Welcome to the “Drive for Five” Challenge
(part of PrimeGrid’s Challenge series)

PrimeGrid is attempting to reach n=5 million for 321 Search (currently at n~4.4M).

321 Search began in February 2003 by Paul Underwood and grew into a distributed prime search effort for the form 3*2^n-1. The initial goal was to build upon the completed work at Proth Search and extend the list of known primes to an exponent of 1 million (n=1M). That was quickly achieved so they advanced their goal to finding a mega prime for which they sieved up to n=5M.

As seen on PrimeGrid’s front page, that goal was achieved on 23 Mar 2008, 7:57:28 UTC, when Dylan Bennett of Canada returned a positive result for n=4235414 (3*2^4235414-1). official announcement | decimal representation

Now all that’s left is to complete the sieved work up to n=5M. Thus the name “Drive for Five”. There’s still a chance that a mega prime exists between now and n=5M.

The Challenge will begin 15 May 2008 00:00 UTC and end 1 June 2008 00:00 UTC or until all WU’s have been completed, whichever comes first. Application builds are available for Linux 32 bit and Windows 32 bit. These applications will be sent to 64 bit clients. Unlike the “Ides of March” Challenge, there is no advantage of 64 bit over 32 bit this time.

ATTENTION: This Challenge is not for the weak of heart. WU’s will take a minimum of 6.5 hours on fast computers (C2Q 2.4GHz) and upwards of 15 hours on slower computers (Athlon64 2.1GHz). It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that your systems be stable as the primality program LLR does not tolerate "even the slightest of errors." Please see this post for more details on how you can "stress test" your computer: http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=857&nowrap=true#8317

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only WU’s that are issued and returned with a valid result during the Challenge dates will be counted. We will use the “prime score” method which is based on the n value (3*2^n-1) to score the challenge. The only difference is that the primary and double checker of a WU will receive the same score.

Therefore, each completed WU will earn a unique score based on its n value. The higher the n, the higher the score. For more information on scoring, see this thread: http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=895&nowrap=true#8728.

Please come join the challenge and help 321 Search complete a GREAT journey.

Best of Luck in wrapping up the initial stage of the 321 Search AND to hopefully finding another MEGA PRIME!!! :)

Additional Information

Once 321 Prime Search has been completed to n=5M, we will switch over to the +1 form (3*2^n+1). Currently, that prime search is in the Project Staging Area and is ready to enter BOINC as soon as -1 is complete to 5M. WU's are availabe now in LLRNet if you are interested in testing.

We will then take +1 to n=5M. Afterwards, we'll combine 32-1 and 32+1 together and take both up to n=10M. In that range, we expect another 4-6 Mega Primes! :)
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Very nice event. I will take part in it. even if I had no chance for points for the Challenge Series. ;)

But I´ve one or two questions. Is the app for 321 searc checkpointing and what´s up with the progressbar? Doesn´t it function?

You can count me in on this one!!
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John M. Johnson "Novex"

You can have a look here: http://www.primegrid.com/stats_321_llr.php

Atm are around 6200 checks left.

Any chance of having a page that shows how everyone (individuals and teams) is/are doing in this challenge?
Which could easily mutate into a final standings page after it is complete...

/me has got 3 days of WUs queued and rolling now, not that I expect to win or even come close, but one has to join in, don't you know? :-)

Any chance of having a page that shows how everyone (individuals and teams) is/are doing in this challenge?
Which could easily mutate into a final standings page after it is complete...

/me has got 3 days of WUs queued and rolling now, not that I expect to win or even come close, but one has to join in, don't you know? :-)

First results are flowing in, I added stats links to the frontpage.
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OK, since I'm "numerophil", I'll put some resources on this challenge. ;)

Not everything, but at least a little bit. The LLR app is a good test for my new quadcore. :)
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24 hours into the Challenge and all is going well. Stats can be found here: Participants | Teams
EDIT: These stats can also be accessed in the top menu on the front page.

