hi guys

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jamieamd
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:02 pm

hi guys

Post by jamieamd »

hi everyone. recently rediscovered seti@home and have joined your team to help with the crunching. iam from the midlands uk.
i have one problem, and that is i think its only my cpu that is doing the work, i can't seem to get my gpu to fire up aswell. i have set the preference to use gpu whenever it can but it seems dead. am i doing something wrong? thanks, jamie.
UBT - Mikee
Marvin the Dalek
Posts: 4395
Joined: Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:00 am
Location: North Wales

Re: hi guys

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Hi and welcome to the team.

It depends which project/s you are crunching. Most only allow CPU work, some both. If you're sure the project allows GPU crunching make sure you have that selected in that projects preferances.

If you can tell us your BOINC user name, which projects you are having problems with and what sort of GPU you are using we'll be able to help more.

Mike
Follow us on Twitter... http://twitter.com/UKBOINCTeam

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UBT - Timbo
UBT Forum Admin
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Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:00 am
Location: NW Midlands
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Re: hi guys

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Jamie

Welcome to the team :)

I'm guessing that your SETI@home username is "Jamie" ;)

and that this is your rig:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/hosts_us ... d=10274159

If so, then congrats on adding some decent "crunching power" to the team. SETI@home does provide tasks for both CPU and GPU....and your rig DOES seem to be working - although sometimes tasks are not available...esp on Tuesday evenings when the SETI server goes offline so they can do backups... :( so it may appear that you cannot do any work.

Looking at the tasks you've been running, it seems that most of the AMD/ATI tasks haven't been validated yet....although 3 have been :)

So I guess you just have to be a bit patient and keep crunching, as with an 8-core CPU, plus the GPU, you'll soon find that your credit score will start to increase quite soon :)

When you look in the "Advanced" section of BOINC Manager, do you "see" 8 CPU tasks and 1 GPU task actually running at the same time when you view the "Tasks" tab?

regards
Tim
jamieamd
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:02 pm

Re: hi guys

Post by jamieamd »

hi and thanks for the warm replys and add. Yes it does seem to be working now, I think as you say I must have checked whilst a task was not being done. I have recently checked my catalyst software and found that my GPU was at 80% load, so pretty sure its working correctly now.
As for my rig its just my daily rig that I use for mainly gaming, (unhealthy addiction to the total war franchise.... ;) ) i have seen that i now have a fair few more "credits"
Do these "credits" have a use or is it just to show how much work the rig has done? thanks again.
Woodles
UBT Contributor
Posts: 11757
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:00 am
Location: Cambridgeshire

Re: hi guys

Post by Woodles »

Hi Jamie,

Welcome to the team :)

Glad you've got everything working, the credits should soon pile up.

Sadly(?) the credits have no actual use other than in comparison with other's. They do represent how much work you've done for the project though so if any aliens are actually found, you can say "I helped with that."

Mark
jamieamd
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:02 pm

Re: hi guys

Post by jamieamd »

ok, thanks. so what systems are some of you guys running? iam guessing dedicated number crunchers?
UBT - Timbo
UBT Forum Admin
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Location: NW Midlands
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Re: hi guys

Post by UBT - Timbo »

jamieamd wrote:ok, thanks. so what systems are some of you guys running? iam guessing dedicated number crunchers?
Hi Jamie,

Mostly we all use PC's running Windows or Linux....although it's possible to crunch using Raspberry Pi's or Android tablets/mobiles...but the processors in these are quite "puny" and hence it's not such a good option.

And of course, if you have a "double-precision" GPU, that can be pressed into service on a number of projects too....which can earn you lots more credits (compared to CPU tasks).

A few of us have bought ASIC's with which to crunch on the Bitcoin project - and one can really earn a lot of credits....these *are* dedicated number crunchers and they also get pretty warm and are expensive to operate (in terms of electricity used). We had quite a battle with another UK based team a while back on Bitcoin, and eventually we pulled ahead of them... :)

regards
Tim
jamieamd
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 9:02 pm

