[Todd Madson]

I also have experienced a failure in my G4/400.

It once had three 80 gig IDE drives in it.

The third drive was pulled out and placed in a powered case
as auxilliary storage for my G5.

The second drive just confirmed SMART status as FAILING as
of the night before last. I can't even get it to launch to bring
up any data off of it.

Machine is down to one 80 gig drive now. Still churning away
on BOINC/Seti but I suspect it's not going to be running a year
or two from now. Six years going on seven is a long time to do
something 24/7.

Sorry to hear it, Gecko - at least you got a new machine out of
the deal! Let us know how it runs on Seti eh?

[Gecko_r7]

Thanks Todd.
I shut it down in prep. to move (moved to Las Vegas this past weekend).
Packaged it like a baby in the orig. box, no damage or anything.
One start-up cycle too many i guess. CPU1 locks-up the entire system once the CPU gets to operating temp. I was able to scrounge-up a working 1.25 card for 167FSB, but this is just to allow me to limp it along until I can get our files xferred. What a huge pain. Of course, my wife has 8 gigs of pics on the drive and I have 15gigs of music and the Apple x-fer process between the PPC and new Mactel iMac isn't working, so I'm doing this the old fashioned way. You can imagine how long it takes @ 25gigs to transfer from G4 ATA 66 drive over Firewire 400 to an external drive, then x-fer again and write to the iMac.

Argh!!! Lesson learned!
As for the G4, maybe I'll do a headless cruncher until the 1.25 CPU gives out.
Its a shame that the last of the G4s (167fsb models) are the LEAST serviceable. I could keep a sawtooth going w/ an easy cpu swap from a few different vendors.

On the plus, I've already set-up the iMactel w/ Alex's V7. This thing is stupid fast!
To anyone thinking of upgrading: $1259 for 17", C2D 2.0Ghz, 1Gb DDR2, 160Gb HD, superdrive, airport X, bluetooth and wireless KB & Mouse. I looked at a Mini, but if I wanted to use my perfectly good, only 3 years old 17" flat panel studio display, it's another $100.00 for the ADC to DVI adapter. So, a decent mini similarly equipped was same price as an 2.0Ghz upgraded iMac, but only dual 1.83 Yonah and 2megs cache (and a giant transformer box for the studio monitor). If a person wants an OS X rig and bundled software, iMac is pretty good deal for the $, features and performance. I'll probably upgrade the memory w/ a nice pair of 1GB sticks and rig a big external drive on the relative cheap. In my case, a happy ending afterall.

[arkayn]

I need to save some money up before I move up to a Intel iMac.

[beadman]

Hey, Knightrider - just saw you hit the top 20 computers over at SETI. Congratulations!

beadman

[beadman]

I just received permission to run SETI and Einstein on a 2.0 GHz G5 here at work. The problem is I only know how to have BOINC run when I'm logged in on the machine. That's a problem, as it's a central machine for anyone and I can't stay logged in on it, especially at nights and weekends. The owner doesn't mind letting it run, but I need help figuring out how to have it run when I'm not logged in.

beadman

[Gecko_r7]

Sooo,

1 day running the iMac 2.0 C2D, though certainly not under the best conditions since I've put a lot on the CPU w/ file x-fers, copying, etc.

71.61 credit per hour and still climbing w/ Alex's v7.

vs. 13.10 for P-M 1.6 Banias w/ Simon's 1.3 xB
vs. 12.59 for 1.25 G4 w/ Alex's V6-no graphics.

Wow!

[ChillyWilly5280]

Originally Posted by beadman

I just received permission to run SETI and Einstein on a 2.0 GHz G5 here at work. The problem is I only know how to have BOINC run when I'm logged in on the machine. That's a problem, as it's a central machine for anyone and I can't stay logged in on it, especially at nights and weekends. The owner doesn't mind letting it run, but I need help figuring out how to have it run when I'm not logged in.

beadman

I think you have two options:

1. Add BOINC to every users Log In/Start Up items in the Accounts Preference Pane. Of course, this requires that someone be logged in at all times. Perhaps you could create a dummy user account that has very limited privileges to run nights & weekends, configured with a locked screen saver.

