Welcome to the Perseid Shower Challenge

The night sky can offer some wonderful sights, like distant stars and planets, the milkyway but also meteor showers. The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus. The name derives in part from the word Perseides (Περσείδες), a term found in Greek mythology referring to the sons of Perseus. [wiki] This shower has been observed for approximately 2000 years, so as themes for a challenge go: it's one with a few years of history. PrimeGrid is therefor offering a 48 hour Challenge on The Riesel Problem (Sieve).

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the TRP (Sieve) project in your PrimeGrid preferences section. The Challenge will begin 12 Aug 2013 18:00 UTC and end 14 Aug 2013 18:00 UTC. Application builds are available for MacIntel, Linux 32 & 64 bit and Windows 32 & 64 bit.
Note: 64 bit builds benefit from a 1.7X speed advantage over 32 bit...so 1.7X the credit. :)


NOTE: In your PrimeGrid preferences section, set "Send work from any subproject if selected projects have no work" to no to guarantee that no other work will be sent.

Recommendation: The TRP (Sieve) application requires a one time download of a 32.4MB sieve file. Please consider running a few TRP (Sieve) WU's before the Challenge begins so your client will already have the sieve file. This way, bandwidth can be used to deliver WU's instead of the sieve file. :) Thank you!


The World Clock - Time Zone Converter
NOTE: The countdown clock on the front page uses the host computer time. Therefore, if your computer time is off, so will the countdown clock. For precise timing, use the UTC Time in the data section to the left of the countdown clock.

Scoring Information

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only work units issued AFTER 12 Aug 2013 18:00 UTC and received BEFORE 14 Aug 2013 18:00 UTC will be considered for credit. Since this is a fixed credit project, we'll be using BOINC credit for scoring. A quorum of 2 is NOT needed to award Challenge score - i.e. no double checker. Therefore, each returned result will earn a Challenge score. Please note that if the result is eventually declared invalid, the score will be removed.

Clean up
Since this is the first sieving challenge being run with double checking turned on for these type of projects there will be a clean up just like with LLR and GFN challenges.

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

We would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of an LLR Challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Please consider either completing what's in the queue or ABORTING them. Thank you. :)

About The Riesel Problem

Hans Ivar Riesel (born 1929 in Stockholm) is a Swedish mathematician. In 1956, he showed that there are an infinite number of positive odd integer k's such that k*2^n-1 is composite (not prime) for every integer n>=1. These numbers are now called Riesel numbers. He further showed that k=509203 was such one.

It is conjectured that 509203 is the smallest Riesel number. The Riesel problem consists in determining that 509203 is the smallest Riesel number. To show that it is the smallest, a prime of the form k*2^n-1 must be found for each of the positive integer k's less than 509203. As of June 2013, there remain 55 k's for which no primes have been found. They are as follows:

2293, 9221, 23669, 31859, 38473, 40597, 46663, 67117, 74699, 81041, 93839, 97139, 107347, 121889, 129007, 143047, 146561, 161669, 192971, 206039, 206231, 215443, 226153, 234343, 245561, 250027, 273809, 304207, 315929, 319511, 324011, 325123, 327671, 336839, 342847, 344759, 362609, 363343, 364903, 365159, 368411, 371893, 384539, 386801, 397027, 398023, 402539, 409753, 444637, 470173, 474491, 477583, 485557, 494743, 502573

For a more detailed history and status of the Riesel problem, please visit Wilfrid Keller's The Riesel Problem: Definition and Status.

Additional Information


Riesel Number (Wolfram MathWorld)
Riesel Number (Wiki)
Riesel Number (The Prime Glossary)


The Riesel problem is to k*2^n-1 as the Sierpinski problem is to k*2^n+1. There is no equivalent to the 'prime' Sierpinski problem since k=509203, the conjectured smallest Riesel number, is prime.

What is sieving?

Sieving is the first step to prime finding. In general, a sieve separates wanted/desired elements from unwanted material using a tool such as a mesh, net or other filtration or distillation methods. The word "sift" derives from this term. (Wikipedia - Sieve)

In PrimeGrid's case, the desired elements ultimately are prime numbers and the unwanted material are composite numbers. Our tool of choice for PSP/SoB sieve is Geoff Reynolds' sr2sieve program. It eliminates possible candidates by removing numbers that have small factors. As this process is much faster than primality testing, it is good to thoroughly sieve a data set before primality testing.

