Posts by MikeMarsUK

41) Message boards : BOINC client : Dual core (Message 15814)
Posted 11 Mar 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:
... If CPDN gives work with a deadline that has a far enough deadline so it will stick to its Resource Share all the way through, I'd consider computing there again.



CPDN recently tried to issue some models with a long deadline, but this caused big problems - older versions of the Boinc manager couldn't cope with a deadline more than 1000 days (deadline was reset to 1901).

42) Message boards : BOINC client : Dual core (Message 15722)
Posted 8 Mar 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

While projects which offer no work (or are set to 'no more work') cause the LTD to increase, and this is the intended + designed behaviour, personally I've always felt that in this situation they shouldn't increase the LTD any further. But no doubt every cruncher in Boinc-land has their own preferences :-)

43) Message boards : BOINC client : No connection to internet? (Message 15696)
Posted 6 Mar 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

No, a lot of the AS software out there has resident checking as well. Spybot uses the Tea-timer, while Ad-Aware runs constantly as a service these days. Spybot and Spywareblaster also immunize your computer against loading specific sites/links. If you keep them up-to-date, that is.
...


That's a useful tip - I've just reinstalled spybot to include the tea-time component. Thanks. I'm not sure how much of the protection will work with my browser (Opera) since it seems focused towards IE, but at least the domain blacklist should work.
44) Message boards : BOINC client : No connection to internet? (Message 15684)
Posted 5 Mar 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

I was under the impression that a) antispyware solutions don't actually prevent your PC from being infected, they just try to clean up afterwards, and b) A/Vs are focussed on viruses rather than spyware. If these two impressions are accurate, there is a hole in your defences if you have nothing which prevents drive-by spyware infections.

There are loads of firewalls, both hardware and software, which use deep packet inspection to control such things. It is a perfectly normal enterprise-level firewall feature.
45) Message boards : BOINC client : No connection to internet? (Message 15658)
Posted 4 Mar 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:
...
Also, I run no software firewall, because my router blocks all ports anyway. Software firewalls then are just an annoyance.



One thing software firewalls can protect against is malicious content of websites you are currently browsing. For example, 'drive-by' downloads of spyware. These sometimes come from an advertiser on an otherwise trusted website.

(But since I don't browse the internet from my boinc-only machines, I don't always bother with a firewall on those boxes).
46) Message boards : BOINC Manager : BOINC not connecting for unexplained reasons (Message 15559)
Posted 25 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

I can never bring myself to entirely trust GUI front ends such as Windows (new fangled rubbish, what was wrong with paper tape, that's what I want to know! :-) )
47) Message boards : BOINC Manager : BOINC not connecting for unexplained reasons (Message 15544)
Posted 24 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

Try attrib -r "c:\program files\boinc" /S /D in a Dos box (start/programs/accessories/command prompt). Boinc will need to be shut down before you try it.
48) Message boards : BOINC client : Points discussion comments (Message 15512)
Posted 21 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

The benchmark-based credit system was abysmal and a huge mistake, now thankfully rectified by the various projects. I'm sure everyone (with the exception of this mythical admin, and also any credit cheats taking advantage of the old system) was pleased to see it go.

49) Message boards : BOINC client : unable to run 'boinc client'.... (Message 15471)
Posted 18 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

There are two main alternatives - assuming that you have run_client:

* Can you use a manager on a different machine to control it? (You'll need to set up the remote auth stuff).

* Use the command-line interface (boinc_cmd or boinccmd, I think you need to specify --help to get the list of commands).
50) Message boards : BOINC client : Warning: Symantec AV blocks downloads (Message 15459)
Posted 16 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

Norton Antivirus is known to sometimes crash some Boinc applications due to the type of file locks Norton uses. Basically if the science app tries to access a file at exactly the wrong moment while Norton AV is scanning it, the science app will not be able to open the file and will crash.

The recommendation is therefore to put Boinc's directory in both of Norton's exclusion lists (one for manual scans, and one for automatic scans).
51) Message boards : BOINC Manager : BOINC in a dual-boot Windows XP/Vista PC (Message 15383)
Posted 13 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:
hmmm, well if on 5.10.35 or higher that is not a concern anymore.


Does 5.10.35 solve the 0x40010004 crash as per the following thread? (He's got 5.10.30).

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=6009
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=7211900

The 0x40010004 error occurs when Vista kills the 'show graphics' screen on any climate project (and therefore possibly also the screensaver if it is auto-rebooting).

I know 5.10.35 solves the 0xC0000142 error, but CPDN also gets error code 0, 1/-1, and 0x40010004 in the same cirumstances. I have no idea what additional errors 5.10.35 fixes. Ideally Boinc should ignore any errors received after a shutdown request is received, does it do this now?
52) Message boards : BOINC Manager : BOINC in a dual-boot Windows XP/Vista PC (Message 15352)
Posted 10 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

Another thing I'd suggest for Vista is to always exit boinc before shutting down Vista - otherwise the tasks you are running may be killed by Vista's very aggressive shutdown process.
53) Message boards : BOINC Manager : 5.10.40 x86 / Windows "Longhorn" (Message 15344)
Posted 10 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:
...
You should reset the projekt to get the newest application. A project which provides 64-Bit applications may be better in performance on a 64-Bit Operating System with 64-Bit Boincmanager.



In many cases there will be very little difference in performance (just a few % one way or the other due to the extra registers available). There are a small number of projects which have a big difference in performance, for example, APS@Home. Augustine has a full list.
54) Message boards : BOINC client : CPU Benchmarks (Message 15330)
Posted 9 Feb 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

These benchmarks are pretty much meaningless - as far as I know none of the projects use them for credits anymore, and they're certainly not a realistic guide to the speed of the machine.

The best test of a machine's performance is how well it runs your favourite project's workunits.
55) Message boards : BOINC client : Wrong message "You used the wrong URL for this project" (Message 15175)
Posted 31 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

I didn't realise the Boinc servers compare URLs via DNS, I thought they did a simple textual compare of two strings? (Unless you're just adding detail to Ananas's post)?
56) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Boinc Mgr in Fedora 8 (Message 15139)
Posted 27 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

The command-line version is included as part of the GUI manager. Download 5.10.28, and only run it via the command line rather than running the manager.
57) Message boards : BOINC Manager : No Heartbeat seems to be causing DLL error messages (Message 15114)
Posted 25 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

The mislabeling of 'status zero exit' messages as 'dll initialisation error' messages was fixed shortly after 5.10.30 was released, although these later versions are still in testing.
58) Message boards : BOINC client : BOINC manager 5.10.32 up unresponsive on Macbook (Message 15113)
Posted 25 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

Asynch DNS is only part of the puzzle - another issue is that if the core client spends significant time on any task, then the manager will freeze.

The solution would be to make all communication between the manager and client asynchronous, and I seem to recall something in the Boinc V6 development which does exactly this.
59) Message boards : BOINC client : Wrong message "You used the wrong URL for this project" (Message 15112)
Posted 25 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

I still haven't figured out why Boinc allows us to attach to projects if the URL is wrong, and only subsequently complains about the URL once workunits are running. Wouldn't it be more efficient to reject it earlier in the process?
60) Message boards : BOINC client : boinc not computing (Message 15111)
Posted 25 Jan 2008 by MikeMarsUK
Post:

The problem turned out to be that 32-bit package support was not installed on his Ubuntu 64-bit system, and hence Boinc(? *) couldn't start the climate model which is 32-bit code.

* (I'm not sure whether it was Boinc itself, or the outermost layer of the compound application).


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