2. Install the Command Line version of BOINC. I think it can be/is configured to run at startup instead of at login.

[Mark Asiala]

Originally Posted by ChillyWilly5280

I think you have two options:

2. Install the Command Line version of BOINC. I think it can be/is configured to run at startup instead of at login.

I highly recommend this option. It is what I do for all of my machines. I have my G5 set to startup at 6am when I wake up and BOINC starts right up with it, works nicely.

I can send details on how I have my machine set up if you are interested.

[tomsax]

Originally Posted by ChillyWilly5280

I think you have two options:

1. Add BOINC to every users Log In/Start Up items in the Accounts Preference Pane. Of course, this requires that someone be logged in at all times. Perhaps you could create a dummy user account that has very limited privileges to run nights & weekends, configured with a locked screen saver.

2. Install the Command Line version of BOINC. I think it can be/is configured to run at startup instead of at login.

Option 2 is the best bet: it's easier, more reliable, and requires less upkeep. Install the command line version, then use either crontab (pre-Tiger) or launchctl (Tiger and later) to keep it running all the time.

I can send you instructions for either method.

[tomsax]

SETI is making my Mac Pro unusuable. When running, it makes the UI intolerably unresponsive. I switched it to run only when the machine is inactive, but it eats up enough cycles that it kills the file sharing and Apache services. My machine has also taken to hanging when left unattended.

I'm very bummed to have to stop crunching on the Mac Pro. The machine made it up to #7 on the top computers list before the problem became intolerable.

I don't know if there's something broken with my machine, or if the OS X kernel has scheduling issues with the dual Xeon setup. I was hoping 10.4.8 would fix the problem, but it didn't. I've tried reinstalling the system from scratch twice now, and I get the same problem.



Tom Saxton

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by tomsax

Option 2 is the best bet: it's easier, more reliable, and requires less upkeep. Install the command line version, then use either crontab (pre-Tiger) or launchctl (Tiger and later) to keep it running all the time.

I can send you instructions for either method.

HI Tom,

I'll take you up on those instructions, especially using launchctl.
I'm going to try and set-up a headless G4 that I can control via ssh from the iMac.
Would you e-mail to preslerd945 at mac dot com Thanks!

[jedimstr]

Originally Posted by tomsax

SETI is making my Mac Pro unusuable. When running, it makes the UI intolerably unresponsive. I switched it to run only when the machine is inactive, but it eats up enough cycles that it kills the file sharing and Apache services. My machine has also taken to hanging when left unattended.

I'm very bummed to have to stop crunching on the Mac Pro. The machine made it up to #7 on the top computers list before the problem became intolerable.

I don't know if there's something broken with my machine, or if the OS X kernel has scheduling issues with the dual Xeon setup. I was hoping 10.4.8 would fix the problem, but it didn't. I've tried reinstalling the system from scratch twice now, and I get the same problem.



Tom Saxton

Odd, I'm not having cpu scheduling problems on my 3Ghz 4GB FDIMM MacPro. I have SETI running all the time (set to run even when active) and I compress and edit videos (HD and SD clips) in Final Cut Pro, Compressor all day long. I also edit plenty of RAW photos in Aperture which is memory/cpu/gpu hungry like almost no other app out there. SETI is doing as it should by only using my spare cycles allowing me to crunch away with my work at pretty much full speed and still make it to #4 on SETI's Top Computer List. My MPro is as responsive with BOINC on as it is with BOINC Snoozing or when it isn't running at all.

3 Things that you may want to try:
1. Use Alex's v7 SETI worker and the beta 5.4.9 Team MacNN Universal client available here.
2. Make sure you have as few PPC/Rosetta processes running as possible. Under Activity Monitor you can sort by "Kind" and see if you have any legacy services running. I only have Snapz Pro running as a PPC process and I wish Ambrosiasoft would hurry up and get a Universal version out. PPC/Rosetta processes can definitely rob your system of memory/cpu cycles.
3. Try running the Combo update for 10.4.8 from an external drive/emergency boot partition, and select your main boot drive as the target. Apple has a notice out for Mac Pro problems on some 10.4.8 installs causing Kernel Panics on startup.... though this doesn't describe your issues, it probably wouldn't hurt.