Sieving removes many candidates at the beginning. However, the deeper the sieve goes, the slower the rate of removal, till eventually sieving removes candidates at the same rate as primality testing. This is sometimes referred to as "optimal depth". Primality testing is recommended at this point.

There are many factors that determine how much time and how deep to sieve. After sieving, all the remaining candidates must be primality tested to determine their "prime" status.

32 bit OS with 64 bit CPU

This is for those who are "driving with the hand brake active" (running a 32 bit OS on a 64 bit machine) ;) Wubi is a very nice tool that installs Ubuntu as a dual boot to your 64 bit machine. It's as simple as adding a program to Windows. You can even uninstall it like you would any other program. :)

Wubi - Ubuntu Installer

After getting 64 bit OS running on your machine, here's a link to ALL BOINC clients (including Linux x64): http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php If you are new to Linux and need help getting set up, let us know.

It really is simple. :) With that said, check what installations WUBI will NOT work on: Unsupported set-ups
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PrimeGrid Challenge Overall standings --- Last update: From Pi to Paddy (2016)

Hoping to do the Challenge, but some of my (faster!) computers don't seem to like TRP-Sieve tasks at all! - crash after a few seconds .. like -

467053779 345174851 26 Jul 2013 | 7:04:19 UTC 26 Jul 2013 | 12:29:18 UTC Error while computing 12.09 0.00 --- The Riesel Problem (Sieve) v1.12
467051060 345174845 26 Jul 2013 | 7:04:32 UTC 26 Jul 2013 | 12:29:18 UTC Error while computing 12.09 0.00 --- The Riesel Problem (Sieve) v1.12
467043868 345167058 26 Jul 2013 | 1:50:45 UTC 26 Jul 2013 | 9:28:35 UTC Error while computing 12.78 0.00 --- The Riesel Problem (Sieve) v1.12

- they are all fine on everything else. - I have tried resetting the project, but it didn't help..

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I had a PC do that to me in the 90s, due to (pathetically) overclocked SDRAM, so if you're trying any sort of overclocking, and not necessarily with the CPU, that would be another possible cause. I know it sounds obvious when mentioned, but sometimes non-CPU tweaks can fail to show up on the error-radar.

Curiouser and Curiouser - as Alice would say -

I tried to find some 'common-link' between those 3 PCs - and came up empty. Different procs - 2 Core-i5 notebooks, and a Core-i7 Desktop - different flavors of Win7 - different versions of BOINC even!
I use BAM manager on all my PCs and generally don't touch the settings otherwise, so I'm pretty sure it's not a settings-problem - and NONE of them are overclocked in ANY way - and have run all other BOINC tasks faultlessly for many months!

So I took one of them (Computer number 259651) and 'went the whole hog' ..

I uninstalled (MSSE) Antivirus completely (often a cause of these kind of weird errors), then proceeded to abort all tasks, reset, detach, and finally completely uninstall BOINC and delete the Program Data folder entirely, before rebooting and doing a complete re-install.

Result? - Absolutely no difference whatsoever!

- I Do have some further Info though.. - It appears the task processes are not stopped after being aborted, and carry on running, taking up CPU resources and eventually grinding Windows to a halt unless they are manually deleted in the Task Manager.

So is this some sort of a Wrapper-fault?

I am open to any more suggestions... ?


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I'm stumped. I don't have any reasonable explanation for what's happening.

If you want, you could try running them under Linux, either in a dual boot, WUBI, or VM. I'm not sure what it will prove if that works, or if it doesn't work, except that maybe there will be an answer coming from an unexpected source if you try enough alternatives.

Anybody had any success getting Android to run this work? I tried installing BOINC on my Android device, but it said PrimeGrid didn't support Android. I then tried NativeBoinc, but I keep getting "Unable to authorize access" errors.

NativeBoinc devs have been doing a nice job porting primegrid ans other projects to the android environement.
Nevertheless, I think it would be useful to have android apps available, now that we have an official android boinc app.
I also propose an android-only subproject or subproject division, with shorter WUs (some sort of sieves, wich allow arbitrary lenght of work, like those running on PSA - I'm not sure if TRPsieve tasks can can be shortened; if they can, we could.start with them).
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676754^262144+1 is prime

Gives a whole new meaning to "Hot Pocket"
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Curiouser and Curiouser - as Alice would say -

I tried to find some 'common-link' between those 3 PCs - and came up empty. Different procs - 2 Core-i5 notebooks, and a Core-i7 Desktop - different flavors of Win7 - different versions of BOINC even!
I use BAM manager on all my PCs and generally don't touch the settings otherwise, so I'm pretty sure it's not a settings-problem - and NONE of them are overclocked in ANY way - and have run all other BOINC tasks faultlessly for many months!

