[Todd Madson]

FYI:

My PC machines are now at Chicken Good v2.2B and the performance increase
is significant. This Pentium M laptop I have went from 230-240 RAC to 396 so far.
(update, 413 and increasing)

The Athlon 2400 and 2800 boxes went from low 200s to over 305 (update 352) in
the case of the 2800 and the 2400 was rebuilt but it's over 165 now (update 257!)
when before it would piddle around 115.

Chicken Good is......good!

[alexkan]

Sorry to keep you guys waiting! Yes, beta testing for Core2 processors is at a point where I'd say those apps are ready for release. However, I want to do a simultaneous release for PowerPC and x86, so I'm going to hold back until the PPC side of things is coded and tested. The reason for this primarily concerns the GPL--since I need to make source code to the binaries available, the logistics are easier for me if I can make a single codebase available, instead of splitting between a bunch of different versions.

Give me a couple days to get the PowerPC builds up and running. As you may already know, there are things that I did for v7.2 for x86 that weren't in v7.1 for PPC, so these alone should provide some performance gains. It remains to be seen whether the cache tuning I did for v8 will help PPC, so that means I'll need PPC testers once the code is almost ready. For that matter, I need testers with Core Duos, since I haven't assessed the performance impact on that architecture, either.

I realize my performance tuning has been targeted more towards the leaderboards lately, but hopefully what I've learned there will soon bear fruit for everyone else as well!

[ritzl]

If you need testers, I have a G4 Powerbook and an iMac C2Duo. Let me know if I can help. And what you need in terms of feedback.

[zombie67]

E.T. is over 9000 RAC!!

I have 2x G4 machines and 2x G5 machines attached to SETI. I am willing to test if you like.

[beadman]

Two items:
1) Alex: I have a G4 1.33MHz iBook, a G4 1.67 MHz Powerbooki, and (sometimes) a G5 PowerMac 7,2 (duo) at work. Would be happy to test for you.

2) Just noticed that ET and Bad to the Bone have both had a huge number of Client Errors in the last 24 hours - hope it's just SETI messing up and not the new enhanced client.

beadman

[Bad to the bone]

Alex, you can count on my farm for the next round of testing, of-course! A variety of PPC boxes and a few Core Duos (Minis, MacBooks and a MacBookPro) are available to run the pre-release worker.

The D/L errors affect everybody, it seems. Some WU's have maxed out the error count within a few minutes. Nothing to worry at this point, I'd say.

BTW: My two workhorses have finally passed the 6k RAC today. With the public release of V8 we should see a few more MacPros in the top ten very soon.

[arkayn]

I would be happy to do some testing as well.

[halimedia]

Congratulations to E.T, Bad to the Bone and of course to alexkan for the new high scores. Staggering improvement over PPC, I must say!

I suppose an 8-core 3 GHz Mac Pro would easily break the 10'000 RAC mark. Interesting times!

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by arkayn 

I am running v5.8.15 on all 3 of my machines and have not had any problems with optimized workers.

You didn’t have to change any permissions?

I just tried the update, and I did have a problem—but it turned out to be easy to solve. I’d set S@h not to get any work and it had reported on its own when the last of its tasks finished, so all that was in the project folder was the v5.13 app and its ‘peripheral’ documents. I downloaded the seti_enhanced-i386-v7.2-core2-nographics stuff, stopped BOINC (verifying with Activity Manager), copied the files over, and restarted. A dialog came up:

BOINC ownership or permissions are not set properly; please reinstall BOINC.
(Error code -1202)

and BOINC quit when it was dismissed.

So I made a note of the permissions on the stock files, and changed the new ones accordingly. When the files were downloaded they had Owner (admin’s username), read & write; Group (admin’s username), read only; Others read only. The new settings were Owner boinc_master (still R&W); Group boinc_project, R&W (I had to change this one first, as it would grey out when the owner was changed). For the app_info.xml file I also set Others to R&W, in the hope of making it easier to tinker with if necessary. BOINC then launched without complaint, and when I allowed new work for S@h it downloaded some (and deleted the stock app &c.). It’s still running the Einstein@home tasks it was on when I interrupted it, so I can’t yet be sure everything’s tickety-boo, but it seems fine so far.

Sorry for going on so long, but the details might help another *nix newbie who gets the –1202 error.

