[Digital Point]

Might not be the right place to ask, but I will anyway...

I have 3 Macs and a Windows machine crunching work units. The Windows machine is a 2.0Ghz P4 with 1GB RAM doing nothing else. It takes like 36 CPU hours to do a work unit. There has to be *something* wrong... My Macs crunch as follows:

Dual 1Ghz G4 (6-7 CPU hours per WU)
400Mhz G4 (10-12 CPU hours per WU)
266Mhz G3 iMac 12-14 CPU hours per WU)

It can't be some Altivec craziness because the 266 G3 (no Altivec) smokes the 2.0Ghz P4 by 300%.

Anyone know what is up with this crap-ass Windows box? Is the Windows SETI client really *that* much slower?

- Shawn

[Scotttheking]

You are running the windows screensaver. With it set to always crunch. And with graphics turned on. Am I right?
Also, is it a PC133 ram based system?
And what OS?

[Shaktai]

Got to be something wrong.

While on vacation, I played with SETI on my brother's P4 1.5ghz, and while noticibly slower then my Athlon 1900's (1.6ghz) It still did a unit in 5.5 to 6 hours. CLI version. Make sure that the Windows screensaver isn't kicking in or something else isn't running in the background. You should be doing much better.

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
You are running the windows screensaver. With it set to always crunch. And with graphics turned on. Am I right?
Also, is it a PC133 ram based system?
And what OS?

Yeah, running the screensaver version, Windows 2000 w/ 1GB of SDRAM...

- Shawn

[Scotttheking]

Everything that can be done to slow it down is being done to slow it down.
I obviously can't change the hardware, but here's what I can do.

First, download this: http://www.firedaemon.com/downloads/...e-1_5_1-GA.exe

Install it.

Also download this: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/setiathome/s...nt-cmdline.exe

Rename it to something, like, oh, seti.exe
Put it somewhere safe, in it's own folder.
Run it, set it up with your username, let it get a WU, then kill it.

Setup firedaemon, add a service, use seti.
Set it to run at boot. Check taskmanager to see that it is running. Reboot, check again.

Get rid of the screensaver, never to be used again.


Hope that helps, any questions, just ask.

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Everything that can be done to slow it down is being done to slow it down.
I obviously can't change the hardware, but here's what I can do.

First, download this: http://www.firedaemon.com/downloads/...e-1_5_1-GA.exe

Install it.

Also download this: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/setiathome/s...nt-cmdline.exe

Rename it to something, like, oh, seti.exe
Put it somewhere safe, in it's own folder.
Run it, set it up with your username, let it get a WU, then kill it.

Setup firedaemon, add a service, use seti.
Set it to run at boot. Check taskmanager to see that it is running. Reboot, check again.

Get rid of the screensaver, never to be used again.


Hope that helps, any questions, just ask.

Already switched it to the command line interface... works much faster. Banging work units out at 5 CPU hours now instead of 36. Strange it would be *that* much different, but whatever...

- Shawn

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
Already switched it to the command line interface... works much faster. Banging work units out at 5 CPU hours now instead of 36. Strange it would be *that* much different, but whatever...

- Shawn

Ok.
The firedaemon stuff is helpful if you want it to run auto at boot, and logged out, etc.

Enjoy.

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Ok.
The firedaemon stuff is helpful if you want it to run auto at boot, and logged out, etc.

Enjoy.

Good idea...

BTW, I thought it took 5 CPU hours (down from 36 CPU hours), but it only took 3 hours, 28 minutes to be exact for the first work unit with the command line. That kind of sucks how badly it smokes my dual 1Ghz G4 box (doing them at 6-7 CPU hours per WU). Oh well...

Still can't beleive how much slower the screensaver version is on Windows (10.3 times faster to be exact).

- Shawn

[wingdo]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
BTW, I thought it took 5 CPU hours (down from 36 CPU hours), but it only took 3 hours, 28 minutes to be exact for the first work unit with the command line. That kind of sucks how badly it smokes my dual 1Ghz G4 box (doing them at 6-7 CPU hours per WU). Oh well...

So the 2.0GHz P4 is churning out 2 WUs per 7 hours and the DP 1.0GHz G4 is churning out 2 WUs per 7 hours time. Correct?

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by wingdo:
So the 2.0GHz P4 is churning out 2 WUs per 7 hours and the DP 1.0GHz G4 is churning out 2 WUs per 7 hours time. Correct?

Yep...

- Shawn

[wingdo]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
Yep...

- Shawn

So then how are you being smoked? While I do agree, I'd love to get a WU done in 3.5 hours on EACH processor, but without Altivec support I don't see how it would be possible.

MHz for MHz you're keeping even with the P4.

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by wingdo:
So then how are you being smoked? While I do agree, I'd love to get a WU done in 3.5 hours on EACH processor, but without Altivec support I don't see how it would be possible.

MHz for MHz you're keeping even with the P4.

I know... I would just like to see WU done in 10 CPU minutes, that's all. Is that too much to ask?

- Shawn

[Shaktai]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
Yep...

- Shawn

Doesn't sound as though the P4 is doing anything special. SETI is memory intensive, so you can only imagine what the Macs could do if they had "real" high speed memory access. Now if that was a 2 ghz Athlon, you would see some noteworthy difference.

[ravenfan]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Hope that helps, any questions, just ask.

Thanks for that helpfull post, Scott. I have three questions, though.

1) How do I set the proxy server up to use the MacNN server? Also, is that even nessicary?

2) How can I download more than one unit at a time (so I can let it run wild durring the day).

3) How does the -verbose comand work? It would just be kind-of useful to see how things are progressing. I've tried to enter it at the end of the executable line within Firedeamon and it says that it's an invalid comand. I haven't messed with DOS since about '95 and it all seems like Klingon-shorthand now

Again, thanks for the help getting started.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by ravenfan:
Thanks for that helpfull post, Scott. I have three questions, though.

1) How do I set the proxy server up to use the MacNN server? Also, is that even nessicary?

Point the client to seti.macnn.com, port 5517.
No, it's not necessary. It's useful if you have some windows command line clients and some others, because there's a type of WU that the windows client is quite slow at, so it pushes those to other clients. Also, it lets you see times, which you may like to look at.

2) How can I download more than one unit at a time (so I can let it run wild durring the day).

Use either seti hide or seti driver instead of firedaemon, or else you have to run a local proxy.

3) How does the -verbose comand work? It would just be kind-of useful to see how things are progressing. I've tried to enter it at the end of the executable line within Firedeamon and it says that it's an invalid comand. I haven't messed with DOS since about '95 and it all seems like Klingon-shorthand now

You can't use it with firedaemon. Verbose prints on screen, and firedaemon makes a service, which always runs in the background.

Again, thanks for the help getting started.

Not a problem.

[Digital Point]

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
Point the client to seti.macnn.com, port 5517.
No, it's not necessary. It's useful if you have some windows command line clients and some others, because there's a type of WU that the windows client is quite slow at, so it pushes those to other clients. Also, it lets you see times, which you may like to look at.

Speaking of the proxy, you ever going to fix the date/time on it?

- Shawn

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
Speaking of the proxy, you ever going to fix the date/time on it?

- Shawn

It'd be nice if it would stop changing.
I'll have to hunt down an app that can sync the clock on win2k.

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by Digital Point:
Speaking of the proxy, you ever going to fix the date/time on it?

- Shawn

It's now permanently fixed, as long as my server doesn't lose time sync.