So I took one of them (Computer number 259651) and 'went the whole hog' ..

I uninstalled (MSSE) Antivirus completely (often a cause of these kind of weird errors), then proceeded to abort all tasks, reset, detach, and finally completely uninstall BOINC and delete the Program Data folder entirely, before rebooting and doing a complete re-install.

Result? - Absolutely no difference whatsoever!

- I Do have some further Info though.. - It appears the task processes are not stopped after being aborted, and carry on running, taking up CPU resources and eventually grinding Windows to a halt unless they are manually deleted in the Task Manager.

So is this some sort of a Wrapper-fault?

I am open to any more suggestions... ?

Though my tasks didn't abort, I did see something similar happen on my PC. I have an i5 2500k running windows 7 pro x64. There were 4 trp sv tasks running in boinc manager, yet 5 processes fighting each for a full core in task manager. Sure enough when i suspended BOINC, there was a sieve process using a full core. I killed that and then my tasks ran faster. that is the part that seems similar to yours, the process still using a full CPU core after it finishes in BOINC.

The "Official" BOINC client is much, much better than NativeBOINC on my phone. Cheers for making me aware of it, I'd uninstalled NativeBOINC and given up when it kept leaving tasks erroring out or... whatever else it did with them. I recommend that anyone who has tried using their phone to crunch, but been put off, should try the official BOINC client.

Well, my two Android work units completed successfully. 36 hours seems to be the average time for devices like this.

We've made the TRP sieve tasks 5 times shorter, so once you get one of the new tasks the run time should be in the vicinity of 7 hours. On a CPU it should average about 45 minutes.

NativeBOINC has worked best for me. When I try to attach PrimeGrid to the official BOINC client, it says that PrimeGrid does not support Android. NativeBOINC also allows you to view the message log.
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607*2^1790196+1

NativeBOINC has worked best for me. When I try to attach PrimeGrid to the official BOINC client, it says that PrimeGrid does not support Android. NativeBOINC also allows you to view the message log.

There are some long wus being recicled. Not sure how will they be credited (not complaining, just sharing factoid and doubt...).
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676754^262144+1 is prime

There are some long wus being recicled. Not sure how will they be credited (not complaining, just sharing factoid and doubt...).

NativeBOINC has worked best for me. When I try to attach PrimeGrid to the official BOINC client, it says that PrimeGrid does not support Android. NativeBOINC also allows you to view the message log.

I've got a Droid 4 crunching PrimeGrid using the official BOINC client. PrimeGrid doesn't come up on the list of supported projects (yet), but it works if you type in "www.primegrid.com" directly as the URL for the project.

I've a problem with the project settings, I can't delete this settings in my preferences
Proth Prime Search (Sieve) CUDA, AMD (ATI)

I've tried this some times, Firefox and IE.
For CPU I could change my project settings only to TRP (Sieve) without a problem.

Edit: just checked one more way: after clearing the checkmark for CUDA GPU and ATI GPU I was able clear the project settings for Proth Prime Search (Sieve)
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Matthias

You can't have nothing selected. If you want to disable your GPU you have to deselect "Use ATI/Nvidia GPU" at the top.
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PrimeGrid Challenge Overall standings --- Last update: From Pi to Paddy (2016)

I nee an ID for this Projekt for my IPhone 5
Can I take the BoinC Bam CP- ID ?
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No stats for participants?
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Hi
is the TRP sieve app AVX enabled ?
My 64bit i7 3930x boxes are taking on av 18 mins per 6 cores.
My 2 much older 980x 6 core are 23 mins.
normally with LLR apps the 980s take twice the time.
Cheers
Ross*

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No stats for participants?

Hi
is the TRP sieve app AVX enabled ?
My 64bit i7 3930x boxes are taking on av 18 mins per 6 cores.
My 2 much older 980x 6 core are 23 mins.
normally with LLR apps the 980s take twice the time.
Cheers
Ross*

I nee an ID for this Projekt for my IPhone 5?

any explanation for 109.22 points per WU - i thought boinc-credits would be counted?

any explanation for 109.22 points per WU - i thought boinc-credits would be counted?

You may have missed where the tasks were made 5 times shorter, and therefore get 1/5th the credit. 109.22 is the BOINC credit per task, unless you happen to get one of the old, longer tasks that are still floating around the system.

