Optimizing BOINC General prefs for Mac PPC Dual G5

neubaum
neubaum
Joined: 11 Sep 06
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RE: RE: I've had problems

Message 48001 in response to message 48000

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I've had problems recently S@h not willing to download new wu's for hours when prompted every 60 seconds as could be read repetedly in the messages pane ("Wed Oct 18 18:47:11 2006|SETI@home|No work from project"). Einstein was happily crunching at the two processors. When I updated S@h BOINC immediately downloaded a new task, preemted one of the Einstein wu's (which is normal procedure) and the app went to work on it. Why must I update?

You shouldn't need to update. I think you just "happened" to update around the time SETI came back online after an outage. Take a look at SETI's Technical News. It discusses some problems they have experienced recently. More than likely, that explains why you were getting the "SETI@home|No work from project" messages.

Thank's once more for much needed assistance. If you don't mind I have two more questions: (1) Do you think my raising of upper limit of "total disk space" to be used from the default 50% to 80% may be beneficial — but/or just risky? I'm not working with real big files myself at the moment but you have those unplanned temporary files that come with updates from Apple and MS Office. I guess you should keep an eye on that? I'm not aiming for "Hall of Fame" in the race for credits, just don't like mess I'm not capable of sorting out myself within an hour or so. (2) Since I joined BOINC (Seti and Einstein) I've wondered about these messages "Wed Oct 18 17:28:24 2006|Einstein@Home|Requesting 8640 seconds of new work". The amount of seconds of new work requested seems to have an upper limit of 8640 seconds for both S@h and E@h and seems to take every possible value less than that down to one second! It cannot have anything to do with estimated time "to completion" I'm pretty sure. What does it mean? When there are a couple of big wu's crunched on for many hours these figures seem to drop stepwise down to eventually 1 second, then return to 8640 restarting the cycle. If the wu's recently delivered and crunched on are of intermediate or small size (mesured as "time to completion") and there is a lot of up- and downloading going on, these same figures go up and down in a manner I have not tried to track. I have no idea wether the concurrency of tasks "preempted", "ready to run" or "readdy to report" may be of any significance here. :-?

Richard Haselgrove
Richard Haselgrove
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RE: (2) Since I joined

Message 48002 in response to message 48001

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(2) Since I joined BOINC (Seti and Einstein) I've wondered about these messages "Wed Oct 18 17:28:24 2006|Einstein@Home|Requesting 8640 seconds of new work".


If you calculate it out, 8640 seconds = 144 minutes = 2.4 hours = 0.1 day, exactly.

My guess is that you have your preference for "Connect to network about every (determines size of work cache)" set to the default value, which is - 0.1 days!

That accounts for the maximum value you are seeing - BOINC just asks for enough work to tide it over until the next connection. Most WUs take longer than this, of course, but that's all it'll ask for, even if the cache for that particular project has run completely dry.

Things can run a bit more smoothly if you increase the "Connect to network..." figure, but don't go overboard - with both SETI and Einstein connected, about 2 days is probably enough. And, because of quirks in the way it's calculated, you should increase the figure gradually, say by 0.5 day at a time - otherwise, you may get swamped with work and have a stuggle to meet deadlines.

Finally, just for the moment only change your preferences here at Einstein - SETI currently has a bug which means that preference changes aren't getting through. Eventually, everything will work it's way through and you'll automatically see the same preference settings on both sites - you don't have to change them twice.

neubaum
neubaum
Joined: 11 Sep 06
Posts: 23
Credit: 61959
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RE: RE: (2) Since I

Message 48003 in response to message 48002

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(2) Since I joined BOINC (Seti and Einstein) I've wondered about these messages "Wed Oct 18 17:28:24 2006|Einstein@Home|Requesting 8640 seconds of new work".

If you calculate it out, 8640 seconds = 144 minutes = 2.4 hours = 0.1 day, exactly.

My guess is that you have your preference for "Connect to network about every (determines size of work cache)" set to the default value, which is - 0.1 days!

That accounts for the maximum value you are seeing - BOINC just asks for enough work to tide it over until the next connection. Most WUs take longer than this, of course, but that's all it'll ask for, even if the cache for that particular project has run completely dry.

Things can run a bit more smoothly if you increase the "Connect to network..." figure, but don't go overboard - with both SETI and Einstein connected, about 2 days is probably enough. And, because of quirks in the way it's calculated, you should increase the figure gradually, say by 0.5 day at a time - otherwise, you may get swamped with work and have a stuggle to meet deadlines.

Finally, just for the moment only change your preferences here at Einstein - SETI currently has a bug which means that preference changes aren't getting through. Eventually, everything will work it's way through and you'll automatically see the same preference settings on both sites - you don't have to change them twice.

Thanks! I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 as you suggest! So it cannot be crucial. Should I raise it even more — is that risky?

