Welcome to MilkyWay@home

Posts by Steven Gaber

1) Message boards : Number crunching : Abort or no? (Message 74661)
Posted 13 Nov 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Restart the BOINC client (or simply your PC), than it should continue from the last checkpoint.


I restarted the computer as you suggested. Lo and behold, the task finished within the hour.

I tried that in the past. But this time it worked.

The machine is now running two MW Separation tasks.

Thanks a heap.

S. Gaber
2) Message boards : Number crunching : Abort or no? (Message 74658)
Posted 11 Nov 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Now I have one N-Body Simulation task in progress.

It shows 99.525 completed, with 1 day:00:03:46 elapsed and 00:06:53 remaining. However, there has been no progress on it for several hours and CoreTemp shows 46 degrees F, indicating no crunching is going on. If I let it run, there's no telling how long it will take to finish and my other projects will be stopped and languishing.

So should I abort it?

Earlier today the computer completed one N-Body simulation task and one Separation task without issue.

S. Gaber
3) Message boards : Number crunching : Stuck again (Message 73944)
Posted 2 Jul 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Once again, Milky Way is stuck on an N-VBody simulation for an hour and a half.
Progress remains at 73.24%, Elapsed time is 1:38: 17 and increasing while time remaining is 00:36:15 and increasing. If I left it alone, that could go on for days and days.

There have been several of these. When such a task is running, I notice that CoreTemp indicates a much lower temperature, like 114-120 degrees F instead of the normal range of 152-168 degrees. I guess the CPU is not active during those times?

When that happens, I just abort them.

Some n-body simulations don't do that, but run normally.

S, Gaber
4) Message boards : Number crunching : Good communication (Message 72287)
Posted 28 Mar 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Good communication, better than most projects. Much appreciated.

Thanks, Tom.

Steven Gaber
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71845)
Posted 1 Mar 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
[/quote] If you just change the cache size MilkyWay will stop sending you new tasks until your new cache size is reached.[/quote]

Yeah, I did as Keith suggested, reduce the cache size down to 0.01 days and 0.0 additional days. But it was too late, Milky Way sent me 329 tasks, all due by March 10.

After it sent me that huge slug of tasks, I specified No New Tasks until it whittles down the load. The rest will just time out.

I could abort most 201 of the N-Body ones.

Just now I increased the usage limit to 100% and 90% of the CPUs as an experiment. I'll see what happens next.

You can tell I really don't know what I'm doing. I just follow you guys' suggestions.

Steven Gader
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71842)
Posted 1 Mar 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
If the large cache of tasks are from N-Body, then I agree you are unlikely to finish most of them before deadline.


Here is the distribution of Milky Way tasks:
Application: All (322) · Milkyway@home N-Body Simulation (201) · Milkyway@home Separation (121)

Some tasks run for several hours with the elapsed time increasing, the remaining time also increasing (going backwards), with progress showing 2% or 3% finished, but no progress being made for maybe a half-hour.

I have seen that such a task will take multiple days -- as much as 17 days-- to finish. I don't have the time or patience to wait 7 days for a task to complete.

So far, I have aborted five of those.

I will attempt to follow your suggestion to reduce "...the default 10 day averaging of REC in BOINC's cc_config.xml file to 1 day," without doing any damage.

Steven Gaber
7) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71836)
Posted 28 Feb 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Open any host on your Computers list and go to the Details >> Show page. There it lists the APR (average processing rate) for each application.


So far, since my last post yesterday, this computer has finished 23 of the 329 Milky Way tasks it received, plus the three that I aborted. I doubt it will complete all 301 of them by the March 10 deadline, but it will do a chunk of them.

I found the APR for Milky Way on this computer:
Average processing rate 6.76 GFLOPS

For Rosetta:
Average processing rate 4.25 GFLOPS

For SETI
Average processing rate 31.40 GFLOPS

Steven Gaber
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71833)
Posted 27 Feb 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Your estimated time for completion is completely bogus until you have established an APR for each application.
Resetting the project throws away all the progress you have made toward establishing the APR.
It takes 11 validated tasks on each application to establish an APR upon which the estimated completion times can be believed.
I would abort at least some of the current cache you hold but leave enough to complete your APR for Separation and N-body.


Thanks again.

They seem to be running OK now.

What is an APR?

I'll wait till I see one that takes longer than it should before aborting any. Only 315 to go now. :>)

I appreciate your help.

Steven Gaber
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71831)
Posted 27 Feb 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
You have set WAY!!! too much work day cache size. Reduce your cache size down to 0.01 days and 0.0 additional days.


Thanks.

Did that. I still have 327 tasks to go, all due on March 10. That ain't gonna happen.

