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Posts by Grahamt

Posts by Grahamt

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Nearly there (Message 58358)
Posted 10 Jul 2018 by Grahamt
Post:
For heaven's sake! Having been away for a few days I come back to find the 'You are using an old URL. Remove the project and switch to..' message from BOINC. Naively assuming this meant all was now fixed, I did as BOINC suggested. From this thread, though, it looks as though a) this was the wrong thing to do and b) BOINC hasn't even provided the correct URL.

Result: I (and CPDN) have lost the 24-day unit that's been waiting for a couple of months to be reported, and I'll probably have to remove and add the project again at some point. (I don't mind so much that my 'work done' total is now lower than before, but I bet some people will.)

CPDN will end up with just a hard core of users who need to monitor the forum on an hourly basis.

Very frustrating. Ah well - there are other projects...
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit Status (Message 57194)
Posted 26 Oct 2017 by Grahamt
Post:
Very glad I read recent posts here today before trying a manual update just now. I've also dropped to zero. Having seen Dave Jackson's previous comment I'm not worried. At least it's made the shape of my stats graph more interesting.

I haven't abandoned CPDN but I've restricted it to one task (out of four) at a time on my PC. I still think the project needs more resources, in terms of both managing the throughput of tasks and communicating with volunteers. Overall, though, it's a good thing to be part of.
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit Status (Message 56898)
Posted 21 Sep 2017 by Grahamt
Post:
Having read through this thread, my conclusion is that the people running the project don't care enough about us number crunchers to communicate directly with us. All the information we get - whether about credit or problems with the project - seems to come from volunteers/moderators (for which many thanks).

CPDN work is, of course important, but as some people here have pointed out, it's not mission-critical. So I think I'll take my CPU cycles somewhere where they're more appreciated. I'll let my current CPDN units complete, but I'm not going to fetch any more. This won't make much of a difference to the amount of work done for CPDN, but it will make a difference to me.
4) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit Status (Message 56727)
Posted 26 Aug 2017 by Grahamt
Post:
I do wonder what effect the infequent credit updates (together with the large work unit sizes) have on the work allocation between projects on my PC. I run three projects, supposedly with a 40/30/30 percent balance between them (on four cores and a GPU), yet Climateprediction always seems to be all or nothing on the four non-GPU cores. Two projects update several times each day, but the infrequent Climateprediction updates result in very high 'average work done' figures compared to the other projects.

I confess that I sometimes get impatient and suspend one or other project to balance things out a bit.

Yes, I know. I really should research how the BOINC work allocation system works.
5) Message boards : Number crunching : New work Discussion (Message 55469)
Posted 11 Jan 2017 by Grahamt
Post:
I run CPDN because I wanted to aid a project concerned with useful 'real-world' research to complement the more speculative work done by SETI@home. However, from the server status page and this discussion, it looks like a) there are now far too many users/computers for the work available and b) the scientists aren't communicating well with CPDN users.

Also, the way CPDN interacts with other projects managed by BOINC is unsatisfactory, as detailed in this thread. So I think it's time to find a different project to support. Just one thing will keep CPDN in my list of projects - the nonsense spouted by Trump & co. If the current workunit famine turns to feast again, I'll suspend all but one workunit so that my other three CPU cores can be used for other projects.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49411)
Posted 25 Jun 2014 by Grahamt
Post:
Some good points made above, from different viewpoints. Thanks for the thoughtful and useful responses, especially for the reassurance about the way BOINC works.

I should maybe add that, like Niall, I'm not worried about competing with other participants for credit - I just like to compare between projects. And of course I agree that the scientific work is far more important than allocating credit. But the point made by a couple of people about engaging participants and not just computers is also, I think, a valid one.

Graham
7) Message boards : Number crunching : Credit updates? (Message 49404)
Posted 24 Jun 2014 by Grahamt
Post:
Running the credit script may well be the least important priority for the support crew, and it may not be that important for the hardcore regular contributors to these message boards. However, credit is an important feedback for ordinary participants running climateprediction on their computer, perhaps in conjunction with other BOINC projects.

When I see the climateprediction credit flatline (which for me has been going on since 2nd June) it's discouraging. I'm no longer sure if I'm contributing, and I'm also not sure how the lack of credit is affecting how BOINC calculates the ratio of work between projects: will BOINC decide that as I've apparently done no work on climateprediction recently I must be in need of many more workunits? Maybe not - it might calculate in a different way. But I don't know.