2100 WU's have been sent out. For those interested in how many WU's are left, here's the breakdown:

4.4M-4.5M - 259 complete (5354 complete before Challenge)
4.5M-4.6M - 1841 complete; 3827 remaining
4.6M-4.7M - 0 complete; 5795 remaining
4.7M-4.8M - 0 complete; 5715 remaining
4.8M-4.9M - 0 complete; 5794 remaining
4.9M-5.0M - 0 complete; 5825 remaining

Total 2100 complete; 26956 remaining
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I'm a little bit confused. Which wu's must i cruch for the contest?
I have activated the "3*2^n-1 prime search" in my account. On my client i have get 3 sorts of wu's:
PSP Sieve 1.05
GCW Sieve 1.09
LLR (3*2^n-1) 5.07

??? confused !!!

I am reposting this from the first thread just as a reminder:

ATTENTION: This Challenge is not for the weak of heart. WU’s will take a minimum of 6.5 hours on fast computers (C2Q 2.4GHz) and upwards of 15 hours on slower computers (Athlon64 2.1GHz). It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that your systems be stable as the primality program LLR does not tolerate "even the slightest of errors." Please see this post for more details on how you can "stress test" your computer: http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=857&nowrap=true#8317

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I am reposting this from the first thread just as a reminder:

ATTENTION: This Challenge is not for the weak of heart. WU’s will take a minimum of 6.5 hours on fast computers (C2Q 2.4GHz) and upwards of 15 hours on slower computers (Athlon64 2.1GHz). It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that your systems be stable as the primality program LLR does not tolerate "even the slightest of errors." Please see this post for more details on how you can "stress test" your computer: http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=857&nowrap=true#8317

I increased the estimates by a factor of 1.5, should help.

As for favoring Intel over AMD, it generally depends on CPU features like L2 cache. Older AMD models are a little slower for sure, I'm not exactly sure about newer models.
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Just posting this question for clarification...

I've submitted about 8 321 WUs since the drive began, and I see points awarded in the standings page. All good.

Some/most/all of these are still in pending status as per normal project behaviour.

What would happen to drive points if doublechecking later showed a bad residue? I assume they'd be deducted.

I guess that WUs submitted just before the end of the drive would count for points even whilst in pending state.

So - and this is the evil question - how long after the end of the drive do we wait for doublechecking before finalising the results? :-)

(I suspect the leaders all know they have good machines, since it's the usual suspects who score well the rest of the time, so I doubt it would actually alter the top N places anyway...)

Also, a quick question. There appears to be a penalty for AMD machines. For example, my Athlon x2's (a 4200+ and a 3800+) are getting pounded by my old Pentium D 830. The former are in the 15 hour range while the latter is around 10 hours. These are normally fairly comparable machines? Or is it maybe a memory issue (1.5 and 1.0 GB on the Athlons vs. 2GB on the Pent. D)?

So - and this is the evil question - how long after the end of the drive do we wait for doublechecking before finalising the results? :-)

(I suspect the leaders all know they have good machines, since it's the usual suspects who score well the rest of the time, so I doubt it would actually alter the top N places anyway...)

Thanks John - that makes perfect sense.

could the Primegrid challenge series page be updated so it links to the participants and team results of the drive 4 5 challenge?

That's strange: Team Sweden@boinc@Home dropped not only in rank, but in credit as well. Were they disqualified or bought out or what?
H.

A discrepancy has been brought to our attention in the Challenge points system. Basically, our current system awards the same points for a 24 hour Challenge as it does for a 30 day Challenge.

It is appropriate that the time commitment of a longer Challenge deserves a larger reward. Therefore, we have modified the Challenge points to better represent the time commitment of the Challenge.

While most of the Challenges will be 24 hours, the “points modification” is necessary to allow us to run Challenges for PrimeGrid’s more difficult and time intensive projects: Cullen LLR, Woodall LLR, PSP LLR, and 321 LLR which need more than 24 hours to run an adequate Challenge.

The changes can be viewed here: PrimeGrid's Challenge Series

We greatly appreciate the time commitment individuals and teams make to participate in these Challenges. Thank you very much.

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Have any primes been found yet?

Congratulations to L'Alliance Francophone as they are the first team to surpass 10M Challenge points.

Also, a big thank you to everyone who is helping PrimeGrid and 321 Search tackle this monumental task. The progress achieved so far has been excellent. However, at this time, those huge 321 numbers are moving ahead of us in the race. They are proving to be very tough and are not going down easily. At our current rate, we will fall just short of the 5M goal.

