TPU's WCG/BOINC Team

[brandonwh64]

Special motherboard getting delivered today :

 

[librin.so.1]

more machines == more runtime
which means [Ion] is going to reduce his time needed to hit the next age in his runtime milestones.
Though, it would be awesome if [Ion] brought in enough "OMFD! MOAR COARS!!" to hit a millenia of runtime in a couple of years

 

[xvi]

Special motherboard getting delivered today :

PICTURES!

(Edit: Less enthusiasm. I thought it was a multi-proc board for some reason. But still... Pictures?)
(Edit2: "Getting delivered" not "Delivered". I'll just sit on my hands now.)

 

[Nordic]

Check BIOS for any wrong setting, if you recently updated drivers go back to the previous one, check whether thermal paste is starting to dry out.

I backed off all overclocks. It is a reinstall so most if not all drivers are new. Thermal paste is fine, my temps under load are below 50c ( watercooled).

Check the event log when the wu's error out- it may give some info that can be used to fix the issue....

The windows event log? Will do.



Was out of town visiting family for a day thus this kinda late response.

 

[Norton]

The windows event log? Will do.

The Event Log under Advanced in your BOINC Manager (see pic)

 

[Nordic]

The error.

10/3/2013 1:59:05 PM | World Community Grid | [error] Failed to open init file slots/0/init_data.xml

 

[Norton]

The error.

Maybe there's some file corruption?

Things I would try:

- Set to "no new tasks"
- Remove/Detach project
- Shutdown BOINC Manager
- Remove/delete contents of C:> ProgramData>BOINC>project>www.worldcommuninygrid.com
- restart rig> restart BOINC Manager> attach to project*
- set to "Allow new tasks"
* this should clear out any garbage from an old setup and download fresh files

Otherwise, I would try a reinstall of any version 7.0.4.0 or later (manually delete any old BOINC program or data folders after uninstall

 

[xvi]

Performance increase of Linux over Windows			
Processor			Win	Lin	Performance of Linux over Win
Intel Pentium 4  3.00GHz	44.67	54.90	122.91%
Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz	120.83	153.43	126.98%
Intel Core i3 2120 3.30GHz	159.33	186.40	116.99%
Intel Core i3 3220 3.30GHz	175.47	209.40	119.34%
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz	184.90	233.87	126.48%
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz	274.8	322.53	117.37%

A quick copy/paste of what I've been playing around with. Points are the average of the three projects on their respective OSes. Took forever just to get it all set up in OpenOffice. Will add the few AMD Opteron procs to the comparison when I get home.

Data taken from the link Norton pointed out earlier.

 

[Nordic]

So that file that it could not open, it could not open because it did not exist. I removed and readded WCG and it downloaded WU's. The CEP2 wu is running, which gave me problems before, and the FAH wu's are all error. This is just strange. I am going to reinstall boinc after it finishs this CEP2 wu.

I removed and reattached the WCG project. The init_data.xml exists now, but still produces the error. Pshh boinc.




And regarding XVI's numbers there... Very interesting. I wonder why first gen I series get a near 26% boost while the newer stuff gets ~17%

 

[[Ion]]

Performance increase of Linux over Windows			
Processor			Win	Lin	Performance of Linux over Win
Intel Pentium 4  3.00GHz	44.67	54.90	122.91%
Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz	120.83	153.43	126.98%
Intel Core i3 2120 3.30GHz	159.33	186.40	116.99%
Intel Core i3 3220 3.30GHz	175.47	209.40	119.34%
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz	184.90	233.87	126.48%
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz	274.8	322.53	117.37%

A quick copy/paste of what I've been playing around with. Points are the average of the three projects on their respective OSes. Took forever just to get it all set up in OpenOffice. Will add the few AMD Opteron procs to the comparison when I get home.

Data taken from the link Norton pointed out earlier.

Awesome, thank you!

My experience is that the difference may be even higher--see two of my i7s as an example. Both are pretty much identical in terms of specs--an i7-2x00k at 4.4GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and an Asus P67/Z68 board. The only meaningful difference is operating system. First is Salzburg, which is running Windows 7 Professional x64:

(ignore the massive shifts from day-to-day; due the way I have things set up it only reports WUs every other day)

Next is Stuttgart, otherwise practically identical but with Linux Mint 15 x64:

Both systems sit untouched and are "used" only for crunching. I'm convinced that unless otherwise necessary, Linux by far makes the best crunching OS

 

[brandonwh64]

Well got my new motherboard yesterday but wont post with the xeon CPU. I do not know if its bios related or the chip is dead... I have some options, get a cheap CPU to flash, order a bios from somewhere or just scrap the project.. Kinda disheartening

 

[xvi]

Well got my new motherboard yesterday but wont post with the xeon CPU. I do not know if its bios related or the chip is dead... I have some options, get a cheap CPU to flash, order a bios from somewhere or just scrap the project.. Kinda disheartening

=/
Scrapping projects is never fun. I vote cheap CPU, then sell it for a decent chunk of your money back. Can't give up now!

 

[brandonwh64]

=/
Scrapping projects is never fun. I vote cheap CPU, then sell it for a decent chunk of your money back. Can't give up now!

I made an offer for a G6950 CPU on ebay and if he accepts I will try it and see if it will post if so then I will flash to the latest and try to xeon quad again.

 

[mstenholm]

Awesome, thank you!

