...and now 7 million on SETI !!

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

As mentioned on this topic:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6559&p=128570#p128300

I have been aiming to reach the 7 million mark on SETI@home and to do so, before it stops making tasks available in 10 days time.

And despite SETI not issuing any NVidia tasks recently, I am pleased to be able to report that my account has now reached this

I would have liked to get to 10 million (like I've done with some other projects,) but the SETI admins have decided to go into hibernation long before I could even get close and unless I bought up some serious computing time on some cloud servers, this wasn't going to be possible.

I've still got a few SETI tasks in my cache (though currently suspended due to this weekends Sprint) and I'll crack on until the end, to see how far I can get.

regards
Tim

[UBT - PennyQ]

Yay!! Well done Tim!!

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

So, I have now got 7,500,035 credits on my SETI account - and I reckon I might be able to get to 8.5m and perhaps further, if the NVidia tasks continue to be available (though they have been sporadic for a few days).

We shall see

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Yay!! Well done Tim!!

Thanks Penny

Still time for me to get a wee bit higher though !!

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Keep going Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Now at 8.19 million and increasing...!!

I just wish I'd started crunching SETI that little bit earlier and I could have made it sooner

oh well....

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Congratulations Tim.

Another 3/4 days to nine million, it's going to be close.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Now at 8.33m...and just 4½ days to go (and maybe one extra day to empty any buffers of SETI tasks).

For some reason BOINCstats is way behind on listing the account total:

https://classic.boincstats.com/en/stats ... 2/0/112288

which says I have 7,273,513 credits.

It's times like this I wish ubtstats.co.uk was still working

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Maybe SETI is lying to you ....

[UBT - Timbo]

Maybe SETI is lying to you ....

Hi Mark

Good point...although more likely is that whatever database gremlins have been affecting their "back office" system(s) which prevents one accessing some task data plus the ginormous number of "awaiting validation" tasks, is slowing things down a bit = but not to worry - by April some of those SETI servers can take a nice long rest !!

Or maybe they have a "nobble" button, that adds an extra 1m credits to your total just to make you feel good. (Tips hat to a visual gag from "Not the Nine O'Clock News" from yonks ago about a motorist filling up to an exact number of "pounds" only for cashier to ht the "nobble" button that adds 1p (I think) to the total),

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Hi Tim,

Last stats update from SETI was 9:20 PM yesterday ... and you had 7,273,513.12693 total credit then so Boincstats is reporting what it's told. Looks like the SETI website data is up to date but their exports are way behind.

I wonder what they're going to do with those servers ...

Mark

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim,

I wonder what they're going to do with those servers ...

Mark

Hi Mark

You mean these:

Hosts
bruno: Intel Server (2 x 2.66GHz Xeon, 8 GB RAM)
carolyn: Intel Server (2 x quad-core 2.4GHz Xeon, 96 GB RAM)
centurion: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 3.4GHz Xeon, 512 GB RAM)
georgem: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 3.07GHz Xeon, 96 GB RAM)
khan: Intel Server (2 x 3.0GHz Xeon, 32 GB RAM)
lando: Intel Server (2 x quad-core 2.4GHz Xeon, 12 GB RAM)
marvin: Intel Server (2 x 2.66GHz Xeon, 16 GB RAM)
oscar: Intel Server (2 x quad-core 2.4GHz Xeon, 96 GB RAM)
paddym: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 3.07GHz Xeon, 132 GB RAM)
synergy: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 2.53GHz Xeon, 96 GB RAM)
muarae1: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 3.07GHz Xeon, 76 GB RAM)
muarae4: Intel Server (2 x hexa-core 3.07GHz Xeon, 76 GB RAM)
thumper: Sun Fire X4500 (2 x dual-core 2.6GHz Opteron, 16 GB RAM)
vader: Intel Server (2 x dual-core 3GHz Xeon, 32 GB RAM)

I'm sure they could be moved to earning some CryptoCoins? Maybe join GridCoin? Maybe switched to Folding@home ??

Or just shut-down in which case you can be sure of one thing though - their leccy bill is going to get a whole lot lower !!

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Now at 8.33m...and just 4½ days to go (and maybe one extra day to empty any buffers of SETI tasks).

So, 6 hours later and now at 8.5m - an increase of 170,000 credits - that's about 28k per hour.

If this keeps up, with 100 hours to go until midnight on the 31st, that's a possible 2.8m credits, plus I still have 3,400+ "pending" validation tasks.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that SETI doesn't run out of tasks. !!

regards
Tim

[damienh]

Well, it does actually look like there is not a lot of work available on SETI!

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Damien

It does tend to vary - at times there are very few and then a new batch of 40,000+ come through, which happened last night.

But there does seem to be a high demand so they don't last long. I did increase the resource share to 500 and then to 1000 in the vain hope that it might increase the number of tasks in the cache...and to some degree it might have helped: I have 260, 112 and 177 tasks in 3 of my hosts - normally you can get upto 150 CPU tasks and 150 tasks per GPU...due to SAH limiting restrictions.

This rather puts a bit of a dampener on my quest to reach 10m...currently sitting at 8,599,883 credits...and less than 4 days to go

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

It's not looking good at the moment

[UBT - Timbo]

It's not looking good at the moment

Hi Mark

Indeed...a lack of tasks is seriously hampering progress...and there's not a lot I can do about it - it's weekend now so, unless SAH is running a script to make more tasks available, there's not much hope of getting to the target before the "official" hibernation date.

