I have many Windows drives (3.5"hdd, SSD, NVMe) (Win XP 32, 7 64x and up) I use as "C:" when doing different things.

I would like to have BOINC fully installed on an external USB backup drive or a simple thumb drive? and have the necessary BOINC bits installed on each of my drives pointing to the central location so I can run BOINC regardless of which drive is "C:" at the moment (only one drive at a time will be accessing the central location.)

Would a simple desktop shortcut on each drive be all that's needed ?

Martin

I have many Windows drives (3.5"hdd, SSD, NVMe) (Win XP 32, 7 64x and up) I use as "C:" when doing different things.

I would like to have BOINC fully installed on an external USB backup drive or a simple thumb drive? and have the necessary BOINC bits installed on each of my drives pointing to the central location so I can run BOINC regardless of which drive is "C:" at the moment (only one drive at a time will be accessing the central location.)

In general you can install BOINC wherever you like (though I'd not recommend USB thumb drives, they are not made for that amount of writes), but mixing 32-bit and 64-bit won't work. So you'll at least need two installations, one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Simply install BOINC on each OS pointing to the same data and program dirs. But there's no guarantee that it will work flawless, you'll have to try. If all those drives are always installed in the system, you can simply use any of them for BOINC, no need for separate drive.

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Thanks, Link!

I think I'll continue to ponder this idea some more before starting the "experiment". If I do proceed, I'll try to start as simply as possible and report what happens.

Martin

Thanks, Link!

I think I'll continue to ponder this idea some more before starting the "experiment". If I do proceed, I'll try to start as simply as possible and report what happens.

Martin

If you are thinking of downloading tasks on one pc and then running them on a different pc there are safeguards against doing that as it's one of the ways people used to cheat big time back when Seti was young. YES there are people that do it today but I don't know how or if it's allowed or ignored at certain projects.

If you are thinking of downloading tasks on one pc and then running them on a different pc there are safeguards against doing that as it's one of the ways people used to cheat big time back when Seti was young. YES there are people that do it today but I don't know how or if it's allowed or ignored at certain projects.

NO, sIr !! I have no intention of cheating or doing anything that might be construed as cheating.

My idea is to run BOINC on a single desktop from a single central location, the single desktop will just have a different C: drive occasionally. That's the idea. No networking in or out of the central BOINC location, no separate machines attempting to operate as one or anything like that.

If that seems like cheating, let me know and I'll forget the whole idea.

Martin

If you are thinking of downloading tasks on one pc and then running them on a different pc there are safeguards against doing that as it's one of the ways people used to cheat big time back when Seti was young. YES there are people that do it today but I don't know how or if it's allowed or ignored at certain projects.

NO, sIr !! I have no intention of cheating or doing anything that might be construed as cheating.

My idea is to run BOINC on a single desktop from a single central location, the single desktop will just have a different C: drive occasionally. That's the idea. No networking in or out of the central BOINC location, no separate machines attempting to operate as one or anything like that.

If that seems like cheating, let me know and I'll forget the whole idea.

Martin

It does NOT sound like cheating to me!! You can hook up a 2nd drive either internally or externally and do a total install of Boinc on it but some things still have to go in the Windows installation, Windows is bad about that!! If you can figure out which files those are and copy them to the right places every time your C Drive changes it should work. There is a Boinc Alpha software testing email group and this is what it says at the bottom of each email:
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "boinc_alpha" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to boinc_alpha+unsubscribe@ssl.berkeley.edu.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ssl.berkeley.edu/d/msgid/boinc_alpha/CAFtuuLQLATEcTeXLh%3DwxhUtBQokyU9ueHg-QdEoyfTC93hfTfg%40mail.gmail.com.

Hopefully you can figure out to ask to join from one of those links and then ask which files get installed outside the Boinc folders and where they need to go. I'm guessing I used something like this to subscribe..boinc_alpha+subscribe@ssl.berkeley.edu but it's been so long since I did it I'm not sure.

