Welcome to the Sier"pi"nski's Birthday Challenge

The second challenge of the 2021 Series will be a 10-day challenge celebrating the birthday of Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński, Polish mathematician and namesake of the Sierpinski Problem, known to PrimeGrid as Seventeen or Bust. The challenge will be offered on the SOB-LLR application, beginning 14 March 12:00 UTC and ending 24 March 11:59 UTC.

Most people celebrate March 14th as Pi Day. Now, there are a myriad of arguments for why pi is undeserving of all the attention of this holiday, not the least of which is the fact that all the pi hubbub overshadows the birthday of a real mathematical hero: Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński. (Come on, he even has "pi" in his name.)

Sierpinski was born on March 14th, 1882 in Warsaw. He has his own street in Warsaw, a statue at Cambridge University, and even a crater on the moon named after him. The extraordinary Polish mathematician was honored with all these due to his pioneering work on fractals, contributions to set theory, and his aid in cracking Soviet army codes. Most relevant to us here at PrimeGrid is his work in number theory where we find the Sierpinski problem, which is what the Seventeen or Bust project has devoted over 18 years and 6 million PetaFLOPS toward solving.

For more about Sierpinski and his Problem, check out the Seventeen or Bust synopsis below, or this fantastic article.

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the Seventeen or Bust LLR (SOB) project in your PrimeGrid preferences section.

Note on LLR2 tasks: LLR2 has eliminated the need for a full doublecheck task on each workunit, but has replaced it with a short verification task. Expect to receive a few tasks about 1% of normal length.

Application builds are available for Linux 32 and 64 bit, Windows 32 and 64 bit and MacIntel. Intel and recent AMD CPUs with FMA3 capabilities (Haswell or better for Intel, Zen-2 or better for AMD) will have a very large advantage, and Intel CPUs with dual AVX-512 (certain recent Intel Skylake-X and Xeon CPUs) will be the fastest.

Note that LLR is running the latest AVX-512 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, especially if they're highly overclocked. If you have certain recent Intel Skylake-X and Xeon CPUs, especially if it's overclocked or has overclocked memory, and haven't run the new AVX-512 LLR before, we strongly suggest running it before the challenge while you are monitoring the temperatures.

Multi-threading is supported and IS recommended. (SOB tasks on one CPU core will take 5-10 days on fast/newer computers and 2 weeks+ on slower/older computers.)

Those looking to maximize 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 a CPU with hyperthreading or SMT, either turn off this feature 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.

  
  

• The new multi-threading system is now live. Click here to set the maximum number of threads. This will allow you to select multi-threading from the project preferences web page. No more app_config.xml. It works like this:
  
  
  • In the preferences selection, there are selections for "max jobs" and "max cpus", similar to the settings in app_config.
    
  • Unlike app_config, these two settings apply to ALL apps. You can't chose 1 thread for SGS and 4 for SoB. When you change apps, you need to change your multithreading settings if you want to run a different number of threads.
    
  • There will be individual settings for each venue (location).
    
  • This will eliminate the problem of BOINC downloading 1 task for every core.
    
  • The hyperthreading control isn't possible at this time.
    
  • The "max cpus" control will only apply to LLR apps. The "max jobs" control applies to all apps.

  
  

• If you want to continue to use app_config.xml for LLR tasks, you need to change it if you want it to work. Please see this message for more information.
  
• 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.

Time zone converter:

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 at the very top, above the countdown clock.

Scoring Information

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only tasks issued AFTER 14th March 2021 12:00 UTC and received BEFORE 24th March 2021 11:59 UTC will be considered for credit. We will be using the same scoring method as we currently use for BOINC credits. 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.

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

We kindly ask users "moving on" to ABORT their tasks instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

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

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

What is Seventeen or Bust?

Seventeen or Bust was a distributed computing project attempting to solve the Sierpinski problem. The name of the project is due to the fact that, when founded, there were seventeen values of k < 78,557 for which no primes were known.

Basically, the Sierpinski problem is "What is the smallest Sierpinski number?"

First we look at Proth numbers (named after the French mathematician François Proth). A Proth number is a number of the form k*2^n+1 where k is odd, n is a positive integer, and 2^n>k.

A Sierpinski number is an odd k such that the Proth number k*2^n+1 is not prime for all n. For example, 3 is not a Sierpinski number because n=2 produces a prime number (3*2^2+1=13). In 1962, John Selfridge proved that 78,557 is a Sierpinski number...meaning he showed that for all n, 78557*2^n+1 was not prime.

Most number theorists believe that 78,557 is the smallest Sierpinski number, but it hasn't yet been proven. In order to prove it, it has to be shown that every single k less than 78,557 is not a Sierpinski number, and to do that, some n must be found that makes k*2^n+1 prime.

