Greetings.
I am a complete newcomer to distributed computing, never mind BOINC, so I'm on a learning curve here. I'm running v4.49 as a single user on WinME and I can't get the "network activity using preferences" option to stick. After around ten seconds it reverts either to "always available" or to "suspended" - whichever was used last. Internet access is via a LAN to a dial up connection, so I really do need to manage net access. What am I doing wrong?

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Boinc V4.49 huh? Hmmmm, that was a "developmental release" as was 4.46, 4.47, 4.48, 4.70 used by Rom Walton, myself, and Heffed to test out dial up problems. I'm not sure where you got that one, but the lastest is 5.2.13. Maybe you could install 5.2.13 over the top of that one and see if it changes. I don't remember what you described happening when I ran it, but then Rom was spitting them out fast, and we sometimes didn't even get to complete a test before he came out with a new one. You probably won't be able to control the dial up through the lan (atleast I don't know how).

If you want to try 5.2.13 click here and it should open a prompt allowing you to run/save it.

hope this helps

tony

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Boinc Wiki

Sometimes I hate my Bob Newhart style of humor.

Greetings.
I am a complete newcomer to distributed computing, never mind BOINC, so I'm on a learning curve here. I'm running v4.49 as a single user on WinME and I can't get the "network activity using preferences" option to stick. After around ten seconds it reverts either to "always available" or to "suspended" - whichever was used last. Internet access is via a LAN to a dial up connection, so I really do need to manage net access. What am I doing wrong?

I am running 5.2.13 and setting for proxy will not stick in options. I have tried the install on 2 different pc's with the same result. Is there a way to put my proxy server value in manually like maybe an .INI file?

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Greetings,

Thanks for the reply. I'm now using 5.2.13 and all seems to work well apart from a few niggles, not relevant to this thread - although I haven't yet sorted out how BOINC decides when to fetch new work and how much. The client is set up to connect 'about' every two days, but at present connects every day.

I came to use 4.49 after starting with 4.45 as the smallest download, the preferences set up page indicated that v4.46 was the first which would honour net connection times. The hunt for this version led me to the list and to 4.49 as the last before the downloads got bigger.

Thanks again.

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Thanks for the reply. I'm now using 5.2.13 and all seems to work well apart from a few niggles, not relevant to this thread - although I haven't yet sorted out how BOINC decides when to fetch new work and how much. The client is set up to connect 'about' every two days, but at present connects every day.

After you saved the settings on the website, with the button at the bottom of it there, did you Update the project in Boinc Manager?

(Save settings on site, open BM, Projects tab, select project by clicking on it, click the Update button)

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Thanks for the reply. I'm now using 5.2.13 and all seems to work well apart from a few niggles, not relevant to this thread - although I haven't yet sorted out how BOINC decides when to fetch new work and how much. The client is set up to connect 'about' every two days, but at present connects every day.

After you saved the settings on the website, with the button at the bottom of it there, did you Update the project in Boinc Manager?

(Save settings on site, open BM, Projects tab, select project by clicking on it, click the Update button)

Yes, it seemed to take a couple of days before it sorted itself out.... however the whole thing has now been thrown into confusion because WUs now look as though they are taking around ten times longer to complete as previously. Presumably this is because WUs are now larger in an attempt to reduce server traffic and our crunching is still going on as before - it just doesn't look like it.

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Which projects work is taking much longer than expected?

The "connect to" interval is really asking "how many days worth of work would you like to have on hand until you plan to dial back up again?". It isn't really what it might appear. It's not "please dial up every so often".

does this help?

tony

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Boinc Wiki

Sometimes I hate my Bob Newhart style of humor.

Which projects work is taking much longer than expected?