I did pose a question on the SAH message board which hasn't been answered properly (to date):

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_t ... p?id=85393

So, there is a slim chance that some tasks may be available for a while due to resends as some work units may "time out" on some hosts if they are not crunched in time or some may just abort tasks. It's a long shot and one won't know until an admin gives an update on what's going to happen.

There is even an chance that due to lockdowns, the hibernation might be postponed...

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

My account is now at 9,103,549 credits and rising quite nicely.

The lack of tasks over the weekend has rather impacted how confident I am of achieving the target 10m...but there's stil a day or so to go, plus the chance that some re-sends might be available even if "new" tasks are no longer available.

There are still about 2,700 tasks "pending validation" so, if/when a wingman ever completes those tasks, then further credit might be forthcoming.

So, can the total increase by 896,552 before SAH hibernates? lol

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

503,666 in two days, two days to go plus pendings, 896,552 to get, it's going to be close

At least there's some work available now.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

4 hours on from the last posting and total now at 9,175,208 - so an increase of approx 72,000 or around 18,000 per hour.

With possibly up to 32 hours to go, that's around 576,000 credits - and a total figure of approx 9.75m...Add some "pending" credits, currently about 3,000 tasks, this could get VERY close...

Tasks do seem to be scarce most of the time...hence the need to have a large cache to keep one ticking over when fewer are available.

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Hi Tim,

For what it's worth I've put Chloe back on the case.

Not as good as the Linux hosts but better than nothing.

Only got one CPU task but starting to fill up with GPU tasks.

Mark

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Mark

Thanks for the extra donation Chloe might just be enough to make the difference.

Total currently 9,233,600 ...and perhaps 24 and maybe a couple of hours left with luck...just have to hope that work continues to be ready to download esp going into the last day.

2,546 tasks downloaded in buffers and over 3,040 tasks now pending...this could go right down to the wire though my "gut feel" is that we could run out of tasks shortly after they "pull the switch". It all depends on SAH and their "timing" !!

In principle, if tasks are still available up to the moment of switch off then there could be still be as many as 9 hosts attached, and as all but one have GPU's (and one host has 2x GPUs) so, 9 x 150 CPU and 150 GPU tasks (per host) = 2,700 tasks that *could* still be in the buffers.

That perhaps then gives another day or so of crunching, assuming they leave the upload server powered up and running.

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Hi Tim,

Just checked and you have 9,257,033 credits and are running at 15-16k an hour at the moment (also, in the top 1% or crunchers at SETI)

Another 24 hours puts you at ~9.6 million.

Assuming all nine hosts have full caches that's another 2,700 tasks at ~55 credits each so that's 9.7 - 9.8 million.

Plus ~3,000 pending puts you at a total of 9,942,533

So you need an extra ~1,000 tasks or an extra four hours.

'Citing stuff

Chloe is full now along with the rest so it's just a matter of keeping on crunching.

I have another couple of GPUs coming tomorrow but I doubt they'll make a lot of difference to the total in the few hours they get to work (although they should get full caches to crunch after SETI "finishes" )

Mark

[UBT - Timbo]

HI Mark

Exciting?...hahahaha....I think it's got to the point where the total is within grasp, but there's no way of knowing quite what will happen.

What's worse is that over the long weekend (Fri-Sun), there was a lack of tasks which has hindered the Challenge somewhat and this has taken the edge off a little bit of what could have been done and dusted by now.

But we live in hope so, until it's over we just don't know what will be the final outcome...and even that might not happen for a few days after they throw the switch is they continue with re-sends.

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Hi Tim,

Added another six hosts so that's the extra 1,000 tasks cached (6 * 150 CPU + 2 * 150 GPU)

You've just passed the 9.5 million mark, just over twenty hours for that last half a million plus pendings and caches

And according to Boincstats you managed 290k yesterday so it's looking very possible

Mark

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi Tim,

Added another six hosts so that's the extra 1,000 tasks cached (6 * 150 CPU + 2 * 150 GPU)

Hi Mark

I think you're beginning to try and "out-crunch" and "out-compute" our former crunch leader Temujin. As I recall, he was able to call on a large pool of PCs at his workplace. Hence how he achieved such a high total at a time when there weren't many project supporting GPUs and so it was all down to CPUs.

And with this collection of hosts at your disposal, it pretty much looks like you won;'t have to worry much about heating bills for a few days.

You've just passed the 9.5 million mark, just over twenty hours for that last half a million plus pendings and caches

And according to Boincstats you managed 290k yesterday so it's looking very possible

Mark

Yup - I think the key part to all of this is how many tasks will be in the buffers once they go into hibernation. And as long as they don't switch off the upload server(s), then these tasks will slowly drip feed their way through and maybe for some time after SETI hibernates, completed tasks could still be uploaded, which will add to the total, even if the total isn't met by the end of today.

regards
Tim

[Woodles]

Hi Tim,

If i was allowed to use the works computers you'd be at ten million ages ago Nope, just a hobby that's built up over the years.

I will admit to living in a t-shirt with the windows open for the past few years.

SETI said they were turning off work generation, I think they'll still accept completed work for a while yet. I still think the end of today is a possibillity.

Mark