[Andy Cotton]

Quote:
Originally Posted by tomsax
SETI is making my Mac Pro unusuable. When running, it makes the UI intolerably unresponsive. I switched it to run only when the machine is inactive, but it eats up enough cycles that it kills the file sharing and Apache services. My machine has also taken to hanging when left unattended.

I'm very bummed to have to stop crunching on the Mac Pro. The machine made it up to #7 on the top computers list before the problem became intolerable.

I don't know if there's something broken with my machine, or if the OS X kernel has scheduling issues with the dual Xeon setup. I was hoping 10.4.8 would fix the problem, but it didn't. I've tried reinstalling the system from scratch twice now, and I get the same problem.



Your problem with slow running should be diagnosable. Maybe you know this already, but Seti should run as a "nice" process (as can be seen in activity monitor) and faithfully not interfere with other running processes. I have read before that there is a preference (somewhere) that sets the level of relative priority for a process, and you can change that priority by editing the preference. I'm sure somebody knows how to check/do this. As long as there is enough RAM to go round. Good luck, shame to have to back off such a productive cruncher.

[beadman]

Mark, please send me the details. The computer is runningOS 10.4.x. I'm not very conversant with unix or command line stuff, so details would help. Email is beadman at mac dot com

Thanks!
beadman

[bobpalmer]

Originally Posted by beadman

I just received permission to run SETI and Einstein on a 2.0 GHz G5 here at work. The problem is I only know how to have BOINC run when I'm logged in on the machine. That's a problem, as it's a central machine for anyone and I can't stay logged in on it, especially at nights and weekends. The owner doesn't mind letting it run, but I need help figuring out how to have it run when I'm not logged in.

beadman

Run the unix CLI version. I start mine using launchd, so BOINC starts during the boot process.

[Gulliver64]

Originally Posted by alexkan

I know most of these WU links are dead, but it's important to look at the actual clock speed that people are running these chips at, since the chip identifies itself as its stock clock speed, rather than what speed it's currently running at. I looked at those results a while back, and IIRC the ones that were turning in faster times than the G5s were overclocked.

As for what's been happening on my end, here's a prerelease version of v7 for Intel. This was as far as I could get for now, since halimedia temporarily needs his Mac mini back for other things. It's also (finally) compiled with ICC and IPP, which gives a little extra boost. In general, no miracles between v6.1 and v7, but a noticeable speed gain nonetheless.

Try it out and let me know what you think. I wasn't totally finished implementing new tweaks, but hopefully it should be stable and correct enough to be usable. The real version of v7 for PPC will be soon to follow, since none of my PPC dev tools are Intel-specific.

And please, please, if you have a Mac Pro, run v7 and post links to your results! (It doesn't seem like anyone has one yet, though...)

Hi alex,

it's been almost a month since you posted the prerelease v7 for Intel. What happened to the PPC-version? Anytime soon?

Thanks for your commitment!

[Todd Madson]

Interesting someone is mentioning a MacPro with certain apps making the thing
intolerably slow:

I tried running a music session on a MacPro at a store (2.66 dual with 1 gb ram)
using Logic Express. I brought in a DVD-ROM with one of my own sessions from
the same version of the application and copied it to the hard drive of the machine
in question.


This session was something that makes my dual G5 barely shrug at.....
(64 tracks, every track had at least two effects, compressors, platinum verbs,
gold verb, tons of delays and choruses, etc.)

My G5 does very well with this, but I wanted to see how much better the
MacPros do.

Well, this thing with four theoretical processors was practically shuddering and
quaking and seizing up was experiencing constant errors indicating it was having
problems running the session. Shades of my old G4 all over again! I wanted to
see how well these new boxes would run my stuff and I was horrified to find that
my G5 runs it significantly more efficiently.

I thought for sure it had to be broken - no apps were being run in the background,
and it wasn't being used as a webserver or running any other things.

I figured it had to be an energy saving setting or something because it was almost
like someone shut off two of the cores or something - I've never seen anything
quite like it and the user interface was shuddering along like an old jalopy.

I'm told that the Mac Pro apps are all pretty much converted over to x86 so it
shouldn't be a problem with Rosetta translation.

