Hi everybody! I have a three questions for U.
I\'m going on running sulphur cycle on two machines, an AMD Athlon 1000 (1.5 GB PC133 RAM), and AMD Athlon XP 2400+ notebook (512 MB RAM). I\'ve read that on a P4 machine, it should take about 4 s/TS, while my notebook has always been above 8 (usually close to 9). I think it\'s probably cause a good part of the calculation power is \"stolen\" by 3D screensaver visualization (my integrated Radeon IGP 320 M isn\'t a powerful video card), am I right? If yes, how can I solve the problem, and maje it run faster? Is there any way to e.g. show the 3D screen saver for a limited time (e.g. before the screen enter stand-by mode), or limited resolution? If not, why is that so slow?

2nd question: ALL of the 20 results I reported had a \"client error\": without considering the 4 \"download state\" errors, I have 3 \"computing\" state, and 13 \"Done\"... shall I worry about it? Is that normal, not being able to complete any of models? Or shall I stop wasting my CPU time here?

3rd: it goes on trying to trickle up data every 30 mins... and each time it says \"Scheduler request (...) succeeded\"... shouldn\'t it trickle up once every more than 10000 TS?
Thanks in advance for the answers!

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First thing I\'d do is run Memtest-86 and Prime-95 Torture Test to check stability of both machines.

Both had -5 and -1073741819 (0xc0000005) errors, plus signature verification failures (and you manually terminated at least two downloads).

How your AMDs compare to Intel depends upon which P4 you have in mind and whether the P4 runs with one or two Models (with hyper-threading). (It also depends upon the compiler and options used to build the Model.)

If you use the screen saver on slow machines, the Model gets few cycles. You can use Blank screen for screen saver and look at the Model from the Work Tab in boinc Manager when you want to see it, closing that feature when finished.

Be sure to set Leave In Memory, in Your Account, to YES; same for do work while the machine is in use. The Model loses cycles and could be forced to re-process Time Steps otherwise.

I don\'t know about the 30-minute Trickles. (If trying without success to send the same Trickle, boinc will back-off, increasing the time interval between attempts -- but that isn\'t your experience.) Unlikely, but your Run could be rerunning the Time Steps since last Checkpoint and hitting the Trickle point again and again. Changing the settings in Your Account, mentioned in the previous paragraph, could change that.

Welcome to the Boards! You must be very patient to try to make it work for months.

Please try the stability tests.
Edit: See here on the phpBB forum http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=2126

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Thanks or your answer! ;-)

First thing I\'d do is run Memtest-86 and Prime-95 Torture Test to check stability of both machines.
Both had -5 and -1073741819 (0xc0000005) errors, plus signature verification failures (and you manually terminated at least two downloads).

I\'ve never tried Prime-95, but Memtest-86 has run on my PCs when I installed one more GB of RAM in my desktop PC (I tested both the programs)... anyway, both the PCs never finished a model! (U also wrote the same). I searched Boinc Wiki, but didn\'t find -5 error... what\'s it?

How your AMDs compare to Intel depends upon which P4 you have in mind and whether the P4 runs with one or two Models

Yes, but the difference, at about same frequency, can\'t be more than 100%! Even with Hyperthreading..! Agree? ;-)

If you use the screen saver on slow machines, the Model gets few cycles.

Only \"few\"? Shall I believe it? Even with a baaaad graphic card like mine? :-)

Unlikely, but your Run could be rerunning the Time Steps since last Checkpoint and hitting the Trickle point again and again. Changing the settings in Your Account, mentioned in the previous paragraph, could change that.

Mhhh.. let\'s try! ;-)
How \"long\" is the way between two checkpoints?

Thanks again!

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I\'ve never tried Prime-95, but Memtest-86 has run on my PCs when I installed one more GB of RAM in my desktop PC (I tested both the programs)... anyway, both the PCs never finished a model! (U also wrote the same). I searched Boinc Wiki, but didn\'t find -5 error... what\'s it?