Oops. My mistake.

109.22 is the "official" credit rate for TRP Sieve, so that's what you see on the challenge leader boards.

When it comes to actually counting credit, there's a 10% "conjecture bonus" added to the credit, which brings you to 120.14.

For sieve challenges, since all sieves are fixed credit, perhaps we should switch the challenge scoring to simply be a count of the tasks completed. "Long" tasks would count as 5, and short tasks would count as 1. The credit is irrelevant in a challenge with fixed credit.

Randy (cncr04s) has more than 40% of the entire challenge! Wow - some going!
He has an order of magnitude more than Ray (second place).

http://afxr.net/pg/PerseidShowerChallenge_180219.png
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Warped

What I find very interesting about that chart is how huge the "Everyone else" slice is. It's not just the people with access to a gazillion servers that are doing this. It's lots and lots of "little people" like myself with just one or two computers.

Randy (cncr04s) has more than 40% of the entire challenge! Wow - some going!
He has an order of magnitude more than Ray (second place).

http://afxr.net/pg/PerseidShowerChallenge_180219.png

What I find very interesting about that chart is how huge the "Everyone else" slice is. It's not just the people with access to a gazillion servers that are doing this. It's lots and lots of "little people" like myself with just one or two computers.

The end is nigh!

With about 4 hours left to crunch we would like to request the following

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

We would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of a Challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Please consider either COMPLETING what's in the queue or ABORTING them. Thank you. :)

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PrimeGrid Challenge Overall standings --- Last update: From Pi to Paddy (2016)

The end is nigh!

With about 4 hours left to crunch we would like to request the following

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

We would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of a Challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Please consider either COMPLETING what's in the queue or ABORTING them. Thank you. :)

Emm, I got your idea.
Thank you so much... :))))

btw: This is a really exciting chanllenge in prime number i have ever done in my life for the first time.

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Emm, I got your idea.
Thank you so much... :))))

btw: This is a really exciting chanllenge in prime number i have ever done in my life for the first time.

This is not challenge in prime numbers , this is challenge in sieving, here you cannot find prime :)

What about telling us just how much was sieved during the challenge?

A difficult, but ultimately rewarding challenge for me. Mad rush to get 3 Ubuntu VPC's configured on the boxes that (still) crash these tasks after a few seconds.
Pleased to see my two little Android boxes added around 8 (of the 240-odd) thousand credits to my (yet to be verified!) score, allowing me to jump two places on the leader-board.
My Samsung-Galaxy-mini phone spent a lot of the time 'roasting' in my pocket - crunching continuously on both cores. - I was expecting (almost hoping?) it would melt-down to become the first 'proof' that 'pocket-crunching' can be dangerous.. but it appeared to come through unscathed!
So all those not wishing to fall behind (on the next TRP-sieve challenge, that is!), better get those phones and tablets crunching!

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A difficult, but ultimately rewarding challenge for me. Mad rush to get 3 Ubuntu VPC's configured on the boxes that (still) crash these tasks after a few seconds.
Pleased to see my two little Android boxes added around 8 (of the 240-odd) thousand credits to my (yet to be verified!) score, allowing me to jump two places on the leader-board.
My Samsung-Galaxy-mini phone spent a lot of the time 'roasting' in my pocket - crunching continuously on both cores. - I was expecting (almost hoping?) it would melt-down to become the first 'proof' that 'pocket-crunching' can be dangerous.. but it appeared to come through unscathed!
So all those not wishing to fall behind (on the next TRP-sieve challenge, that is!), better get those phones and tablets crunching!

You may have missed where the tasks were made 5 times shorter, and therefore get 1/5th the credit. 109.22 is the BOINC credit per task, unless you happen to get one of the old, longer tasks that are still floating around the system.

My Samsung-Galaxy-mini phone spent a lot of the time 'roasting' in my pocket - crunching continuously on both cores. - I was expecting (almost hoping?) it would melt-down to become the first 'proof' that 'pocket-crunching' can be dangerous.. but it appeared to come through unscathed!

My ASUS Transformer started flaking out towards the end: It had five "code 9" errors. Anyone else see those? Any chance those are due to the WUs instead of hardware problems?

Thanks to all who participated!

I browse some of the team message boards, and some wonder how I have such power.
The answer: The cloud.
I've since been able to scale up my compute capacity from the last challenge.
The next challenge: Who knows, I may or may not have the capacity then, managing/ monitoring hundreds of servers takes much of my free time.


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