I wonder if that particular MacPro had some kind of serious problem....

[zombie67]

Did you use the Universal version of Logic Express? Some programs are terribly slow with rosetta.

Why do you say "four theoretical processors"? There should be four *actual* processors unless someone pulled out one of the chips.

[jedimstr]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Interesting someone is mentioning a MacPro with certain apps making the thing
intolerably slow:

I tried running a music session on a MacPro at a store (2.66 dual with 1 gb ram)
using Logic Express. I brought in a DVD-ROM with one of my own sessions from
the same version of the application and copied it to the hard drive of the machine
in question.

...snip...
I wonder if that particular MacPro had some kind of serious problem....

I bet the Logic Express or Logic Pro that was installed on the MacPro at the Apple store you tested on wasn't the latest update.

Check this link: Apple - Support - Downloads - Logic Express Update 7.2.3

From that page:
Logic Express 7.2.3 addresses performance issues when Logic Express 7 is used on Mac Pro and G5 Quad computers. Logic Express 7.2.3 is recommended for all Mac Pro and G5 Quad users. An existing Logic Express 7.2.1 or Logic Express 7.2.2 installation is required for this update.

Note: Logic Express 7.2.3 is optimized for PowerPC G4, G5 and Intel based Macs with up to 2 dual-core processors


There is a similar update for Logic Pro: Apple - Support - Downloads - Logic Pro Update 7.2.3

Both updates were just posted on Sept. 27th.

[Todd Madson]

That had to be it then, I just couldn't believe how bad the performance was.

I bet the upgrade fixes that issue - and it wasn't an Apple store (CompUSA,
Edina, MN) so that might explain the lack of software upgrades - I find that
most of the Apple stores are up to date with regards to that sort of thing.

Back to an actual Seti @ Home related issue: I've got a friend with a
Dual Core G5 2.0 ghz Machine has 2.0 gigs of ram, we've set up Alex's
client on it with the performance set to Maximum and Nap mode is off.

The thing is performing less than half as well as my G5 2.5 dual.

He's slower than I am but has larger caches and should theoretically
do pretty well but is doing rather poorly. Any ideas on that one?

His RAC barely cracks 500, mine is pushing 1200.
His "results" field is '59' mine is '220'.

The only thing I can think of that might be a possible cumulative
slowdown is he's got the thing set to change his desktop background
every 5-10 minutes or so but it's not like he's having it change every
30 seconds or something.

Ideas on how to speed him up?

[jedimstr]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

That had to be it then, I just couldn't believe how bad the performance was.

I bet the upgrade fixes that issue - and it wasn't an Apple store (CompUSA,
Edina, MN) so that might explain the lack of software upgrades - I find that
most of the Apple stores are up to date with regards to that sort of thing.

Back to an actual Seti @ Home related issue: I've got a friend with a
Dual Core G5 2.0 ghz Machine has 2.0 gigs of ram, we've set up Alex's
client on it with the performance set to Maximum and Nap mode is off.

The thing is performing less than half as well as my G5 2.5 dual.

He's slower than I am but has larger caches and should theoretically
do pretty well but is doing rather poorly. Any ideas on that one?

His RAC barely cracks 500, mine is pushing 1200.
His "results" field is '59' mine is '220'.

The only thing I can think of that might be a possible cumulative
slowdown is he's got the thing set to change his desktop background
every 5-10 minutes or so but it's not like he's having it change every
30 seconds or something.

Ideas on how to speed him up?

Check his Activity Monitor and sort by %CPU. Watch it for awhile, especially when the 5-10 minute desktop change occurs. A repeating (or always running) service with higher cpu priority could definitely put a dent in crunchtime. Also, the RAC grows/shrinks over time as a moving average, so that may be a factor. A better/quicker test may be to compare on boincstats.com the individual host's daily point value.

[alexkan]

Originally Posted by Gulliver64

it's been almost a month since you posted the prerelease v7 for Intel. What happened to the PPC-version? Anytime soon?

It's coming, it's coming...I've had less time to code recently, when you consider both that my day job sometimes becomes my evening job as well, and that my brain is sometimes too tired to keep coding after I get home.

