Can someone explain this to me?

Why is it that most of the people, say the top 100 contributors , who have contributed to the SETI project suddenly stop contributing? Most of their daily and weekly numbers are at zero. Why is that? Do you get kicked off after reaching a certain point? What causes that to happen? Certainly these people are still crunching numbers. Did they suddenly look at their electric bill and were shocked? What's going on?

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Can someone explain this to me?

Why is it that most of the people, say the top 100 contributors , who have contributed to the SETI project suddenly stop contributing? Most of their daily and weekly numbers are at zero. Why is that? Do you get kicked off after reaching a certain point? What causes that to happen? Certainly these people are still crunching numbers. Did they suddenly look at their electric bill and were shocked? What's going on?

. . Without referencing numbers sometimes peoples circumstances change. Some long time volunteers are no longer with us. Others may have gotten married, changed jobs, or any of a thousand reasons why they are no longer part of the project. I believe this is reflected right across the entire range of RACs, but those with very high RACs may be the more conspicuous by their absence. But there is one reason you have already named, sometimes the power bill becomes too much to persevere with.

. . Also some have become disillusioned with the project for one reason or another.

Stephen

:(

Or those top cruchers have been chasing a ratings target, achieved their goal, and then moved on to other projects to chase new goals...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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That makes sense!

I guess I'm actually reading the stats incorrectly. Most are still contributing. The numbers on the left hand side make sense because there is nowhere to go.

And some just turn up here for certain events and then go back to their better paying projects.

Cheers.

I guess I'm actually reading the stats incorrectly. Most are still contributing.

Correct... the retain rate in the "leaderboard" is much higher than generally. There are currently 1,786,164 SETI@Home BOINC accounts that have been created since the platform started in 2005 (although I'm unsure how many of those are "real" and have actually submitted any work.)

However merely 87,379 of those are active accounts that submitted any work as of yesterday. This is just under five percent, so generally more than 19 out of 20 participants have either stopped contributing or never did.

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I guess I'm actually reading the stats incorrectly. Most are still contributing.

Correct... the retain rate in the "leaderboard" is much higher than generally. There are currently 1,786,164 SETI@Home BOINC accounts that have been created since the platform started in 2005 (although I'm unsure how many of those are "real" and have actually submitted any work.)

However merely 87,379 of those are active accounts that submitted any work as of yesterday. This is just under five percent, so generally more than 19 out of 20 participants have either stopped contributing or never did.

Agree but if you look the others projects that's apparently is a constant.

The BOINC combined shows about 4.3 MM of users and only 3.1% active, if you compare that about 1/3 of the users choose SETI ant some time. Not bad if you look from this point.

Users	4,359,396
Active users	135,790 (3.11%)
Hosts	630,975
Active hosts	481,380 (76.29%)
Teams	108,621
Active teams	14,541 (13.39%)

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It's also possible to get fired for running S@H on your employers machines without permission...

And sometimes the systems we are using to get to the top of the leaderboard turn out to be "unstable"!

I have had that happen a couple of times.

Once I get it sorted out I usually am "back" but it takes weeks to climb back up.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Another reason might be that in their part of the world it might be summer and the heat is too much to bear. As someone said earlier, sometimes it is difficult to justify the power bill. But during winter time all that heat produced by crunching can be useful for offsetting your heating bills. Here in the UK, once there's a chill in the air I crank up the SETI long before I need to switch in the house heating. It makes for a way better use of my kWh's than just using radiators. Then once spring comes again, I switch on no new tasks and power saving settings mode but I have to say I miss the sound of the fans at night.

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Another reason might be that in their part of the world it might be summer and the heat is too much to bear. As someone said earlier, sometimes it is difficult to justify the power bill. But during winter time all that heat produced by crunching can be useful for offsetting your heating bills. Here in the UK, once there's a chill in the air I crank up the SETI long before I need to switch in the house heating. It makes for a way better use of my kWh's than just using radiators. Then once spring comes again, I switch on no new tasks and power saving settings mode but I have to say I miss the sound of the fans at night.

Its beginning to look like I am going to have to follow that pattern. :(

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

This may be an issue next summer for me. I recently started crunching again not because it has cooled off, but because the wife was without work all summer and that lack of income made it hard to swallow that kind of power bill. Now it's cool outside and she's working so we can float the bill. Next summer though...not so sure as the basement (where all my equipment is) is by far the warmest place in the house. sure, it's great in the winter as it helps heat the house, but next summer is looking hot. We'll basically have to make s choice to either stop production for the summer or, as odd as it sounds, put A/C in the basement. So in my case I've been through 2 of the previosly mentioned reasons some may stop crunching, not that I'm anywhere near the top but I do what I can :)

If you can afford the power for the computers themselves, a passive cooling area would be much cheaper, ie a dedicated room with two windows, one with a small fan blowing cool air in (optional) and one with a small fan blowing hot air out . Or just put them outdoors in a shed or enclosure.

The merciless laws of thermodynamics dictate that every joule of heat you put into the house will require roughly two joules of AC to get rid of it. So it will end up costing 3x in power what it would just running the computers alone.

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Or move to a cold country. Then every joule of input power is used twice - once to crunch the data, and again to heat the house :-)

If you can afford the power for the computers themselves, a passive cooling area would be much cheaper, ie a dedicated room with two windows, one with a small fan blowing cool air in (optional) and one with a small fan blowing hot air out . Or just put them outdoors in a shed or enclosure.

The merciless laws of thermodynamics dictate that every joule of heat you put into the house will require roughly two joules of AC to get rid of it. So it will end up costing 3x in power what it would just running the computers alone.

Ya, that's why my whole operation is in the basement. Using the basement walls to absorb as much of the heat as I can. I guess I'll just keep an eye on it next year as it heats up. Thankfully, even if it does become something I need to address I live in the North East US so the "warm" season is fairly short. At least compared to having lived in central Texas for over 10 years.

Another reason that I may face about next March when this contract (work) expires is money.

My electrical bill peaked in August this year with 4 rigs running. And at least 14 video cards crunching. I had to decide to take one of my high end boxes offline and consolidate my two windows boxes into one box. The high end box that is "retired" right now is doing the weekend warrior routine. "He" wakes up sometime saturday morning and runs his tail off till sunday morning. The "He" goes back to sleep.

I can continue to contribute at a much lower operating cost if I have to. But the result would mean I would certainly drop out of the top 20 maybe even the top 100.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Another reason can be a change in priorities as well as the summer heat.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8528566 explained to me that he was now crunching another project as well as trying to lower his cooling bill.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_user.php?userid=7810325 had it get too hot in Minnesota this summer so he took most of his systems offline. He is running 4 right now but historically he ran 8 or more making him a very high producer even if a single machine wasn't in the top 20.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Certainly, money comes into it. I am retired and on a pension, I would love to upgrade one of my 750Ti cards to a 980Ti, a lot more output for mot much more power cost. But even on Ebay they are £120-150 for a secondhand decent one. If anyone in the UK has one for about £75, you have a customer!

An intermediate step I have been very happy with has been used-gtx 1060 3Gb's which should be in your price range or less. You can get 6 pin versions which usually make it easier to get it wired up. It should double your production or more.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Also, Tom is right in that priorities can change. A close member of my family has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. On the one hand I could continue with Seti, with the prospect of another 20 years of nil results, or help carry out research into an Alzheimer's cure via FAH which I chose to do. A personal choice obviously but relevant to me.

The main reason I am running World Community Grid on my cpu's is my wife died of cancer. I can't find a specific cancer project for what she died of so I am supporting any research on the topic.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).