Keeping Internet Running Overnight
2 Oct 2012 12:20:49 UTC
Topic 196548
(moderation:
I know this may be a massively novice question, but I am wondering if there is a location in Windows 7 that allows you to keep the internet running overnight. I have made it so that nothing should go to sleep while bionc is working overnight including the CPU and the Hard drive, but I cant seem to find anything to keep the internet online. I only ask because I have had the internet turn off on me a number of times only to find out the whole night it wasnt running bionc
Please help
Keeping Internet Running Overnight
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The internet itself does not have an off switch accessible to us. Please describe the symptom(s) you are observing in more detail--which might enable us to help you.
I leave the computer on
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I leave the computer on overnight, but when I get back on in the morning Ill notice that BOINC didnt grab any new jobs but only completed the ones that it had in its list. It also wont have uploaded any jobs, it just shows them at 100%.
As a side note, I do wish that I could figure out what I could upgrade to my computer to increase computing speeds.
In the Activity menu of
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In the Activity menu of boincmanager you can select "Network activity always available", if that option isn't selected already.
It is set as always
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It is set as always available. Possibly its a fluke that happens from time to time. As to my second question, what will speed up the processing of each job? More Memory? Faster Hard Drive? a second video card, etc? I wouldnt mind spending a bit of money on my home computer to get the boinc jobs running faster, but am not sure where the best results would be found concerning hardware.
RE: It is set as always
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May be its your conection what is configured to shutdown on time/or usage...
How do you conect to internet?
For faster performance there are only two things that will be worth, faster GPUs and faster CPUs. And if you are on limited a budget then forget the CPU and go for the best GPU you can.
Nothing else will improve performance enough to be worth the money spent.
RE: It is set as always
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I don't think you have a problem with your internet connection - more likely a problem with your work cache settings. The first thing you need to do is to go to your account page on the website and investigate all the settings you have under the 'Preferences' heading, particularly 'computing' and 'project' preferences. There are lots of settings there and you need to think quite carefully about some of them. The defaults are generally safe so don't blindly change unless you really understand what each one does. The work cache settings are the first two under the 'Network Usage' heading. The instructions there are wrong if you are using the latest versions (7.0.x series) of BOINC - as you are. Do not have the first setting on zero (or a very low number) as suggested. That first value is now the cache 'low water mark' so set it to what you really want - say 1.0 days. The second setting is the increment to add to define a 'high water mark' so set it to say 0.01 days if you would like to maintain just a steady 1 day cache of work. If you want X days of work cached at all times, do it with the first setting only. Otherwise your cache will see-saw between 'high' and 'low'.
Make sure you look at all the available settings and ask questions about any that you don't understand.
Maybe I should be a computer salesman with you as my 'customer'! I could sell you lots of extra hardware!! :-). In truth, you have an i5 and an i7 with decent video cards so you will be able to do hugely better than you currently are with a little bit of tweaking.
The first thing to understand is that there are two searches currently in progress here - for gravity waves (GW search) and for pulsars (BRP4 search). The GW search (S6LV1) can only be done using a CPU core but the BRP4 search can be done on either a CPU or a suitable GPU (with a little CPU assistance). Seeing as you have two suitable GPUs, your first priority is to get both of those crunching. For some reason, only the one in the i5 is currently crunching. You need to investigate that.
Your i7 is crunching BRP4 tasks on the CPU only and is taking close to 20x longer to do so than the GPU in your i5. The most efficient thing to do is to set the project preference 'Run CPU versions of applications for which GPU versions are available' to 'NO'. That way you can use your CPU cores for the much shorter running GW tasks and get your GPU to do the BRP4 tasks. On the HD5700 series GPU in your i5, these tasks are taking around an hour. You have a HD6800 series GPU in your i7. You need to get it crunching BRP4 tasks as well.
Cheers,
Gary.
Early on, I had tried my best
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Early on, I had tried my best to change the setting for the most successful and fastest job processing, but I honestly don't have a whole lot of ideas on how effective I may have been.
I have two computers, my work computer "the I5" which runs 24/7 and "the I7" which is my home computer and only runs overnight. We have a decent amount of thunderstorms around here which pop up randomly. I don't have the ability to shutdown and unplug my computer while I am at work to prevent a lightning strike taking out my equipment, so I leave it off during the day.
I had thought about picking up a second 6800 video card for my home computer, but wasn't sure if that would increase much, which is why i was asking. The good news is that you have nothing to gain from getting my to buy more equipment, so I appreciate your honestly in letting me know things that simply wouldn't improve job production.
The last thing on your suggestion to 'Run CPU versions of applications for which GPU versions are available' to 'NO'. I cannot seem to find this setting anywhere. I am on the I5 at this point, but cant seem to find the setting at all.
"Your i7 is crunching BRP4 tasks on the CPU only and is taking close to 20x longer to do so than the GPU in your i5." Im surprised if either of the computers have different computing setting as I feel as thought they should be the same. Just need to find that setting I presume to make sure I have the correct boxes checked.
Thanks for your advice and technical assistance. I feel rather lost at times with the technical aspects of computers, but sincerely want to extend my computers usage to the einstein@home project as best as I can.
Thanks again
RE: ...but cant seem to
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http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/prefs.php?subset=project
Then change choose the venue and change "Run CPU versions of applications for which GPU versions are available"
As for your home computer, there are many great surge protection devices that would die before the computer got the surge on an electrical storm. Even better yet is a decent UPS which not only has the surge protection, but if the power goes out your computer can be set to gracefully shut down.
Thank you for the reply pooh
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Thank you for the reply pooh bear 27, I have made the change as suggested by Gary. As to the surge protector, I have always been slightly skeptical of them since I heard about people losing their computers and televisions while using them. I do know almost nothing about them, but would love to be able to run boinc all day and night if I could elevate the lightning problem. Maybe I need to revisit looking into type of surge protectors.
Do you leave the computer
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Do you leave the computer unplugged when you are out of your home?
If you dont, and if you can know in advance that its going to be a lightning storm on your home, then you can use something like LogMeIn to shutdown your computer from your work...
In fact any other remote desktop access software will do the trick, with exception of the Windows Remote Desktop because when you log remotely with it, it "replaces" de video driver and makes the GPU apps to fail.