Weird BOINC issue..

[4GHZ_or_bust]

I recently broke 100k total and was doing 1k/day for a while. Then in the past few days I noticed the average had been dropping like a brick. When I checked the tasks to see if I've gotten enough, I noticed I had like 500 tasks all with Feb 28th deadline. :/

My preference is set to download 0.25 days worth of work (default) so no way should I have gotten over 500 of them. And cancelling them is a major royal &^%$ PITA because I have to confirm each individual cancellation. If I select multiple to abort at once, I still have to confirm each one.

Worse yet, even when I suspend the entire BOINC, every few confirmation I have to wait for them to communicate with BOINC client. That is about 10 seconds for every 2 or 3 confirmed aborts. :bang head

over 500 to abort, that is about 45 minutes worth of clicking and waiting....

I have set it to not download any more units, set the expired one on suspend (no confirmation thankfully but takes up space) and going to try and puch out the remaining WUs

#1: how did I end up with a lot more than 0.25 days worth of work units?

#2: is there a faster way to kill them off without having to completely uninstall and reinstall BOINC? Last time I did it, the bar graph showing my stats was reset.

[eaglescouter]

Detach from project will terminate them, but as you indicated, it will also reset your stats on that pc.

It sounds like you are on one of the newer builds of BOINC that has problems with respecting your work fetching settings. Use the 'recommended build' to avoid this problem.

[Stryfe]

You could shutdown BOINC and delete all the work unit files from your project folder. When you start it back up it will probably give you a bunch of errors saying the files are missing but it should just download new units after.

[QuietIce]

I recently had a machine that was giving me a lot of problems and had to be shut down for awhile. When I fixed the problem and started back up most of the work units were old. I used "Reset Project" and everything worked out fine. All the old units were killed and new ones down-loaded. Machine totals are still intact. It did take a few minutes for it to do it's thing but it was hands free.

Rig seems to be crunching fine but I need a better heatsink ... ;)

[4GHZ_or_bust]

I ended up reinstalling BOINC because the version I had was slightly bugged and ignores the limit. Right now I am using 6.6.15 and it seems to be behaving but my average has gone down to 600 a day :(

[zexmarquies01]

I ended up reinstalling BOINC because the version I had was slightly bugged and ignores the limit. Right now I am using 6.6.15 and it seems to be behaving but my average has gone down to 600 a day :(

hmmm, I'd suggest you just use the newest recommended version, which is 6.4.7 at the moment. Since 6.6.15 is still a beta version, there could be an untold number of problems, including lower RAC.

Also, Turn on CUDA. With that 8800GTS, It should easily double your current RAC.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Went back to 6.4.7 and already I've gone through daily quota 80 results in about 2 hours, leaving my pc idling like a $5 a day electric guzzling space heater the rest of the time. With one of the earlier beta when I was doing 1k a day, I didn't have daily quota. :/

[QuietIce]

Eventually SETI will realized you're crunching more and allow a higher volume of work units ...

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Hmmm... either something's bugged on my end from too many uninstall/reinstall or something else but my average credit continued to decline down to 500 a day, only CUDA part is crunching anything. When BOINC tries to get data for the CPU to crunch, it ends with computation error and aborts. :(

My CPU is wasting power...

[QuietIce]

Just for grins I'd try turning CUDA off to see if the CPU picks back up ...

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Since turning off CUDA, CPU is now picking up at 2 cores with no more computational errors. Still my daily average credit is at about 450 mark.

[Codeman05]

my 6.4.7 client is doing all kinds of weird stuff.

For example, it's crunching away happily right now. BUT, the client is more or less frozen, it hasn't locked up, but the "Task" screen isn't changing, and the "projects" screen is empty. If I restart the client, the information refreshes...confirming that BOINC is still working...but it soon after freezes all the data. and none of the screens change from that point until I reset it again.

Maybe I have too many queued WUs and its freaking out BOINC...

[QuietIce]

There has to be something essential in the CUDA install that's not right. I've been following the threads dealing with it and know you've got to be running a certain app with a given app_info file for everything to run smooth. All I can say is double-check eaglescouter's instructions and links.

Since turning off CUDA, CPU is now picking up at 2 cores with no more computational errors. Still my daily average credit is at about 450 mark. It will take time for that to change. My 5000 @ 15x200 on Linux is running ~1k RAC ...

[4GHZ_or_bust]

I think I may have had too many old files cluttering and corrupting data. I did an uninstall, then I did a through search (showing hidden and system files) and found a lot of BOINC related files that weren't deleted during uninstall.

So I deleted them all, re-downloaded the latest version, and now I'm doing 2 core + CUDA with no more computation error.

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Few days later, my daily average shot back to over 1k a day.

Lesson to self: do a very through check and remove old files when upgrading BOINC from any version that are modified, beta, or has optimized apps. Old file can break incompatible version of BOINC

[QuietIce]

How true - for ALL programs ...! ;)

[4GHZ_or_bust]

After more than a week on a clean install, I'm holding at 1550 credit a day average and it seems to be the limit now. Before CUDA was supported, I was doing about 500 a day so a big improvement.

[QuietIce]

After more than a week on a clean install, I'm holding at 1550 credit a day average and it seems to be the limit now. Before CUDA was supported, I was doing about 500 a day so a big improvement. Are you running 24/7? Do you use your rig for a lot of intense apps (not SETI)?

Just trying to figure why your 5000 would output so much less than mine ...

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Not on 24/7, I can't afford a $1.50 a day electric bill if I left it on 24/7. Also I play WOW occasionally so I use snooze feature to put BOINC down.

[QuietIce]

Ah - that explains it. :)


I think you may have exaggerated the electric bill a little but I can understand your position ... ;)

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Ah - that explains it. :)


I think you may have exaggerated the electric bill a little but I can understand your position ... ;)

Dunno what my current rate is, I think 11 cents/KWh but when I went away for 18 days in early October to Albuquerque for balloon fiesta, the electric bill for October was $30 lower than the average of the last few months.

Most of the lights in my house are CFL which is about 1/4 power compared to original bulbs so that can't be drawing a lot. Maybe 10 cents a day at the most for all light bulbs? My TV is on about 4 hours a day average and it's 0.8 A which translates to about 96 watts. Or about 4 cent a day for my TV on the average. No AC was used as last summer was rather mild, I never installed the AC. What did that leave? Almost $2 a day being sucked up somewhere.

[Codeman05]

I'm curious to see what my bill is going to look like this month.
My main crunch is currently consuming about 650watts alone. Pretty sure I'm using atleast a KW...24/7...between all the crunchers at the house. oh well, its for a good cause right :p

[QuietIce]

650 watts for a single rig?!?!? My rigs run about 200 watts each - or about 5 kWh per day.

The three quads I have running, 9850BE, 9950BE, and a Q6600, are using up 606 watts according to APC. Usage for the X2 rigs is similar - Opty 180, Opty 165, X2 4400+, and an FX-55 (with an mATX board) is just a hair over 700 watts, which maxes out the UPS on that side of the room ...

[Codeman05]

Yea...it's pretty crazy...

It's an overclocked i7 with 3 GPUs, so I'm somewhat surprised it isn't pulling more juice, but that's what the kill-a-watt is reading.
The GPUs were a very attractive price so I couldn't resist...particularly once I realized I could also do SET CUDA (What can I say, I'd like to see us in the top 5 again :beer:)
So watt/rac is actually pretty decent.

Now I'm not sure if I should put together another 775 system that's collecting dust or hold it in reserve until fall.