The impression I get from this (and from the weird way in which the longest workunits have the shortest deadlines) is that the project is under-resourced or badly structured. As I say, it's discouraging.

Graham
8) Message boards : Number crunching : How normal is it for work units to abort? (Message 40357)
Posted 12 Aug 2010 by Grahamt
Post:
Apologies - I've now read the 'Famous success / failure ratio' thread started by Jim. I can see that it's not unusual for WUs to crash.

However, I guess my question remains. Given my somewhat antiquated setup (5-year-old Athlon 64 3200 procesor, 2GB RAM, running Windows XP), is it worth continuing to contribute to climateprediction.net?

Graham
9) Message boards : Number crunching : How normal is it for work units to abort? (Message 40356)
Posted 12 Aug 2010 by Grahamt
Post:
Hi,

I'm new to climateprediction.net, so apologies for ignorance. I've had four work units so far and all of them have finished early. The first one got about a third of the way through, but the rest have ended quite soon after they've begun. Here's an excerpt from my message log, relating to two work units (I've highlighted lines that look significant):

12/08/2010 15:12:24 Resuming computation
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Computation for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 finished
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_2.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_3.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_4.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_5.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_6.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_7.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_8.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_9.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_10.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_11.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_12.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_13.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_14.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_15.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_16.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_17.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_18.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_19.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:02 climateprediction.net Output file famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4_20.zip for task famous_uawz_1899_200_006646990_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:13:25 Suspending computation - CPU usage is too high
12/08/2010 15:13:35 Resuming computation
12/08/2010 15:14:05 climateprediction.net Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
12/08/2010 15:14:05 climateprediction.net Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks
12/08/2010 15:14:07 climateprediction.net Scheduler request completed: got 1 new tasks
12/08/2010 15:14:09 climateprediction.net Started download of famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166.zip
12/08/2010 15:14:09 climateprediction.net Started download of dump_r3x3_20a_1199.gz
12/08/2010 15:14:10 climateprediction.net Finished download of famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166.zip
12/08/2010 15:14:10 climateprediction.net Started download of dump_r3x3_20o_1199.gz
12/08/2010 15:14:13 climateprediction.net Finished download of dump_r3x3_20a_1199.gz
12/08/2010 15:14:17 climateprediction.net Finished download of dump_r3x3_20o_1199.gz
12/08/2010 15:14:17 climateprediction.net Starting famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4
12/08/2010 15:14:17 climateprediction.net Starting task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 using famous version 611
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Computation for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 finished
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_1.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_2.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_3.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_4.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_5.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_6.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_7.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_8.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_9.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_10.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_11.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_12.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_13.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_14.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_15.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_16.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_17.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_18.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_19.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:16:49 climateprediction.net Output file famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4_20.zip for task famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 absent
12/08/2010 15:17:52 climateprediction.net Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
12/08/2010 15:17:52 climateprediction.net Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks
12/08/2010 15:19:03 climateprediction.net Scheduler request failed: HTTP gateway timeout
12/08/2010 15:20:03 climateprediction.net Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
12/08/2010 15:20:03 climateprediction.net Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks
12/08/2010 15:20:04 climateprediction.net Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
12/08/2010 15:20:04 climateprediction.net Message from server: Server can't open database
12/08/2010 15:50:33 climateprediction.net update requested by user
12/08/2010 15:50:35 climateprediction.net Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
12/08/2010 15:50:35 climateprediction.net Reporting 1 completed tasks, requesting new tasks
12/08/2010 15:50:37 climateprediction.net Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
12/08/2010 15:50:37 climateprediction.net Message from server: Completed result famous_ubtn_1199_200_006648166_4 refused: result already reported as error
12/08/2010 15:50:37 climateprediction.net Message from server: No work sent
12/08/2010 15:50:37 climateprediction.net Message from server: (reached daily quota of 1 tasks)

I'm wondering if there's anything about my setup that isn't suitable for this project. My PC is fairly old now - bought in 2005. It uses an Athlon 64 processor, with 2GB RAM. I don't have any problems with another BOINC project, SETI@home, but the work units here are much bigger - nominal completion time is 265 hours, but I think it would take around 400 hours in practice.

Is there any point in downloading work units that never complete, or is it normal for some models to finish early?

Graham




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