No credit for big crunch. What gives?
17 May 2007 23:57:21 UTC
Topic 192759
(moderation:
I just looked at the graph of my crunching, and saw a flat line. My poor Linux box had been sitting, burning expensive English electricity, for about 2 weeks to do a job for Einstein at home.
And what do I find? Work Unit 33354581: time taken 240,551.81 seconds, claimed score 249, score given: zero. I don't know what is wrong with the BOINC or Einstein software, but I don't like spending serious money on what I thought was a contribution to science, to find it was all wasted.
Should I continue to crunch for Einstein, or is it all a waste of time and money? If I'm going to leave that computer running day and night, and pay the power bill, I'd like to think it's to some purpose. Right now, I'm inclined to disconnect from Einstein and use the time for something more appreciative, or just switch the thing off when not in use.
Keef, Essex or Norfolk, England
No credit for big crunch. What gives?
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No answer, no explanation.
I conclude it's a waste of computer resources and money. Goodbye, Einstein.
Keef, Essex or Norfolk, England
Your BOINC client is very
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Your BOINC client is very old, 5.4.9, instead of 5.8.16 recommended for Linux. I use 5.8.17 on my Linux box. Maybe this is a reason.
Tullio
RE: Your BOINC client is
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The Boinc client does not crunch. ;)
His result is invalid because his host was still crunching with the buggy 4.18 app and his result was compared to two Win-boxes.
This is just unlucky, but a lot of other people face these problems too. We all hope to get better and faster apps pretty soon.
cu,
Michael
I don't know about "buggy
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I don't know about "buggy apps". It's been crunching for several BOINC projects for a long time; nobody's written to say "please update your software", and the other projects seem very happy to have me spend money processing for them.
Not the way to motivate volunteers, is it?
Keef, Essex or Norfolk, England
RE: I don't know about
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There are two different parts of software:
- Boinc Client - which is installed by yourself. You also have to upgrade it to a newer version by your own (current stable version is 5.8.16). But this piece of software only manages the contact to the different projects you are attached to (and switching of projects... and some managing issues which are project independent).
- science application - which is downloaded by the Boinc client on request of an WU from a project. The project supports different versions for different platforms, but you can't install it yourself. This application is doing the scientific / project dependent computing.
By switching to S5R2 there was a new set of this application software, and in the first public version for linux platform (V 4.18) there was a bug causing the application to abort. This bug is meanwhile fixed (V 4.21). The new application will be sent to you when you request a new WU.
regards,
Udo
RE: I don't know about
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Keith,
Sorry about the giggle at your expense, and I couldn't help it when I read your comment about "expensive English electricity". My Colorado USA electricity might not be all that expensive, and I've had the same thought, plus the heat the CPU is putting into the room, plus the risk I've taken with the banzai overclock I usually run (when the CPU doesn't get too hot).
On my Windows machine, two out of my first four WU's errored out, one after processing for almost 40 hours. There is another message thread ( http://einsteinathome.org/node/192753 ) which shows that doing innocent things (e.g. resetting your computer, or changing BOINC resource allocation) consistently causes E@H WU's to error out.
I participate in several BOINC projects, and this is the only one that I've seen with this kind of problem.
It is easy to blame us, or our client software, and I think there there are some serious problems with the application itself.
I have another question. How is it that, even though my current allocation to E@H is just over 16%, that it downloaded eight WU's that are projected to take 31 hours each, and the due date is June 6? I had to change almost all my other projects to "no new work", in the hopes that I could get all that done in time.