It does NOT sound like cheating to me!! You can hook up a 2nd drive either internally or externally and do a total install of Boinc on it but some things still have to go in the Windows installation, Windows is bad about that!! If you can figure out which files those are and copy them to the right places every time your C Drive changes it should work. There is a Boinc Alpha software testing email group and this is what it says at the bottom of each email:
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "boinc_alpha" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to boinc_alpha+unsubscribe@ssl.berkeley.edu.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/ssl.berkeley.edu/d/msgid/boinc_alpha/CAFtuuLQLATEcTeXLh%3DwxhUtBQokyU9ueHg-QdEoyfTC93hfTfg%40mail.gmail.com.

Hopefully you can figure out to ask to join from one of those links and then ask which files get installed outside the Boinc folders and where they need to go. I'm guessing I used something like this to subscribe..boinc_alpha+subscribe@ssl.berkeley.edu but it's been so long since I did it I'm not sure.

Great info, Thanks !

I'll check it out.

Martin

You can hook up a 2nd drive either internally or externally and do a total install of Boinc on it but some things still have to go in the Windows installation, Windows is bad about that!! If you can figure out which files those are and copy them to the right places every time your C Drive changes it should work.

It's not that complicated, don't need to figure out anything actually. Simply run the installer on each Windows installation and point to the data directory on the shared drive, one dir for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Program files can just go to the current C: or if you want to save some space, same like the data on shared drive. The installer does everything for you, that's not Linux. ;-)

The actual question is how the projects servers will react to OS changes, but I don't recall any issues with that after upgrade from Win7 to Win10.

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You can hook up a 2nd drive either internally or externally and do a total install of Boinc on it but some things still have to go in the Windows installation, Windows is bad about that!! If you can figure out which files those are and copy them to the right places every time your C Drive changes it should work.

It's not that complicated, don't need to figure out anything actually. Simply run the installer on each Windows installation and point to the data directory on the shared drive, one dir for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Program files can just go to the current C: or if you want to save some space, same like the data on shared drive. The installer does everything for you, that's not Linux. ;-)

The actual question is how the projects servers will react to OS changes, but I don't recall any issues with that after upgrade from Win7 to Win10.

Link, that almost sounds too easy !

I think for now I'll skip the 32-bit BOINC option. May add too many complications.

Thanks !

Martin

It's not that complicated, don't need to figure out anything actually. Simply run the installer on each Windows installation and point to the data directory on the shared drive, one dir for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. Program files can just go to the current C: or if you want to save some space, same like the data on shared drive. The installer does everything for you, that's not Linux. ;-)

The actual question is how the projects servers will react to OS changes, but I don't recall any issues with that after upgrade from Win7 to Win10.

It works ! Just as you said.

The shared data directory stays intact during new BOINC installs and between changes of the C: drive. So, if BOINC is running or not, just shutdown (or restart), install BOINC if needed on new C:, run BOINC.

The only 'issue' I've noticed is the servers are now sending just 13 tasks on each successful work request. The 91 second x2 wait between getting work seems to be enforced again, in spite of having BOINC 7.21.0 running. Prior to the first C: change, I did complete all tasks (~300) before proceeding. Now I'm running out of tasks faster than receiving a new batch of 13.

Thanks again, Link !

Martin

06/02/2023 14:45:51 | Milkyway@Home | Scheduler request completed: got 26 new tasks

Just got 26 tasks, all that was needed to fill up my cache. So it's possible to get more than 13. Perhaps this might help you in case the issue won't go away by itself.

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06/02/2023 14:45:51 | Milkyway@Home | Scheduler request completed: got 26 new tasks

Just got 26 tasks, all that was needed to fill up my cache. So it's possible to get more than 13. Perhaps this might help you in case the issue won't go away by itself.

Sorry, I didn't explain the differences very well.

BOINC 7.21.0 is a modified 7.20.2 designed to bypass the servers wait time between task downloads. Joseph Stateson made the mod and you can read about it in the Windows > "GPU in non-continuous operation" thread. Joseph explains his mod, "All I have done is modify the scheduling algorithm in BOINC to bypass that 91 second delay that the Milkyway server wants."

