Posts by Heflin

21) Message boards : Number crunching : SETI energy usage (Message 920925)
Posted 24 Jul 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Seti could do the world, and themselves, a favor by not issuing wu's to these slow computers. I know that perspective isn't popular, but it is rational.


I agree. Oh, by the way, SETI will no longer be issuing WU's to any of your machines because someone thinks your machines are too slow!!!!


22) Message boards : Number crunching : The Geeks Challenge (Message 920920)
Posted 24 Jul 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Condolences on your mom's passing.
Hopefully all the relatives getting together is a silver lining.

Maybe all the WU's done while your gone can be donated or in honor of your mom?
Could temporarily change the name on the computers you leave running while you are gone. Then change them back.

Glad your letting the crunching continue at ANY level while your gone.
23) Message boards : Number crunching : Welcome to the 10 year club (Message 920914)
Posted 24 Jul 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:

Crunched Classic until closedown, and is crunching today:


I crunched PAST the Classic shutdown, my last WU couldn't be returned because the Classic servers were permanantly shutdown.

And I STILL don't have an avitar!
24) Message boards : Number crunching : Panic Mode On (20) Server problems (Message 918770)
Posted 17 Jul 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
It shows 50 or so in this backoff state. I highlight all of them and tell boinc view to retry the uploads. 1 in 4 is uploaded, the rest INSTANTLY go into a deeper backoff.


So You are the reason that others upload request are failing.
The fail and backoff process is there for a reason.
Manually forcing retries REPEATEDLY just hammers the servers making it worse for everyone.
As long as you have more work to process, chill out and let the backoff process work
25) Message boards : Number crunching : When Boredom leads to Registry Editing.......... (Message 918764)
Posted 17 Jul 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Your missing the overclocked speed.
And I bet if you check again you'll find you actually have TWO (2) 8-bit math co-processors!!

[deep voice] Bah ha ha ha
26) Message boards : Number crunching : Kitty crunching farm auction II.... (Message 905086)
Posted 8 Jun 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
My bid will be a new ball of string for the kitties.
Don't tell though, otherwise my kitties will be jeleous! :)

What type of bids did you receive last time?
27) Message boards : Number crunching : Who's on first, What's on second (Message 849527)
Posted 5 Jan 2009 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Doesn't this all incorrectly ASSUME that returning results 'early' makes a difference? As long as your computer is processing WUs and retruning them prior to the deadline, what does it matter?

I'm a big fan of "Set it & Forget it"
28) Message boards : Number crunching : I may be retiring a few PCs from my farm (Message 759784)
Posted 28 May 2008 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Well the cost to me was £43! I sold a load of rubbsih from the garage to make room for the computers and used the money to buy the bits for the Quad!
The real cost was £258. Q6500, motherboard, case, 250Gb Sata drive & 2 * 1Gb sticks of memory. I already had a spare DVD drive.


Couldn't you save money AND electricity by NOT using a hard drive in most of your units? But instead let all computers in your farm share a single hard drive after booting via CD or LAN?

I've had a couple diskless clients & it works great.


29) Message boards : Number crunching : Donation Returns 2007-2008 (Message 699042)
Posted 11 Jan 2008 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Donating can be fun and interesting...

I didn't realize that donations were tracked down to the 1/1,000,000,000 th of a cent on http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/home.php

AFTER YOUR DONATION, check out your donation amount on your own account page.
My $123.45 donation is listed as
$123.44999694824

No wonder my checking account didn't balance :)
30) Message boards : Number crunching : Keeping the servers happy (Message 697570)
Posted 5 Jan 2008 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Does keeping a larger local WU queue (by setting larger 'connect about every' or 'additional work buffer') actually decrease the load on the project servers or help the project servers? Or even limiting when client can talk to server helpful to the project servers?

I would think any benefit to the project servers would be very minimal.

I’m not concerned about a client running out of work during project down times.
Since I want to ensure WU are returned within the deadline, I’ve left my clients settings to defaults of connect every 0.1 days & additional work buffer 0.25 days.

So again, is there any significant benifit to the project servers (reduced load, bandwidth, queuries, etc)?
31) Message boards : Number crunching : Using Bonic with Vista (Message 690476)
Posted 11 Dec 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
I'm switching to my new computer here a few days.


Are you keeping your old-reliable for fun?

IF you are going to run BOINC as a **SERVICE**, then it had a problem where it would not stop when user was active like it was supposed to. See the begining of this thread:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=1836&nowrap=true#10524

It may have been resolved (sort of) by adding an additional process:
see here
32) Message boards : Number crunching : Using non-internet CPU or internet connection lost (Message 690437)
Posted 10 Dec 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
I have not found the correct combination of search terms to find what I thought I'd read before ...

