Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

This section is where you can post topics related to Challenges from other websites, such as Formula-BOINC, SETI-Germany and BOINCstats, as well as project challenges such as from WCG, PrimeGrid et al.

As a Team, we really want to engage as many team members with these challenges, as this gives us a great way of attracting more members to our Team...plus we get to show our strengths as a Team by (hopefully) doing well in each one.

PS: I have moved lots of topics into this section where they are relevant...as you can see, we've always been happy to take part in Challenges...and long may that continue ;-)
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UBT - Timbo
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Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Monthly Crunchathon - 1st-29th February 2016

I'm thinking ahead a little bit and I'm wondering as to which projects members think we should be getting together on for the month of February?

We need one for CPU's and one for GPU's.

So, please put your suggestions forward and the project with most votes gets the nod... :)

regards
Tim
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

I'm thinking that we should maybe try and "kill two birds with one stone" for this years Crunchathons...

Firstly, having Crunchathons is a way of grouping our resources together and just crunching ONE project (of each type 1x CPU and 1x GPU) as we can then target specific projects where they need a bit of a "push". (Either because we are about to be overtaken or because our team has a low credit total on said projects).

Secondly, we have identified that TSBT are making significant inroads on the Formula-BOINC stats website.

In absolute stats terms, we are easily beating TSBT, but this is mainly due to UBT having more members with GPU's and hence our daily credits on SETI, Collatz, and GPUGrid keep us well ahead in the BOINCstats "overall credit" totals.

However, we're not doing so well on most of the CPU-only projects....and in most cases we are being thrashed....!!

So, I would suggest we select one project from each of the following lists and target these in February...and if you don't like the one chosen, then maybe pick one of the other ones, as we need to improve our credits on ALL of these...!!

CPU projects in alphabetical order:
BURP
CAS@home
Citizen Science Grid
Cosmology@home
DENIS@Home
Enigma@home
Lattice Project
LHC@home 1.0
MindModeling@home beta
NFS@home
NumberFields@home
POEM@home
PRIMABOINCA
SRBase
Sztaki Desktop Grid
The dDM-Project
theSkyNet POGS - the PS1 Optical Galaxy Survey
Universe@Home
Van Der Waerden Numbers
Volpex
Yafu
Yoyo@home

Note: Some of these do not have tasks available at the moment - but if you set them to "accept new tasks", then when it's available, you'll get some !!

Some GPU projects could also do with a hand

GPU projects in "best chance of overtaking another team" order:
Asteroids
MilkyWay
Moo! Wrapper
PrimeGrid
Einstein

Also: Please, please, please add WUProp and GoofyxGrid@Home to your projects too - they are NCI tasks and will not take up any of your CPU resources - and their credits will help us too :)

regards
Tim

PS I'm away from 27th Jan-2nd Feb so, apologies if I don't answer any questions straight away.
UBT - Mikee
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Mikee »

Personally I'm doing Sztaki as we're way behind at Formula and only need a few thouand to get a point there. But... WUs are sporadic, you can go 24 hours with nothing and another 24 hours with plenty - credits are a bit crappy as well.

We need to watch out which GPU projects are considered as some do not allow for both makes of card.

Mike
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi Mikee,

Since the Gerasim and Albert projects both ran out of tasks, I've been running a few of the aforementioned projects, if only to gauge what sort of credits one gets and also to see how frequently they replenish my cache. So, I've set quite a few projects to "allow more work" and then let BM get on with it.

At least that way, both CPU and GPU get work from whichever has it available. I've also changed the resource share on these projects so they receive the same priority.

Noted about the GPU projects...some seem to support both AMD/ATI and NVidia....but there are exceptions where only one type of GPU is supported.
Best thing is to visit the specific project website and look at the "Applications" section to see which GPU they support.

regards
Tim
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by Woodles »

After looking at our formula Boinc progress, I'd suggest MilkyWay for the GPU project (AMD and NVIDIA GPUs supported) and any of Lattice, BURP, Sztaki or Denis, in that order, for the CPU project.

