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Message boards :
Cullen/Woodall prime search :
Required finish time
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I have 68 hours of work to do in just 23 hours, I've completed 102 hours, do I let the task finish or dump all my time and money and get another? I have my normal hours in the preferences but quite often I work outside these hours and I click "Run always' under the "Activity" menu to keep the work crunching.
Therefore, I've done additional hours to those in the preferences but you have sent me a task that is not compatible.
What do I do?
Malcolm Beeson of ComputOurs | |
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 Michael Goetz Volunteer moderator
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If you're only going to miss a deadline by a little bit, let it run to completion. What's "a little bit"? A good rule of thumb is you usually can miss the deadline by 100%, so if there's a 3 day deadline, you'll probably still get credit if you can return the task within 6 days. It's not guaranteed, but it's likely.
So in your situation, definitely finish the task.
There's about a dozen different projects running at PrimeGrid, with durations running from minutes to weeks. Some of them are not appropriate to very slow computers, or to computers that only run part time. The BOINC software is not terribly adept at estimating how long tasks are going to run. Woodall tasks have a 14 day deadline, which is 336 hours. The average run time for Woodall is about 83.5 hours.
If your computer is processing them in 170 hours, you'll need to have your computer crunching at least 50% of the time to complete tasks like these within the deadline. If you need to run BOINC less frequently than that, I'd suggest running the shorter projects at PrimeGrid, such as PPS-LLR, PPSE, or SGS. Those tasks are very short (minutes to hours, depending on the CPU), and have a 3 day deadline which is much easier for computers that are crunching part time.
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My lucky number is 75898524288+1 | |
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Thanks for your help, I feel encouraged but I'll cut Woodall out of my project list, it's still too hot to run the machines 24/7. | |
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You were right, I let the machine run 24/7 finishing 3.5days late, but the credit was there this morning. I haven't any idea how many tasks I've needlessly aborted, shame, but thaks to your help I'll keep on hanging on. Cheers Malcolm | |
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I spoke too soon, when I restarted I had eight new projects, four of which were more than fifteen hours duration, BUT, I received these just three hours before they were due, duh?
What purpose does the 'Preferences' do that is useful?
I spend a large part of my day aborting tasks that my machine cannot possibly complete.
I took Michael Goetz's advice and there in the messages were four jobs and:
"Result returned after due date, you may not receive credit for these"
I think I'm going to take my four machines off BOINC, I can't really afford the electricity or the time to hourly survey what the 'Account Manager' dreams-up for me. I already try to get up two hours earlier in the morning to boost things a bit, but often I find I have to leave a machine running two or three days, 24/7 to achieve the dealines, not fair really, I'm already stretched. | |
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Michael GoetzVolunteer moderator
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I spoke too soon, when I restarted I had eight new projects, four of which were more than fifteen hours duration, BUT, I received these just three hours before they were due, duh?
Check the system clock on your computer. The absolute minimum time any task has is three days. It's impossible for the server to initially send out a task with only three hours to go.
The only other way that can happen at all (notice I said "initially") is if the task is sent to a computer with the normal deadline, and then the computer is restored to an earlier point in time (erasing that task), and then the computer connects again to the server three hours before the deadline. The server will resend the task to the computer, but it's the second time the task was sent.
Either an incorrect system clock or a lost task are the only ways the server will appear to send out a task with such a short deadline.
Do you have an example of such a task? (A result ID or Workunit ID, or a link to either?)
"Result returned after due date, you may not receive credit for these"
The important word there is "may". Did you actually get credit for those tasks?
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My lucky number is 75898524288+1 | |
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Michael GoetzVolunteer moderator
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What purpose does the 'Preferences' do that is useful?
I already try to get up two hours earlier in the morning to boost things a bit, but often I find I have to leave a machine running two or three days, 24/7 to achieve the dealines, not fair really, I'm already stretched.