The "connect to" interval is really asking "how many days worth of work would you like to have on hand until you plan to dial back up again?". It isn't really what it might appear. It's not "please dial up every so often".

does this help?

tony

I only have one, predictor@home. WU time has increased from about 4 hours to nearly 50. I realise that the "connect" interval is really the work queue length, I don't yet know how far down the queue Boinc has to get before it fetches more work. I was simply increasing the time until Boinc connected at the interval I want. The fifty hour WUs now mean that this poor machine has got a months work in the queue now. Even if it was on permanently, it won't meet many of the deadlines.

We are now somewhat off topic, bearing in mind the title of this thread.

Thanks for the help. I've found the rosetta@home FAQ useful in explaining a few things, others might find it useful, too.

Many thanks.

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If you go to the predictor website, log in, go to "your account", then "computers-view" then pick the particular computer your talking about. On that screen what values do you have under the following catagories (note the following is what is on my page and I've deleted things which can't help me figure out your issue):

CPU type AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+
Number of CPUs 1
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP
Home Edition, Service Pack 2, (05.01.2600.00)
Memory 1023.48 MB
Cache 976.56 KB
Swap space 2462.1 MB
Total disk space 19.53 GB
Free Disk Space 1.29 GB
Average turnaround time 3.15 days

% of time BOINC client is running 99.4013 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 99.9799 %
Average CPU efficiency 0.982674
Result duration correction factor 0.397798
I'm especially interested in the bold parts.

tony

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Boinc Wiki

Sometimes I hate my Bob Newhart style of humor.

[quote]If you go to the predictor website, log in, go to "your account", then "computers-view" then pick the particular computer your talking about. On that screen what values do you have under the following catagories (note the following is what is on my page and I've deleted things which can't help me figure out your issue):

Here you go...

CPU type GenuineIntel Intel(r) family 6 model 5 processor
Number of CPUs 1
Operating System Microsoft Windows ME
04.90.3000.00
Memory 127.43 MB
Cache 976.56 KB
Swap space 1920.57 MB
Total disk space 5.99 GB
Free Disk Space 3.15 GB
Average turnaround time 5.85 days

% of time BOINC client is running 99.0415%
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 99.7311%
Average CPU efficiency 0.999976
Result duration correction factor 5.824106 <---- ???

I'm not worried about the processing speed (not much I can do about it) and the work is presumably still being done although missed deadlines make some of it a waste of time, but I'm puzzled about the change. he predicted time to complete for each WU has now gone up again to over 90 hours. The original change coincided with the change to BST (British Summer Time, if you're not in the UK). I've now got 11 WUs in the queue, at 90 hours each.... deadline on some of them is 4 hours away...

Have fun, as they say.

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% of time BOINC client is running 99.0415%
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 99.7311%
Average CPU efficiency 0.999976
Result duration correction factor 5.824106 <---- ???

Have fun, as they say.

Ah, but the problem is the processing speed. When you first connected the DCF was set to 1.000000 since it hadn't had any work to learn from. The duration correction factor is adjusted AFTER work has been done. Each time you turn a wu in it compares the cpu time to the "estimated cpu time". If the cpu time of a recently computed wu is less than estimated, it will take off something like 10% of the difference. When it's over, the estimate is immediately increased to that value. Evidently you returned a wu that took 90 hours. What processor is this? PII 400???, my P3-500 did them in 20 hours. I notice your 128 M ram and that makes a difference as well. You tell me the estimate is 90 hours and the DCF is 5.82406, if I divide 90 by 5.82410 I come up with 15.45 hours or so. This 15.45 hours is what it thought it should take originally when it issued work to you.

you say you got 11 wus (11 wu * 15.45hours= 169.95 hours (or 7 days worth of work). What is your "connect to" (cache) setting set for?

After it did a wu it sees it really takes 90 and yes it has too much work. I would abort the ones that can't be done in time. The newly corrected DCF will limit your downloaded work for the next time (depending on your requested cache setting).

Don't worry, be happy

tony

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Boinc Wiki

Sometimes I hate my Bob Newhart style of humor.