Posts by Bill Hepburn

1) Message boards : News : Outage notice (Message 92996) Posted 1 Apr 2020 by Bill Hepburn Post: With SETI@home going into hibernation, we can expect many of those computers to be switching to other projects. In years gone by, it was pretty common that when SETI had a long outage (like when somebody stole the cable that was their Internet connection), all of the other projects (there weren't many) picked up a bunch of users and couldn't keep up with the demand for a while. In addition, the desire of new users to help researching the Corona virus, Rosetta will be having a problem keeping up with demand for a while, but I have faith in them. In my experience Rosetta has always been pretty solid.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : New WUs being started before older ones are done (Message 68371) Posted 3 Nov 2010 by Bill Hepburn Post: So it is a Boinc thing! One of the things you might do is set "Switch between tasks" in your Computing Preferences to some large value (I use 720 minutes) instead of the recommended (default) 60 minutes. That way, most tasks have time to complete before BOINC switches applications. It switches when tasks complete anyway, and I almost never see a partially completed task sitting around. I haven't seen a down side do doing this, but there may be one.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : SERVER PROBLEMS - 2. (Message 67482) Posted 31 Aug 2010 by Bill Hepburn Post: Hi, unfortunately I´m having the same problem. I have two project in my BOINC Manager. Seti and Rosetta. I´m able to process Seti tasks without problem but I can´t get any work from Rosetta... only getting the Communication deferred in the Status messagem on the Projects tab. Could anyone help me? I´m really interest in help the Rosetta project. Remember that Seti goes into it's weekly three day outage starting Tuesday morning California time (UTC-7). So, if they don't get Rosetta fixed, you may run out of work. Over the years, Rosetta has been one of the most reliable BOINC projects, so I remain optimistic.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : Help - No work Units (Message 66134) Posted 15 May 2010 by Bill Hepburn Post: All: My primary system is not receiving work units. The message says that I reached my daily quota of 8 results. With an Core i920, I can run 8 WUs at a time. Any ideas? Thank you That machine has been throwing a boatload of errors. Some of the errors are downloading, others are compute errors. BOINC steps down the number of WUs you can get if they error out, and rapidly steps it up when you start returning valid results again. You are now limited to 1 WU per CPU per day. Why it is throwing the errors is an entirely different thing. Heat? Failing hardware? Bad karma?
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with Minirosetta 1.80 (Message 61924) Posted 24 Jun 2009 by Bill Hepburn Post: I have had three now that came up with a "compute error" after they had almost finished. Don't think it is on my end. They were on two different computers (one XP Pro, one Win Server 2003). Two of them have been reissued and the second person errored out too. The last one just went out. Other 1.80 tasks run fine, other projects are running just fine. http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/workunit.php?wuid=238330815 http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/workunit.php?wuid=238113829 http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/workunit.php?wuid=238093549
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with version 5.96 (Message 53713) Posted 16 Jun 2008 by Bill Hepburn Post: This one ran about 28%, then sat there "running", but consuming no CPU cycles for about 12 hours or so until I noticed it, and aborted it. That hasn't happened in ages. http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/workunit.php?wuid=156585874
7) Message boards : Number crunching : prob connecting? (Message 45857) Posted 9 Sep 2007 by Bill Hepburn Post: Remember that after an extended outage, almost every active host (almost 400,000 of them according to BOINCStats) will be asking for work, and reporting work, all at once ("exponential backup" notwithstanding). You are competing for program resources with those other computers. Rosetta seems to have a relatively robust server farm, and a very responsive admin team, but don't be surprised to be seeing all sorts of strange error messages and delays for a day or so.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with Rosetta version 5.67 (Message 41563) Posted 28 May 2007 by Bill Hepburn Post: I am a bit baffled why the one Rosetta WU might have gotten stopped, and even more baffled why it would have started a new Rosetta with one partially completed. The one waiting has a deadline closer than the one running. This is normal BOINC behavior when the memory limits you have configured are passed (See General Preferences). It suspends the task that crossed the memory limit, and then fires up the next, in hopes that it might be able to run in less memory. Thus keeping the CPU active. Then later, perhaps the computer is not in use and BOINC is allowed more memory and it can continue with the one that got suspended. If you have a list of tasks, BOINC might begin each one in turn and run until it reaches the memory limits. So it is just a factor of those tasks needing significantly more memory then normal. It caused many of us to hit these memory limits, when we are not used to seeing them. That's probably what happened, although it initially ran into the problem in the middle of the night when the computer was otherwise idle. Later, after I had posted the message and several other WUs went by, it started up by itself and finished. I have 1 GB or RAM and BOINC can have 90% when idle, 50% when in use. I had to work on some PowerPoint slides the morning I reported this and may rebooted before I started... I often do that for the very purpose of freeing up RAM that misbehaving applications may have left tied up.