In your preferences, you have selected the following tasks (as of when I'm writing this):
Sophie Germain
Cullen (65 hour run time)
321 (32 hour run time)
PPS Sieve (on cpu as well as GPU -- this takes 27 hours on a CPU)
PPS LLR
TRP Sieve
TRP LLR (19 hours)
GFN (CUDA 20 hours)
PPSE
In my first response to you, I suggested running the short tasks PPS-LLR, PPSE, and SGS, and that the rest aren't really compatible with the schedule on which you're running your computers. Despite that, you have selected many long-running tasks.
I think I'm going to take my four machines off BOINC
I think that would be a good choice. I do not believe you are going to have an enjoyable experience here, and what's the point of volunteering your time (or your computers' time) if it's not fulfilling?
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My lucky number is 75898524288+1 | |
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Hi
You must be the most patient of persons to have gone to all this trouble, thank you a thousand times, I've changed my prefrences as you have suggested and we'll see how it goes.
It might help dumb users like me if the Usage Timetable were more user freindly, e.g.:
Sorry it's a rather large image, but for clarity I've made this way.
I think that such a form would be easier for everyone, 00:00-00:00 if you run 24/7, or odd numbers if that is all you can offer, with the option of BOINC springing into life if you switch on early, work later or just fire-up the machine to do some work.
Thanks again for your patiance.
Your very humbled small BOINCer,
Malcolm | |
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Michael GoetzVolunteer moderator
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Joined: 21 Jan 10
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Hi
You must be the most patient of persons to have gone to all this trouble, thank you a thousand times, I've changed my prefrences as you have suggested and we'll see how it goes.
It might help dumb users like me if the Usage Timetable were more user freindly, e.g.:
Sorry it's a rather large image, but for clarity I've made this way.
I think that such a form would be easier for everyone, 00:00-00:00 if you run 24/7, or odd numbers if that is all you can offer, with the option of BOINC springing into life if you switch on early, work later or just fire-up the machine to do some work.
Thanks again for your patiance.
Your very humbled small BOINCer,
Malcolm
Understand the PrimeGrid is not BOINC. The BOINC client software comes from the BOINC/SETI people at Berkeley, not from us. Comments and suggestions about BOINC itself need to be addressed to them.
On the second tab of the preferences dialog ("network usage"), what are your settings for "Minimum work buffer" and "Max additional work buffer"? If those settings are too high, your computer will download multiple tasks at once, and that will only make the problem worse. They should both be zero or a very low number if they're not zero. I use 0.04 and 0.00, which causes new work to be downloaded about an hour before the previous task finishes.
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Thanks again Michael
I don't have those boxes, but have set the additional work buffer to '0' which might help. I'm running Linux 6.10.58 as I can't get either machine to upgrade, the windo$e machines are latest/greatest.
When I selected the projects you suggested the machine downloaded twelve project of 10hrs to be in on Sunday, my machine was set to run for just another 15mins and then shut down till Monday, so I've come in today, it's all very frustrating, but I'm pleased with the things you have taught me and very grateful.
Best wishes
Malcolm | |
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I don't have those boxes, but have set the additional work buffer to '0' which might help. I'm running Linux 6.10.58 as I can't get either machine to upgrade, the windo$e machines are latest/greatest
If you want to upgrade BOINC versions, you'll most likely have to update your version of Linux O/S first. Your kernel version 2.6.xx is pretty old and most likely not supported any more (i.e. no more automatic updates) for your distro. There are many good reasons (e.g. security/stability fixes) to update the O/S, apart from anything related to boinc or PrimeGrid.
But for now, sticking with 6.10.58 of boinc, you want to set "connect about every" (days) to 0, and "additional work buffer" to 0 or something extremely small (I used 0.01). It still may take some time for boinc to learn to download reasonable amounts of work. There's no stigma attached to aborting the excess at your leisure... no need to micro-manage it.
Also, don't forget that the BOINC "estimate" of run-time that is displayed to you is usually nonsense. For any given subproject, just let it run to 5% or so and note how long it took, and extrapolate from there. If a task took 5 minutes to get to 5%, then it will finish in 100 minutes overall, despite the fact that the estimate displayed might say 30 hours or something ridiculous like that. Hang in there!
--Gary
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Cullen/Woodall prime search :
Required finish time |
