(snip)... We just don't have a powerful enough server to increase the size of the workunit and result tables that much.

What. Don't you have some nice NSF grant money you could throw at it? ;-)

But seriously, what kind of hardware would we be talking about? (please be specific)

I've already spent $1500 USD on my first cruncher, specifically buying double precision Radeons because I liked this project. If we're talking about a single machine built from off-the-shelf parts, I bet if you asked around the boards, enough people would rise to the occasion to make it happen. I'd be willing to get the ball rolling with, say, $500 USD. Just chip in what you can folks.

Really.

This is frustrating

The only reasonable solution is to increase either the WU size so it takes hours to finish along with the credit , Or to increase the number of WUs so users could have enough load to crunch.

As I understood, you need bigger server to achieve that… how much will it cost ?
I've 6970 and it works with very few projects beside MW which I love, but the frequent crashing drives me crazy. I think I am going to get rid of my card and get a Nvidia as it runs with a lot more projects.


Note: still no WUs is sent to my machine so I guess the server is down.

DC has a big problem. Volunteer computers have increasing capabilities (faster multicore CPU's and faster GPU's), project hardware was designed for lower traffic and less wu throughput.

MW is down, Seti is down, DNA has no wu's, Orbit has no wu's, Spinhendge has a pause for three months, LHC has currently no wu's and I'm shure that other projects have similar problems.
In many cases it's a hardware problem, in all cases it's a manpower problem and in some cases it's a management problem. And in every case it's a cash-problem.

We, the volunteers, cannot help with manpower (like Gipsel did two years ago), the only things we can do is transport ideas from other projects to increase performance or donate for new hardware.

A new server: I mean, a dual CPU MB with two 8-core CPU's, 12-16GB RAM, 6 SSD-Drives, Case and Power Supply should do the job for the next 2 years. If one does not buy the cheapest available parts, 5k$ should be ok.
So ten guys like Toni could keep the ball rolling ...

Other projects for ATI GPU's: GPUGRID is working on a OpenCL-App for ATI-Cards, should be available in a couple of days, let's say as backup project.

Or: take some time for maintenance - remove the dust from your cards, check the fans and enjoy the silence.

Transporting ideas: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=65455

Last but not least: we could try not to further increase the frustration of the admins, I'm shure, they are not happy with the situation as well.

Well I don't know anything about the topologie of the MW - WU so it is just a quess. If an increase of the WU count is not possible. Maybe it's possible to increase the Size of the WU's.
Maybe it's possible to launche an extra application (only for GPU's) with large WU's. So that 1 WU last 1 or 2 hours on a HD5870?

Well I don't know anything about the topologie of the MW - WU so it is just a quess. If an increase of the WU count is not possible. Maybe it's possible to increase the Size of the WU's.
Maybe it's possible to launche an extra application (only for GPU's) with large WU's. So that 1 WU last 1 or 2 hours on a HD5870?

good point.
Collatz gives you the choice to select 'Collatz' or 'Mini Collatz'.
But with larger wu's a checkpointing must be implemented.

MW is down, Seti is down, DNA has no wu's, Orbit has no wu's, Spinhendge has a pause for three months, LHC has currently no wu's and I'm shure that other projects have similar problems.
In many cases it's a hardware problem, in all cases it's a manpower problem and in some cases it's a management problem. And in every case it's a cash-problem.

Oohh yes im struggeling too, to feed my (mostly NVIDIA) machines with Projects with real scientific sense (Hard with ATI Card cos there is only MW. Soon GPUGrid :)) *sign*

I tried to donate but it does not accept my creditcard? O.o

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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

DNETC and Moo Wrapper are running OK for ATI cards. Useful when MW is down.

DNETC and Moo Wrapper are running OK for ATI cards. Useful when MW is down.

Too bad they don't run under BOINC manager.

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hm? why? how do you mean that? I have dnetc as backup backup backup emergency energywasting project when SETI Backup offers no Astropulse on the MW Machine. Normaly over BOINC Manager..

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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

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good point.
Collatz gives you the choice to select 'Collatz' or 'Mini Collatz'.
But with larger wu's a checkpointing must be implemented.

Since 0.82 checkpointing is implemented.