Once I get my build system back up to speed on my PowerBook, and take a crack at this pulse-finding preplanning that Josef Segur has implemented in some test apps, I'll get v7 for PPC out. I might even put out a refresh of v7 for Intel, if I have the energy.

[Todd Madson]

Hang in there, Alex. I've also had the "my brain has thought all day and it can't
think anymore without breaking" syndrome. "Stop! Brain cannot think!"

I ended up getting a membership at a health club and that's helped me a lot, I seem
to be more resistant to bad colds that go around here like mad and have gotten slightly
addicted to the working out process.

I'll check out my friends' G5. I have another suspicion about what might be
causing it but will have to look at it first.

[tomsax]

Originally Posted by jedimstr

Odd, I'm not having cpu scheduling problems on my 3Ghz 4GB FDIMM MacPro. I have SETI running all the time (set to run even when active) and I compress and edit videos (HD and SD clips) in Final Cut Pro, Compressor all day long. I also edit plenty of RAW photos in Aperture which is memory/cpu/gpu hungry like almost no other app out there. SETI is doing as it should by only using my spare cycles allowing me to crunch away with my work at pretty much full speed and still make it to #4 on SETI's Top Computer List. My MPro is as responsive with BOINC on as it is with BOINC Snoozing or when it isn't running at all.

3 Things that you may want to try:
1. Use Alex's v7 SETI worker and the beta 5.4.9 Team MacNN Universal client available here.
2. Make sure you have as few PPC/Rosetta processes running as possible. Under Activity Monitor you can sort by "Kind" and see if you have any legacy services running. I only have Snapz Pro running as a PPC process and I wish Ambrosiasoft would hurry up and get a Universal version out. PPC/Rosetta processes can definitely rob your system of memory/cpu cycles.
3. Try running the Combo update for 10.4.8 from an external drive/emergency boot partition, and select your main boot drive as the target. Apple has a notice out for Mac Pro problems on some 10.4.8 installs causing Kernel Panics on startup.... though this doesn't describe your issues, it probably wouldn't hurt.

I have a bare minimum of PowerPC apps running. I also wouldn't expect them to be a ongoing performance problem. Rosetta translates them into Intel code as needed, then they are just Intel apps. With 3GB of RAM, the extra memory footprint of those apps should not be an issue, and I'm not seeing any unusual memory swapping activity.

I have tried the official BOINC 5.4.9 and the alpha 5.6.4, with the regular S@H client and AlexKan's enhanced client. I get the same results with all combinations. Right now I am running off of a clean install of 10.4.7 on an external drive with only the bare minimum of third party software installed. The UI performance is good, although some things like dragging windows seem barely jerky. I am however still seeing the same strangeness in Activity Monitor.

When I have SETI running on the Mac Pro, I see the kernel_task eating up a bit more than one core. In Activity Monitor, if I change the dropdown to show all processes, I see the four SETI tasks getting about 65% of a core and kernel_task getting 105% of a core. In the CPU summary section at the bottom, I get User (Other Apps) 6%, System (kernel_task, etc) 28%, Nice (S@H) 66% and Idle at 0%.

I don't expect that the S@H client is doing much that gets handled by the kernel (I/O, swapping, networks, USB/Firewire communication, etc). This is supported by what I see on my Mac Book Pro and iMac Core Duo. On those two machines, the two SETI tasks get 98% of a core and kernel_task eats up a tiny fraction of the total CPU (less than 1%).

The kernel_task strangeness persists even if I quit the few PowerPC apps I usually run.

Can you tell me what Activity Monitor shows on your Mac Pro when SETI is running with nothing else going on?

[jedimstr]

Originally Posted by tomsax

I have a bare minimum of PowerPC apps running. I also wouldn't expect them to be a ongoing performance problem. Rosetta translates them into Intel code as needed, then they are just Intel apps. With 3GB of RAM, the extra memory footprint of those apps should not be an issue, and I'm not seeing any unusual memory swapping activity.

I have tried the official BOINC 5.4.9 and the alpha 5.6.4, with the regular S@H client and AlexKan's enhanced client. I get the same results with all combinations. Right now I am running off of a clean install of 10.4.7 on an external drive with only the bare minimum of third party software installed. The UI performance is good, although some things like dragging windows seem barely jerky. I am however still seeing the same strangeness in Activity Monitor.