The indicated completion times range from 30 minutes to 01:49:30. But the previous ones said the same thing and ended up taking three or more days, so
I aborted them.

With this new batch of 329, I will abort those that take like 15 hours or more to complete.

Should I reset the project again or let it finish as many as it can till the deadline?

Steven Gaber
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71829)
Posted 26 Feb 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Now, the first of those 329 new tasks says it will take 147 DAYS to complete.

Something has to be wrong here.

Steven Gaber
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71828)
Posted 26 Feb 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
I only had one Milky Way task. After running awhile, that task indicated it would take 15 days to complete. So I aborted it.

Then, Milky Way sent me 160 new tasks, all with a deadline of March 10. They indicated that they would take 30 to 90 minutes to complete. Fine.

After running for 7 hours, the first of the 160 tasks indicated it would take 17 days to complete. So I aborted it, but the next one was running for 8 hours with the time remaining running backwards and hardly any progress being made.

So I reset the project.

Just now, Milky Way just sent me 329 new tasks, all with a deadline of March 10.

Any help?

Steven Gaber
12) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71595)
Posted 6 Jan 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Thank you for the reply and advice.

"First I would uncheck the box to 'suspend cpu use' and change the 'switching tasks' to something longer so you can actually finish 1 task before switching to a different task,"

I will do that right away.

I get messages from Rosetta telling me that Virtual Box is not installed. That's because I uninstalled Virtual Box. My computer is too old and didn't like it.

So now I will look for another BOINC project to replace Rosetta. Any suggestions about which one? I need one that is suitable for this machine's limitations.

S.Gaber
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Long-running tasks (Message 71593)
Posted 6 Jan 2022 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Usually, most Milky Way tasks take from one to three hours to complete.
But lately, I've gotten some that take a day or more to finish.

This is a basic Windows 7 computer with no dedicated GPU. It runs 24/7/365, crinching Milky Way, World Community Grid and Rosetta (although Rosetta has not sent me any work in five days, so it's only running Milky Way and WCG).

Avg. credit Total credit BOINC version CPU GPU
928.89 198,653 7.16.20 Authentic AMD AMD A6-6400K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics [Family 21 Model 19 Stepping 1] (2 processors) AMD AMD Radeon HD 7400/7500/8300/8400 series (Scrapper) (768MB) driver: 1.4.1848 OpenCL: 1.2 Operating System Last contact Details | Tasks
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64 Edition, Service Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)

The current task is 46% complete with 5.24 hours elapsed and 10.50 hours remaining. Yesterday, one task finished after more than 23 hours.

Do the tasks vary that much or is the computer just not up to processing some tasks?
I checked to suspend CPU use in activity. preferences, storing 0.02 days of work and an additional 0.02 days of work, switching tasks every 30 minutes.

S. Gaber
Oldsmar, FL
14) Message boards : News : IMPORTANT NBODY UPDATE! (Message 70883)
Posted 17 Jun 2021 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Thanks for that explanation.

I thought the 16 cancelled WUs and some error messages within a few days were on my end.

S. Gaber
15) Message boards : Number crunching : Multiple Errors (Message 70833)
Posted 25 May 2021 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Guessing your problem is this one. Try resetting the project.\

EDIT: Corrected link to Nbody 1.80 errors thread.


Stick:
Thanks for your suggestion, but the problem seems to have corrected itself. The number of errors is decreasing. Now only 7 are shown, with no new ones that I can tell.

But if it happens again, I will definitely reset the project.

Cheers.
S. Gaber
16) Message boards : Number crunching : Multiple Errors (Message 70824)
Posted 22 May 2021 by Steven Gaber
Post:
Hi. I recently signed on to MilkyWay@home.

My computer immediately downloaded 51 tasks. Of those there were 14 valid tasks and 14 errors while computing.

It appears that all the valid ones were Milkyway@home N-Body Simulation v1.80 (mt)
windows_x86_64.

All the errors were reported within the first few seconds of starting errors were Milkyway@home N-Body Simulation v1.80 (mt)
windows_x86_64

The configuration of the computer is:
AuthenticAMD
AMD A6-6400K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics [Family 21 Model 19 Stepping 1]
(2 processors) AMD AMD Radeon HD 7400/7500/8300/8400 series (Scrapper) (768MB) driver: 1.4.1848 OpenCL: 1.2 Microsoft Windows 7
Home Premium x64 Edition, (06.01.7600.00)

So I'm thinking this machine is not compatible with N-Body Simulation tasks. Is that right?

If so, how can I prevent those tasks from being downloaded? No sense wasting comuter time and energy of they won't run.

SGaber




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