-5 is a catch-all error. It often means a hardware problem.

Yes, but the difference, at about same frequency, can\'t be more than 100%! Even with Hyperthreading..! Agree? ;-)

We don\'t yet know whether the processor is what slows your run. It you don;t have \"Yes\" for Leave in Memory and Do Work While Computer is in Use, the machine could be \"spinning its wheels\" re-processing Time Steps...

If you use the screen saver on slow machines, the Model gets few cycles.

Only \"few\"? Shall I believe it? Even with a baaaad graphic card like mine? :-)

Especially if you have a bad graphics card, the Model will be starved by running graphics.

How \"long\" is the way between two checkpoints?

144 Time Steps (TS) between Checkpoints, 10802 TS between Trickles, 259248 TS per Phase.

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Thanks for the third time ;-)

-5 is a catch-all error. It often means a hardware problem.

...so, if memtest doesn\'t say anything, and model doesn\'t get to an end in the next 3 tries, better if I detach from the project?
It\'s strange, anyway, cause I don\'t have problems in other projects (due to less memory usage?)

It you don;t have \"Yes\" for Leave in Memory and Do Work While Computer is in Use, the machine could be \"spinning its wheels\" re-processing Time Steps...

I setted up LiM, (I have enough memory...).. but not DWWCiiU, cause its fan would drive me crazy! ;-)
BTW, the question was about duration of timesteps, compared to a 2400 MHz P4... which can\'t be 100% faster! ;-)
I think U solved my \"trickle problem\"...

If you use the screen saver on slow machines, the Model gets few cycles.

Especially if you have a bad graphics card, the Model will be starved by running graphics.

Ouch! Misunderstood! I read it like \"3D model gets few\"... :-D sorry! ;-)

G\'nite! ;-)

P.S.: shame is growing up at my side: just after posting this, I noticed the \"Go to blank screen\" checkbox in the Windows (Boinc) screen saver options... I checked it, and \"5 minutes until blank\"... this way it would stop calculating graphics, or would it just stop showing it?... It would solve my TS time problem, without avoiding showing all Boinc projects screensavers! ;-)

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...so, if memtest doesn\'t say anything, and model doesn\'t get to an end in the next 3 tries, better if I detach from the project?
It\'s strange, anyway, cause I don\'t have problems in other projects (due to less memory usage?)

Memtest is a start. Did you also run Prime-95 Torture Test? (Three options.) [Edit: Sometimes errors don\'t show right away. A couple months ago, I did some heavy testing on my P4s, running two copies of Prime-95 to test the Hyperthreading CPUs; in one case it took ~25 hours for an error to pop up.]

It often happens that machines that run other projects okay choke when exposed to CPDN. It isn\'t memory usage as much as the continuous Floating Point operations and pounding on the Hard Drive. (Both of your machines have plenty of memory for CPDN.) To my knowledge, no other boinc project uses the machines as heavily as CPDN.

Notebooks are especially vulnerable, thanks to slow Hard Drives and cooling issues. (Be sure to allow for airflow under the case when running CPDN.)

I setted up LiM, (I have enough memory...).. but not DWWCiiU, cause its fan would drive me crazy! ;-)
BTW, the question was about duration of timesteps, compared to a 2400 MHz P4... which can\'t be 100% faster! ;-)

boinc/CPDN shouldn\'t interfere with your use of the machine if you allow it to run while you do work and it won\'t make your machine run harder/under greater load. boinc/CPDN simply uses the cycles you don\'t.

If the fan screams when running CPDN, it wouldn\'t hurt to open the case and clean-out any accumulated crud, including dust trapped in the heat sink.

I noticed the \"Go to blank screen\" checkbox in the Windows (Boinc) screen saver options... I checked it, and \"5 minutes until blank\"... this way it would stop calculating graphics, or would it just stop showing it?... It would solve my TS time problem, without avoiding showing all Boinc projects screensavers! ;-)

If set to blank screen, there should be no calculations done. You could verify that by watching Task Manager when Blank screen kicks in.

