Topic: SETI Thread

[The Postman]

And here is the team page    The team overall is headed back into the top 200 once again

Project statistics   
   Name of Project: SETI@Home
  Total credit granted: 5,555,458,634 cobblestones
  Total Recent Avg Credit: 20,973,241 cobblestones
  Total users: 406,826 users
  Total teams: 37,040 teams
  Total hosts: 844,541 host(s)
  Total Countries: 239 different countries
     
 Statistics for Taldren   
  Total credit granted: 1,853,228 cobblestones
  Total Recent Avg Credit: 13,022 cobblestones
  Total Members: 162 users
  Active Members: 14 users ( 22 in XML)
  # Member Countries: 5
  Total hosts: 145 host(s)
  Team Rank TC: 211 of 37,040
  Team Rank RAC: 104 of 37,040
 

[The Postman]

From tech news:

March 21, 2006 - 20:00 UTC
Quick update: As you may have noticed connections to our data servers are spotty at this moment in time. There are two reasons for this. First, we are one day before our weekly database compression/backup and this is when the database is at its worst (it gets fragmented and bloated over the course of the week, so it requires more disk I/O to find data than when the data is nicely compressed in a smaller physical space). Second, we just quickly rebooted the scheduler to attach it to a new console server.
Outside of that, it's been business as usual the past few weeks. The new data recorder is being wrapped up and tested, and the SETI@home enhanced client is almost out the door.

[Nemesis]

MUCH BETTER!

1) Raven            1,260,882.59   8,064.14        United States
2) IKV Nemesis   99,380.20  1,573.07        Canada
3) The Postman    230,528.14    1,549.89        United States
4) RazalYllib          112,229.70    1,094.90        United States

[Tus-XC]

... i can't wait for my cadet loan.... $30k at 1% interest.... 5k of which will be put into the construction of a new rig... shame i have to wait 1 more year.... DOH

[The Postman]

MUCH BETTER!

1) Raven            1,260,882.59   8,064.14        United States
2) IKV Nemesis   99,380.20  1,573.07        Canada
3) The Postman    230,528.14    1,549.89        United States
4) RazalYllib          112,229.70    1,094.90        United States

I have had one hell of a week. The new Shuttle has been giving me a fit. All of the work I have been doing is being error-ed out. also the times are about double what they should be. Only this morning have I been able to do a bios upgrade and get the latest 4in1 drivers installed. All ready it is running with more stability. Maybe I am starting to get it on track. The bios upgrade should take care of the DDR400 issues and the 4in1 drivers should get the chipset running better. (keeps fingers crossed) I am hoping that the DDR400 issues are what screwwing up the WU's. If not, I will get another board and build again.

My main home PC, another Shuttle with VIA chipset (1.5 P4), abruptly aborted 150 WU's the other night. I have no idea if something hiccuped or I had help from the 2 year old. It will take at least a week to get that RAC back where it should be.

[Nemesis]

I have had one hell of a week. The new Shuttle has been giving me a fit. All of the work I have been doing is being error-ed out. also the times are about double what they should be. Only this morning have I been able to do a bios upgrade and get the latest 4in1 drivers installed. All ready it is running with more stability. Maybe I am starting to get it on track. The bios upgrade should take care of the DDR400 issues and the 4in1 drivers should get the chipset running better. (keeps fingers crossed) I am hoping that the DDR400 issues are what screwwing up the WU's. If not, I will get another board and build again.

My main home PC, another Shuttle with VIA chipset (1.5 P4), abruptly aborted 150 WU's the other night. I have no idea if something hiccuped or I had help from the 2 year old. It will take at least a week to get that RAC back where it should be.

My RAC is still going up since the optimizing I expect to pass 2000 but by how much I don't know.  One anomoly is that my former fastest machine is now my slowest machine.  It is slower than my other similar machine even though it uses faster CPUs.  On the other hand my Laptop went from its baseline of 2:43/WU to 0:59/WU and is now putting out more WUs/ day than any of my other machines.

My formerly fastest machine is now undergoing a long delayed OS replacemnet.  Converting to SuSE Linux.  Running preinstall check of install media right now.  I do wonder if it will support the ancient Promise RAID card or not.  Probably not.  No loss.

[The Postman]

My new box has gotten much better BUT I am still outputting junk. I have shut it down. I cant run it as a single or HT. The computer is running mostly fine now. It makes a great dvd player BUT it can't crunch. At this point I think the CPU is busted. I am still getting result overflows. If and when I get rich again, I will get a new cpu for the 400 fsb and move the 1.5 to this one. I should be able to test that way. If it is a bad cpu, I would then replace it. These bios do allow extreme edition processors which might come down in price by then. (Living in New England makes me a cheap Bast**d)

[The Postman]

My RAC is still going up since the optimizing I expect to pass 2000 but by how much I don't know.  One anomoly is that my former fastest machine is now my slowest machine.  It is slower than my other similar machine even though it uses faster CPUs.  On the other hand my Laptop went from its baseline of 2:43/WU to 0:59/WU and is now putting out more WUs/ day than any of my other machines.