Mark
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:After looking at our formula Boinc progress, I'd suggest MilkyWay for the GPU project (AMD and NVIDIA GPUs supported) and any of Lattice, BURP, Sztaki or Denis, in that order, for the CPU project.

Mark
Hi Mark

Sounds good. If anyone else has any ideas, feel free to wade in.

Otherwise, let's go for these? (I'd be tempted to "allow new work" for all of the CPU projects and then you are "covered" depending on which one has tasks available...as some are a bit hit and miss when it come to available work).

regards
Tim
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Hi all,

For CPU, it looks like there's no work from BURP, Denis or The Lattice Project - so I guess it's all down to Sztaki - though they sometimes run out too.....

Edit: Typical ain't it - I got this from Sztaki:
02/02/2016 09:49:44 | SZTAKI Desktop Grid | Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
02/02/2016 09:49:44 | SZTAKI Desktop Grid | No work sent
02/02/2016 09:49:44 | SZTAKI Desktop Grid | (Project has no jobs available)
I tried to grab some LHC WU's and there was none - same with CAS and NRG :(

So, I'm going to go with Skynet POGS as we could do with some extra credits on their project - so that's the "backup" CPU project for me to crunch while Sztaki has no work.


And for GPU, let's go with MilkyWay :)

regards
Tim
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by Woodles »

Hi Tim,

I must have timed it just right then as I grabbed my last Burp WU just before one this morning :)

Skynet it is then until the others come back online and I'll switch to Milkyway as well.

Regards,
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by NaRyan »

Got 2 CPU cores and 3 Android units running for Pogs.
I do have 8 more CPU cores but due to 1 PC (dual core AMD A6), only having stock cooler it runs way to hot when doing CPU work :( .
(The A6 was an emergency replacement system after the PSU that was in the PC before that decided to go nuclear on me....)
And a weird issue on my AMD 6 core system (when boinc is doing wither cpu or gpu work, it causes my sound drivers to crash if I use TeamSpeak, And Teamspeak is needed..)

I have Milkyway running on a GTX580 no bother (just doing the milkyway work, since the time it takes\credit granted works out about 3600 credits more per day), however for the GTX960 I can only run it when I do not have Teamspeak running.
Still I suppose every little helps.

Also has anyone else noticed the discrepancy with the pogs workunit due date?
As on the PC\Android devices they all say work unit has to be completed by 10th Feb, Yet on Pogs website they all say 11th Feb.
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

Woodles wrote:Hi Tim,

I must have timed it just right then as I grabbed my last Burp WU just before one this morning :)

Skynet it is then until the others come back online and I'll switch to Milkyway as well.

Regards,
Thanks Mark :)
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

NaRyan wrote:Got 2 CPU cores and 3 Android units running for Pogs.
I do have 8 more CPU cores but due to 1 PC (dual core AMD A6), only having stock cooler it runs way to hot when doing CPU work :( .
(The A6 was an emergency replacement system after the PSU that was in the PC before that decided to go nuclear on me....)
And a weird issue on my AMD 6 core system (when boinc is doing wither cpu or gpu work, it causes my sound drivers to crash if I use TeamSpeak, And Teamspeak is needed..)

I have Milkyway running on a GTX580 no bother (just doing the milkyway work, since the time it takes\credit granted works out about 3600 credits more per day), however for the GTX960 I can only run it when I do not have Teamspeak running.
Still I suppose every little helps.

Also has anyone else noticed the discrepancy with the pogs workunit due date?
As on the PC\Android devices they all say work unit has to be completed by 10th Feb, Yet on Pogs website they all say 11th Feb.
Hiya,

Glad to have you on board :)

You could try throttling back the A6 so that it only provides say 50% of the CPU cores to BOINC - so, instead of running all, maybe run fewer cores and see how that goes - it should allow the PC to run a bit cooler. That also might help with the driver issue?

