Seven minutes late and no credit :^(
28 Sep 2005 10:56:29 UTC
Topic 189942
(moderation:
I've just finished another WU, so took a look at my results, only to find it was reported just seven minutes after the deadline, so did not get any credits. My Mac, a 450MHz G4, is not powerful enough to complete WUs in less than 20+ hours CPU time, so deadlines are always pretty tight, even if I set it to crunch Einstein twice as often as SETI - I don't leave the Mac running 24/7, only when I'm going to be using it on and off over a period of time. I have the 4.44 version of BOINC Manager installed along with Einstein 4.82.
Because of this, I think I will have to give Einstein a rest for a bit till either a faster version of Einstein is developed by some kind souls (the SETI 'alpha' I installed recently is about 4 times the speed of the 'official' version), or I buy a faster Mac, which I can't afford at present.
I joined Einstein at a time when SETI was having problems and I wasn't getting any WUs. It's been nice 'meeting' the Einstein commmunity, so I'll pop in to see what's happening and hopefully will be able to join in again more productively at a later date.
Seven minutes late and no credit :^(
)
Your computers are hidden so it's not possible to have a look at exactly what happened. However I'd be surprised if the real problem wasn't the fact that the work that just missed the deadline was probably sitting around going stale on your computer before crunching of it actually commenced. It should be reasonably easy (in all probability) to arrange for new work to be downloaded a little closer to when it's actually needed and this would considerably reduce the risk of missing the deadline. Let us know if you are interested. You'd probably even be able to go back to a more even resource share if you wanted instead of the 67/33 you mention.
It would be helpful if you published the CPUID of the box in question.
Cheers,
Gary.
No, the WU wasn't sitting on
)
No, the WU wasn't sitting on the Mac before processing started, it started crunching as soon as it was downloaded. I had BOINC Manager set for Einstein not to download new work and would reset it to download when I'd finished a WU, as what you mention might be the case had happened in the past. I've only got the one computer. Here are some of the details copied off the Computer Summary page in my Einstein account:
CPU type Power Macintosh
PowerMac3,1
Number of CPUs 1
Operating System Darwin
7.9.0
Memory 768 MB
Cache 976.56 KB
Swap space 0 MB
Total disk space 38.34 GB
Free Disk Space 20.46 GB
Measured floating point speed 486.22 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed 1035.48 million ops/sec
I have actually got more disc space on another internal HD but BOINC can't see that! The Mac is a 450MHz G4 from the summer of 2000, so is by today's standards rather slow. Earlier in the year, I used to have it running for more time than I do nowadays, and was just about meeting deadlines then.
It was really annoying because I thought I'd caught the deadline, only to find I'd missed it by just a few minutes. I could have processed 6 or 7 SETI units (at the speed they're going with the alpha version for Mac) in the time that this Einstein WU had taken. This is the WU in question:
http://einsteinathome.org/task/8744932
OK, very sorry - my mistake.
)
OK, very sorry - my mistake. I had taken your original 20+ hour estimate (actually 22.5 hrs now that I can see the result) and used your .67 resource share to come up with a total elapsed time of 30 hrs which is only just over 2 hrs per day for the full 14 day period. I figured that most people would have a machine on a lot longer than 2 hrs per day so my guess was that it may have been sitting around for a while before starting. Wrong guess :).
I can understand your frustration in getting so close and missing by just 7 minutes. Why didn't you leave your machine on a bit longer over the last couple of days just to let it get over the line? Also I can understand why you aborted the next WU because it had gone a bit stale before it even got started :).
Anyway the bright side is that Seti seems a bit more reliable these days :).
All the best!!
Cheers,
Gary.
No need to apologise, Gary!
)
No need to apologise, Gary! Yes, I agree 2 hours a day doesn't seem a lot but when I have the Mac running, I'm working on it, so BOINC projects get odd half hours here and there when I'm not using it. (I thought I'd left it going long enough extra at the weekend but obviously hadn't, esp as it was on a shorter time yesterday than I'd anticipated!) Anyway, as you say, SETI seems to be back on an even keel again, so I'll concentrate on that for the while.
RE: No need to apologise,
)
Which version of BOINC? If it is 4.45 or later, it should be running in EDF mode instead of allowing work to be returned late.
BOINC WIKI
RE: Which version of
)
It's version 4.44, which I got off the Team MacNN website. I didn't know there was a later version available for Mac. It does run in EDF mode; it's just that there wasn't time for it to get the result in before the deadline, I suppose, after I woke the Mac from sleep yesterday morning.
RE: RE: Which version of
)
Mac 4.43 or 4.44 is equivalent of Windows 4.45. There is a 4.72 version for the Mac that is quite good, that I use mainly for better "estimated completion" figures, and a 5.x currently in beta that "builds" on the 4.72 version. None will solve the problem of "can't finish a WU by deadline" given your situation. Einstein just really isn't a good fit for a computer that isn't left on more than you run yours. SETI and Protein Predictor are the "shortest" WUs; with the G4 optimized clients from Team MacNN out there, you should be able to do a SETI WU in 8-9 hours. My Mini compares well with anything else out there. Einstein in around 7 hours, which since the clock speed is about 3x yours, means your times are in the right ballpark.
RE: Mac 4.43 or 4.44 is
)
Yes, I used to have the computer on longer but things have changed so that I don't.
With the Team MacNN 'alpha' version of SETI, the WUs are only taking just over 3 hours, which is ideal. With the official version they were taking 12 hours or more.