Posts by ChertseyAl

Info	Message
61) Message boards : News : New project seeks testers Message 47472 Posted 22 Jan 2013 by ChertseyAl	I replied to your post at Neil's site. I don't have time this evening to dig any deeper, but I can say that the project website is working, my stats are correct on Neils's stats and at Free-DC. Also, if you've only just joined, your stats won't have been exported yet to the XML user db dump, so just wait 24 hours and see what happens :) Cheers, Al.
62) Message boards : Questions and problems : Several computers, one network socket and one monitor to control them Message 47470 Posted 22 Jan 2013 by ChertseyAl	Is there an easy way to make them available for BOINC and control them together using only 1 monitor, 1 keyboard and 1 mouse, and having available only 1 network socket? Yes! You need an ethernet switch to connect them all to the LAN. Shouldn't cost much, but go for a decent brand as the $20 cheapo ones tend to die just out of warrantee :) Ubuntu will easily allow remote login so that you can control the machine as if you were sitting at it - Zero cost! Not sure what sort of machine you want to connect to them with. I think again that's all part of Ubuntu (I don't do it this way myself), but if you want to connect from a Windows machine you just need a VNC client. TightVNC is fine. In either case ... Zero cost! FWIW, I run about a dozen 'headless' machines running a mixure of Ubuntu and Win XP. I access them all via VNC from the only machine with keboard, monitor and mouse. I find it simple, reliable, and cheap (apart from the cost of a couple of network switches). HTH. Cheers, Al.
63) Message boards : News : New project seeks testers Message 47436 Posted 21 Jan 2013 by ChertseyAl	The website seems to be down and has been for a while. It comes up but mostly blank pages. Hmm. I've been checking there every day for ages to see what's happening and I've had no problems at all with the site. Just checked again and it's up as usual. Cheers, Al.
64) Message boards : Projects : German project Spinhenger, is down or Finished Message 46466 Posted 24 Nov 2012 by ChertseyAl	The server is alive and the project is waiting for new client code to be written. Given that they got new hardware to run the server and that the site is still alive, I'd be pretty confident that the work will start flowing again at some stage. Cheers, Al.
65) Message boards : Questions and problems : Rapidly being put out of BOINC by CPU heat Message 46445 Posted 23 Nov 2012 by ChertseyAl	Three of my machines are laptops Laptops are trickier, but all of mine have a panel on the base that can be removed to get to the fan. You'll need a tiny crosspoint watchmaker's screwdriver, but they're easily available for a few $. I wouldn't recommend it, but I blow compressed air into the outlet vents sometimes to do a quick fix. But usually I take the panel off, and then remove the fan to give it a clean and lube and to give me access to the back of the heatsink behind the vent. FWIW (probably not very much!) I avoid using BOINC on lappies because in the old days they did used to overheat regularly. These days I just use one junk one that's stood up on edge to get the maximum airflow through it. As someone said, could you not take them along to a local computer store or club and get someone to show you the way to do it? Cheers, Al.
66) Message boards : Questions and problems : Rapidly being put out of BOINC by CPU heat Message 46431 Posted 22 Nov 2012 by ChertseyAl	I vacuum the vents regularly. I am a complete commoner when it comes to things technical, so I cannot begin to think about the heat sinks. Hmmm. I don't think I've owned a computer for at least a decade that needs any tools or a degree in engineering to open up the case :) You can do this! Get the manual (or PDF online) shut them down and remove power leads, press the necessary latches, open 'em up, and look for the big hairy ball of fluff. Remove big hairy ball of fluff with a vacuum cleaner with a narrow nozzle, or blow it away with a can of compressed air (the stuff that camera shops sell, easily available online). Put cases back together. Job done. Even without BOINC running, things are only going to get worse, so you might as well just do it and get back to number crunching :) Cheers, Al.
67) Message boards : Questions and problems : Rapidly being put out of BOINC by CPU heat Message 46337 Posted 17 Nov 2012 by ChertseyAl	Stupid question, but when did you last clean the CPU heatsinks? Are the CPU fans running flat out to compensate for clogged heatsinks? I have to clean my machines twice a year, and the one lappie I run BOINC on every few months. Why should all of the machines start having problems at the same time? Maybe you've just turned your central heating on for the Winter and the ambient temperature has jumped up enough to be a problem? Cheers, Al.
68) Message boards : Projects : remove project from stats list Message 45755 Posted 23 Sep 2012 by ChertseyAl	I don't think you can delete an account. In fact, I'm certain that you can't. Just out of curiosity, why don't you want a project appearing in your stats? If you're not accepting new work for it, it's not costing you anything in processing time. Cheers, Al.
69) Message boards : Projects : AraBOINC - UFSC - Araranguá Message 45594 Posted 8 Sep 2012 by ChertseyAl	Actually, turns out that this is intended to be an internal competion on the uni campus. There is an invite code (which can be found with a little effort, I won't reveal it here). Pointless to sign up again as they'll just delete you again. Probably just a mistake to accidentally let it out into the big wide world. I suspect they'll be plagued with unwanted signups if they don't start from scratch and run it only on their LAN. Cheers, Al.
70) Message boards : Projects : AraBOINC - UFSC - Araranguá Message 45583 Posted 6 Sep 2012 by ChertseyAl	It's very unstable. My account was deleted a few days ago, so I created a new one yesterday. I've now been 'banished' :) Di I get a certificate or something for that? Perhaps it's because I'm not Brazilian, or I don't run a stats site, or am not in the top 10 cruchers wordwide ;) I'll be charitable and put it down to 'teething problems' for now. Cheers, Al.