The Seventeen or Bust project was conceived in March of 2002 by two college undergraduates. After some planning and a lot of programming, the first public client was released on April 1. Seventeen or Bust ceased operations in 2016. The project was administered by:
• Louis Helm, a computer engineer in Austin, Texas.
• David Norris, a software engineer in Urbana, Illinois.
• Michael Garrison, a Computer Science undergraduate at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Starting in 2010, PrimeGrid partnered with Seventeen or Bust to work towards solving the Sierpinski Problem. After the demise of the original Seventeen or Bust project in 2016, PrimeGrid is continuing by itself to continue the Seventeen or Bust project in looking to solve the Sierpinski Problem.

As of December of 2017, PrimeGrid and Seventeen or Bust have eliminated twelve of those seventeen candidates. The project might now be styled "Five or Bust," but the original name will be kept for consistency. Current remaining k's:

21181, 22699, 24737, 55459, 67607

Last Prime found at PrimeGrid
10223*2^31172165+1 by Szabolcs Péter (SyP) on 31 October 2016. Official Announcement.
Previous to that the last SOB candidate was eliminated in 2007.


What is LLR?

The Lucas-Lehmer-Riesel (LLR) test is a primality test for numbers of the form N = k*2^n − 1, with 2^n > k. Also, LLR is a program developed by Jean Penne that can run the LLR-tests. It includes the Proth test to perform +1 tests and PRP to test non base 2 numbers. See also:

• Lucas-Lehmer-Riesel test (WIKI)
  
• Download LLR by Jean Penné
  

What is LLR2?

LLR2 is an improvement to the LLR application developed by our very own Pavel Atnashev and stream. It utilizes Gerbicz checks to enable the Fast DoubleCheck feature, which will nearly double the speed of PrimeGrid's progress on the projects it's applied to. For more information, see this forum post.
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Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

A head's up to anyone who was planning on using cloud computing resources from Digital Ocean, or, by extension, from TSC: Digital Ocean has changed their offerings, and it's no longer possible to get the 3-core AVX512 droplets we've been using in the past.

The basic droplets no longer support AVX512, and we have to use the premium droplets. While they're 20% more expensive, they're also newer CPUs and are worth the cost. However, they're not available in a 3-core configuration. You can still get basic 3-core droplets, but they won't have AVX512. There are 2 and 4 core premium droplets available, but at double the per-core cost of the 1 core droplets.

This is particularly poor timing coming right before the SoB challenge.
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Since SMT is a method to use unused CPU cycles, I doubt it makes crunching more effective in any scenario. Since there shouldn't be any unused cycles and SMT introduces an overhead, it should always be slower. Personally, I never had higher throughput using it.

You can get an idea by running Prime95 benchmarks with the FFT size of SoB.

What really does help btw is assigning cores to LLR tasks if SMT is anabled in the BIOS. That way the windows scheduler doesn't waste time moving the threads to logical cores and back. Single threaded tasks increased by about 15%, multithreaded still by a couple %.
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1281979 * 2^485014 + 1 is prime ... no further hits up to: n = 5,700,000

Bur wrote:

the windows scheduler

I am lazy and use an OS with a sensible scheduler instead.

Since SMT is a method to use unused CPU cycles, I doubt it makes crunching more effective in any scenario. Since there shouldn't be any unused cycles and SMT introduces an overhead, it should always be slower. Personally, I never had higher throughput using it.

What really does help btw is assigning cores to LLR tasks if SMT is anabled in the BIOS. That way the windows scheduler doesn't waste time moving the threads to logical cores and back. Single threaded tasks increased by about 15%, multithreaded still by a couple %.

Two computers with the same configuration have obvious differences in performance, perhaps due to differences in heat dissipation.

So, how many people's computers started an hour early? I know mine did. Stupid daylight saving time.

Starting early sucks, did you abort those tasks?
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1281979 * 2^485014 + 1 is prime ... no further hits up to: n = 5,700,000

So, how many people's computers started an hour early? I know mine did. Stupid daylight saving time.

Task stats, 24 hours in:

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-15 14:30:30 UTC)

5746 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 5746 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

486 (8%) were aborted. [486 (8%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
15 (0%) came back with some kind of an error. [15 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
151 (3%) have returned a successful result. [151 (3%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5094 (89%) are still in progress. [5094 (89%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

141 (93%) are pending validation. [141 (93%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
10 (7%) have been successfully validated. [10 (7%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=34934623. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 1.29% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

If you're wondering about FFT sizes, these are the current FFTs in use by all SOB candidates that have been turned into workunits. That's a set that includes all in-progress tasks as well as about 2000 tasks that are ready to be sent out.

Approximately what was the percentage of removed candidates for the 5 k's during sieving?