My experience is that the difference may be even higher--see two of my i7s as an example. Both are pretty much identical in terms of specs--an i7-2x00k at 4.4GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and an Asus P67/Z68 board. The only meaningful difference is operating system. First is Salzburg, which is running Windows 7 Professional x64:
http://i.imgur.com/fs6lfOD.png
(ignore the massive shifts from day-to-day; due the way I have things set up it only reports WUs every other day)

Next is Stuttgart, otherwise practically identical but with Linux Mint 15 x64:
http://i.imgur.com/qqzCpfR.png

Both systems sit untouched and are "used" only for crunching. I'm convinced that unless otherwise necessary, Linux by far makes the best crunching OS

I have only Linux on one rig but it is remote and I can't get it to work with my USB-dongle. My past experience is that Linux is at least 20% faster (some projects closer to 50%) then on a WIN x64 platform. If you are a better Linux nerd then me then go for Linux for a dedicated rig.

On a side note the Core16 GPU (folding at 1/25th of the Core17 output ) is now re-started and with that 12 threads of mainly CEP2

 

[xvi]

A quick copy/paste of what I've been playing around with. Points are the average of the three projects on their respective OSes. Took forever just to get it all set up in OpenOffice. Will add the few AMD Opteron procs to the comparison when I get home.
Data taken from the link Norton pointed out earlier.

There are some interesting things to note. The Intel Core i5-2500 and the Core i5-2500k are effectively the same processor on paper, but the 2500k has a higher average (see below). I'm assuming this is since the 2500k is commonly and easily overclocked. This proves that the data is indeed dirty, but also shows what "can be expected".

Avg	OS	Proc Name
256.13	Win	Intel Core i5 2500 3.30GHz
274.80	Win	Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz
190.90	Win	Intel Core i7 2600 3.40GHz
197.87	Win	Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz

..and yes, I had to double check, but you are reading that correctly. For reasons I don't fully understand, the Core i5 apparently beats the Core i7 overall. Again, it was taken from this data.

C/Hr-faah	C/Hr-fahv	C/hr-cep2	Avg		OS	Full Name
313		238.9		216.5		256.13		Win	Intel Core i5 2500 3.30GHz
238		178.5		156.2		190.9		Win	Intel Core i7 2600 3.40GHz
76.04%		74.72%		72.15%		74.53%

Edit of sudden realization: I'm starting to suspect this is all per core. The Core i7 is slower because hyper-threading ultimately slows down each work unit (by ~25-28%), but allows for twice the number of work units to be run at once. All work here is measured in CPU time per work unit. I'll update my chart with core count and take that in to consideration when reporting final performance.
This explains why the 4 core/4 thread i5-2500 appears to beat even the the 6 core/12 thread i7-3960X.

Awesome, thank you!
Both systems sit untouched and are "used" only for crunching. I'm convinced that unless otherwise necessary, Linux by far makes the best crunching OS

Higher performance and "free as in free beer", as the saying goes. Pretty simple to set up too, if you're going with Ubuntu. I hear there isn't much of any performance increase for AMD, but I'll check that out in a second.
Playing with those numbers, that's a 169.06% increase. That's insane!

..and I just realized I'm crunching numbers about crunching numbers.

 

[librin.so.1]

...crunchseption.

 

[brandonwh64]

I made an offer for a G6950 CPU on ebay and if he accepts I will try it and see if it will post if so then I will flash to the latest and try to xeon quad again.

Deal fell through, he wants full price for the chip when I have seen I3-530's go for that so I declined the offer. Guess its to the WTB section

 

[xvi]

Deal fell through, he wants full price for the chip when I have seen I3-530's go for that so I declined the offer. Guess its to the WTB section

I've found this site to be fairly close to the actual value of something. Not always right, but a good starting point. People are stupid.

 

[brandonwh64]

I've found this site to be fairly close to the actual value of something. Not always right, but a good starting point. People are stupid.

Yea he wanted 33$ plus 4$ shipping and I offered 25$ plus shipping which is quite fair. Its pretty much to only flash the bios.

 

[TRWOV]

Scrap builds take quite a bit of time, I've done my fair share of them. Currently trying to revive a 970 Extreme3 (got it for spare change ). The buzzer beeps with no RAM present so I think it's simple bios thing

 

[brandonwh64]

I may throw out a WTB thread for a CHEAP 1156 CPU to flash this board with but at the moment Its dead in the water.

 

[librin.so.1]

It seems my BOINC stopped reporting/getting WUs five hours ago
due to:

2013 m. spalio 05 d. 10:41:04 | World Community Grid | Sending scheduler request: To report completed tasks.
2013 m. spalio 05 d. 10:41:04 | World Community Grid | Reporting 4 completed tasks
2013 m. spalio 05 d. 10:41:04 | World Community Grid | Requesting new tasks for CPU
2013 m. spalio 05 d. 10:41:08 | World Community Grid | Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
2013 m. spalio 05 d. 10:41:08 | World Community Grid | Server error: feeder not running

Emphasis on this part
>World Community Grid | Server error: feeder not running

Oh my, I hope this gets sorted out in time for the challenge.

 

[Norton]

The feeder seems to be working again

Check your rigs, make sure they reported their work

 

[librin.so.1]

The feeder seems to be working again

Check your rigs, make sure they reported their work

Indeed! All's fine now!

 

[TRWOV]

Gonna hit the 12M mark during the challenge. Next in line, TPU's top 20