Crunching tips

Since there are many new members, I thought I'd pass along some tips on building a highly-productive, low-cost, efficient cruncher.


CPU - I think there is general agreement that the Core i7 920 represents the best bang for the buck as far as a crunching chip goes. For around $280-290, you have a CPU that can process eight work units at a time. For those of you on a budget, the Q6600 is also a good choice.

OS - Most of us have found that using a 64-bit operating system in combination with one of the BOINC 64-bit clients generates the most points. You should see at least a ten percent boost in daily point production. Windows will generally give you more points, though some have had good experiences with Linux. XP is the most widely-used OS among BOINC users, followed by Linux and then Vista.

RAM - Opinions vary on this matter. Some feel timings matter, while others don't. Right now, memory prices are extremely low. So stock up before prices go back up again. :)

PSU - The choice of power supply is more important than many think. As some have already found out, cheap PSU's can lead to disaster. You don't have to buy the most expensive or even the most powerful PSU. But get one that has a proven track record of reliability.

Video card - If you have a machine that's used solely for crunching, the best choice remains the VGA PCI card. You can usually find them on Ebay for under $10. Another option is no video card at all. People can monitor the actvity of a so-called headless cruncher by using a utility like BOINCview.

Hard drive - Don't spend a lot of money on HDD's. An 80GB drive is more than enough. There are 40GB drives as well, but usually they cost as much as the 80GB ones. Resellers frequently have sales on HDD's. Just keep an eye out for those discounted drives.

More tips to come.:)

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

Since there are many new members, I thought People can monitor the activity of a so-called headless cruncher by using a utility like BOINC view.

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Question is there a guide anywhere that will explain how to set this up on a XP machine to monitor other rigs with Linux/Ubuntu 64 bit?

Shut down - Before rebooting or shutting down your computer, you need to exit BOINC first. Just exit using the BOINC icon in the system tray and then wait a few seconds. I'm told Vista users need to wait longer. A sudden shutdown can result in work units with computational errors.

Service install - Right now, you are given three options when installing BOINC - the single-user, the shared and the service installations. I would recommend the service installation for a couple of reasons. First, the BOINC screensaver does not work in this mode. My feeling is that the screensaver just consumes cycles that can be put to better use. Second, I have found the service install to be a little more stable. Your experience may be different. Eventually, BOINC will move exclusively to the service installation. The one thing to remember about the service install is that you need an administrative password. If you don't have one, you can create a password by going to the Control Panel and then User Accounts.

Profiles - WCG allows you to create up to four profiles - default, home, work and school. Let's suppose you want one cruncher to run one project and a second cruncher run another. By creating a second profile, you can do that. One cruncher could be assigned to Default, while the other could be Home. You can customize the settings for each profile in the Device Profiles section of your My Grid page.

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

Shut down - Before rebooting or shutting down your computer, you need to exit BOINC first. Just exit using the BOINC icon in the system tray and then wait a few seconds. I'm told Vista users need to wait longer. A sudden shutdown can result in work units with computational errors.

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hm... this i didnt know..
I always just shut down windows when i need a reboot w/out exiting the program

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Originally Posted by road-runner

Question is there a guide anywhere that will explain how to set this up on a XP machine to monitor other rigs with Linux/Ubuntu 64 bit?

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I believe you have to use the Windows emulator Wine.

This is from the BOINCview blog:

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I tested it on Suse 8.2 and 9.1 with different Wine builds and it worked well.

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PSU - you might want to add various power consumption information, such as:
- most PSU's have peak efficiency at about 50% of their max load;
- how much power does oced Q6600 use;
- how to set up boinc to write/read from disk in longer intervals
- and so on

For example, my rig (see sig) uses ~200W when idle, ~235W with BOINC running & browsing web etc (hard drives working), about 225-230W with only boinc running (depends on WU's).

Errors

Computation errors can be caused by a lot of things - your machine may be unstable or the work unit itself is bad. You should periodically check the WCG forum to see if there's been a bad batch of WU's.

If you get an error message, the BOINC Wiki has a list of those messages and what they mean.

What projects will produce the most points?

Common mistakes

Computer clock - Make sure your OS has the correct time and date. BOINC uses the computer clock to determine whether your work units have passed the designated deadline. If, for example, your clock is off by a year, BOINC will think all your WU's are no longer valid because they missed the deadline.

Web-based settings - If you wish to use the settings on your My Grid page, on the BOINC manager, go to Advanced, then Preferences. In the upper right-hand corner, hit Clear. BOINC will then use your web-based settings. (see pics below)

Deleting work units - Some people will delete work units they don't want to run. When you delete a WU, it's considered an error by WCG. And when you submit a lot of work units with errors, you get penalized. Your daily quota of WU's will be less, until BOINC/WCG has determined you've stabilized the problem.