Therefore, we would like to propose a "sprint" this weekend to see if we can get back even or maybe ahead of where we need to be in order to reach 5M by the end of 31 May. We humbly ask all participants and teams to please put a little extra on 321 for the 24th & 25th.

This is truly an uphill Challenge...the closer we get to 5M, the longer the tests take...which means in order to keep the same completion rate, we actually have to increase processing power as the Challenge progresses. It's a difficult task, but one that we are very close to accomplishing. Just over a 1/3 into the Challenge and 9937 WU's have been completed with 19309 remaining. Our daily totals have been:

5/15/2008 - 2100
5/16/2008 - 1166
5/17/2008 - 1847
5/18/2008 - 2002
5/19/2008 - 1347
5/20/2008 - 1285
5/21/2008 - 190 (as of this post)

Thank you again for participating in The Drive for Five Challenge and for all your help and support at PrimeGrid. :)

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Just out of curiosity, in seeing the 19,309 WUs remaining, how often is that updated on the home page? That's the number that was on the page yesterday, and still is right now.

Congratulations to L'Alliance Francophone as they are the first team to surpass 10M Challenge points.

We have to thanks our big cruncher, Banshee.

Indeed it doesn't.

I do think it sucks that you do a WU that takes X amount of CPU and wallclock time, and the amount of BOINC credit you get depends on if the other WU done as doublecheck was done on a fast or slow computer. If the other WU was done on a fast machine, you get less credit - on a slow machine, you get more.

Is one of the reasons I tend to work on fixed credit subprojects, cos I like stats that reflect work done, not how it was done.

(Not that I expect this to change or anything, and other projects have issues with this sort of thing)

This method of scoring was chosen because we had no way to correctly estimate credit based on n value. However, we now have scoring formula, which is very simple to adapt to credit, and I promise that we'll do that after the challenge is over (it's probably not a very good idea to start fiddling with credit specifically for the app that is in the challenge).
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That's great news - will this apply to all LLR projects going forward?

FYI...BOINCstats now offers stats for Challenges. This current Challenge and all future Challenges will be available there. :)

It's located on the front page, just right of the news posts.
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The sprint is officially over. Well, it was more like a nice stroll in the park...at least the scenery was nice. :)

We didn't get the push that we needed but we were able to sustain throughput even with the increasing test times. Good news is that we are over half way completed (16193 WU's sent out, 12863 WU's remaining).

Thank you to everyone for putting forth that extra effort this weekend as well as those who continue to participate in the Challenge. We have 6 days remaining...let's do as much as possible. At our current pace, we are expected to fall about 3700 WU's short. Not bad considering how difficult and time intensive this Challenge is. Below is our daily throughput:

5/15/2008 - 2100
5/16/2008 - 1166
5/17/2008 - 1847
5/18/2008 - 2002
5/19/2008 - 1347
5/20/2008 - 1285
5/21/2008 - 1189
5/22/2008 - 1339
5/23/2008 - 1307
5/24/2008 - 1277
5/25/2008 - 1334

To see the impact we've had on 321 Search, please see this graph. It'll put a smile on your face. :)

Thanks again for all the hard work! It's very much appreciated.
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The sprint is officially over. Well, it was more like a nice stroll in the park...at least the scenery was nice. :)

Wow that graph really does show us making a nice dent :) I know I've been able to hold my own since we started the challenge and it's been great so far! I will stay with it until the WU's are done or when we hit the 5M mark. I won't quit just because the month's over thats for sure :)

Everyone keep up the good work!!!
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John M. Johnson "Novex"

Wow that graph really does show us making a nice dent :) I know I've been able to hold my own since we started the challenge and it's been great so far! I will stay with it until the WU's are done or when we hit the 5M mark. I won't quit just because the month's over thats for sure :)

Everyone keep up the good work!!!

My AMD machine can go back to the sieve, but the rest will stay on this until it's complete (subject to joining in the next challenge - if need be, they can go back to 321 afterwards).

So please keep us up to date on the countdown to 5M.

Can we keep the stats on this going on an unofficial (ie not scoring for your challenge series) basis until we get to 5M or until I've whopped novex's ass?

