DC Vault 2

Thanks for that, I'll bear it in mind :)

I've played with the settings in NativeBOINC but had no success yet. It's not really a huge issue, it would just keep the battery going longer when not on charge/help it charge quicker without getting so hot when it is. I did push the CPU to 1.3GHz from 800MHz though (HTC Desire Z, or Vision as I think it is in the US? I'm from the UK) so I might drop it back down if it gets too toasty.

Oh, here's a picture of one of my old systems, thought you guys might appreciate some dual hex core goodness!

 
Pretty sharp looking. What projects are you primarily interested in?
 
Thanks, it was a nice system when I had it.

I'm interested in anything really, when I get my SR-2 operational I'll have two Nvidia GPUs ready to crunch so I'll be looking to pick up some CPU and GPU based work. When I did BOINC before I primarily focused on Rosetta and Collatz just because that's what was recommended by my then-current team. I'll be happy to work on whatever will benefit the team most :)
 
Well, this thread is mostly in reference to maintaining our position in the DC-Vault http://www.dc-vault.com/ , but I try to keep people pretty well up to date on just about any BOINC project. I also have several threads for badge upgrades and achievements. A few pages back I listed the links for them. Every month we are going to pick one of the projects to focus on as a team. Right now they are focused on Asteroids since there is talk of adding it to the Vault. I'm spread out on a few projects and am not real focused on Asteroids, but will get there at some point.
 
Welcome CaptainUnlikely. Its great to have you crunching with us! Thats a good looking system, good luck with the SR2 build. :)
 
Good news, I may be assembling another 6 core AMD borg machine next week. It will have a low end AMD 5450 most likely as the GPU, but it at least is usable at some projects. The down side is that I don't know if the machine will be left on much at this point and BOINC wont be running while it is in use. The guy is wanting to play some older games on it and have the option to upgrade the video card as needed later. Either way, what work it does complete will be much welcomed.
Link to the system he is wanting to order:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7835033&sku=B69-0824
 
I got my four 6 core opteron's up and running today, if my electric bill doesn't change much i'll throw up a xeon rig next month, all going on WCG.

I see in the DC-Vault were 61 in WCG, hope we can get into the 50's this year.

I don't post much here like alot i'm sure but I read everything in the Distributed Computing section at least once if not several times, keep up the great work.
 
BLACK@BLUE said:
I got my four 6 core opteron's up and running today, if my electric bill doesn't change much i'll throw up a xeon rig next month, all going on WCG.

I see in the DC-Vault were 61 in WCG, hope we can get into the 50's this year.

I don't post much here like alot i'm sure but I read everything in the Distributed Computing section at least once if not several times, keep up the great work.
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Another 24 cores on the grid? Nice work. Good to see some new horsepower! Dont be afraid to stop by and say hi more often. :)

Great work on Asteroids@home everyone. Still rocking 50K PPD. Welcome to some new team members as well. This project will be in the Vault soon.
 
Well, that 6 core system fell through...they got antsy and purchased a low end laptop.
 
Apparently Asteroids will be there very soon. http://www.team-ninja.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=52433&page=3 It is sad though that we were waiting because he "forgot"...LOL

On a side note, we need to decide on April's project. It is just around the corner. I propose that we run CPU work on Climate Prediction and GPU work on SETI. We aren't even in the top 250 on either of those projects and I'm sure we could make a dent. Plus (and yes I'm a little biased here) I still have point goals to hit in both of those. :)
 
Im going to probably take a big part of April off as I will have a couple machines offline to finish my semester research project so Im going to withhold any April project suggestions.

Keep in mind however that that typically the goal has been to further our ranking in the DCVault. Despite our 263rd place ranking, we already have 9,957 points in SETI. We could dump a ton of work into SETI for an entire month and gain almost no Vault points. We might want to look at projects where we can get a lot of Vault points in a short amount of time. Just a thought. Im sure others will have some input/thoughts/suggestions. :)
 
This data provided by our Dutch friends continues to provide fairly good guidance as to potential Vault benefits of each project although account needs to be taken of the distance to the next overtake.

Best of luck with your research project metallicafan.
 
I threw my Celeron on Asteroids yesterday, but it'll only be crunching while I'm on the machine, I won't be leaving it on 24/7 at the minute. I'll happily swap it over to Climate Prediction or another project to help out for whatever project we push in April, even though it isn't much.
Is there a project with fairly long deadlines that would be suitable for a PC that isn't on all that much? I have a quad Athlon at my parents' that I can borg, and indeed have done before, but I found with Rosetta it was missing some of the deadlines as it's usually only on for a few hours a day at most.

It may not be much, but every little helps, right? Bought memory for the SR-2 today so that project is inching closer...
 
SETI has longer deadlines and Climate Prediction is king of long deadlines. (I think it is a year. Plus they trickle points up as the work is being done. So, it doesn't have to be finished to get credits.)
 
Sweet, I'll get their machine on one of the two next time I'm over there, maybe Friday. Thanks for the info.
 