My formerly fastest machine is now undergoing a long delayed OS replacemnet.  Converting to SuSE Linux.  Running preinstall check of install media right now.  I do wonder if it will support the ancient Promise RAID card or not.  Probably not.  No loss.

What do you consider ancient? I am still running a FT 66 and a FT100. The new board does have SATA raid but I only have a single Seagate on it so I can't compare it to even the FT100 which is also on that board.
 I hope they roll out enhanced soon, I think Berkley is buckling under the load. If I could get it running correctly, the 2.6 Northwood would be turning out ~48 WUs a day.

[Nemesis]

What do you consider ancient? I am still running a FT 66 and a FT100. The new board does have SATA raid but I only have a single Seagate on it so I can't compare it to even the FT100 which is also on that board.

I bought it for my first (socketed) Athlon.  It is an ATA 100, which is better than that old motherboard supported but not capable of the full speed of the (2x 120GB) ATA 133 HD with 8mb cache that it has now.  SuSE is using it but not in RAID data striping mode.  Just as a HD controller separate from the built in controller so each is a master with its own DMA and so are my CD/RW and DVD/RW on the motherboard controllers.

Early indicators are that the system is kicking out 2 WUs every ~2:08 compared to the 2:37 it was doing so that is significantly better but I was hoping to get down to 2:00 or slightly less.  My laptop is now my undisputed champion at output.

As a suggestion have you tried running memtest on that new machine?  You could have some flakey memory causing the problem.  You might even try turning down the FSB a speed grade because if either the CPU or memory is  marginal it would likely work at 333 even if it isn't reliable at 400.

Edit:  I just went back through the thread to the posting with the picture of your new system.  I noticed that it appears to have an Antec power supply (which is my preferred choice) but I could not see the wattage.  The newer Pentium IVs are quite power hungry and 2 HD and all the other things you are putting in seems like it is possible you are on the low side power wise. 

Also the various cables (in the image) looked like they could be either A/ blocking airflow or possibly B/ close enough to some components to cause induced currents which could (and once in my past did) interfere with the proper operation of the computer.  I realize that picture was early in the construction but it occurs to me that you may not yet have straightened them out as you are still working on the system and they could still be in inappropriate locations.

One final thing.  You do seem to have an adequate supply of fans but are they all blowing in the optimal directions?  Could you have a heat problem?  Something as simple as a heatsink put on backwards (yes I did that once the system worked until the next CPU upgrade when I recognized it but ran warm) can cause cooling to be marginal.  Not just CPU temperature but case temperature.  If your RAM or northbridge are too warm you can get the same problems.  Even HDs can overheat.

I'm not questioning your competence to assemble the computer but sometimes even the best need to be reminded of some of the simpler things that could be overlooked.  Recently I solved a problem for someone (who knew better) by asking them if they had cleaned the fans/heat sinks on the video card they were having trouble with.  They promptly went "OH! &^%!" cleaned it and the problem was solved.  They got too wrapped up in debugging the "software conflict" and forgot it might be something basic like a misplaced cable or forgetting to remove the protective tape from the bottom of the heat sink (seen that too).  I've even seen "faulty" HDs and CD burners turn out to be known good cables gone bad, change the cable save the expensive component.  The moral of course is don't forget to check the simple "stupid" things you might have missed just because they are basic and don't take much attention to get right.  Sometimes people still get them wrong.

[Nemesis]

My SuSE converted machine has done a little better than I thought.  It looks to be outputting 2 WUs every ~2:01.  Not quite as fast as the laptop but close.  I expect it to vary somewhat (like the other dual Athlon SuSE machine) so I can't be sure if that is the norm, high end or low end for some time yet.  I should have a better idea by next weekend.  The dual 2100 (this is a dual 2400) does 2 WUs in ~2:17 so ~2:01 is roughly where it should be and a great improvemnt on ~2:38 under Windows. 

The just converted to Linux machine is handling things well enough that I'm using Firefox on it to post this message and do some web browsing rather than the gaming machine that I normally use to read and post here.  I can't run the monitor at full resolution (2048x1536) at present as there seems to be a slight flicker but I'm trying it at the next notch down right now and so far it seems OK.  Windows did handle full resolution better but I may need to change some settings to get it right (as I did with Windows in fact).

[The Postman]

Well, I have at least partially ruled out the power supply, although I need a bigger one, by unplugging everything but the boot drive and still no success. However I do notice that the northbridge does run HOT with it's passive  heat sink when crunching and not when it is idle. My AV40 actually has a fan on the northbridge and it does much better. I am going to pursue this line later in the week when I have more time.