P.S. @Alex: I would be willing to do some testing. I have available a handful of G4s (mostly 400-MHz “charcoal” models) running “Panther” and a dual-core 2.3-GHz G5 running “Tiger”. Unfortunately my partner’s iMac, featured in the above story, isn’t—for now, at least—one of her conditions for my installing BOINC on her system was “no beta testing”.

[arkayn]

What did you use to expand the files?

Stuffit, or Bom Archive helper?

[zombie67]

I just installed it on a fresh system (C2D), and I encountered the same problem. I used the default application to expand it. It happens so fast, I can't tell what application is used. For folks having this problem, here is something you can copy/paste in a terminal.

(quit BOINC)
cd /Library/Application\ Support/BOINC\ Data/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu
sudo chown boinc_master:boinc_project *
(restart BOINC)

[zombie67]

I keep getting this error with a Xeon Mac Pro, using the C2D nographics application:

MacOS Error -5000 occured in /Users/alexkan/seti/boinc/mac_build/../api/mac_icon.C line 107

Here is an example:

Result

The WU seems to validate okay, so is this really a problem?

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by arkayn 

What did you use to expand the files?
Stuffit, or Bom Archive helper?

I’m pretty sure it was the default BOMArchiveHelper.app, automatically triggered by Safari; other .zip files on the system show the ‘zipper’ icon rather than Stuffit’s ‘parcel’.

[Odysseus]

Originally Posted by zombie67 

MacOS Error -5000 occured in /Users/alexkan/seti/boinc/mac_build/../api/mac_icon.C line 107

This is a known issue, and can occur with the stock app as well (except, of course, that the path displayed is from someone else’s HD). Apparently it’s caused by BOINC’s lacking the necessary access to change the app’s icon from the generic ‘terminal screen‘ to the S@h ‘green dish’. Otherwise it seems quite harmless, and should have no effect on crunching or the validity thereof.

[Todd Madson]

Alex:
I have one G5 2.5 dual, one G4 1.25 ghz iMac and one 400 mhz PowermacG4.

I'll be glad to test.

[arkayn]

If everything goes as planned I should have a 2.0 C2D iMac starting up for me on Wednesday.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by arkayn 

If everything goes as planned I should have a 2.0 C2D iMac starting up for me on Wednesday.

You'll be pleasantly surprised at it's performance.
Mine just hit 2531 RAC w/ pre-release v8, still going up.

Not too long ago, this was Quad domain.

[arkayn]

Looks like it will be here on Thursday instead of Wednesday now.

Oh well, that is my day off and I can be here when it arrives.

[ritzl]

Agreed, pretty amazing the performance. I'm trying to bring back my old 350MHz G3 just to supplement. But also to test xGrid structures.

Have fun with it Arkayn.

[arkayn]

I will just have to do some moving around when it arrives, my eMac will become the music server (it will still crunch ) and the old iMac is going back to Apple to be recycled.

[arkayn]

My iMac is here and is currently downloading a mess of work for SETI. I just wish I had a DSL instead of dial-up right now!!

[kennet]

I have recently noticed a dramatic drop in recent average credit of over three hundred points for my Imac Core 2 Duo. The drop for my G4 PowerPC is minimal.

Has anyone else have this occur?

[kennet]

Originally Posted by kennet 

I have recently noticed a dramatic drop in recent average credit of over three hundred points for my Imac Core 2 Duo. The drop for my G4 PowerPC is minimal.

Has anyone else have this occur?

Also I notice that Boinc is only allowing me to download two work units at a time even though my preferences are asking for three days worth.

Kenn

[Bad to the bone]

Originally Posted by kennet 

Also I notice that Boinc is only allowing me to download two work units at a time even though my preferences are asking for three days worth.

Kenn

Thanks to minimum quorum = 2!

[halimedia]

Originally Posted by kennet 

I have recently noticed a dramatic drop in recent average credit of over three hundred points for my Imac Core 2 Duo. The drop for my G4 PowerPC is minimal.

Has anyone else have this occur?

Yes, I've seen the same issue with a Mac mini I modded with a T7200 C2D CPU. I assume it is due to a variety of issues that currently plague the S@H server back-end. Why it does affect C2D-machines more severely than G4s I do not know. It could be associated with fast machines not being able to get enough work to keep them busy, but that's just a guess at this point.