When I have SETI running on the Mac Pro, I see the kernel_task eating up a bit more than one core. In Activity Monitor, if I change the dropdown to show all processes, I see the four SETI tasks getting about 65% of a core and kernel_task getting 105% of a core. In the CPU summary section at the bottom, I get User (Other Apps) 6%, System (kernel_task, etc) 28%, Nice (S@H) 66% and Idle at 0%.

I don't expect that the S@H client is doing much that gets handled by the kernel (I/O, swapping, networks, USB/Firewire communication, etc). This is supported by what I see on my Mac Book Pro and iMac Core Duo. On those two machines, the two SETI tasks get 98% of a core and kernel_task eats up a tiny fraction of the total CPU (less than 1%).

The kernel_task strangeness persists even if I quit the few PowerPC apps I usually run.

Can you tell me what Activity Monitor shows on your Mac Pro when SETI is running with nothing else going on?

I've posted a screengrab of my Activity Monitor here:
http://homepage.mac.com/jedimstr_/fi...onitorSETI.png
As you can see, the behavior is closer to what your Mac Book Pro and iMac is doing, i.e. running correctly and yielding processor priority as needed.

There are a few things your Mac Pro's kernel_task could be occupied with:

• Hung Spotlight indexing - in this case, you should reset Spotlight.
• Not fully compatible/older device drivers - make sure all your peripherals have the latest drivers. Preferably Universal/Intel.
• Some other application (PPC or otherwise) that's not playing "nice" with Nice.
• If you also have an occasional hung mirroragent along with kernel_task's busy behavior, it could be the usual .Mac slowness. Try turning your iDisk's settings to Manual Sync or deactivate the local iDisk altogether.
• You may also want to selectively test each item you have in your "Login Items" by deactivating/reactivating them one at a time. One of those Daemons may be keeping kernel_task busy.

[beadman]

Originally Posted by jedimstr

I've posted a screengrab of my Activity Monitor here:
http://homepage.mac.com/jedimstr_/fi...onitorSETI.png
As you can see, the behavior is closer to what your Mac Book Pro and iMac is doing, i.e. running correctly and yielding processor priority as needed.

There are a few things your Mac Pro's kernel_task could be occupied with:

• Hung Spotlight indexing - in this case, you should reset Spotlight.
• Not fully compatible/older device drivers - make sure all your peripherals have the latest drivers. Preferably Universal/Intel.
• Some other application (PPC or otherwise) that's not playing "nice" with Nice.
• If you also have an occasional hung mirroragent along with kernel_task's busy behavior, it could be the usual .Mac slowness. Try turning your iDisk's settings to Manual Sync or deactivate the local iDisk altogether.
• You may also want to selectively test each item you have in your "Login Items" by deactivating/reactivating them one at a time. One of those Daemons may be keeping kernel_task busy.

I had a problem with my Palm drivers eating up a lot of cpu cycles when I first got my MBP. I finally deleted all the palm files (palm desktop, trasnport monitor, etc.) and reinstalled to solve the problem. I found that Transport Monitor was the problem when I forced-quit it in Activity Monitor, and activity monitor suddenly cleared up with almost all the red stuff disappearing. I think there was another app named System Sync that was being caused to run a lot by the transport monitor.

Claude

[alexkan]

Anyone interested in testing a PPC beta of v7.1? Drop me a PM if you do...I want to see it successfully crunch a couple real-world WUs before I release it into the wild. Yes, I'm calling it v7.1 because it's sufficiently different from the Intel v7 to merit its own point release.

An interesting note...this release will mark the end of feature parity between Intel and PPC (not that it was around for long), since some of the changes I've made to create v7.1 for PPC won't be back-portable to Intel, and some of the things I want to do to Intel for its v7.1 will probably be a performance loss on PPC. Don't fret, though! This just means that you're getting the best apps possible for each architecture.