Re: hi guys

Post by jamieamd »

ahh, i thought this hobby was a bit deeper than occasionally doing a bit of number crunching. I too was an avid bitcoin and crypto currency miner. spent far too much on second hand amd cards ect ect... I suppose i got into it too late, which is probably true to alot of people too. Then of course ASICS ruined everything! a question i have is, does this team mine bitcoin? if so how does that work? i suppose its similar to mining in a pool?? i would like to mine bitcoin again if it was worth it ect.
btw not heard of the term double precision gpu. i will try to look it up :P i have an R9 280x 3GB pretty old school in todays terms, but it still works smooth as hell and is quick, surprising really as it was my main crypto miner! had this thing overclocked like a mother****** running at 85+c for weeks on end!!!
UBT - Timbo
UBT Forum Admin
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Joined: Mon Mar 13, 2006 12:00 am
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Re: hi guys

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Jamie,

I think a lot of people have signed up for BOINC over the years, but sadly quite a few have fallen by the wayside now...but there does seem to be a steady stream of new members joining in....so, hopefully, the BOINC projects will continue to benefit from all of our efforts...it is just a hobby but some have had "hardware" issues and sometimes these problems are difficult for non-techies to solve. Likewise, some additional cooling may be required as some tasks are pretty intensive - I use a couple of GPU's and have to "underclock" them (using AfterBurner) to keep them running cooler !!

re: Bitcoin
I think most people missed the point of Bitcoin (and other crypto-currencies) and we (as a team) really only got into it about a year ago, when the BItcoin project started up....and they offered BOINC credits and all the BTC actually earned were put into a central pool and then the real money was then donated to various "campaigns"...and that is still how it works. One can use CPU's, GPU's and/or ASIC's to earn said credits and that's how we have ended up being one of the Top 5 teams in the World.

Mind you, we've taken our foot off the pedal for a while on BTC, simply due to the expense of running the ASIC's.

A few members have used ASIC's to earn themselves some BTC, but the rate of return isn't as high as it was...and unless you have access to free leccy, the return isn't that viable.

re: GPU's
Double-precision GPU's simply give projects a better, more accurate way of calculating their data. Going back a few years, double-precision was only found in very high-end cards, but nowadays, the technology has come down in price a lot....plus one can find not so old GPU's on fleabay for not a lot and hence you can support a few extra projects that use GPU's and earn credits accordingly.

And don't knock the R9 280 - it's still an awesome piece of kit and can be put to work on BOINC very nicely :)

regards
Tim
Woodles
UBT Contributor
Posts: 11757
Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:00 am
Location: Cambridgeshire

Re: hi guys

Post by Woodles »

jamieamd wrote:ahh, i thought this hobby was a bit deeper than occasionally doing a bit of number crunching. I too was an avid bitcoin and crypto currency miner. spent far too much on second hand amd cards ect ect... I suppose i got into it too late, which is probably true to alot of people too. Then of course ASICS ruined everything! a question i have is, does this team mine bitcoin? if so how does that work? i suppose its similar to mining in a pool?? i would like to mine bitcoin again if it was worth it ect.
btw not heard of the term double precision gpu. i will try to look it up :P i have an R9 280x 3GB pretty old school in todays terms, but it still works smooth as hell and is quick, surprising really as it was my main crypto miner! had this thing overclocked like a mother****** running at 85+c for weeks on end!!!
Hi Jamie,

It all depends on how dedicated to crunching you are. None of my computers are dedicated crunchers, they all run Boinc in the background and get used for other things at other times. The only nod to Boinc is that they're all on 24/7.

As far as Bitcoin mining is concerned, it's got way past the point of being profitable to mine for yourself. The last break even point was nearly a year ago and even then, only with a top end ASIC and cheap electricity. These days, you'd never make enough to pay for any hardware you buy or to run it. If you already have the hardware and completely free electricity, you might manage to make a little bit of money but not much.

I'm not sure that '... ASICS ruined everything ...', they're what got UBT to be one of the top five teams in the world :D

All calculations use a certain precision, 2/3 is either 1, 0.7, 0.666666667 etc depending on how accurate you want to be. Double precision just means the GPUs calculate to more digits than single precision. It's more accurate but needs more powerful processors and consequently, more transistors and more power or less calculations on the same hardware. Your 280x is rated at 4096 GFlops single precision and 1024 GFlops double precision so still a very capable card.

Mark

[edit] ... and I've just noticed Tims reply saying almost exactly the same thing! That's what happens when I leave off halfway through writing a post and come back to finish it later without checking there haven't been any new posts in between. [/edit]
UBT - Timbo wrote:Mind you, we've taken our foot off the pedal for a while on BTC, simply due to the expense of running the ASIC's.
But we can start agian just as quickly if need be :twisted:
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