On the GTX960, you can set the BOINC Manager to Suspend GPU work when the PC is working...and I tend to only run the shorter MW tasks, which only take about 2 mins on my GTX580 - they only use 0.1x CPU so, they should leave some CPU power for other tasks. Again, if you set the CPU to only use say 50% or 75% of the number of cores you have then it might help it run better.

re: POGS
I'd not noticed that discrepancy, but it's true....BM tells me the deadline is 10th Feb and website says 11th....Weird !!

regards
Tim
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by NaRyan »

Ok I got 1 core running on the A6 (CPU temp seems to stay around 45'c)
However on my 6 core system I cannot have Boinc (CPU or GPU work, NCI tasks are fine) and Teamspeak running at the same time.
I have tried the only run when PC is not being used & also tried the setting of suspend all work if "program is running".
With no joy, if both Boinc and Teamspeak are running it has a good chance of killing my sound drivers (and it can be instant loss of sound or it can run for several hours before it happens)

However going by the forums for my Corsair headset this does seem to be a common complaint.
If Program X and Program Y are running at the same time, then drivers crash and reboot is needed to fix it.
And it has been an ongoing long complaint, that they don't seem to care about fixing, since it is not effecting their super dooper £200+ headsets.

On the GTX580 I am only running the milkyway@home work, as it takes just under 2 minutes, the milkyway@home separation(modified fit) work takes about 40 seconds.
So running the "longer of the two workunits" gives me 106.88 credits every 2 minutes where running the shorter ones gives me 80.22 credits in 2 minutes.
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by NaRyan »

So since both Pogs and Sztaki have no work.
(well Pogs does have some work at times but they always seem to be those 15 second workunits that don't validate)
I have put both PC's and my old Android phone onto Enigma.
However my Android tablet is running Android 6.01 (marshmallow) and Enigma does not work on that since marshmallow requires PIE based apps and enigma only has non-PIE app.

So is there any recommendation for a project that has PIE based android app?
I did try universe@home, however the AV product I use on the tablet was not happy about their app and it's apparent security flaw (text relocations vulnerability, so it had a habit of killing the tasks...)

*Silly Google, if they had made them HobNob apps instead of PIE there would be no problems. :P
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Re: Proposal for Crunchathon - February 2016

Post by UBT - Timbo »

NaRyan wrote:So since both Pogs and Sztaki have no work.
(well Pogs does have some work at times but they always seem to be those 15 second workunits that don't validate)
Hiya

I've been crunching a few of the other CPU tasks on the list, as there didn't seem to be much "take up" on the idea of a Feb Crunch....so, I've been "doing" some Leiden, LHC, MindModeling@home, SAT@home, SRBase, Yafu and YoYo - and in some cases, the WU I got from MM and YoYo caused lock-ups on my PC so, I've set those to no new work now....and sadly, few of the other projects on the list have work either.
I have put both PC's and my old Android phone onto Enigma.
However my Android tablet is running Android 6.01 (marshmallow) and Enigma does not work on that since marshmallow requires PIE based apps and enigma only has non-PIE app.

So is there any recommendation for a project that has PIE based android app?
I did try universe@home, however the AV product I use on the tablet was not happy about their app and it's apparent security flaw (text relocations vulnerability, so it had a habit of killing the tasks...)

*Silly Google, if they had made them HobNob apps instead of PIE there would be no problems. :P
I'm sure BOINC would be a lot better, if they ate HobNobs during the development phase ') !!

You can try the Goofyxgrid project though I'm not sure if they have an app that'll run on stock Android....they support Linux and Rasp Pi, so see here if these are OK:

http://goofyxgridathome.net/apps.php

Also: Wu-Prop is another NCI project which will ensure your device won't overheat !!

http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/apps.php

Hope this helps

regards
Tim
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