John M Johnson: :) Could go either way old man (I tip you to win by a hair) but real fun watching it!

Can we keep the stats on this going on an unofficial (ie not scoring for your challenge series) basis until we get to 5M or until I've whopped novex's ass?

John M Johnson: :) Could go either way old man (I tip you to win by a hair) but real fun watching it!

For those switching from 321 Search at the conclusion of the Challenge on 1 June, please consider modifying your cache to a day or less. This will help minimize the expired/aborted/not completed WU's after the end of the Challenge and give us a better idea of the remaining WU's. We are currently experiencing a "heavy" expired rate from WU's that were sent out at the beginning of the Challenge. I'll have more details at 00:00 UTC tomorrow.

For those continuing 321 Search afterwards, as it looks right now, there will be plenty to crunch for at least a week and probably longer.

EDIT: For those continuing, it would be a good idea to lower cache at this time to at most 3 days. In the week following the Challenge, we'll ask for everyone to eventually go down to 2 days, 1 day, and finally 1/2 day. You can do that now if you like, it won't hurt anything. :)
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The expired WU's from the beginning of the Challenge have been excessive. 321 WU's have a 12 day deadline. On the 27th we started receiving expired WU's from the first day of the Challenge. We expected a moderate level of expired WU's from the new attaching hosts as BOINC adjusted to the longer 321 WU lengths. However, as you can see below, we used a lot of our current effort to process those expired WU's on the 27th.

5/15/2008 2100
5/16/2008 1166
5/17/2008 1847
5/18/2008 2002
5/19/2008 1347
5/20/2008 1285
5/21/2008 1189
5/22/2008 1339
5/23/2008 1307
5/24/2008 1277
5/25/2008 1334
5/26/2008 1264
5/27/2008 938
5/28/2008 1023

This will have an impact on our goal of n=5M. Good news is the expired WU's decreased on the 28th. Hopefully this trend will continue. Current projection for n=5M is 7 June. Expect this to change as completion rates change.

Please remember to start lowering your cache. A day or less is ideal.
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Lol oh your on bro! I'm still trying to catch up to you in points and man were both close as hell all the time in terms of credits hehe, it's good for a little competition /evil grin


John M. Johnson "Novex"

5/29/2008 1007 WU's went out.

8631 WU's remain until n=5M. 7 June still remains the n=5M date.

Please remember to start lowering your cache as soon as possible. Half day is best right now. The reason why this is important is that once we get down to our last 5000 WU's, we will start lowering the deadline. Currently it's 12 days. For each 1000 WU's after 5000, we'll transition to 10 days, 7 days, 5 days and 3 days. This will expedite the successful conclusion of all WU's up to 5M.

Once we get down to the last 500 WU's, it is recommended that you select an additional project so that when we finally do reach 0 WU's remaining, your machines won't go idle. However, please do not deselect 321, as sporadic work will still be available when expired/error WU's are processed. BTW, TPS is the featured project in the next Challenge...PrimeGrid's Birthday Challenge. :)

Good Luck to all the participants and teams as y'all battle it out for those last points. The white flag is almost upon us.

Thanks again for all your help and support. :)
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I know that wrapping up 321 to 5M is the goal here, but I believe that reducing the deadline by too much will result in work being lost unnecessarily. Please don't be too harsh! :-)

Also, how soon after the conclusion of this will the new 32+1 project be live?
(and will this be under the same 321 banner, or a seperate subproject?)

It looks like the stats are not updated any more. No one got challenge points in the last 8 hours: http://www.boincstats.com/stats/challenge_stats.php?pr=pg&challenge=1&object=user

Only some points were subtracted (maybe invalid results?).
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It looks like the stats are not updated any more. No one got challenge points in the last 8 hours: http://www.boincstats.com/stats/challenge_stats.php?pr=pg&challenge=1&object=user

Only some points were subtracted (maybe invalid results?).

It looks like the stats are not updated any more. No one got challenge points in the last 8 hours: http://www.boincstats.com/stats/challenge_stats.php?pr=pg&challenge=1&object=user

Only some points were subtracted (maybe invalid results?).

