SLOOOOOWWWW SETI Crunching

[Beelzebub]

Ok, I set up a dedicated SETI cruncher... 500MHz Pentium III with 512 MB RAM and nothing else running. It is on WinXP and using the command line client with SetiSpy. The unit I have been crunching for 66 hours and is only 59% complete!! What the heck is wrong? On my other machine, albeit faster than the cruncher machine, is ripping them out in 12 minutes.

Can anyone explain what is going on? Has anyone ever had a WU take this long? Talk about destroying my average :D

[Cy]

The bigger question I would have is what are you running that is finishing W/Us in only 12 minutes?

Cy

[rogerdugans]

Welcome to the Forums!



Originally posted by Beelzebub
On my other machine, albeit faster than the cruncher machine, is ripping them out in 12 minutes.

Can anyone explain what is going on? Has anyone ever had a WU take this long? Talk about destroying my average :D

Sounds like something isn't right with that pc: I have a k6-2 450@500 doing a wu in 29 to 33 hours, and your 500 should be similar/ a bit quicker. That would be the worst low ar-angle wu I've heard of if nothing is wrong! Have you turned off all services that you don't need? Just about all of 'em, with a dedicated cruncher!

I am hoping that the other stat you posted is a typo: 12 minutes, or is that supposed to be hours? <LOL>

[Beelzebub]

LMAO!!

Of course I meant 12 hours. DOH! Talk about a bad typo.

[Beelzebub]

I only have 6 or 7 services running on the machine, and I never even touch the thing except to hook my monitor up to it to see the progress.

It is a fresh install of XP too. Except for turning off the needless services, i only used the computer to download the SETI software and to update XP.

[Godfodda]

Originally posted by Beelzebub

Can anyone explain what is going on? Has anyone ever had a WU take this long? Talk about destroying my average :D

I've had several take that long on the Celly and the laptop. But they usually end up killing themselves off around that amount of time. I have a P2 400 @ 456 that ran its first in 11.5 hours, so yeah, something is a bit amiss in that WU. :)

[Cy]

I wondered if you meant 12 hours. :) You should really be getting much better times than that for a PIII 500. When you say 6 or 7 services...exactly what services? Also, do you have all power managment turned off, even in the mb bios?

Cy

[Beelzebub]

I turned off all services based on this dudes site...

BlackViper (http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm)

I set it up similar to the Gaming machine, but without the Windows Audio since there is no sound card. I have my Asus P3B-F BIOS set to have power management disabled. Same with the power management in Windows.

[rogerdugans]

One other thing: I am not a fan of XP (laptop was consistently slower crunching with XP compared to 2000.)

If all else fails, do you have another os you can put on it? Just wondering if it might help out.

[Beelzebub]

Well, I have all Windows 2000 OS's, and have played around with Redhat and Mandrake Linux enough to know how to work it. Only reason I have XP on there is because I am more comfortable with it.

[dru]

That definitely don't sound right, as the others have said.

I have a PIII 450 (Katmai) running with Windows NT4 SP6 and 384M that turns out units at an average 11 hrs 38 minutes. That's running everything stock, command line client, and with the machine also being used to download a lot of email, run around on the web, etc, and serve as my Setique server.

I'd definitely consider trying another OS on it. I use NT more than any of the others, primarily because I like the stability and the low cost for the OS.

Only other thing you may want to try before doing a reinstall might be to dump the current WU the machine has been chewing on, and try a new one.

The slowest I have ever seen one of my machines take on a WU was about 51 hours, but that was an AMD 300 portable that I soon gave up on crunching with....

One other thought: What sort of performance numbers is SetiSpy reporting? The attached is a screen shot from my PII 450 for comparision. You might also check the CPU time being reported on the Progress tab, I have seen machines where something was taking over, and the reported CPU time was far less than the time the machine had had the unit to work on.



Dave

[Yodums]

Check your bios setting like ram settings and stuff. Your motherboard is definitely up to par to utilize the chip good.

Yodums

[Beelzebub]

I ended up starting another unit, and it says it estimates it will finish it in 8 hours. I wonder if the WU had a ton of interference it it. At the rate it was going, it would have finished the unit in over 120 hours. This new unit looks as if it is going to be in the typical range for a 500 MHz.

Oh ya, my other machine runs WinXP and I am ripping off work units without problems. If anyone wants to check out the infamous 100+ hour work unit, lemme know :D