Gravitational Wave S6 Directed Search (CasA)
16 Jan 2014 19:15:02 UTC
Topic 197347
(moderation:
Hi there,
I'm having a bit of a problem that mystifies me. I've already perused dozens of similar threads but there doesn't seem to be an answer to my puzzle. If there already is one and I missed it, I'm sorry. This one probably comes closest:
http://einsteinathome.org/node/197336
Anyway, my BOINC manager shows 8 active WUs (my Windows Task Manager confirmes that Einstein@Home is running 8 processes), but the progress bar is stuck at 8.333% for all WUs. This only happens with the Gravitational Search, I didn't run into any problems with the Binary Pulsar Search units, which were all computed before without a hitch. I've already stopped and restarted the project and even rebooted my computer, but to no avail. Perhaps an older version of BOINC would work for me too, as was suggested in the thread mentioned above.
Any help will be appreciated.
Gravitational Wave S6 Directed Search (CasA)
)
Hi,
Not an expert here but as far as I know it's a matter of waiting. The parts of the wu's take longer than other types. On my machine for example take half an hour before they move on. The more Wu's running at the same time the longer for the jump in percentage. So I'd recommend just letting it run for awhile and see what it does. And don't restart Boinc in the meantime. I believe it starts again at the beginning of that specific part.
Meanwhile I've got another
)
Meanwhile I've got another project running but after your reply I decided to give the gravitational waves another try. It was the same as yesterday and after a while BOINC manager got hung up and the computer crashed.
It's interesting that the CasA workunits seemed to be 'giving antics' from the get-go. At first, a package of 300+MB of data was downloaded, consisting of more than 50 different tasks in no particular order. But only the binary pulsars WUs were processed correctly. The CasA ones apparently weren't processed at all or stopped at 8.333% with no error messages being shown.
Whatever the real problem, I guess I won't be running these particular WUs for the time being. Einstein@Home offers the option of running only selected applications so I'm going to uncheck CasA.
Progress report: OK, I let
)
Progress report:
OK, I let a couple of CasA workunits go on after all, and finally after 12 hours of crunching one of them jumped to 16.666%. So it IS a matter of waiting, I just wasn't aware that I'd have to wait for so long. Perhaps the developers could mention the different nature and size of the WUs in the FAQs. I imagine this can be confusing for other users as well.
That is a long time! But you
)
That is a long time! But you were running 8 on all cores at the same time right? When i run 2 units at the same time (25% CPU usage in Boinc Computing Preferences instead of 100%) on my 2.2 Ghz quadcore it takes me about 35 minutes for a jump. With your CPU with 2 wu's at the same time i suspect it should be 25 minutes or so for a jump or 6.5 to 7 hours files for a whole wu. That 8 wu's would make so much difference i had no idea. Never tried it either since it overheats the laptop i'm running on.
Correct, my computer is
)
Correct, my computer is running 8 units at the same time. Overheating is an issue too, but only when applications make use of the GPUs, which the Binary Radio Pulsars do most of the time.
Do you mean that if I want only 2 tasks running at the same time, I'll have to set x to 25 in this entry:
"On multiprocessors, use at most x% of the processors"
Edit: Just tried that and it seems to be working! However, there's no way to reduce the usage of the GPUs, right? So, right now there are two units running on the CPU and one on each of the 2 GPUs, which are responsible for most of the heat and the fan noise.
"Use at most x% of CPU time (Can be used to reduce CPU heat)"
In this entry, I usually set the value of x between 10 and 30 but sometimes higher, which doesn't seem to be a problem heat-wise.
You've been a great help, by the way.
The last setting of 10 to 30
)
The last setting of 10 to 30 also significantly increases the crunch time since it pauses the cpu depending on the settings. So there also you have why the wu's take so long. But setting it higher increases load and temperature. It's playing around to find an acceptable mix.
GPU settings you can change
)
GPU settings you can change in einstein@home preferences. Where you also can choose which type of files you want. I'm having one videocard and have it set to 1.0. I never tried a lower setting. No idea what it does with 1 or more video cards. I bet someone has posted about it.
My settings are:
25% use of all the cpu's (2 wu's on cpu)
100% usage of the cpu.
Results for me in 1 GPU task and 2 CPU tasks. For 2 video cards you might lower the first 25% to 20 so you get one cpu wu per time. Then you can increase the cpu usage up from that 10 to 30 to a higher value. Means less wu's at the same time but the ones running will go quicker.
This is beginning to make
)
This is beginning to make sense. No wonder the BRP units are so fast when they're using the graphic cards. I think I'll have to twiddle a bit more with the settings to get this thing going the way I want. E@H certainly seems more complicated than other projects I've tried so far.