A client has completed WUs but no longer has internet connection. What is general process for returning results via a *different* Windows computer?

Is there somewhere this is already discussed?

CPU#1 - no internet connection
CPU#2 - yes internet connection

1) backup/copy whole BOINC directory tree to removable media (on BOTH computers)

2) on CPU#2, delete boinc dir-tree
3) on CPU#2, copy CPU#1's boinc dir-tree from removable media into proper location
4) on CPU#2, set all projects to 'no new work'
5) on CPU#2, update all projects till all results returned

6) on CPU#2, delete CPU#1's boinc dir-tree
7) on CPU#2, restore CPU#2's boinc dir-tree from backup/removable media
8) restart CPU#2 boinc client
33) Message boards : Number crunching : BOINCed computer...anyone know German? (Message 690429)
Posted 10 Dec 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
I'd bet a Deutsche Mark that he speaks english.

Might send an e-mail to address listed on his web site:
p0stmaster dg4dam <dot> de

and maybe even to his Team Leader, team Amateur Radio Operators.


Good find John. Hopefully, updating client will allow his computers to continue processing & return good results vice simply detaching.
34) Message boards : Number crunching : Feature needed in Boinc: Setting Boincs Priority Level Permanently (Message 676369)
Posted 12 Nov 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
On a single-core machine I've seen similar slow-responses when I have multiple application using lots of memory and cpu-cycles. I’ve also used the low-priority trick which seems to work till reboot.

With the newer BOINC version I no longer have to do this. Instead (via Preferences, disk and memory usage tab) I severely throttle/restrict BOINC’s memory usage WHILE COMPUTER IS IN USE. And do NOT leave applications in memory while suspended.

This seems to solve similar issues for me.
35) Message boards : Number crunching : Recomended minimum donation (Message 673380)
Posted 7 Nov 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Second, you are donating actually to the whole school Berkeley when you donate to SETI...

And now I'm on their junk mail list wasting UCBerkeley money on printing & postage, wasting USPS time/effort/money, wasting my time throwing away, and wasting space in the landfill.

Getting junk postal mail from an organization I've donated money to **REALLY** turns me OFF. It reduces our donation even more!!

Is there an electronic way for folks to "opt out" of UC's junk mail list?
36) Message boards : Number crunching : BOINC 5.10.28 (Message 671573)
Posted 3 Nov 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
BOINC 5.10.28 is available. Please, update.

"Minor" fixes are great. But since all my clients seem to be working ok, I see this new version as a 'nice to have' but 'not required to upgrade'
37) Message boards : Number crunching : BOINC on Windows PE - BOINCPE! (Live-CD for BOINC) (Message 671569)
Posted 3 Nov 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Check out ... shreiter.infofor boincpe configuration.

"The more advanced configuration explained on this page will enable you to run your BOINCpe machines without any user interaction at all (beyond pressing the power button of the computer). You will be able to operate your machines diskless (without hard disk drive) and headless (without mouse, keyboard and monitor attached)."

I have a diskless machine that boots from CD & runs boincpe. It does not run SETI WUs because it repeatedly error outs on SETI WU -- never quiet isolated the issue. So instead, it runs Einstein & uFluids which is fine by me.
38) Message boards : Technical News : Small Word (Sep 20 2007) (Message 650785)
Posted 29 Sep 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
I guess I'm ABNORMAL.

[B}I **LIKE** Pending credit![/B] It is like ... my computer's have worked faster than my wingmen's. Or I'm gonna get something for nothing in the near future. Kind of like Christmas morning: I'm up and see the presents but have not opened them yet.

Neither really accurate, but a more positive "feeling"

Maybe we should have a competition to see who can get the HIGHEST Pending Credit Score? Maybe a page to list folks via Pending Credits?

Sure, actual credit may be different but they still don't have any cash value.
39) Message boards : SETI@home Staff Blog : Eric's Octennial Post #10: Ewoks live under my deck. (Message 650779)
Posted 29 Sep 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
Let's call that "Eric's Law."


Isn't that law already named "Bubba's Law" from the last words a redneck says ... 'Hey Bubba, watch THIS!'
40) Message boards : Number crunching : 2 to avoid (Message 646241)
Posted 22 Sep 2007 by Profile Heflin
Post:
That's why I talked about a delayed one.

I'd suggest keeping auto-update one revision BEHIND latest final release.
So, when 5.12.0 is final released, clients with autoupdate would auto-update to the highest 5.11.xx version.

This would ensure minimal problems for auto-update clients.

As a paranoid person, especially when responsible for other people's machines, I cringe with every applications or OS' or utilities update.


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