I want to ask about differences in success between two computers.

Last November, I installed BOINC on a new computer running Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, with an Intel i7-920 four core processor and 6 gigs of DDR3 DRAM. The processor is hyper threaded, so eight threads running. I am set to using 100% of the processors at 60%. Starting with the then current build for this machine, and all default prefs, I had a heck of a time keeping work on this machine. It took about a month to get it sorted out. I tried a number of BOINC builds, I had a great deal of help from BOINC and WCG CA’s. Finally, what worked was to set Additional work at 2 days. I am crunching all of WCG and about eight other projects running BOINC software. I went from around 1000-1500 credits per day to about 5200 as of today.

I saw very little in the way of complaints about the newer more powerful machines in either BOINC Messages Boards or WCG forums. It almost felt as if I was alone in having these problems.

Since then, I have added another machine with an Intel i5-520M dual core processor, hyper threaded, so four threads, four gigs of DDR3 DRAM. This machine is running 100% of processors at 60%. In order to keep this machine in work, I had to add Additional work = 1.0. This machine is running all of WCG and 5 other projects using BOINC software.

Now, my friend buys an even heavier weight machine than the one with the i7-920, running Win 7 Professional, a six-core Intel processor hyper threaded, 12 gigs of the most current DRAM. He only crunches on WCG projects so I do not believe that GPU is involved. He is using standard prefs, except I think he has the CPU usage set at 100% and 100%. He says his default Connect every = 2.5. He did not do any Additional work, which stands at 0. His credits per day have shot up to right now about 9000. He is having no problems keeping the machine in work.

So, my question is, how can we determine what else might be at work in the success or failure of machines in keeping them furnished with enough work to not run out of work?

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http://sciencesprings.wordpress.com
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Regarding the amount of work stored, there is no difference between

Computer is connected to the Internet about every 2.5 days
(Leave blank or 0 if always connected.
BOINC will try to maintain at least this much work.)

and

Maintain enough work for an additional 0.25 days

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

Regarding the amount of work stored, there is no difference between

Computer is connected to the Internet about every 2.5 days
(Leave blank or 0 if always connected.
BOINC will try to maintain at least this much work.)

and

Maintain enough work for an additional 0.25 days

Gruß,
Gundolf

Yes there is - there's a factor of 10 diffenence.

Isn't there?

Egad, sorry, I said it wrong. His Connect every is .25.
Regrets.

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http://sciencesprings.wordpress.com
http://facebook.com/sciencesprings

Regarding the amount of work stored, there is no difference between

Computer is connected to the Internet about every 2.5 days
(Leave blank or 0 if always connected.
BOINC will try to maintain at least this much work.)

and

Maintain enough work for an additional 0.25 days

Gruß,
Gundolf

Yes there is - there's a factor of 10 diffenence.

Isn't there?

Yes, of course. That's just what happens if you copy&paste and don't finish up your editings :-)

Sorry,
Gundolf

So, I think that today I got the correct answer to my question.

I had lunch with my friend with the six core machine.

My friend with the 6 core machine is running only WCG. So, the scheduling of tasks is rather simple.

On my 4 core machine, I am running a set of differing BOINC projects, including WCG, but also a bunch of others: Einstein, Rosetta, Leiden, SETI,Docking and Spinhenge. I consider these others to all be valuable projects.

Apparently when one is running just one project, scheduling is simple. When one is running a multiplicity of projects, scheduling is not uniform and hitches can occur.

So, by boosting the work load with Additional work = 2.0, I overcame the scheduling problems by establishing a bit of a reservoir of tasks.

I am checking the results of each project to be sure that I do not have too much work to get done in the allotted time.

If this is the proper answer, then all's well that ends.

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