I have noticed on my mini that BOINC as of late has considered the box over-committed quite frequently, which results in WUs not being downloaded because already dl'ed WUs are in danger of exceeding their reporting deadline. I also have a hunch that 'dead' WUs that have been dl'ed but for some reason are never crunched may be at the heart of this. Unfortunately, I don't currently have time to look into this. Does anyone else have any insights on this?

FWIW,

Ron

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by halimedia 

Does anyone else have any insights on this?

FWIW,

Ron

FWIW, indeed. Here are some strategies I would try.

1/ Check ' activity ' is correctly set for your machine.
2/ Check prefs. On server and in BOINC , especially with reference to the settings for the amount of disk space and the amount of memory settings, not to much not to little. ( With the mac gui version 5.8.17 in view/simple view/Preferences some settings can be customized for that computer. On a PC with BOINC 5.9.3 there are many more local pref setting options.(Advanced/Preferences) presumably with the mac versions prefs catching up later. These features are in earlier versions of BOINC, can't remember when they started.)
3/ Run benchmarks and hit the update button.
4/ Set BOINC to 'no new work' and dry out the wu's. Then re-set the project.
5/ DeFrag your machine and clear any cache.
6/ If all else fails, re-set the project
7/ If the re-set fails, delete the BOINC install and re-boot, then re-install BOINC
8/ If it still won't sort it self out then

K.

[zombie67]

The drop in points is likely due to the new quorum rules.

The other issue, where S@H is allowing only 2 WUs to be downloaded is more difficult. Have you had a bunch of error results lately? Remember, BOINC reduces your daily quota every time that happens. Get enough of them, and you will drop down to a daily quota of 1. Assuming you fix the problem, it will automatically fix the limit, by increasing it by 2 for every good WU you return (or something like that).

[Todd Madson]

Can someone illustrate the new quorum rules or provide a link?

[zombie67]

minimum quorum: 2, initial replication: 3

[arkayn]

The funny thing is my eMac is going up while my 2 PC's are going down.

Of course that will stop now that the eMac is doing the iTunes thing again,

[adream]

hi there

i have been running alex's 7.2 app on my brand new 8-core mac pro for the last couple of days

the first block of WU where trashed as i failed to set my shared memory correctly humpf... im suprised its set so low but there you go, all running smoothly now

i have a question though... with 8 processes running on 8 cores is there any way to make sure they dont swap cores for any reason ?

the reason i ask is that theres talk of bottlenecks with memory etc, so if the processes are swapping then the memory overhead could slow stuff up quite alot, depending on the amount of times they swapped if any...

is there anyway to lock the task to each core ?

any ideas?

while the machine is burning in its just gonna be crunching so its an ideal time to benchmark and test new things :-)

hoping to test the new alex beta soon too !

regards

adrian

[zombie67]

You could use a BOINC client that supports CPU affinity. Crunch3r has a couple of them. However, I am not aware of any that have been compiled for the Mac.

[kennet]

Originally Posted by zombie67 

The drop in points is likely due to the new quorum rules.

The other issue, where S@H is allowing only 2 WUs to be downloaded is more difficult. Have you had a bunch of error results lately? Remember, BOINC reduces your daily quota every time that happens. Get enough of them, and you will drop down to a daily quota of 1. Assuming you fix the problem, it will automatically fix the limit, by increasing it by 2 for every good WU you return (or something like that).

I have had no error results lately at all.

[kennet]

Originally Posted by Knightrider 

FWIW, indeed. Here are some strategies I would try.

1/ Check ' activity ' is correctly set for your machine.
2/ Check prefs. On server and in BOINC , especially with reference to the settings for the amount of disk space and the amount of memory settings, not to much not to little. ( With the mac gui version 5.8.17 in view/simple view/Preferences some settings can be customized for that computer. On a PC with BOINC 5.9.3 there are many more local pref setting options.(Advanced/Preferences) presumably with the mac versions prefs catching up later. These features are in earlier versions of BOINC, can't remember when they started.)
3/ Run benchmarks and hit the update button.
4/ Set BOINC to 'no new work' and dry out the wu's. Then re-set the project.
5/ DeFrag your machine and clear any cache.
6/ If all else fails, re-set the project
7/ If the re-set fails, delete the BOINC install and re-boot, then re-install BOINC
8/ If it still won't sort it self out then

K.