Stick
Stick
Joined: 24 Feb 05
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RE: Thank's once more for

Message 48004 in response to message 48001

Quote:
Thank's once more for much needed assistance. If you don't mind I have two more questions: (1) Do you think my raising of upper limit of "total disk space" to be used from the default 50% to 80% may be beneficial — but/or just risky? I'm not working with real big files myself at the moment but you have those unplanned temporary files that come with updates from Apple and MS Office. I guess you should keep an eye on that? I'm not aiming for "Hall of Fame" in the race for credits, just don't like mess I'm not capable of sorting out myself within an hour or so. (2) Since I joined BOINC (Seti and Einstein) I've wondered about these messages "Wed Oct 18 17:28:24 2006|Einstein@Home|Requesting 8640 seconds of new work". The amount of seconds of new work requested seems to have an upper limit of 8640 seconds for both S@h and E@h and seems to take every possible value less than that down to one second! It cannot have anything to do with estimated time "to completion" I'm pretty sure. What does it mean? When there are a couple of big wu's crunched on for many hours these figures seem to drop stepwise down to eventually 1 second, then return to 8640 restarting the cycle. If the wu's recently delivered and crunched on are of intermediate or small size (mesured as "time to completion") and there is a lot of up- and downloading going on, these same figures go up and down in a manner I have not tried to track. I have no idea wether the concurrency of tasks "preempted", "ready to run" or "readdy to report" may be of any significance here.

My "Use no more than" setting is also 80%. I think it is a "prudent" setting and not at all "risky" (for the reasons stated in the posts I referenced earlier). As to your second question, the "8640 seconds" is your "Connect to network about every" setting (i.e. 0.1 days = 8640 seconds). If you "Update" more often or if you already some WU's in the queue, BOINC may request a smaller amount of work.

I also just realized that you may not yet be aware of the BOINC Wiki. Many of the questions you have asked are addressed in its General Preferences Page. Browsing through the Work Scheduler page may help answer the others.

Richard Haselgrove
Richard Haselgrove
Joined: 10 Dec 05
Posts: 2139
Credit: 2752967030
RAC: 1385085

RE: Thanks! I've since

Message 48005 in response to message 48003

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Thanks! I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 as you suggest! So it cannot be crucial. Should I raise it even more — is that risky?


If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!

Personally, I prefer a larger value, but it's entirely up to you. If you want to experiment:

Set it to 0.5 day - leave it, see how it runs
Set it to 1 day - leave it, see how it runs

and so on. Don't make bigger changes than that until you feel comfortable. (and yes, read the Wiki!)

Stick
Stick
Joined: 24 Feb 05
Posts: 790
Credit: 31192054
RAC: 415

RE: RE: Thanks! I've

Message 48006 in response to message 48005

Quote:
Quote:
Thanks! I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 as you suggest! So it cannot be crucial. Should I raise it even more — is that risky?

If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!

Personally, I prefer a larger value, but it's entirely up to you. If you want to experiment:

Set it to 0.5 day - leave it, see how it runs
Set it to 1 day - leave it, see how it runs

and so on. Don't make bigger changes than that until you feel comfortable. (and yes, read the Wiki!)

I agree with the above advice. Experiment with it. But here is a little more insight: The "Connect to network about every" setting is intended to help users with dial-up connections manage their BOINC "cache" of work. If you have an "always on" internet connection, it really doesn't matter much.

neubaum
neubaum
Joined: 11 Sep 06
Posts: 23
Credit: 61959
RAC: 0

RE: RE: Thanks! I've

Message 48007 in response to message 48005

Quote:
Quote:
Thanks! I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 as you suggest! So it cannot be crucial. Should I raise it even more — is that risky?

If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!

Personally, I prefer a larger value, but it's entirely up to you. If you want to experiment:

Set it to 0.5 day - leave it, see how it runs
Set it to 1 day - leave it, see how it runs

and so on. Don't make bigger changes than that until you feel comfortable. (and yes, read the Wiki!)

Ok, thanks! I don't remember the default-value but will try a piecemeal raising to 0.5 and so on and see what happens.

neubaum
neubaum
Joined: 11 Sep 06
Posts: 23
Credit: 61959
RAC: 0

RE: RE: RE: Thanks!

Message 48008 in response to message 48007

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Thanks! I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 as you suggest! So it cannot be crucial. Should I raise it even more — is that risky?

If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!

Personally, I prefer a larger value, but it's entirely up to you. If you want to experiment:

Set it to 0.5 day - leave it, see how it runs
Set it to 1 day - leave it, see how it runs

and so on. Don't make bigger changes than that until you feel comfortable. (and yes, read the Wiki!)

Ok, thanks! I don't remember the default-value but will try a piecemeal raising to 0.5 and so on and see what happens.

PS As I did so, quite a bunch of Seti and Einstein tasks were downloaded immediately. So I guess the change had an inpact. DS


Odysseus
Odysseus
Joined: 17 Dec 05
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RE: RE: I've since long

Message 48009 in response to message 48005

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I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 […]

If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!


I don’t think so; I believe the default 0.1 d is also the minimum BOINC will actually accept. If that’s not the case, at least you’ll have company … ;)

neubaum
neubaum
Joined: 11 Sep 06
Posts: 23
Credit: 61959
RAC: 0

RE: RE: RE: I've since

Message 48010 in response to message 48009

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Quote:
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I've since long set the "Connect to network about every" option to 0.05 […]

If you've set it to 0.05, that's below the default and my explanation falls flat on its face!

I don’t think so; I believe the default 0.1 d is also the minimum BOINC will actually accept. If that’s not the case, at least you’ll have company … ;)


I guess 0.05 was a misstake of some kind. Anyhow I'm on 0.5 now :-)

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