Drop in work load
9 Dec 2006 0:55:33 UTC
Topic 192167
(moderation:
I've only been running Einstein@Home for a little over a year, and had something happen that I cannot seem to resolve. The machine is question is fairly fast (64bit Athlon) and up until a month or so ago I would have a couple of pages listing jobs to be completed in the future. Now, for what reason I can't seem to find, it will only give me about 12 hours of work at a time. Since the machine is not connect continuously, there are times when it's just idle. I've tried changing every setting I thought might be causing this but as of yet nothing has helped.
F. Prefect
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
Drop in work load
)
Well.
I guess a couple things could be going wrong.
Your benchmarks might be screwy (as in too low) which would affect work fetch.
Your connect to interval might be too low (determines how much work will be on your machine).
Your duration correction factor might be too high making BOINC think it'll take longer than is true to complete a result.
Your time stats might be off making BOINC think that it's got less time to run during the day than it really has.
I have no idea what the benchmarks for your machines should be, so I can't say if they are high or low.
If you could post from your account information web page these numbers (mine are here as an example - mine aren't typical of a 24/7 machine because I use the CPU throttling in the alpha client)...
% of time BOINC client is running 83.7755 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 64.6058 %
Average CPU efficiency 0.427656
Result duration correction factor 0.611496
In addition, under your general preferences what is your Connect to network interval?
Kathryn :o)
Einstein@Home Moderator
RE: I've only been running
)
I suggest you look at the on-line scheduler logs to see if your machine is getting all the work that it is requesting. If this does not help you to resolve the problem, then please post something in the problems and bug reports forum.e
Cheers,
Bruce
Director, Einstein@Home
RE: Well. I guess a couple
)
Is this the page you are referring to below?
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Einstein@Home member since 7 Nov 2005
Total credit 283,287.82
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant NSF-0200852 and by the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the investigators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or the MPG.
Copyright © 2006 Bruce Allen for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration
I usually run 5 or 6 machines 24/7, but I still cannot get DSL so being on dialup, the machines are obviously not connected all the time. This machine used to be "given" 12 to 15 6hr jobs or sometimes as many as 30 or more smaller jobs that would take only 35 min. or so to complete. I did not make any changes that I know of to my settings, but I believe it started giving me only a few hours work at a time when I attempted to install another gig of RAM that caused a series of problems that may or may not be the cause of this problem. The memory problems have been resolved.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
RE: Well. I guess a couple
)
Below are the general preferences you requested.
General preferences
These apply to all BOINC projects in which you participate.
On computers attached to multiple projects, the most recently modified preferences will be used.
Preferences last modified: 9 Sep 2006 23:42:27 UTC
Primary (default) preferences (Switch View)
Processor usage
Do work while computer is running on batteries?
(matters only for portable computers) no
Do work while computer is in use? yes
Do work only between the hours of (no restriction)
Leave applications in memory while suspended?
(suspended applications will consume swap space if 'yes') no
Switch between applications every
(recommended: 60 minutes) 60 minutes
On multiprocessors, use at most 2 processors
Use at most 100 percent of CPU time
Disk and memory usage
Use no more than 100 GB disk space
Leave at least
(Values smaller than 0.001 are ignored) 0.1 GB disk space free
Use no more than 50% of total disk space
Write to disk at most every 60 seconds
Use no more than 75% of total virtual memory
Network usage
Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 3 days
Confirm before connecting to Internet?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) yes
Disconnect when done?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) no
Maximum download rate: no limit
Maximum upload rate: no limit
Use network only between the hours of
Enforced by versions 4.46 and greater (no restriction)
Skip image file verification?
Check this ONLY if your Internet provider modifies image files (UMTS does this, for example).
Skipping verification reduces the security of BOINC. no
Edit preferences
Separate preferences for home
Processor usage
Do work while computer is running on batteries?
(matters only for portable computers) no
Do work while computer is in use? yes
Do work only between the hours of (no restriction)
Leave applications in memory while suspended?
(suspended applications will consume swap space if 'yes') no
Switch between applications every
(recommended: 60 minutes) 60 minutes
On multiprocessors, use at most 2 processors
Use at most 100 percent of CPU time
Disk and memory usage
Use no more than 100 GB disk space
Leave at least
(Values smaller than 0.001 are ignored) 0.1 GB disk space free
Use no more than 50% of total disk space
Write to disk at most every 60 seconds
Use no more than 75% of total virtual memory
Network usage
Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 4 days
Confirm before connecting to Internet?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) no
Disconnect when done?
(matters only if you have a modem, ISDN or VPN connection) yes
Maximum download rate: no limit
Maximum upload rate: no limit
Use network only between the hours of
Enforced by versions 4.46 and greater (no restriction)
Skip image file verification?
Check this ONLY if your Internet provider modifies image files (UMTS does this, for example).
Skipping verification reduces the security of BOINC. no
Edit preferences | Remove
Add separate preferences for school
Add separate preferences for work
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Return to Einstein@Home main page
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Grant NSF-0200852 and by the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the investigators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF or the MPG.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
Drat. I sent you to the
)
Drat.
I sent you to the wrong page. That'll teach me to do these things from memory.
Click on your account. Click on computers on this account. Click on the computer in question.
Copy those values from the bottom of the page (mine below for reference)
% of time BOINC client is running 89.3225 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 61.1729 %
Average CPU efficiency 0.52763
Result duration correction factor 0.706093
Kathryn :o)
Einstein@Home Moderator
RE: Well. I guess a couple
)
It's currently set to 3 days although I typically connect at least once daily to send results and to get more jobs showing up under the work tap. To give you an example, my current "work load" is 1 job that will take approx 5 hrs and 4 smaller jobs that will take no longer than 35 min. to complete. In most cases if the current 6 hr. job that is now being crunched reaches approx. 67% complete the greedy devil will usually give me more. But if I forget to check before retiring for the evening all work will have been completed before morning and the machine will of course be idle during that period. I've tried both increasing and decreasing the connection time interval but nothing changes. I think I sent all of my preferences in an earlier post, so if you see anything that looks out of the ordinary, let met know. I don't remember if I told you earlier, but these machines are in no way networked or connected and I have to use my dial up connection for each individual machine in order to send results and receive additional data from the server.
F. Prefect
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
RE: Drat. I sent you to
)
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
RE: Drat. I sent you to
)
Yeah, I went to Account summary/general preferences and tried changing the days between connections from 3 to 6, even though I normally connected every day on this cobbled up 5 machine dialup mess. I had tried this before with no luck when this condition began several months ago, but this time it did give me a few additionl jobs, but know where near what I was receiving before.
I see what you mean by the "wrong page". I was afraid any changes made on that page would have similar effect on all machines and sure enough I may be getting more jobs than I need on some of the slower machines. But I can straighten that out later and I believe now I will have enough of a work load on the machine in question that should allow it to "make it through the night" without running out of work.
As I'm sure you are aware, I am far from an expert running this software. I do have an interest in gravitational waves which is why I chose this project, but beyond that, I'm lost.
F. Prefect
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
RE: Drat. I sent you to
)
Yeah, memory is a wonderful thing when it works, but it seems to fall of exponentially with age. Stay young. One more try. Here is the info. you asked for. Maybe.
% of time BOINC client is running 100 %
While BOINC running, % of time work is allowed 0.0186 %
Average CPU efficiency 0.968925
Result duration correction factor 0.438266
Ford
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.....Douglas Adams
RE: While BOINC running, %
)
So what is that computer doing then? What kind of computer is it? A server?
Did you set up the preferences for that computer (maybe with a preferences_override file) to only work when it is idle? Is it ever idle?