The challenge script ended challenge prematurely, I restored the functionality. The challenge was limited to 15 days, whereas it should have been limited to 17. Human error, no points lost :)

The white flag has been waved…we are down to our last 24 hours. Good Luck to everyone.

5/30/2008 1054 WU's went out. 7 June still remains the n=5M date.

I know that wrapping up 321 to 5M is the goal here, but I believe that reducing the deadline by too much will result in work being lost unnecessarily. Please don't be too harsh! :-)

• Computer is connected to the Internet about every 0 days
  
• Maintain enough work for an additional 0 days
  

My cache is empty and I get 1 WU at a time now.

Also, to help avoid any "wasted" cycles, at the conclusion of the Challenge, all "slower" computers (those that take over 72 hours per WU) should consider deselecting 321 Search from their project list. This will insure that no deadlines are missed. :) The sieves are always a good place for slower machines...OR...TPS is the featured project in the next Challenge (12 June) so why not get a head start. :) BTW, the 3 day deadline probably won't come till 5-6 June, so there's still plenty of time to crunch.

Additionally, if your computer is crunching several projects (internal to PG and/or external), the above advice would be good to follow. Or give PG a higher percentage of resources until n=5M is reached.

Also, how soon after the conclusion of this will the new 32+1 project be live?
(and will this be under the same 321 banner, or a seperate subproject?)

Less than 12 hours remain.

If you have any WU's that will be completing between now and the finish, remember to hit project update in BOINC to make sure those WU's get submitted and earn points for the Challenge.

Good Luck!

Stats: Participants | Teams
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10 hours to go... time to start the final spurt. ;)
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Hold off those update buttons until 00:01Z - then submit :-)

It's over now. Pretty close race for me in the end. Was a great fun. :D
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The Checkered flag is out (thanks pschoefer)...and The Drive for Five Challenge has ended. Unfortunately, no Mega Prime was found. However, a good amount of work was completed. Here are some stats:

WU's
29056 Started
22512 Sent out
6544 Remain

255 teams and 1681 individuals participated.

The Challenge Points stats will remain unofficial for the time being as we investigate how long to wait for "double check" WU's to come in. Congratulations to L'Alliance Francophone as the top team and Banshee as the top individual. Remember, the top 40 earn points for this Challenge.

For those continuing until n=5M, at our current rate, 7 June is still the date. For those moving on, thank you very much for participating in The Drive for Five Challenge. PrimeGrid's next Challenge will be 12 June. It will be a 24 hour Challenge celebrating PrimeGrid's Birthday. Rest up and get ready...the 24 hour Challenge is fast and furious...especially if you compare it to this one. :D

Thank you again to everyone. We appreciate your participation!

Stats: Participants | Teams

EDIT: Those staying till n=5M, please remember to lower your cache to less than a day. It is very important. See this post for suggestions. The next 1000 WU's have already been released with a 10 day deadline. We currently only have 674 WU's remaining with a 12 day deadline. The next 1000 WU's will go out with 7 days deadline, then 6 days, 5 days, and finally 4 days.
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Well done all - I'm pretty please to get some points on this one - last time I was on holiday and it was over before I knew.

That was fun.

Thanks to the great and good for organising.

I'd rather a contest like this than the shorter ones because there is more chance to see positions change. I'm also less likely to be bothered to set up for a 24 hour one than a long one and if I forget it doesn't matter so much with the long one as I can join in later.

Thanks to others for taking part. Especially to novex/John M Johnson for being a real sportsman; we had fun and were neck and neck to the end.

I must fly there is some American bloke with a baseball bat banging on the door...

That was fun.

Thanks to the great and good for organising.

I'd rather a contest like this than the shorter ones because there is more chance to see positions change. I'm also less likely to be bothered to set up for a 24 hour one than a long one and if I forget it doesn't matter so much with the long one as I can join in later.

Thanks to others for taking part. Especially to novex/John M Johnson for being a real sportsman; we had fun and were neck and neck to the end.

I must fly there is some American bloke with a baseball bat banging on the door...

The results of the "Drive for Five" Challenge are now official. The Challenge Series rankings will soon be updated.

Thank you again to everyone who participated.

For those continuing with the n=5M goal, please see the this thread for updates.
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The Challenge Series rankings have been updated.

Stats: Participants | Teams


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