71) Message boards : Projects : FreeHAL Message 45179 Posted 7 Aug 2012 by ChertseyAl	Does anyone know anything about the new and, sometimes, very long WU's the project is putting out now? The ones I'm running are non-cpu intensive, but they sure are *RAM* intensive -- I've seen them use as much as 1GB RAM. I don't know anything specific about this, other than the project is killing my hosts. Have had to go NNW as they are thrashing the swap file. I had to power down a couple of machines as they were utterly unresponsive. Shame really, as each WU used to use around 30MB, now it seems to be 20 times that. Combined with a another project that uses a lot of RAM, it is a recipe for disaster. Actually it was a disaster :( Cheers, Al.
72) Message boards : Projects : FightMalaria@Home Message 44951 Posted 19 Jul 2012 by ChertseyAl	Someone has beaten me to the punch and already asked. :) As of this writing, FM@H staff haven't responded. Actually the project scientist has now responded, and it's a great explanation of the differences between the projects :) Cheers, Al.
73) Message boards : Projects : FightMalaria@Home Message 44942 Posted 18 Jul 2012 by ChertseyAl	Forums now open (hurrah!) and work coming soon (as in today) Hopefully there isn't any overlap in work with this project and WCG's Go Fight Against Malaria. The boards are open, why not go and ask? Oh, and thanks for the heads-up about the WCG sub-project - Not crunched WCG in a while and didn't know there were new sub-projects to try - I'll go take a look :) Cheers, Al.
74) Message boards : Projects : FightMalaria@Home Message 44914 Posted 15 Jul 2012 by ChertseyAl	Be careful with this one. Although there is often a lot of work available, it seems the DB gets wiped frequently and unless you update after every WU you may waste a lot of crunching time. Been there, done that :) However, looks like an interesting project. Let's hope they get the message boards up ASAP so that we can all find out more and start contributing! Cheers, Al.
75) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44570 Posted 20 Jun 2012 by ChertseyAl	Project is probably using coarse HR, which matches Windows, Linux, and Mac with the same OS. I think that's true as I can't find any recent work where my XP machines have been paired with linux. Which is nice :) Still getting a few validation problems, but maybe only 1 WU per day, so not that worried. HOWEVER ... It would be nice to lift the limit on WUs in progress per host/CPU/whatever to a sensible level. My machines hit the limit, keep asking for work, back off for hours, and as a result machines are often dry :( Cheers, Al.
76) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44439 Posted 9 Jun 2012 by ChertseyAl	The feeder hasn't been running for a while now. I have work to report, there is work available to get, but someone needs to give the feeder a kick please :) Cheers, Al.
77) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44282 Posted 24 May 2012 by ChertseyAl	Perhaps this thread should be locked. I disagree. Fair enough. Meanwhile, a few problems have come to light: "Completed, validation inconclusive" - This is still happening with linux v Windows, but now more worryingly seems to happen between Win XP32 and Win7 64. Also, a 'tie-break' WU is not being sent, so the tasks presumably never get resolved. The tasks don't relinquish control once running. Once they start, they run to completion, blocking other projects. Checkpointing doesn't work, or isn't present (probably the same issue as above, it simply isn't implemented). Prior to a power failure I had some WUs running solidly for 5 hours. On restart they started from zero again. For some reason, the IR is set to 3 although the MQ is 2. I thought this was generally frowned upon as a waste of resourses. However, on the bright side, only 2 replications are actually sent out, the third remains as 'unsent' (see validation issue above, probably related). I'd suggest it's pretty important to sort out the validation issues as by my estimation about 10% of work is being wasted (seems to tie up with the 90/10 win/linux split that someone quoted someplace). Secondly, as the WUs are a decent length, checkpointing would be nice :) Cheers, Al.
78) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44277 Posted 23 May 2012 by ChertseyAl	Perhaps this thread should be locked. The project's admins really must open their message boards. There are so many issues that could be resolved with helpful crunchers if only there was a forum (sic) to communicate. Looks like the WU length has increased, as suggested, by 100x. Looks like all of the win v linux WU validation problem WUS have been wiped (well, gee, thanks for that). Looks like there's still a limit on concurrent WUs. Félix, get those message boards open. Now. Before we all lose interest in what is potentially an interesting project. Cheers, Al. p.s. Someone please lock this thread!
79) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44163 Posted 18 May 2012 by ChertseyAl	FWIW, there seems to be a problem validating linux versus windows machines. All of the 100+ pending WUs I've checked so far have been linux against windows. Not an uncommon problem. Also, stats have not been updated since 16th May, but nonetheless I'm grateful that you are at least trying to export them :) Oh, and the limit on WUs in progress is proving a real hindrance to getting any work done. Suggest a minimum of 2 WUs per core, but ideally a chance to get an hour or mores worth of work cached would help :) If the WUs took a bit (lot!) longer it would make the project easier to crunch, but I don't know how practical that is for you to fix. 100 times more work per WU would be nice. Sadly still no message boards :( Cheers, Al. p.s. Sorry for cluttering up the BOINC dev boards :)
80) Message boards : Projects : Rioja Science Message 44154 Posted 15 May 2012 by ChertseyAl	Oh...And please state that it's okay to import and publish project statistics. As stats aren't being exported it would be quite hard for any stats site to import them :) Anyway, we shouldn't be cluttering up the BOINC forums with project-specific stuff - Let's hope the project opens it's forums soon :) Cheers, Al.

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