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Originally Posted by road-runner

What projects will produce the most points?

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I have found that the Dengue project is a good point-producer. Someone else was crunching DDDT with Ubuntu x64 and getting very good results.

The AIDS project has probably been the most stable over the past year. Fewer problems. The current cancer project is probably the easiest on your system because it uses less memory than the others.

Here's a memory usage chart. Chart courtesy of Sekerob at WCG. Notice the swap file usage for HCC.

http://tinyurl.com/35gzxx

A note about ram as well. D9 is fragile...

Great thread Sierra..:up:
Sticking this now.

Thanks:) Anyone can chime in on this subject. I certainly don't know everything there is to know.

Aside from recommending the Q6600, I won't make any other suggestions regarding hardware brands. That tends to be subjective.

Some have wondered whether running a cruncher at full load 24/7 is bad for your hardware. I can only speak from personal experience. I have a couple of machines that have been running virtually non-stop for over a year. No hardware failures. There's one school of thought that says continuously running hardware will actually prolong its life. I certainly believe this is true in the case of hard drives. Of course, reliability is based on the quality of the product. I have a power supply that I've been using for four years. It's been used for benching, crunching and general computing. Still going strong. Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.:)

Thanks Sierra. Answers a lot of the questions I had when I started out....and a few I didn't know I had.

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Originally Posted by xoqolatl

....- how to set up boinc to write/read from disk in longer intervals....

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Somebody please comment on this for me. Thanks.

In the Device Profile, there is a setting under Disk Usage that allows you to adjust how often BOINC writes to your hard drive. Some people set it to a longer interval to prevent the drive from spinning up unnecessarily. One caution about setting the interval too long. You may end up having to repeat the processing if you didn't get a checkpoint written before shutting down your computer.

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

Shut down - Before rebooting or shutting down your computer, you need to exit BOINC first. *cut*

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Been using XP on my rig and haven´t seen any issues with
shutting down/rebooting without first exiting BOINC.

Haven´t had any loss of crunching progress, or WU´s from shutting down my
rig, which I´ve done many times.

Thought it was a good thing to add :) , or have any of you guys experienced
issues with shutdown/reboot?

Shutting down abruptly can corrupt BOINC files. If you have not had a problem, then you are lucky. The proper method is to exit BOINC first. A number of people have had problems with Vista which can shut down rapidly. I read that 5.10.35 run as a service may have fixed that. But since I don't run Vista, I can't verify that.:)

You can slow down or speed up the shutdown time by making a change in the registry. There's an item called WaitToKillServiceTimeout. Increasing or decreasing the value will affect the shutdown time, at least with XP.

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Originally Posted by sierra_bound

Shutting down abruptly can corrupt BOINC files. If you have not had a problem, then you are lucky. The proper method is to exit BOINC first. A number of people have had problems with Vista which can shut down rapidly. I read that 5.10.35 run as a service may have fixed that. But since I don't run Vista, I can't verify that.:)

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I can. Vista x64 & Boinc .30 here. Thanks for pointing it out... I was wondering why I always had 4 failed WUs at startup. I haven't moved to .35 though, will have to try that :)

No issues with shutting down here (Vista 32 & BOINC 5.10.30).
Actually, shutting down a cruncher is generally a bad idea :D

I have Vista x64 and yes, if I don't shut down BOINC first I'll get 4 errored WU's on reboot. Vista kills apps too quickly.

Thats an error of the filesystem afaik.

I am running ext3 with the option "data=journal", which means that "All data is committed into the journal prior to being written into the main file system." that ensures that my filesystem is always in a clean state.

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Originally Posted by STEvil

A note about ram as well. D9 is fragile...

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Yes, it is.


I've had RAM fail in two different crunchers recently and I suspect a problem in another one. Will take a look at that machine later today. Anyone have any recommendations for cruncher RAM?

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Originally Posted by brot

Thats an error of the filesystem afaik.

I am running ext3 with the option "data=journal", which means that "All data is committed into the journal prior to being written into the main file system." that ensures that my filesystem is always in a clean state.

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That's interesting . Where do you select this? When installing the OS?

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Originally Posted by David_L6

Yes, it is.


I've had RAM fail in two different crunchers recently and I suspect a problem in another one. Will take a look at that machine later today. Anyone have any recommendations for cruncher RAM?

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Can't give any advise because all my memory is fairly new. I'm just staying away from Micron D9 now . Promos and Elpida based ram do just as well in the 400-450Mhz range imo.

one thing to add:
free, small and often updateing sig's can be had at dcstat.com (see my sig for a exapmle)