My Bionic phone (dual core 1GHz) took about 29 hours to complete one SETI work unit. Just an FYI for those considering.
Asteroids takes about 20 hours.
Enigma takes a little over 3 hours.
PrimeGrid (The Riesel Problem Sieve) took a little over 39 hours.
SubsetSum took about 4.5 hours.
Milkyway took 15.7 hours.
theskynetPOGS varies greatly depending on work unit but I have seen it go up to ~12 hours at times.
I don't recall YoYo's Harmonious Trees turn around, but it will end very soon anyways.
 
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CaptainUnlikely, I don't know how long the tasks are running right now, but these projects have multi-threading apps. So, by running all 4 cores on the app you might still make deadline.

yafu
renderfarm
BURP
T4T (requires Oracles Virtualbox software to be installed)
Edges (at least Windows x64 app....not sure on other versions)

Just keep in mind that those projects wont help with pushing our position at the Vault at this time. I also haven't tried running Moo! on CPU since it started, so not sure if they use MT CPU. I know they will use multiple GPU's though.
 
Hi guys. Just joined the [H]ard|OCP teams on Rosetta@Home and boincstats.

I have 3 machines pushing at near 100%, all OSX. Can't wait to see my points start racking up. :)

My computers
 
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Gilthanis said:
CaptainUnlikely, I don't know how long the tasks are running right now, but these projects have multi-threading apps. So, by running all 4 cores on the app you might still make deadline.

yafu
renderfarm
BURP
T4T (requires Oracles Virtualbox software to be installed)
Edges (at least Windows x64 app....not sure on other versions)

Just keep in mind that those projects wont help with pushing our position at the Vault at this time. I also haven't tried running Moo! on CPU since it started, so not sure if they use MT CPU. I know they will use multiple GPU's though.
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Thanks for that, I'll see about those as well but will most likely just set up Climate prediction on there, just to set and forget really, and then it'll be doing at least a little for the Vault ranking.

For reference, my Vision at 1.3GHz does an Enigma unit in around 3 hours, so I'll probably leave it on that. I have a 1.6GHz dual core tablet incoming for playing around with, so I'll see what that can do as well.
 
xENo, glad you stopped by. Those are some good machines to have in your farm. As mentioned in the other thread, please consider also adding GPUGrid so that you can use that video card. It is also a Bio science project. You can also consider WCG's Help Conquer Cancer sub project since it uses both CPU's and GPU's.

Also, are all three of those machines desktops? or are any of them laptops? If any of them are laptops, make sure to add QCN as one of your projects. It is a non-cpu intensive app that also runs alongside other work that helps study earthquakes and is provided by Stanford. It uses the accelerometers in the hard drives of Mac laptops and a few other specific models of PC's. Otherwise a person would need to purchase a detector.
 
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Gilthanis said:
Also, are all three of those machines desktops? or are any of them laptops? If any of them are laptops, make sure to add QCN as one of your projects. It is a non-cpu intensive app that also runs alongside other work that helps study earthquakes and is provided by Stanford. It uses the accelerometers in the hard drives of Mac laptops and a few other specific models of PC's. Otherwise a person would need to purchase a detector.
Click to expand...

I'll give this a shot on the HPs we have at home, both of them have the 3D DriveGuard stuff which, according to a quick Google, may work with QCN.
 
Yes they do. I have 2 or 3 borged machines that have the 3D DriveGuard. I used to have a borged Macbook, but that got pawned a while back. Also, many ThinkPads work too. And don't forget to add the other NCI projects along with it. WUProp does badges based on run time if you are into badges.
 
Already running WUProp and Freehal on one of the laptops, the other isn't used much but may become my temporary rig while I wait on stuff for the SR-2. Good to hear they'll work with QCN, I'll get it on tonight.
Any other NCI projects worth loading up?
 
Radioactive requires a sensor that you would have to purchase from them and stock is in very short supply. You basically have to watch their news page and forums to see when they are taking more orders. OProject had one but it was discontinued for the time being because it didn't actually do anything. They are still planning on one though. So, you may want to check out their page and get things setup for when that time comes. Other then those, there aren't any other active NCI projects. Their have been a few others in the past, but they were short lived.
 
So, it has been out for about a year now...has anyone dabbled with Charity Engine? I'm not debating the wrongs/rights of it or even promoting or encouraging. I am just inquiring if anyone has had experience with it and what their thoughts were. It still uses BOINC, but you would have to use them as your account manager. At least for initial setup. I haven't tried detaching from their manager and then back to BOINCStats yet. For those who aren't familiar with CE, it is another DC project that does work for commercial interests and then splits the revenue between contributors and charities. Think fund raiser that volunteers can share in. When no CE work is available, they send you work from a few BOINC projects like WCG, Einstein, Rosetta, Climate Prediction, and Malaria Control. You can still attach to other projects manually. Now the pay out to contributors is not set. It is more like a lottery. Its process is outlined on their site. I have avoided this project until now. I figured it has had a year to establish itself and take its place in the world. I was willing to give it a few cores to experiment with and didn't know if anyone had any experience to add to guidance.


http://www.charityengine.com/

From their FAQ's:


Yes, just attach to 'www.charityengine.com' as the account manager (not as a project), but please read this first!


