Star Sphere Not loading Windows 10 Home Edition
11 Dec 2020 22:09:34 UTC
Topic 224198
(moderation:
HI Everyone,
Recently as in a couple of days ago I thought I got the star sphere to work on my Windows 10 Home Edition computer. Nope!
Once upon a time ago everything was working. I hadn't tweaked anything on either the BOINC nor the Einstein@Home preferences. I did keep my HP notebook computer OS Windows 10 Home Edition up to date by installing the updates. Now, even having tried tweaking some of the preferences still no joy.
I changed the resolution for Home preferences on the Einstein@Home website to 1024 x 768 just to see if it made a difference. After restarting everything including even the computer still no star sphere but the screensaver did change to reflect my units and other BOINC statistics but no star sphere. I also tweaked a few settings within the BOINC Manager, still no star sphere.
Now, I have actually seen the star sphere intermittently or periodically but the screensaver seems to always revert back the the BOINC screensaver loading screensaver which never loads either the BOINC statistics nor the star sphere screensavers.
At this point I am at a loss to begin to understand the problems with the Einstein@Home screensaver issue. I am not even sure it is either BOINC or the project.
If I recall anything (these days) I started to see this issue after I completed the latest Windows update a few weeks ago. So, the problem may reside elsewhere. I am simply not sure. Here are a few technical characteristics of my Windows HP notebook:
Device Name - HP ENVY Notebook 71AH014J
Processor - Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU 2.9GHz
Installed RAM - 16.0 MB (15.9 usable)
System Type - 64-bit operating system x64-based processor
Windows specifications
Edition - Windows 10 Home
Version - 20H2
Installed on - 08/27/2020
OS build - 19042.685
I have the recommended screen resolution set at 1920 x 1080
I don't know what else I can do. I am not a programmer so I would like to see if there is any help out there. So, thanks in advance for any help you can offer!
Regards..
John
Hi John, I'm having a hard
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Hi John,
I'm having a hard time understanding the situation you describe as things seem to contradict each other. For instance: "the screensaver did change to reflect my units and other BOINC statistics but no star sphere" seems to contradict "the BOINC screensaver loading screensaver which never loads either the BOINC statistics".
Thus, a few questions:
Does the standard BOINC screensaver (BOINC logo, current task overview) work for you? If it doesn't then this indicates a general BOINC issue.
Does "Show Graphics" (in the BOINC Manager) work for you? Can you toggle their fullscreen mode using [ENTER]? If so, our screensaver appears to be working.
Do you have any GPU tasks running?
Thanks,
Oliver
Einstein@Home Project
Oliver Behnke wrote: Does
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Hi Oliver,
Reading your post (as I always do) I noticed this comment you made to John.
Currently I am running BOINC 7.16.11 in Windows 10 v1909, and using BOINC Manager in the advanced mode setting.
I can't find "Show Graphics" (in the BOINC Manager) so I don't know if I can toggle it at all or not. I looked in every menu item at the top and the side several times but I see no sign of "Show Graphics".
Would it be listed as something else, or am I not looking in the right place.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
George wrote:I can't find
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BOINC Manager -> Tasks tab. Look for the "Show graphics" button in the 'Commands' block on the left side.
Cheers,
Gary.
Gary Roberts wrote: George
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Hi Gary,
In my BOINC Manager>Tasks window I show two buttons when I either tap the button with the mouse or hit the [Enter] key: "Show All Tasks" and "Show Active Tasks". The "Show Graphics", "Suspend", "Abort", "and "Properties" buttons are all grayed out.
If I highlight any one of my tasks, whether in the 'all' or 'active' buttons, then in addition to the two "Show..." buttons, I also have "Suspend", "Abort" and "Properties", but I still have a grayed out "Show Graphics" button.
Pressing the [Enter] key changes each of the other buttons, but I cannot make any changes to the grayed out button. For what it is worth, in the "Show Active Tasks" mode I'm not only showing all of my tasks which are active, but I also show 6 tasks which are "Waiting to run".
Would this mean that I (potentially) have a problem with my BOINC Manager, or BOINC itself?
