Confused About Report Deadlines vs. Credit

Message boards : BOINC client : Confused About Report Deadlines vs. Credit
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Deb H

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Joined: 20 Jan 06
Posts: 2
United States
Message 2679 - Posted: 20 Jan 2006, 19:57:15 UTC

I started crunching data for Seti Classic in 2001 and had stats in the top 50. I switched to BOINC in December 2005 and added the Einstein project as well as Seti. I use an old tired computer with Windows 98 SE, a P-II 333 mghz, have 17 GB free space on the partition where BOINC is located, and have 384 MB RAM.

When I switched to BOINC, my estimated time to completion for Seti shot from 70 hrs to about 200 hours with about the same for Einstein. Since BOINC eats up most of my resources when I'm active on my computer, I changed my preferences to crunch data only when I'm not active and to clear my swap file when I am active. This seems to have extended my estimated completion times resulting in messages that I "may not get credit due to exceeding the deadline" and that I should consider aborting the work unit.

I don't understand the concept of "deadlines" for work units and I don't understand why I can't get credit if I exceed this deadline. I'm crunching the data as fast as my limited resources will allow. Will I have to quit BOINC just because I can't meet the deadlines?

I also am completely confused about "credits" in BOINC. With Seti Classic, a work unit equaled one credit; currently in BOINC, my Seti credit is 16.83 when I've completed only one work unit. Could someone please explain BOINC credits?

Any help is appreciated!
Deb H
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Jim K
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Joined: 8 Sep 05
Posts: 168
Message 2680 - Posted: 20 Jan 2006, 20:00:37 UTC

All is explained in the WIKI.....
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Deb H

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Message 2685 - Posted: 21 Jan 2006, 1:19:57 UTC - in response to Message 2680.  

All is explained in the WIKI.....


Well, after over three hours of searching through "the WIKI", I finally found answers to my questions. If anyone else is interested, here are the appropriate web pages:

Everything about BOINC credit: http://boinc-doc.net/boinc-wiki/index.php?title=Credit

BOINC project deadlines: http://boinc-doc.net/boinc-wiki/index.php?title=Deadline

Note that the project deadlines are expressed in a fixed number of days, depending on the project. Unfortunately for me, my old computer can't meet these deadlines which seems to indicate that I am no longer a viable contributer to any project. Regardless, I am proud to have contributed nearly 6 years to Seti@Home.

Deb H
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Paul D. Buck

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Joined: 29 Aug 05
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Message 2691 - Posted: 21 Jan 2006, 13:03:15 UTC

Deb,

I am not sure why you are having these problems as there are others that are still successfully doing SETI@Home work on computers similar to yours. 70 hours to complete is not bad with a two week deadline. The only issue I can see is that you must not be running the computer as much or there is some other issue.

The SETI@Home science application that BOINC is currently using is virtually identical to the one that was being used in Classic days. Better, there are optimized versions that run considerably faster that are available ...

Without more details it is difficult to help you, and since your problem is more with SETI@Home you would have better luck posting a question in the Q&P forum in the SETI@Home web site where you can make your computers visible and show the actual work performed. Tony over there is very good at helping people.

The use of the deadline is because work is issued and then validated on return. In Classic, well, these last few months have been taken up with validation of the work that had been submitted over some considerable period of time.
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Message boards : BOINC client : Confused About Report Deadlines vs. Credit

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