Hello; i'm not in team MAC NN but i use your great App of SETI; this app is write in C/C++ ; you use intel compilers for MACintel so what would be well is to use the IBM compilers for PPC but like intel compilers it is paying (200 to 600 dollards)

IBM Software - VisualAge C++ - XL C/C++ Advanced Edition for Mac OS X
IBM - Getting Started, XL C/C++ V6.0 Advanced Edition for Mac OS X

"Integration with the Xcode development environment"

[Todd Madson]

Alex: pm'ed.

What specific features will be unique to PPC and Intel versions respectively?

[adream]

me too alex, count me in for a test run

i have pm'ed you

regards

adream

[dtsang]

pm'd too... I can test

[alexkan]

Haha, it feels like my entire installed user base has volunteered to beta test v7.1...

Those of you who got in early found out that I pulled the clients because of initial worries about validation. Those have subsided, but just so things don't get too hectic for me, I'd like to restrict testing to those of you who have Shark and know how to gather traces. Special preference given to those of you with G4s (that are preferably not 1.67 GHz like my own PowerBook).

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by alexkan 

I'd like to restrict testing to those of you who have Shark and know how to gather traces. Special preference given to those of you with G4s (that are preferably not 1.67 GHz like my own PowerBook).

PM'd you. Count me in if I can help w/ G4 1.25 BTW, also have Shark on iMactel C2D.
Regards.

[Todd Madson]

Um, weird thing happened. Got home from work yesterday to find my G5
was not running Seti at all.

It was like the app auto-quit and the machine was basically COLD (I'm in
Minnesota so it's not summer here at all now) and it hadn't ran for hours
and temperatures were as down as they get with this box - it was like it
was started cold.

I relaunched the app and took a peek to check if the machine rebooted or
something - no sign of that. No, my wife doesn't mess with it at all since
she has her own Mac to play with.

So it appears that Boinc Manager auto-quit and took the Seti crunchers down
with it. But no error message or visible evidence it was a crash of some sort.

Anyone experience this?

[Knightrider]

There has been some discussion on the boinc-opt list about a 64 bit version of BOINC (manager I assume) for an amd machine. I fell to wondering if a 64 bit version would improve performance on G5's, manager and/or client.

Any thoughts anyone?

K.

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

It was like the app auto-quit and the machine was basically COLD

Did anything auto-update?

K.

[zombie67]

I am running v7 no graphics (intel). All of the results show this error, but seem to be validating okay. Is this normal?

Results for computer

Here is a sample:

Result



(core_client_version)5.6.4(/core_client_version)
<![CDATA[
<stderr_txt>
MacOS Error -5000 occured in /Users/alexkan/seti/boinc/mac_build/../api/mac_icon.C line 107
MacOS Error -5000 occured in /Users/alexkan/seti/boinc/mac_build/../api/mac_icon.C line 107
OS X optimized S@H Enhanced application by Alex Kan
Version info: OS X SSE3 (Intel, Core Duo-optimized v7-nographics) V5.13 by Alex Kan

Work Unit Info:
...............
WU true angle range is : 6.177039

Flopcounter: 3234191171114.356445

Spike count: 1
Pulse count: 1
Triplet count: 1
Gaussian count: 0
</stderr_txt>
]]>

[Gecko_r7]

Wow, this is impressive.

UPDATE: This morning,the iMactel 2GHz was #220 on Seti's Top Computer list at 1330 RAC (still climbing) after only 17 days and is the #1 ranked "non-quad Mac"

I know, it's a statistic like "yards per carry in the 4th quarter when behind by 10 points or more", but not a bad showing by a 2nd-string running back (to the starting Pros)

Still, there's a heck of a lot of computers out there crunching.
So many MacPros already on the list.
Also noticed that Team MacNN RAC has risen substantially with all the new Pro muscle contributing.

Mac and our team looks to be pretty well represented.

No doubt Alex's v7.1 is the gatorade fueling such a strong showing

[tomsax]

Originally Posted by jedimstr 

I've posted a screengrab of my Activity Monitor here:
http://homepage.mac.com/jedimstr_/fi...onitorSETI.png
As you can see, the behavior is closer to what your Mac Book Pro and iMac is doing, i.e. running correctly and yielding processor priority as needed.

I called up Apple support this morning to see if maybe I could make some progress on this problem. I was afraid that after I complained that the machine gets sluggish when S@H is occupying all four cores, they'd just say "well, don't do that."

