Why would they charge you for it?

Okay, perhaps not charge per se, but then it'll have built-in advertisements that you have to sit through for 30 seconds every so many minutes or continuously at the bottom of the screen. If you don't want that, you can go for the Premium version which costs you $1.49 a month. Just like the Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Free but "Contains in-app purchases", and here Microsoft Minesweeper, Free but "Contains in-app purchases".

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It keeps telling the CPU is busy. The CPU is not doing anything. Seti shows up sometimes but never progresses beyond 29% I had it for years on my old computer and it ran beautifully. This one is a mess.

It keeps telling the CPU is busy. The CPU is not doing anything. Seti shows up sometimes but never progresses beyond 29% I had it for years on my old computer and it ran beautifully. This one is a mess.

Mine either loads 100% and I see a full display of all 4 pages and the graphic "noise" box, OR I just see a small sized BOINC image saying "loading" slowly rotating around my screen. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for when it works or doesn't work; it seems random. I can't do anything to change how it acts.

I'm running the latest version of Win 10 on a 5 month old PC with AMD graphics, not nvidea.


Fairy Tale:
A long time ago, there lived a woman.
She did not nag, bitch, or rant.
But, it was just that one day.
And it was a long time ago. :)
The End

Good luck !!

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

It keeps telling the CPU is busy. The CPU is not doing anything. Seti shows up sometimes but never progresses beyond 29% I had it for years on my old computer and it ran beautifully. This one is a mess.

The default preference setting is to not use more than 25% of your CPU. You can change that at any time either within BOINC Manager or on the web.

In BOINC Manager to to Options -> Computing Preferences, then select "Use at most 100% of CPU time". And if you're in the Advanced View (View -> Advanced), you can see additional options under Computing Preferences for "Use at most 100% of CPUs". Change your preferences to your liking. It is generally recommended to leave 1 core/CPU free if you do GPU crunching.

Also, this issue has nothing to do with Windows 10 and should probably have been in its own thread.

Hope that helps!

Friday September 29 2017, 6:28 AM

Hi,

I increased my CPU setting from 25% up to 60% to see if it had any effect on the BOINC Screen Saver failing to load properly. It doesn't help. My saver DOES work 100% SOME of the time, maybe 30% of the time, but at all other times all I see is a small-sized BOINC icon slowly rotating around my screen saying it is "loading." A SAD thing.

I like helping SETI but now, with the screen saver failing, it does not impress visitors to my house who LIKED it and wanted to join SETI to get it. Now people just say "What is THAT boring thing on your screen?" SETI will lose participation unless they FIX the BOINC Screen Saver.

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

SETI will lose participation unless they FIX the BOINC Screen Saver.

As SETI@home did nothing to the screensaver and it has been totally proved to be a Windows problem, the chances of any of the small staff at SETI@home having time to get into communication with Microsoft seem very very small.

As screen savers are in fact not needed on modern screens. I cannot see Microsoft getting terribly worried about an obscure science project having problems with a screen saver.

Perhaps the volunteer developers at Boinc might just have a look but with the amount of things they have on their plate it also seems unlikely.

Sorry but unless next months big Windows 10 update fixes it, I cannot see much chance of it ever working properly again.

Friday September 29 2017, 8:59 AM

Hi,
I have to agree that chances are small for a fix. Microsoft could likely care less as SETI probably won't offer to pay them to fix it, and it appears SETI won't contact M$ and ask them to and mention all the GOOD work SETI has done all these years.

Let's face it, my experience is that SOME people, far from all, but SOME, only allow SETI to process data on their PC's only iF they can run the very nice BOINC Screen Saver. After all, it is colorful and informative and attracts a good response from those who see it. I know there are hard core diehards who could care less about BOINC, and some likely buy several PC's and run them at 100% to crunch SETI data and could care less about 'screen savers.' I don't do that. I run SETI to help out BUT I do it in exchange for the beautiful BOINC Screen Saver I'd rather use than the JUNK screen savers offered by M$.

Huggs, :)

Stay here on Earth. It's the only planet with DARK CHOCOLATE !!

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

I increased my CPU setting from 25% up to 60% to see if it had any effect on the BOINC Screen Saver failing to load properly. It doesn't help. My saver DOES work 100% SOME of the time, maybe 30% of the time, but at all other times all I see is a small-sized BOINC icon slowly rotating around my screen saying it is "loading." A SAD thing.

My advise to raise the CPU usage wasn't for you but for the gentlemen before you.

Friday September 29 2017, 2:40 PM

Ahhh, gotcha !! I see, said the blind carpenter as she picked up her hammer and saw! :)

I've tried everything ELSE to fix the BOINC Screen Saver with no luck. I thought: "Why not?" :) I changed back from 60% CPU to 35% CPU.

I have an AMD graphics card. I suppose others use NVIDEA as they are more popular, so its not the card, and the monitor likely has no connection to the problem. It has to be Win 10 not allowing the screen image to load, but WHY, as in my case, it loads fine, at times. To me software either works or it doesn't. What kind of a software coding error would let the saver load properly one time but not another? Makes no sense.

I developed engineering software years back for all Win PC's from those running Win 3.1 up to and thru Win XP. I had to stop when XP died as M$ prevented my code from fully utilizing the entire graphics screen; I couldn't 'call' it anymore. The basic code that BOINC was programmed with just may have a similar problem in working with Win 10? My older Win 7 PC runs BOINC just fine.

Every day, thousamds of INNOCENT plants are killed by vegetarians. Help END the violence. Eat BACON !!