I have already done all of the above. The rate is not dropping further now but is still well below what the computer has done in the past. Perhaps it will start to gain.

Kenn

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by adream 

the reason i ask is that theres talk of bottlenecks with memory etc, so if the processes are swapping then the memory overhead could slow stuff up quite alot, depending on the amount of times they swapped if any...

is there anyway to lock the task to each core ?

any ideas?

Did you try setting prefs ' Leave applications in memory while suspended ' to ' No'. ?

K.

[arkayn]

So far all the results that my new iMac has returned are waiting for the other 1 to come in so I can get credit.

[halimedia]

Originally Posted by kennet 

I have already done all of the above. The rate is not dropping further now but is still well below what the computer has done in the past. Perhaps it will start to gain.

My mini is now gaining again - almost back to normal. For a few days, I had been running boinc manually on this box, whereas I normally use a launchd script to launch boinc after startup and to start and stop it once every 24 hours to get rid of 'stuck' WUs. Now that I have returned to the launchd method, all seems well. This may be a coincidence, but the previously observed drop in RAC may have also been due to a 'stuck' WU that kept one core busy indefinitely. I've seen this before, which is why I started using the aforementioned scripts.

NB: I'm using the 5.4.9 CLI-version of the boinc client. Compared to the GUI-version, it's therefore more difficult for me to see what exactly goes on regarding computation and communication.

[adream]

Originally Posted by Knightrider 

Did you try setting prefs ' Leave applications in memory while suspended ' to ' No'. ?

K.

yes i did (after the wasted units) also i changed the shared memory so its double fixed hopefully, but i daren't set the keep in memory settings on again, as it would hose hundreds of WU if it fails

to halimedia.... berkeley has been having various problems over the past week or two, so everyones credit has dropped in some way depending on how lucky you are...

it appears things are getting back to normal, but expect more ups and downs as they are changing a few things such as the quorum change from 3 to 2 and also the new dat which is fatter ... both likely to cause hickups, not the even territory that us stats geeks like but all good science

stay happy :-)

regards

adrian

[Knightrider]

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane ? - NO - its superZombie67 !!!

Zooooooom.

K.

[zombie67]

Weeeee!

[arkayn]

My iMac is slowly moving up, but it does take a bit before it starts closing in on 2000 RAC.

[zombie67]

Originally Posted by Knightrider 

Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane ? - NO - its superZombie67 !!!

Zooooooom.

K.

Already over 6000 RAC, and at #4, in only 10 days of crunching.

[arkayn]

I am only now getting over 900, but I have only had my computer for 6 days.

[Todd Madson]

I must be getting into this too much. I had a very strange scattered dream that Alex
figured out how to program a client that stripped away "noise" from "messages" so
that actual "alien messages" could be received from blocks we got.

And this somehow was much faster than every client out there so each work unit
took about 40 seconds to process because the "noise" was removed first. But
most of the messages were indecipherable because they were in a foreign
language.

[halimedia]

Great! Finally a post about what SETI is all about!

LOL!

[halimedia]

Actually, this reminds me of a hoax screen saver that was going around in the OS 9 days. It looked like the standard seti screen saver at first, but then a signal was found, the aliens were directly connecting to your computer, and finally popped into your screen. It was great - I wish I kept it. Does anyone have this lying around?

Happy crunching!

Ron

[Todd Madson]

That would have been hilarious. I never saw that one. Anyone? I definetely want a copy!

Now Alex just needs to figure out how to get rid of the "noise" around the "messages"!

[ChillyWilly5280]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

FYI:

My PC machines are now at Chicken Good v2.2B and the performance increase
is significant.

Chicken Good is......good!

OK, I know nothing about Chicken Good, but I have to ask - is the name a tribute or reference to The Fifth Element?

[arkayn]

Don't know on that item, I know the apps work pretty good on my 2 PC's

[Todd Madson]

Simon Zadra, also known as the Chicken of Angmar (or KWSN) is the guy
who is currently authoring Windows and Linux x86 clients for Boinc/Seti
that are fast and produce far better credit than stock.

Here's a link to all the optimized clients including Alex's PPC and x86 Mac ones:
New Optimized Apps Links -- READ ONLY THREAD