Instead, I got a great response from a really helpful tech. We did the obvious to rule out the hard drive and the third party memory upgrade, then he set me up to get my CPUs replaced. My symptom is apparently specifically described on page 140 of the service manual. So, hopefully I'll have this solved and be back to crunching SETI data next week.

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions.

[Knightrider]

Originally Posted by zombie67 

I am running v7 no graphics (intel). All of the results show this error, but seem to be validating okay. Is this normal?
]>

Seems to be, i get the same

I mentioned it to Alex, but no response so far. The wu's validate ok.

K.

[beadman]

I'm not g etting any errors on my MBP Core Duo 2.16 GHz. Here's what it says:

<core_client_version>5.4.9</core_client_version>
<stderr_txt>
OS X optimized S@H Enhanced application by Alex Kan
Version info: OS X SSE3 (Intel, Core Duo-optimized v7-nographics) V5.13 by Alex Kan

Work Unit Info:
...............
WU true angle range is : 3.322609

Flopcounter: 3350234327557.882812

Spike count: 2
Pulse count: 0
Triplet count: 1
Gaussian count: 0
</stderr_txt>

I'm running Darwin 8.7.1 (OS X 10.4.7). Are you already upgraded to 10.4.8?

beadman

[beadman]

Originally Posted by Gecko_r7 

Wow, this is impressive.

This morning,the iMactel 2GHz was #242 on Seti's Top Computer list at 1238 RAC (still climbing) after only 15 days and is the #1 ranked "non-quad Mac"

You're right in front of me, then - my MBP is at 1235 RAC today (I'm "C" in the SETI world)

Mac and our team looks to be pretty well represented.

No doubt Alex's v7.1 is the gatorade fueling such a strong showing

I agree. Without Alex's work, we'd be nowhere near as high. As of today, 15 of the top 20 computers are Mac, and I believe there are 5 Team MacNN members in the top 20!

beadman

[Gecko_r7]

An interesting post on the S@H main board from Crunch3r:
Seti for 64bit prosessors??

"P.S. the fastes app. available atm is alex kan's v7 for i386, it outperforms any app. available...
I've tested it on my P4D and compared it to my fastes one (was one of those 60+ credit WU's ar was 0.462...)... it's about 1500 sec. faster..."

Well, we've all known that Alex's are the speediest aps around for quite some time, haven't we?
Keep it up Alex!

[arkayn]

Another replay from Crunch3r has...

P.S. So Alex Kan if you're reading this... don't use Accelerate Framework ! use Intels MKL for i386 builds :-)

[zombie67]

Originally Posted by beadman 

I'm running Darwin 8.7.1 (OS X 10.4.7). Are you already upgraded to 10.4.8?

Yep. I'm on 10.4.8.

[Todd Madson]

So Crunch3r reappears. I figured he'd eventually reappear - he was just too involved in
the whole project to vanish forever.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson 

So Crunch3r reappears. I figured he'd eventually reappear - he was just too involved in
the whole project to vanish forever.

He's actually been posting on the main board & Beta (and a few time's at Simon's) the past several weeks. He also just posted a new native 64-bit x86 BOINC client on his own site for public download, though he now chooses to keep his S@H optimizing efforts private.
Still, he does continue to offer some tips, assistance etc. to other optimizers, Alex included, based on his own recent experiences and optimizing efforts.

[Gecko_r7]

Originally Posted by beadman 

You're right in front of me, then - my MBP is at 1235 RAC today (I'm "C" in the SETI world)

I agree. Without Alex's work, we'd be nowhere near as high. As of today, 15 of the top 20 computers are Mac, and I believe there are 5 Team MacNN members in the top 20!

beadman

UPDATE: As of 10/24. iMac now RAC =1464 & #176 on list!

[Todd Madson]

Ånd just for a comparison, my G5 2.5 dual w/ 2.5 gigs of ram:
RAC has not been any higher than 1200 that I can see. I'll keep an eye on it,
I had a router outage that took me offline for a bit.

Using intel compilers for x86 and GCC for Other CPUs it is usual x86 App works faster than others;
it's not surprizing.