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

The SETI@home screen saver functionality is working again in the new Windows 10 version 1709 "Fall Creators Update" on two of my home PCs.

The SETI@home screen saver functionality is working again in the new Windows 10 version 1709 "Fall Creators Update" on two of my home PCs.

Friday October 20 2017, 6:50 PM

Mine is still intermittent. I have the same Win 10 as you; its the Creators Update. How do I tell if I have version 1709? If not, where to get it?

Thank you...

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

To me software either works or it doesn't.

If it were only that simple. APIs change. Implementation of APIs change. Underlying functions of how APIs work change. Software coding best practices change with the expectation that the software developer updates their code to keep up with all of these changes.

What kind of a software coding error would let the saver load properly one time but not another? Makes no sense.

To be clear, we know the BOINC screen saver works. The BOINC logo would show up without a problem. It is when BOINC is supposed to load the project screen saver code that things start to become non-standard. In this case, BOINC passes a call to the SETI@home executable to load. Ageless can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the main SETI executables do not contain graphics code. Instead the code was placed into a separate executable. So if I understand the loading process correctly, BOINC calls SETI which then calls the graphics executable. I think it is this complexity that broke somewhere. No other screen saver functionality has this level of complexity that I'm aware of. Therefore it wuold not surprise me if this breaks again in the future.

The SETI@home screen saver functionality is working again in the new Windows 10 version 1709 "Fall Creators Update" on two of my home PCs.

Friday October 20 2017, 6:50 PM

Mine is still intermittent. I have the same Win 10 as you; its the Creators Update. How do I tell if I have version 1709? If not, where to get it?

Thank you...

Confusingly, Microsoft is calling the latest version released this past Tuesday as the "Fall Creators Update", not to be confused with the release from earlier this year simply called the "Creators Update". Creators Update was 1703. Fall Creators Update is 1709.

You can see the version of Windows by pressing Start and typing WINVER and pressing enter.

[Edited to add] Normally Windows 10 is rolled out in waves by Microsoft. You can either wait until your PC gets it automatically, or you can jumpstart the upgrade by downloading the update here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

It would appear that MS are continuing to reduce or remove the operating system support for screensavers from Windows(10). This will eventually mean that all screensavers will stop working on Windows 10 and later. A and, unless a third party comes up with an operating system add-on that acts as a screensaver API that will be the end of (dynamic) screensavers under Windows.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Saturday October 21 2017, 5:28 AM

THANK YOU !!! I still have 1703 and the BOINC saver is intermittant. Most of the time a small-sized version of the logo orbits slowly around the screen. On occasion, it finally LOADS and I get all the pages and they look great.

Stay here on Earth. It's the only planet with DARK CHOCOLATE !!

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

INFO ON THE M$ "FALL CREATORS UPDATE"
Thursday October 26 2017, 7:17 AM

[url]https://www.cnet.com/how-to/save-space-with-onedrives-new-files-on-demand-feature/?ftag=CAD-04-10aai5f&bhid=
[/url]

I still have not rcv'd it from M$ so I can't verify that the BOINC screensaver problem is finally fixed, but, as you indicated, it HAS been fixed, so we shall pray to the deity of our choice. Fair enough? :)

To be OLD and WISE you must first be YOUNG and DUMB !!

The SETI@home screen saver functionality is working again in the new Windows 10 version 1709 "Fall Creators Update" on two of my home PCs.

Friday October 20 2017, 6:50 PM

Mine is still intermittent. I have the same Win 10 as you; its the Creators Update. How do I tell if I have version 1709? If not, where to get it?

Thank you...

Confusingly, Microsoft is calling the latest version released this past Tuesday as the "Fall Creators Update", not to be confused with the release from earlier this year simply called the "Creators Update". Creators Update was 1703. Fall Creators Update is 1709.

You can see the version of Windows by pressing Start and typing WINVER and pressing enter.

[Edited to add] Normally Windows 10 is rolled out in waves by Microsoft. You can either wait until your PC gets it automatically, or you can jumpstart the upgrade by downloading the update here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

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River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

I can't reset my rainbow screen saver after getting new hard drive. Have gone, as advised, to Settings, Personalization, Lock Screen, Screen Saver but then can't get any further. Please help.

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I can't reset my rainbow screen saver after getting new hard drive. Have gone, as advised, to Settings, Personalization, Lock Screen, Screen Saver but then can't get any further. Please help.

Friday October 27 2017, 5:34 AM

Hi Mary,

What version of Windows, if that is your OS, are you running? The original 'Creators Edition' has a bug which prevents the SETI BOINC screensaver from working properly. There is a new 'Fall Creators Edition' out that has, in the words of a previous poster to this group, 'fixed the problem.'

Stay here on Earth. It's the only planet with DARK CHOCOLATE !!

---

River Song (aka Linda Latte on planet Earth)
"Happy I-Phone girl on the GO GO GO"

I still have not rcv'd it from M$ so I can't verify that the BOINC screensaver problem is finally fixed, but, as you indicated, it HAS been fixed, so we shall pray to the deity of our choice. Fair enough? :)

I can be weeks to months before it is rolled out to you. You may be waiting a while.

I can't reset my rainbow screen saver after getting new hard drive. Have gone, as advised, to Settings, Personalization, Lock Screen, Screen Saver but then can't get any further. Please help.

If you don't see BOINC in the drop-down for screen savers, did you install BOINC on the new computer and attach to SETI first?