I'm asking to estimate from the number of completed WUs how quickly n increases over time.
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1281979 * 2^485014 + 1 is prime ... no further hits up to: n = 5,700,000

Approximately what was the percentage of removed candidates for the 5 k's during sieving?

I'm asking to estimate from the number of completed WUs how quickly n increases over time.

Thanks!

Do you have the number of candidates for the remaining ranges? How far was SoB sieved/P-1 factorized?

And just out of curiosity, for which exponent size is P-1 factorization considered useful?
____________
1281979 * 2^485014 + 1 is prime ... no further hits up to: n = 5,700,000

Do you have the number of candidates for the remaining ranges? How far was SoB sieved/P-1 factorized?

And just out of curiosity, for which exponent size is P-1 factorization considered useful?

Interesting fact about the removal ratio. I noticed this in a sieve for n < 4M but wasn't sure if it remained that way for larger n.

On average 80 SoB tasks are completed each day or 16 per day and k. That is approximately 7000 n per day and k or 2.5M per year*k. Not taking into account that each task gets slower and slower...
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1281979 * 2^485014 + 1 is prime ... no further hits up to: n = 5,700,000

Day 2 task stats:

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-16 13:33:33 UTC)

9146 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 9146 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

2696 (29%) were aborted. [2696 (29%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
31 (0%) came back with some kind of an error. [31 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
723 (8%) have returned a successful result. [723 (8%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5696 (62%) are still in progress. [5696 (62%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

555 (77%) are pending validation. [555 (77%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
168 (23%) have been successfully validated. [168 (23%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35091031. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 1.74% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 3:

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-17 13:57:51 UTC)

12281 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 12281 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

3446 (28%) were aborted. [3446 (28%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
236 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [236 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1616 (13%) have returned a successful result. [1616 (13%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
6983 (57%) are still in progress. [6983 (57%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

904 (56%) are pending validation. [904 (56%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
712 (44%) have been successfully validated. [712 (44%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35235031. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 2.16% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 4:
Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-18 21:51:25 UTC)

14300 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 14300 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

3695 (26%) were aborted. [3695 (26%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
276 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [276 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2683 (19%) have returned a successful result. [2683 (19%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
7646 (53%) are still in progress. [7646 (53%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

828 (31%) are pending validation. [828 (31%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1855 (69%) have been successfully validated. [1855 (69%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35372134. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 2.56% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 5:
Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-19 15:07:02 UTC)

16733 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 16733 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

4612 (28%) were aborted. [4612 (28%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
293 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [293 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
3208 (19%) have returned a successful result. [3208 (19%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
8620 (52%) are still in progress. [8620 (52%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

859 (27%) are pending validation. [859 (27%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2349 (73%) have been successfully validated. [2349 (73%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35569702. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.13% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 6:

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-20 14:50:25 UTC)

18011 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 18011 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

4899 (27%) were aborted. [4899 (27%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
315 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [315 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
4311 (24%) have returned a successful result. [4311 (24%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
8486 (47%) are still in progress. [8486 (47%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1264 (29%) are pending validation. [1264 (29%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
3047 (71%) have been successfully validated. [3047 (71%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35595874. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.21% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 7:
Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-21 13:21:41 UTC)

20526 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 20526 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

7934 (39%) were aborted. [7934 (39%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
345 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [345 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5334 (26%) have returned a successful result. [5334 (26%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
6913 (34%) are still in progress. [6913 (34%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1464 (27%) are pending validation. [1464 (27%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
3870 (73%) have been successfully validated. [3870 (73%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35629011. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.30% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 8:

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-22 14:17:59 UTC)

22238 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 22238 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

9701 (44%) were aborted. [9701 (44%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
365 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [365 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
6382 (29%) have returned a successful result. [6382 (29%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5790 (26%) are still in progress. [5790 (26%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1529 (24%) are pending validation. [1529 (24%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
4853 (76%) have been successfully validated. [4853 (76%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35629011. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.30% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Day 9:
Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-23 13:34:24 UTC)

24768 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 24768 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

11697 (47%) were aborted. [11697 (47%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
385 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [385 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
7360 (30%) have returned a successful result. [7360 (30%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5326 (22%) are still in progress. [5326 (22%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1789 (24%) are pending validation. [1789 (24%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5571 (76%) have been successfully validated. [5571 (76%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2 (0%) were invalid. [2 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35629011. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.30% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Some friendly reminders... :)

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

When the challenge completes, we would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's (and then UPDATE the PrimeGrid project) 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.

Likewise, if you're shutting down the computer for an extended period of time, or deleting the VM (Virtual Machine), please ABORT all remaining tasks first. Also, be aware that merely shutting off a cloud server doesn't stop the billing. You have to destroy/delete the server if you don't want to continue to be charged for it.

Thank you!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

And we're done! Final stats below. Cleanup is starting now, currently 1260 tasks outstanding; 1006 affecting individual (209) scoring positions; 768 affecting team (51) scoring positions.

