2018 PrimeGrid challenge series

I gotta dual E5-2698v4 system that is refusing to POST that I want to get in on this. Can't seem to figure it out, but I think it might have something to do with the stepping of the CPUs. Probably going to have to get a different motherboard.
 
Didn't do too bad considering we didn't get started until the end of the 2nd day.
 
Pretty sure it's about to end soon.

14 [H]ard|OCP 1776884.12

50 ChelseaOilman [H]ard|OCP 659285.30
83 [H]Skillz [H]ard|OCP 398826.18
108 alnitak2019 [H]ard|OCP 286246.54
171 phoenicis [H]ard|OCP 158800.15
235 HighTech67 [H]ard|OCP 75768.64
239 motqalden [H]ard|OCP 69953.74
256 Coleslaw [H]ard|OCP 50753.46
267 John [H]ard|OCP 39534.06
277 Adam J Bavier [H]ard|OCP 32639.74
413 RFGuy_KCCO [H]ard|OCP 5076.30
 
In less than 5 days
http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=8194#120306
Welcome to the Oktoberfest Challenge!

The sixth Challenge of the 2018 Challenge series is a 7 day challenge to celebrate Oktoberfest. The challenge is being offered on the Cullen Prime Search (LLR) application.

Oktoberfest is the world's largest Volksfest (beer festival and travelling funfair). Held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, it is a 16 to 18-day folk festival running from mid or late September to the first weekend in October, with more than six million people from around the world attending the event every year. Locally, it is often called the Wiesn, after the colloquial name for the fairgrounds, Theresa's meadows (Theresienwiese). The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since the year 1810. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations that are modelled on the original Munich event.

During the event, large quantities of Oktoberfest Beer are consumed: during the 16-day festival in 2013, for example, 7.7 million litres (66,000 US bbl) were served. Visitors also enjoy numerous attractions, such as amusement rides, sidestalls, and games. There is also a wide variety of traditional foods available.

This year Oktoberfest will start on Saturday, September 22nd. The Schottenhamel tent will be the place to be if you want to catch the official opening ceremonies. At noon, the Mayor of Munich will have the honor of tapping the first keg of Oktoberfest beer. Once the barrel has been tapped, all visitors will then be allowed to quench their thirst. The festival will go until October 7th.

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the Cullen Prime Search LLR (CUL)project in your PrimeGrid preferences section. The challenge will begin 15th September 2018 18:00 UTC and end 22nd September 2018 18:00 UTC.

Application builds are available for Linux 32 and 64 bit, Windows 32 and 64 bit and MacIntel. Intel CPUs with AVX capabilities (Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake) will have a very large advantage, and Intel CPUs with FMA3 (Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake) will be the fastest.

ATTENTION: The primality program LLR is CPU intensive; so, it is vital to have a stable system with good cooling. It does not tolerate "even the slightest of errors." Please see this post for more details on how you can "stress test" your computer. Tasks on one CPU core will take ~2 days on fast/newer computers and 7+ days on slower/older computers. If your computer is highly overclocked, please consider "stress testing" it. Sieving is an excellent alternative for computers that are not able to LLR. :)

Highly overclocked Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake (i.e., Intel Core i7, i5, and i3 -4xxx or better) computers running the application will see fastest times. Note that CUL is running the latest FMA3 version of LLR which takes full advantage of the features of these newer CPUs. It's faster than the previous LLR app and draws more power and produces more heat. If you have a Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake CPU, especially if it's overclocked or has overclocked memory, and haven't run the new FMA3 LLR before, we strongly suggest running it before the challenge while you are monitoring the temperatures.

Please, please, please make sure your machines are up to the task.

Multi-threading optimisation instructions

Those looking to maximise their computer's performance during this challenge, or when running LLR in general, may find this information useful.

  • Your mileage may vary. Before the challenge starts, take some time and experiment and see what works best on your computer.
  • If you have an Intel CPU with hyperthreading, either turn off the hyperthreading in the BIOS, or set BOINC to use 50% of the processors.
    • If you're using a GPU for other tasks, it may be beneficial to leave hyperthreading on in the BIOS and instead tell BOINC to use 50% of the CPU's. This will allow one of the hyperthreads to service the GPU.


  • Use LLR's multithreaded mode. It requires a little bit of setup, but it's worth the effort. Follow these steps:
    • Create a app_config.xml file in the directory C:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\www.primegrid.com\ (or wherever your BOINC data directory is located). For a quad core CPU, the file should contain the following contents. Change the two occurrences of "4" to the number of actual cores your computer has.

      <app_config> <app_version> <app_name>llrCUL</app_name> <cmdline>-t 4</cmdline> <avg_ncpus>4</avg_ncpus> </app_version> </app_config>

    • After creating the file, click on "Options/Read config files". You should then restart BOINC or reboot.
    • The first time BOINC downloads an CUL task, it may act a little strange and download 4 tasks instead of 1. The run times on this first set of tasks may look a bit strange too. This is normal. This will also occur anytime BOINC downloads more than one task at a time. This can be avoided by setting "Use at most [ 1 ] % of the CPUs" before you download CUL tasks. After one task was downloaded, increase the percentage.
    • Some people have observed that when using multithreaded LLR, hyperthreading is actually beneficial. We encourage you to experiment and see what works best for you.
 
I'm going to try some tasks on my Threadripper at 4 and 8 threads. See how long they take, and how stable the computer is. I'm thinking that since theses tasks are long and validated by a wingman this will be a good test of my new Threadripper build.

Very very rough estimates are:
4 threads settled down to 20 hours.
8 threads appears to be around 11 hours.

I'm going to get some completed test for 8 threads over the course of the next day, then switch to 4 threads. Will post again with times from completed WUs.
 
Last edited:
MN Scout said:
I'm going to try some tasks on my Threadripper at 4 and 8 threads. See how long they take, and how stable the computer is. I'm thinking that since theses tasks are long and validated by a wingman this will be a good test of my new Threadripper build.

Very very rough estimates are:
4 threads settled down to 20 hours.
8 threads appears to be around 11 hours.

I'm going to get some completed test for 8 threads over the course of the next day, then switch to 4 threads. Will post again with times from completed WUs.
Click to expand...
Stock clocks on your TR?
 
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