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Posts by MikeMarsUK

Posts by MikeMarsUK

1) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : New project launch tomorrow: Weather@home 2014: the causes of the UK winter floods (Message 48293)
Posted 5 Mar 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
... Lucky you. Here in the United States we have been having the Winter from hell. One very cold outbreak after another. Some places have seen temp. as low as -40F (or C, it�s the same on both scales).


Sure it's been warm, but it has also flooded really badly here this winter. The underlying cause is the same here and there - a stuck jet stream.
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Why do I keep getting a 'Computation Error'? (Message 48150)
Posted 11 Feb 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

When my power supply was dropping out regularly, I bought an old APC 2200VA UPS off ebay which solved the problem. It did of course need a set of new batteries (that was the expensive bit, old UPS units themselves tend to be pretty cheap).
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Task ... exited with zero status but no 'finished' file (Message 48099)
Posted 5 Feb 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
Yes, like Les says, just ignore them.


They can be caused by a number of things - something taking a lot of CPU time on the PC, or interruptions to internet access (if the boinc manager makes a DNS request which takes a long time, then these messages will appear).
4) Message boards : climateprediction.net Science : Free MIT course in Climate Science (Message 48015)
Posted 20 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

There are also a few more free courses hosted on Coursera starting soon:

(University of California)
https://www.coursera.org/course/4dimensions

(The world bank)
https://www.coursera.org/course/warmerworld

(University of Chicago)
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Ten year deadline? (Message 47999)
Posted 16 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

I would guess that the 10 year deadline is an attempt to stop it being reissued.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : ANOTHER UPLOAD PROBLEM (Message 47996)
Posted 16 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
Regarding the CM3 _7zz1_ job, if that was from this week, I think it is best to abort it (see current news item regarding CM3 _7 models). Has your PC been rebooted since the servers went down? Sometimes if there is a stale IP address that fixes it.
7) Message boards : Number crunching : VANISHING WU'S (Message 47974)
Posted 14 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
Right, but aborting them seems of little use as long as they are picked up by someone else immediately.


True, I had the same experience with one of mine. I've raised it with Andy.
8) Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : "This project may not have work for your type of computer" on AMD processors and Linux x86_64 (Message 47961)
Posted 9 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
And to think that there are those out there who wonder why people are ready to pay for Windows when they could get Linux for free.


It was quite a relief when I replaced my openSUSE installation with Windows 7. I love the idea of open source & linux in theory, but it can be really user-unfriendly at times. Hopefully this will improve in the years to come (particularly since both Android and the new steam box use it).
9) Questions and Answers : Windows : Optimise PC build for CPDN (Message 47960)
Posted 9 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
...Currently running 12 on the available 16 hyperthreads � with no degradation on work throughput.


Awesome, nice work.


Regarding the disk activity indicator in the resource monitor, I wonder how much it is affected by disk caching.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Creating a Profile problems. (Message 47917)
Posted 2 Jan 2014 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

Yeah I do remember that the profiles were infested with drug adverts. I seem to recall that the minimum-RAC requirement was introduced by Boinc quite a long time ago (& seems like a reasonable compromise). The SETI forums didn't even allow you to post until you had RAC.
11) Questions and Answers : Wish list : Smaller Work Units (Message 47861)
Posted 24 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
...Shame these things were not more stable or at least backed themselves up. :-(


In the old days we used to do manual backups of our running models (when they took many months to run, losing a model was a bit of a downer). But with the introduction of hyperthreading / multiple cores, it became very difficult to restore models individually, so nobody bothers anymore.
12) Message boards : Number crunching : Curious about "Error while computing..." (Message 47802)
Posted 17 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

Nice charts. The really interesting one there is the 'Darwin' entry ... only a handful of Darwin boxes are correctly configured to be able to run CPDN, but when they do run past the first trickle, they're the most reliable.



13) Message boards : Number crunching : Project has no tasks available (Message 47801)
Posted 17 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
... I came back last week to try it again, this time only with my Win7 laptop. The 4 WUs got to about 50% and the next thing I saw was that they had all crashed. What a waste of cpu-time and energy again. Again, bye bye. Don't think I will ever return if this is the level of quality you can offer.


The tasks haven't reported back yet & hence we can't see why they crashed. If they all crashed simultaneously that usually implies something environmental (such as a power cut or windows shutting down before Boinc has exited). If it was a laptop, perhaps it tried to hibernate the tasks.

Because they run for so long, CPDN tasks do require some TLC.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Task won't finish? (Message 47800)
Posted 17 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

At least when running 6 Had3CM models simultaneously, I did find that a power cut killed them all. MartinNZ reported the same. If I had to guess, I would suggest that there is an open data file which is needed to restart properly.


A UPS is a good idea if you get frequent power cuts ... if you very rarely get power cuts, it would be an unnecessary expense and a risk in itself (e.g., accidentally brushing the 'test' button cut the power & killed all my tasks once).
15) Message boards : Number crunching : ANOTHER UPLOAD PROBLEM (Message 47748)
Posted 6 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

If you were only running 1 project, then your best bet would be to pause network access in Boinc. But this is not possible if you are running multiple projects.

16) Message boards : Number crunching : ANOTHER UPLOAD PROBLEM (Message 47708)
Posted 3 Dec 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
No need to worry, boinc will keep trying for absolutely ages, it'll get through eventually.
17) Questions and Answers : Windows : No new tasks in a few days (Message 47690)
Posted 28 Nov 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

The work queue has mostly been empty for the last few weeks (a few were released the other night, but were all picked up almost immediately), it sounds like they are planning to release more models soon however.

18) Message boards : Number crunching : MORE DOWNLOAD ERRORS (Message 47658)
Posted 26 Nov 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:
Just to let you know all my PNW downloads have failed - all 11 of them, including the 3 that are currently shown as In Progress. Comp ID 1290283.


Yeah, it's a bad batch.
19) Message boards : Number crunching : MORE DOWNLOAD ERRORS (Message 47655)
Posted 26 Nov 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

It's a brand-new batch, and from what people are reporting it doesn't look like it is a good batch. Andy will need to take a look tomorrow.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : workunit time expired (Message 47644)
Posted 25 Nov 2013 by Profile MikeMarsUK
Post:

The deadlines are not enforced, you can continue running them to your heart's content. The effect of the deadline is that another user will be given a copy of the same workunit.


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