10/10/2011 2:38:27 AM | Milkyway@home | Restarting task ps_separation_82_2s_mix0_1_3396869_0 using milkyway version 88
10/10/2011 4:01:47 AM | Milkyway@home | Computation for task ps_separation_82_2s_mix0_1_3396869_0 finished
10/10/2011 4:01:48 AM | Milkyway@home | Sending scheduler request: To report completed tasks.
10/10/2011 4:01:48 AM | Milkyway@home | Reporting 1 completed tasks, not requesting new tasks
10/10/2011 4:01:51 AM | Milkyway@home | Scheduler request completed


I finished a WU last night and it went out. Didn't see any changes so THEN I read this post. Am I to understand that task is LOST?

hm? why? how do you mean that? I have dnetc as backup backup backup emergency energywasting project when SETI Backup offers no Astropulse on the MW Machine. Normaly over BOINC Manager..

You can't just attach to DNETC and Moo Wrapper via BOINC manager.

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I for one would also be in favor of _much_ bigger workunits for GPUs (I would say roughly 100x bigger). As it is now, the turnaround time is ridiculously short: around every 1 - 2 min the server needs to be contacted for a new WU. And that is for a single GPU. No wonder your server cannot keep up. A side effect is that MW gets completely bullied by the backup projects. I get a maximum of roughly 25 - 35 min of work in my cache. So every time the server is unresponsive for that amount of time (and that happens quite often) my backup project immediately dumps 20 hours of work on me. If that would happen once every day (we are not very far off), I would be running 20 hours of backup project and only 4 hours of MW per day. I too have an ATI GPU, so the choices for backup projects are very limited and I find them all more or less useless, so I really don't want to be running these backup projects at all...

So every time the server is unresponsive for that amount of time (and that happens quite often) my backup project immediately dumps 20 hours of work on me.

If collatz is your backup project, you can set the resource share to 0. This means, only one wu / gpu will be picked up. When that one finishes, the next one (again a single wu) is downloaded.

hm? why? how do you mean that? I have dnetc as backup backup backup emergency energywasting project when SETI Backup offers no Astropulse on the MW Machine. Normaly over BOINC Manager..

You can't just attach to DNETC and Moo Wrapper via BOINC manager.

About DNETC, yes, you can attach to BOINC Manager because i was testing it last couple days and i had it attached to BOINC Manager, tho, i didn't found much information about what exactly i was processing, so i kinda abandoned for now DNETC, about Moo Wrapper i have no info how it can or cannot be attached to BOINC Manager. So far, i'm crunching PrimeGRID as backup project for MW@Home...

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I second longer WU, but one problem is the mix of CPU and GPU for crunching. Increase the WU-length could make it impossible for CPU to crunch for M@W in a reasonable time. So the decision have to be made, if M@W is going to be a GPU-project only.

And I don´t know, if the project leaders want to go this step...

Nowi

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If collatz is your backup project, you can set the resource share to 0. This means, only one wu / gpu will be picked up. When that one finishes, the next one (again a single wu) is downloaded.

I have Primegrid as my backup, it is the only backup project that runs on an ATI and I consider to be at least vaguely useful... If you set the resource share to zero, it only makes the project the backup. It does not limit the number of WUs that are downloaded once the backup kicks in. I think backup projects should work the way you describe, but they don't. I checked on the BOINC site. There is no way to force BOINC to only download a single WU at a time.

Increase the WU-length could make it impossible for CPU to crunch for M@W in a reasonable time.

Is it strictly necessary that GPU and CPU WUs do the same amount of work? If so, then you will always have a problem since GPUs are so much faster... But I am not convinced that they need to be of the same size...

hm? why? how do you mean that? I have dnetc as backup backup backup emergency energywasting project when SETI Backup offers no Astropulse on the MW Machine. Normaly over BOINC Manager..

You can't just attach to DNETC and Moo Wrapper via BOINC manager.

Then plz explain it to me how i done it with DNETC when you know it that exactly ... ;)

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DSKAG Austria Research Team: http://www.research.dskag.at

Increase the WU-length could make it impossible for CPU to crunch for M@W in a reasonable time.

Is it strictly necessary that GPU and CPU WUs do the same amount of work? If so, then you will always have a problem since GPUs are so much faster... But I am not convinced that they need to be of the same size...

This is a question which must be answered by the project scientists. At present it seems to be a must.

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