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with Rosetta version 5.67 (Message 41495) Posted 26 May 2007 by Bill Hepburn Post: I think it was a problem with those FOLD_AND_DOCK_SUBSYSTEM WUs. I just aborted all of mine, and got new units with a different name. Now everything is working fine. It was, indeed a FOLD_AND_DOCK_SUBSYSTEM WU, although at least one FOLD_AND_DOCK finished satisfactorily. Since then, several more WUs started and uploaded. I looked at the log and there were the two lines about this WU when it started. Nothing about ever pausing it. Oh well, the CPU ate it. I hope it enjoyed it.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Problems with Rosetta version 5.67 (Message 41492) Posted 26 May 2007 by Bill Hepburn Post: Initially, I thought this was a BOINC foible, but a couple of hours have passed and it looks like a Rosetta 5.67 issue. I posted on the BOINC forum earlier, but a couple of hours have gone by and the Rosetta WU looks stuck "Waiting to run" at 2:15 and 75% completion. I have since stopped and restarted BOINC to no avail. BOINC 5.8.16 running as a service on WinXP Pro. I am attached to Rosetta, Malaria, and Seti on a Pentium D. I have set my "switch every interval" to 300 minutes to allow work units to complete before switching. The machine has been on overnight. I just noticed that there is a completed Seti and Malaria WU to upload. There is a Rosetta WU running (1:30 and 50%) and a Malaria WU at (1:00 and 75%). There are no report deadlines for the next couple of days. All short term debt values are between +1000 and -1000. Nothing odd there. But there is another Rosetta WU sitting at 2:15 and 75% "Waiting to run". There are WUs from all projects waiting to start. I am a bit baffled why the one Rosetta WU might have gotten stopped, and even more baffled why it would have started a new Rosetta with one partially completed. The one waiting has a deadline closer than the one running. Of course, in a few hours I'm sure they will all be completed, uploaded, and gone from sight. but it does seem odd.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Limiting CPU usage (Message 29871) Posted 23 Oct 2006 by Bill Hepburn Post: It didn't seem to behave for me. Instead of throttling, it appears to pause and unpause processing at about a one second rate. Yes, that's what the "cpu throttle" was designed to do. It turns processing on X amount/off Y amount/ on X amount......etc. I.E 50% would be ON 1/2 second/ OFF 1/2 second. Atleast, that's how I understand it. It certainly makes sense that it would work that way, but the on/off interval seemed to be long enough that my problem with iTunes had plenty of time to develop during one "on" cycle.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : Limiting CPU usage (Message 29850) Posted 23 Oct 2006 by Bill Hepburn Post: Has anyone looked at the "All versions" link at the boinc.dowload.php page lately?. It lists the boinc alpha version 5.6.5 which allows users to try out the cpu throttle feature. It didn't seem to behave for me. Instead of throttling, it appears to pause and unpause processing at about a one second rate. I was trying to resolve a problem with BOINC not getting out of the way of the new iTunes (7.0) on a 3.0 GHz Hyperthreader WinXP Home. When BOINC is running, iTunes periodically garbles and won't clear up without stopping and restarting iTunes. When BOINC is not running, it never garbles. I "fixed" it by setting that machine in a venue with "On multiprocessors use at most" set to 1. Effectively throttles the CPU to 50% and iTunes works fine.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Report stuck & aborted WU here please - II (Message 13694) Posted 13 Apr 2006 by Bill Hepburn Post: This one stuck at 1.04% for over 13 hours. http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/workunit.php?wuid=13967978
14) Message boards : Number crunching : My experience with Rosetta WU's (Message 219) Posted 20 Sep 2005 by Bill Hepburn Post: Not sure how long mine is going to take since the CPU time got reset when I rebooted for other reasons. My sense is 10 or 12 hours. It has about 20 minutes to go. The interesting twist is that I am now getting the messages that it won't finish in time (computer on 85 percent and this project gets 25 percent of that) and will not download a new work unit. Connect interval is .5 days. My recollection is that when I got the first unit, it thought it would take a couple of hundred hours to complete, and relatively quickly figured out that it would be less. It's a Pentium D running at 3.2 GHz with 1 GB of RAM. My suspicion is that if the computations took into account the dual core that it would at least download (maybe going into panic mode until it gets the time thing sorted out). I don't know if that is a BOINC or Rosetta issue. The estimated completion times need to get fixed pretty quickly. If it doesn't think that my pretty fast computer can finish in time, I suspect it will have the same problems with most computers. I don't worry a huge amount about the apparently lost credit due to having to stop BOINC, but lots of folks do. I suspect that these need to move up on someones "to do" list.