Good luck.

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"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Memtest is a start. Did you also run Prime-95 Torture Test?

Once, but I wanna try it for several hours in next days

Notebooks are especially vulnerable, thanks to (...) cooling issues. (Be sure to allow for airflow under the case when running CPDN.)

No problem for it, I ALWAYS keep it clear! :-)

I setted up LiM, (I have enough memory...).. but not DWWCiiU, cause its fan would drive me crazy! ;-)

boinc/CPDN shouldn\'t interfere with your use of the machine if you allow it to run while you do work and it won\'t make your machine run harder/under greater load. boinc/CPDN simply uses the cycles you don\'t.

U mean lowest priority, huh?

If the fan screams when running CPDN, it wouldn\'t hurt to open the case and clean-out any accumulated crud, including dust trapped in the heat sink.

No, the fan problem isn\'t dust (I take care for it, it\'s not too much)... the roar it makes is just the normal, when rotating at full speed... I hate it, also cause it will break before, this way... U say CPDN \"simply uses what I don\'t\", but this means it brings CPU to 100%... so fan rotates at 100% (rotation is directly proportional to CPU usage - not temp!)

I noticed the \"Go to blank screen\" checkbox in the Windows(...) would stop calculating graphics, or would it just stop showing it?...

If set to blank screen, there should be no calculations done. You could verify that by watching Task Manager when Blank screen kicks in.

The problem is: when I try my screen saver, I can\'t look at Task manager! ;-)

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If set to blank screen, there should be no calculations done. You could verify that by watching Task Manager when Blank screen kicks in.

Wait a minute here... how do you see the task manager after the screen goes blank??!

General comment on Memtest86+ & Prime95: I find memtest to be a good final memory test. If I can get it to run w/o erros I don\'t have memory errors with anything I run. In fact Test5 on AMD XPs (especially dual channel) will find things nothing else does. So, great tool and a prerequesit for any sort of stable OC\'ing set up.

However, I have some reservations about the absoluteness of Prime95. I personally believe CPDN to be a better FPU / CPU tester than Prime95. If P95 runs for an hour then the machine is ready to be tested with CPDN. Suspend all the other projects and if it runs overnight it\'s \'good to go\'.

I\'d be curious to see the General Prefs massic80 is using. Also has either machine been tweaked at all? I\'d better read on.

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- da shu @ HeliOS,
"Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer"

massic80
You posted about 3D graphics being slow.

This is in version details for BOINC, (on their download page), going back to at least version 4.5:

Known problems
* If BOINC runs at the same time as Windows XP 3-D screensavers, the system becomes sluggish and unresponsive.

So, the developers do know about it. They just don\'t seem to have come up with an answer.

* If BOINC runs at the same time as Windows XP 3-D screensavers, the system becomes sluggish and unresponsive.

So, the developers do know about it. They just don\'t seem to have come up with an answer.

Can\'t they check CPU usage at test-time?

Wait a minute here... how do you see the task manager after the screen goes blank??!

It\'s the same I said! :-)

Suspend all the other projects and if it runs overnight it\'s \'good to go\'.

Don\'t know about it, but I decided to remove BOINC Manager from my notebook, cause something \"sad\" happened, and it found the way to make some Rosetta, a Primegrid and the CPDN WUs fail... in three seconds... dunno what happened, but it was the last drop: I reported the failure, and uninstalled it... the questions are warped to my \"not-mobile\" PC (Athlon 1000, 1.5 GB RAM)

I\'d be curious to see the General Prefs massic80 is using. Also has either machine been tweaked at all? I\'d better read on.

Here is my id, U\'re welcome! ;-)
6305314e2675a324b2956bf39c02dbf2
The screen saver is set at \"go to blank screen in 3 minutes\"
Thanks!

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