Charity Engine automatically attaches users to a few public BOINC projects because we donate any spare capacity - and always at least 5% of the grid - to scientific and medical research. So...

If you were participating in any these projects prior to joining Charity Engine, then you have to make a choice about how your credits will be handled.

1. You can continue with your current setup of these projects, ie. don't do anything. In this case you will not receive points towards the Charity Engine prize draws for work done in these projects. But you will receive credits/points for Charity Engine workunits.

2. You can disconnect from one or more of your previous BOINC projects, and let Charity Engine re-attach you to these. In this case, all work will earn you credits/points towards the prize draws but credits will no longer be reflected in your old BOINC account. (Also, you cannot at present login to the BOINC projects with your CE-generated account; and you cannot at present join BOINC teams with your CE-generated account.)


After logging one computer into it to see its behavior, it certainly did assign me to ce6770 Account instead of my normal account. So, I would not advise any team members to do this for it will not help our team in the Vault or at individual projects. However, I did see that the projects already attached by my client (WCG for example) stayed attached under my account as described it should above. I don't think I will continue running it but maybe I'm missing something there.
 
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Well...I'm starting to move more resources over to Climate Prediction since little else was suggested. I plan on hitting Rosetta possibly in a few months down the road.
 
I've set Asteroids to get no more tasks and will switch to Climate Prediction shortly.
I have a question about FreeHAL - there's a setting in the account page to change how many tasks to run at once, but when I change it, nothing happens. It's basically stuck on one per host, whereas I'd prefer one per core. I should theoretically double my, admittedly small output if I could change that setting. Any ideas?

Edit: also, I picked up some 771 Xeons for practically nothing, considering putting together some cheap crunching boxes based around them. I know they're not cutting edge, but are they still worth running? I think I remember reading that the LV quads, which I did buy a pair of, do a decent amount of work for their power draw, but I could be wrong.
 
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FreeHAL question.... Tobias has made a change on the server and is ignoring that option in your settings. I noticed this a while back. He started running the project when he was 17 and there has been a pretty bumpy ride as far as user satisfaction with his project. Since he no longer has a forum to post to, it seems pretty much crunch or don't attitude.

Your second question though just depends on what your budget is and whether you look at cost of electricity and such. Since you are looking at running BOINC, there is a lot more forgiveness since you aren't looking at huge bonus awards at most projects.
 
Fair enough, I did do a bit of Googling but couldn't find a definitive answer on that one. If it's ignoring the setting, then fair enough, I won't worry about that. At the end of the day, it's still effectively free points.

As for the potential 771 system, I got the two quads for £12, and I can get a board for around £30. I have a PSU and case, all I'd need is some buffered memory, £4 per 1GB, and some heatsinks. So figure my total outlay would be around £60-70, and they shouldn't be too much of a power hog I don't think. Seems possibly worth it to me.

Edit: Climate Prediction only uses one core of my dual core Celeron. I've not run multiple CPU projects on BOINC before, so I may be doing something wrong - I set Asteroids to no new tasks, then suspended it. Is that enough for Climate Prediction to "know" it can use both cores? Or, does it only ever use a single core? If so, should I set Asteroids back to how it was, and only allow it one core?
 
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I would say go for it. Do you know what OS you are putting on it?
 
Gilthanis said:
I would say go for it. Do you know what OS you are putting on it?
Click to expand...

I could go with whatever suits really. I haven't played with Linux all that much, but I also have a technet subscription so I could throw practically any flavour of Windows on there - for (actual) extended testing, which is within the licensing terms.
 
Well there are a few Linux only projects or projects with a few apps that only support Linux. Some apps run faster under Linux x64 bit but there are a small few from time to time that perform better in 64 bit Windows. If you are wanting to tinker with Linux, I would recommend virtual machine at first. Ubuntu has a version of BOINC in the repository. Otherwise, I would just go Windows 7.
 
I hit the 1 Million point goal in Einstein today. So, I'm switching those resources over to SETI and Milkyway.
 
Gilthanis said:
Well there are a few Linux only projects or projects with a few apps that only support Linux. Some apps run faster under Linux x64 bit but there are a small few from time to time that perform better in 64 bit Windows. If you are wanting to tinker with Linux, I would recommend virtual machine at first. Ubuntu has a version of BOINC in the repository. Otherwise, I would just go Windows 7.
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I'll probably go with Windows 7 then, just for ease of use. They may not come to fruition yet, I'll have to see how funds are looking next month.
I managed to pick up another unit on Climate Prediction, so my CPU is now fully occupied which is good. Not sure what changed, at first it just wouldn't have it and would only use a single core, but I checked this morning before heading to work and it was at 100%, with two units.
 
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