7.21.0 was working beautifiully on 3 Feb and one typical hour of task downloads from the event log that day looks like this:

03-Feb-2023 10:02:00 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:03:38 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 6 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:06:53 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:08:30 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 7 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:11:44 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:13:22 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 7 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:16:36 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:18:14 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 6 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:21:29 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:23:06 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 8 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:26:21 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 13 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:27:58 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 7 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:31:13 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:32:50 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 6 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:36:05 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:37:42 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 9 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:40:56 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:42:32 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 6 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:45:46 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 17 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:47:22 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 7 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:50:35 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 16 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:52:11 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 6 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:55:30 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 15 new tasks
03-Feb-2023 10:57:07 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 8 new tasks

Today, 6 Feb, the same hour looks like this:

06-Feb-2023 10:07:14 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 13 new tasks
06-Feb-2023 10:19:03 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 13 new tasks
06-Feb-2023 10:38:30 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 13 new tasks
06-Feb-2023 10:53:56 [Milkyway@Home] Scheduler request completed: got 13 new tasks

The amount of tasks being downloaded (when I do receive any tasks) is not the central problem, it's the frequency of getting new work that is the main issue. On Feb 3rd during the 10 o'clock hour, I received 264 new tasks. On the 6th, only 52.

My Radeon VII is starving ! My task cache (In Progress) was floating around 300 before with new work always available, now it is (0); the VII is sitting idle most of the time.

Martin

I finally just re-installed BOINC, program dir and data dir on the WD Element drive. This allows me to change to any C: drive without interfereing at all with BOINC, as long as the OS running is a Windows 64-bit version.

I haven't figured out the task downloading issues yet. But maybe my downloads have tanked because this is what Mikey was trying to alert me about; that the servers might think there is something 'fishy' with this user/pc/setup after the OS changes and disk size changes ?

Martin

I finally just re-installed BOINC, program dir and data dir on the WD Element drive. This allows me to change to any C: drive without interfereing at all with BOINC, as long as the OS running is a Windows 64-bit version.

I haven't figured out the task downloading issues yet. But maybe my downloads have tanked because this is what Mikey was trying to alert me about; that the servers might think there is something 'fishy' with this user/pc/setup after the OS changes and disk size changes ?

Martin

There aren't any 'task download problems' they have it set so you can only get so many tasks per day, that way the Science is spread out over many people and not just one or two users with very fast gpu's that can go thru the whole database in 3 days. This was setup a VERY long tie ago when the faster gpu's started showing up and some people couldn't get any tasks at all while a few were getting thousands.

My Radeon VII is starving

I checked the tasks for your computer now few times at different times of the day and everytime I checked there were over 300 in progress tasks assigned to your computer. Don't you have them on your computer? 300 is IIRC the limit per GPU and a constant cache of 300+ tasks should be enough to feed even your GPU. Sure, not for very long, but I guess 13 is the amount your GPU does between each request?

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My Radeon VII is starving

I checked the tasks for your computer now few times at different times of the day and everytime I checked there were over 300 in progress tasks assigned to your computer. Don't you have them on your computer? 300 is IIRC the limit per GPU and a constant cache of 300+ tasks should be enough to feed even your GPU. Sure, not for very long, but I guess 13 is the amount your GPU does between each request?

Yes, everything has been "Ok" for almost 2 days now.

On the 6th, I enabled event log option Sched_op_debug and soon saw that the 13 tasks I was getting regularly at spaced out intervals were estimated by the servers to take my gpu approx 510 seconds to complete. What the servers didn't realize, the gpu was crunching 3 tasks at a time and they were using the ~39-40 second task completion time for all tasks, as an estimate for one single task crunching at a time.

After seeing that (and realizing what it was doing) I soon started running 1 task at a time. The 20-22 seconds it takes for 1 separation task to finish must have started changing the servers completion time estimates. It wasn't long before the In progress cache started increasing. After it got to about 120 or so, I switched back to running BOINC 7.21.0 and started running 3 tasks at a time again.

Now, as you saw, the cache is hovering steadily around 300 again. And that is happening because I am getting quite frequent downloads of 7-13 tasks at a time, which is how the machine was running prior to whatever caused the servers to 'slowdown' task deliveries here.

Martin