[Nemesis]

Well, I have at least partially ruled out the power supply, although I need a bigger one, by unplugging everything but the boot drive and still no success. However I do notice that the northbridge does run HOT with it's passive  heat sink when crunching and not when it is idle. My AV40 actually has a fan on the northbridge and it does much better. I am going to pursue this line later in the week when I have more time.

Have you considered returning the board?  If the northbridge is overheating it should be considered defective.  Keep us posted and good luck.

[Nemesis]

(Imagine the Jaws theme music playing in the background)

IKV Nemesis will overtake:
                    Days
RazalYllib        17.7
The Postman 944.1

IKV Nemesis will not be overtaken by anyone!                         (Gotta love this line  )
RAC still rising.

[RazalYllib]

I saw that also...
Notta thing I can do about it, like that time oh so many years ago, SFC mplague, my I had just Shift Z and alpha'ed at one of them feds w/ drones; we both were injured pretty badly and remaining plasma in arc had just recharged so I closed and alpha'd...he was doomed but I noticed to my dismay the clever one had a final surprise in the form of one each scatterpack with my name on it. Needless to say I knew I was about to be retired, I had not enough juice to cloak, no operable tractors and not much I could do other than wait...I did have the satisfaction of watching him pop first in that case though...

[Nemesis]

I saw that also...
Notta thing I can do about it,

Try the optimized clients.  That X2 will roar you past Postman and put you in the neighbourhood I will be at.  Use them with the other machines as well and I will be behind you.  My Turion is a laptop version of the Athlon 64 running at 1.8ghz and is doing a WU in roughly 3550 seconds (RAC 491 and rising).  Your X2 should manage 2 WUs in 2400 seconds or less with the optimized client under Windows. 

like that time oh so many years ago, SFC mplague, my I had just Shift Z and alpha'ed at one of them feds w/ drones; we both were injured pretty badly and remaining plasma in arc had just recharged so I closed and alpha'd...he was doomed but I noticed to my dismay the clever one had a final surprise in the form of one each scatterpack with my name on it. Needless to say I knew I was about to be retired, I had not enough juice to cloak, no operable tractors and not much I could do other than wait...I did have the satisfaction of watching him pop first in that case though...

Here is my version of that. 

In SFC1 flying an K-E4B, total wreck, no weapons except 2 marines and the probe launcher with 3 probes left doing attack runs on a Lyran BCH that was wrecking a Romulan BCH.  The Lyran player blamed the Romulan for taking out his ESGs but it was my probes.   When the Lyran finally blew the shock detonated my E4 as well.

[The Postman]

(Imagine the Jaws theme music playing in the background)

IKV Nemesis will overtake:
                    Days
RazalYllib        17.7
The Postman 944.1

IKV Nemesis will not be overtaken by anyone!                         (Gotta love this line  )
RAC still rising.

new MB ordered. IF I can get it running with anywhere near the numbers I caught a glimpse of, I think I can hold you off indefinitely especially with a modest CPU upgrade to the AV40. 400fsb socket 478 are getting pretty cheap these days. Razal on the otherhand could become a real threat if he ever catches on to the new apps. However, if I were in his shoes, I would wait until the switch before I installed them because of the headaches that will happen with the switch.

[RazalYllib]

So I should go to the http://www.guntec.de/Crunch3r/setix86.html and get a new client, one for each of the machines of the empire?

[Nemesis]

So I should go to the http://www.guntec.de/Crunch3r/setix86.html and get a new client, one for each of the machines of the empire?

Yes.  This is the precise link for the Athlon64 with Windows.  With it that X2 should roar.

[Nemesis]

new MB ordered. IF I can get it running with anywhere near the numbers I caught a glimpse of, I think I can hold you off indefinitely especially with a modest CPU upgrade to the AV40. 400fsb socket 478 are getting pretty cheap these days.

Likely your right.  Though my RAC is still going up my output is stable and pushes the limits of what my dialup can handle.  Also I have to await a contract settlement before I look at an upgrade.  With all that and the new X2 coming out in a few months it is probably best to wait for them and see if I can't get on broadband.  Probably September at the earliest now.  Roughly 30mb of downloads a day is rough on dialup.

Razal on the otherhand could become a real threat if he ever catches on to the new apps. However, if I were in his shoes, I would wait until the switch before I installed them because of the headaches that will happen with the switch.

It appears he is not vulnerable to that particular Jedi Mind Trick.  "These aren't the optimizers your looking for". 

[The Postman]

FYI, I am going to SC until Friday on on union business. My home machine will have a full cache but may not get transmitted until friday PM. My numbers and RAC will drop accordingly until then.
That is all