Challenge: Sier"pi"nski's Birthday
App: 13 (SoB-LLR)
Fast DC tasks are NOT included.
(As of 2021-03-24 13:32:38 UTC)

26743 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 26743 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

13362 (50%) were aborted. [13362 (50%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
401 (1%) came back with some kind of an error. [401 (1%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
8420 (31%) have returned a successful result. [8420 (31%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
4454 (17%) are still in progress. [4454 (17%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1465 (17%) are pending validation. [1465 (17%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
6955 (83%) have been successfully validated. [6955 (83%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2 (0%) were invalid. [2 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=35629011. The leading edge was at n=34489460 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.30% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

How outstanding tasks are affecting scoring positions? Are those outsanding tasks fast dc tasks? So if task marked invalid scoring would change?

Doing a little post challenge analysis of my results and found a comparison that was an interesting demonstration of the value of older hardware with big cache relative to newer hardware.

The two contenders:

1) i7-9700, 8-core (no HT), 3.0GHz, 12MB L3 cache, DDR4 2666 dual channel memory, AVX2/FMA3 (Coffee Lake). about $270 US on NewEgg

2) Xeon E5-2687W, 8-core (HT on, but running 50% CPU), 3.1GHz, 20MB L3 cache, DDR3 1600 quad channel memory, AVX (Sandy Bridge). about $100 US on Ebay

SoB FFT = 3M
i7-9700 run is about 135k seconds (or 37.5 hours)
E5-2687W run is about 125k seconds (or about 35 hours)

SoB FFT = 3456k
i7-9700 run is about 164k seconds (or 45.5 hours)
E5-2687W run is about 156k seconds (or about 43.5 hours)


With nearly equal clocks on these two CPUs, it seems clear that for large work like SoB, bigger cache and more memory channels trumps the newer instruction set and faster memory.

Zen 3 = 32MB/CCX so with correct affinity set to run one task on each, work isn't limited by ram speed
Zen 2 = 16MB/CCX - never tested it in depth while I owned some but it was not a good arrangement for large tasks like these. If you can't keep a task within a single CCX then you cross CCX and the scaling is not good.

Most others without enough unified cache will be limited by ram speed. I never saw cache amount matters beyond enough or not enough e.g. Skylake 6600k (6MB cache) vs 6700k (8MB cache) made no difference if the tasks required more than that. However, I think that was before multi-thread was common and I don't remember if I specifically revisited that. I don't have the 6600k any more although I might be able to do something with an i3...

Cleanup Status:
Mar 25: 512 tasks outstanding; 318 affecting individual (138) scoring positions; 127 affecting team (30) scoring positions.
Mar 26: 261 tasks outstanding; 124 affecting individual (80) scoring positions; 48 affecting team (17) scoring positions.
Mar 27: 122 tasks outstanding; 61 affecting individual (47) scoring positions; 10 affecting team (8) scoring positions.
Mar 28: 60 tasks outstanding; 30 affecting individual (24) scoring positions; 6 affecting team (6) scoring positions.
Mar 29: 28 tasks outstanding; 13 affecting individual (11) scoring positions; 2 affecting team (2) scoring positions.
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Not as quick as a 5950x though:-)

How do you cool the 9960X and what temps do you get?
____________

Is this challenge already finished?

The results are final!

During these 10 days, we completed more than 8 thousand tasks. That may not sound like a lot compared to other challenges, but the size of SOB tasks means that's equivalent to more than 550 Million credits. Unfortunately, we didn't find any new primes, but our overall output was still more than 5 times SOB's average -- or about 10 tng's!

108 teams and 476 individuals participated in the Challenge.

Top Three Individuals:
1. Pavel Atnashev
2. tng
3. vaughan

Top Three Teams:
1. Czech National Team
2. Ural Federal University
3. SETI.Germany

The next Challenge is Yuri's Night Challenge, which starts April 11. We hope to see you there! Thank you again to everyone. We appreciate your participation and hope you had fun!
____________

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

During these 10 days, we completed more than 8 thousand tasks. That may not sound like a lot compared to other challenges, but the size of SOB tasks means that's equivalent to more than 550 Million credits. Unfortunately, we didn't find any new primes, but our overall output was still more than 5 times SOB's average -- or about 10 tng's!

108 teams and 476 individuals participated in the Challenge.

During these 10 days, we completed more than 8 thousand tasks. That may not sound like a lot compared to other challenges, but the size of SOB tasks means that's equivalent to more than 550 Million credits. Unfortunately, we didn't find any new primes, but our overall output was still more than 5 times SOB's average -- or about 10 tng's!

108 teams and 476 individuals participated in the Challenge.

So one tng is around 47.6 average users? ;) thats impressive!