated GPU, and then a better one than the one you have now. As I doubt that the project is going to release a non-OpenCL application for Seti version 8.

Version 7 may have had one, but it was slow and prone to errors on the wrong hardware.

But again, what you're looking at is the average credit. It can go up, it can go down. Is an average of 1073 good for an Athlon II? I don't know, but what I do know is that it doesn't matter for you to reset and try again, as that will definitely let your RAC go down.

Also, uninstalling BOINC, deleting the data directory and reinstalling BOINC is just bad. You'll be forcing other people to wait for all not returned work to time out, and being resent to other computers. This can take till March. Doing so you'll be affecting other people's RACs as they now have to wait for their tasks to validate and be given credit.

Chances are 90% or more that the server will see you come back with exactly the same computer and reassign you the same hostID, with those credits and that RAC.
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Message 1756665 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 19:20:40 UTC

my guide is about 1000 per core on a Phenom, so that's in the right sort of region
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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1756666 - Posted: 15 Jan 2016, 19:22:05 UTC - in response to Message 1756664.  

Ok. I'm convinced. I'll leave it alone.
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Stephen D. Smith

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Message 1759788 - Posted: 27 Jan 2016, 21:17:05 UTC - in response to Message 1756664.  

So it's now 12 days later and I'm for all intents and purposes no better off than I was 12 days ago. I've been crunching numbers 24/7. Is this still considered normal ?
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Profile BilBg
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Message 1760013 - Posted: 28 Jan 2016, 15:20:37 UTC - in response to Message 1759788.  

Is this still considered normal ?

Which "this"?
Your RAC: 1,062 - what do you expect to see here? Constant RAC?
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Questions and Answers : Preferences : Average credit going up and down


 
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