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
George, same question to you:
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George, same question to you: do you have any GPU tasks running (given you're a member of the GPUUG)?
"Show Graphics" should be disabled if you run a GPU task since they would interfere with each other on single-GPU systems (and BOINC doesn't distinguish those from multi-GPU ones, I think).
Oliver
Einstein@Home Project
Oliver Behnke wrote:George,
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Hi Oliver,
Yes.
Right now I'm showing zero ("0") GRPBS#1-GPU for 'in progress', but I do show 19 GRPBS#1-GPU as 'Pending'. I also show 71 GWO2MD-GPU as 'in progress', and 828 GWO2MD-GPU as 'pending'.
So... my BOINC Manager and BOINC itself is working as desired?
[EDIT]
I should have mentioned that the above 'Tasks' were from the Einstein Account>Tasks web page. In BOINC Manager>Tasks with the "Show All Tasks" button pressed I show zero ("0") tasks of Einstein as GPU tasks 'running', and zero ("0") tasks of Einstein as GPU tasks as 'ready to start'. I do have many Milkyway tasks that are GPU related though, 2 'running' and over 200 that are 'ready to start'.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
I need to correct myself to
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I need to correct myself to some degree here: it's not BOINC preventing graphics apps to run when GPU tasks are running, it's just that our project doesn't provide graphics for GPU tasks (because of said resource interference)!
So to sum things up: in order have "Show Graphics" enabled (for a given task) you need to select a running task that does provide a graphics app. For our project that is only the case for CPU tasks.
Hope that helps and sorry for the confusion,
Oliver
Einstein@Home Project
George wrote: Gary Roberts
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I've left the previous conversation visible in this latest reply to try to indicate the importance of asking the right question if you want an appropriate answer.
You indicated that you couldn't find a 'show graphics' button at all. I assumed you just looked too quickly and didn't notice it so I simply pointed you right at it. If you had framed your question a little more accurately, like "I CAN find 'show graphics' but it's all greyed out so when I try to click it, nothing happens", then I could have given you a totally different answer. You even added that since you couldn't find it, you didn't know if you could toggle it. That was pretty convincing that you couldn't see that label at all, greyed out or not. Otherwise, the simple act of clicking it would allow you to KNOW you couldn't toggle it.
If you read Oliver's latest answer, I imagine you could get the 'show graphics' button to be responsive (rather than greyed out) by 'selecting' an Einstein CPU task, since the CPU app does support running the graphics function. I don't know for sure since I'm not running CPU tasks. Even in earlier days when I was, I left it completely unexplored since I had no desire to 'waste' CPU cycles on 'bling' :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
To Gary and Oliver
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To Gary and Oliver both,
First, I'd like to thank you both for providing a thorough and detailed explanation of my question(s). I am sorry for wasting each of your times. For the record, I have considered myself, and still do, a complete noobie when getting into the BOINC projects as much as I do. I've been at this for over three years, but not until recently have I been as interested to pick up as much information as I possibly can from reading the forums (like this one).
In the future I will refrain from asking the trivial question(s) as this one unless it is detrimental to my project(s) at hand.
With that said, I will continue to read your posts in silence (as I do most of the time), as well as the many others and I will also continue to learn, albeit slowly. I tend to learn by the trial and error method versus the "study and absorb" methods, though I do sometimes preach that method too.
Again, thank you both, and I am truly sorry for wasting your time.
[EDIT]
Gary, I know now of what you are saying, and I was amiss in my explanation of 'not seeing' the "Show Graphics" button. For that I am sorry also.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
George, There's no such
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George,
There's no such thing as a "noobie" question so it's quite OK to ask if something isn't clear to you. Just remember that irrespective of who answers, that person isn't looking over your shoulder and seeing exactly what you see.
I've always been bad at correctly visualising the problem if the details provided are very brief or even actually misleading so I can easily be led down the wrong rabbit hole by an incomplete or inaccurate description.
In the end, all that really matters is that the issue gets sorted. If that's the case for you, I'm completely happy.
Cheers,
Gary.