Joining World Community Grid the easy way

[Olly_K]

Joined over the weekend, hope to bag some points for the team

[trn]

aboard!

[Gamekiller]

Welcome!

[[XC] Oj101]

It should be noted that the guide only caters for the 32bit client

[PoppaGeek]

Thanks for helping!

[Movieman]

[TyCanadian]

It should be noted that the guide only caters for the 32bit client

It worked fine on my Vista system running 64-bit, is there something else I should do to boost performance or anything?

Thanks for the welcoming. Next step is to get set up on GPUGRID (since I assume WCG doesn't support GPU calculations at this time - right?).

In the next month or two I'll be building a new i7-980X box (assuming parts are available) and I'm sure I'll be coming here for advice on the best way to spend way too much money on it .

[[XC] Oj101]

There's also a 64bit client which works about 10% quicker than the one in the guide

[TyCanadian]

There's also a 64bit client which works about 10% quicker than the one in the guide

Good to know. Is it easy to find on the website? If not, would you mind providing a link? I'll update it tonight for maximum crunchability.

[Angmaar]

Good to know. Is it easy to find on the website? If not, would you mind providing a link? I'll update it tonight for maximum crunchability.

You can get it here under 64 bit.

[TyCanadian]

You can get it here under 64 bit.

Awesome, thanks.

[TyCanadian]

Got the 64-bit version up and running now, thanks!

[TyCanadian]

Time for my daily question to the veterans:

On my secondary PC, a Q6600 currently dedicated totally to WCG, I am currently only crunching 3 tasks, while I previously had 4 going at once with several more queued behind it. When I checked today, I noticed that it has been trying to get more tasks, but it receives a message from the server saying something about "daily quota of 140 results has been reached" (or something similar). There is absolutely no way I've crunched that many tasks in the last two days, let alone "daily". Any ideas what could be going on here, or how I can force it to grab more tasks?

Alternatively, is there a way to "copy" tasks from one PC to another if one PC has lots and the other has a shortage?

[Otis11]

There's no way to copy tasks to my knowledge b/c wcg knows which computer has what tasks...

And as far as the quota, check how many errors you have on your WCG results page... My guess is you got a ton of WUs from HPF2 and your computer doesn't like them...

[TyCanadian]

Will do. I'll look into the results when I get home tonight.

Thanks again for your patience with my multitude of newbie questions.

[TyCanadian]

Update - I think all my tasks were being aborted because my Windows time was all out of whack (July 22, 2010) and all my work units were being aborted because they were deemed overdue. I would have assumed BOINC used its own time, not the local time on the client PC, but go figure. Since it won't let me grab any more tasks today (I'm over the quota since all tasks were downloaded and immediately aborted), I will find out tomorrow and hopefully everything will be working.

[sierra_bound]

WCG uses UTC (Universal Time Coordinated) to keep track of time. It's similar to Greenwich Mean Time, except UTC is based on atomic clocks.

When the new day starts (UTC 00:00:00) you will be allocated new work units. It think that would be 7pm Eastern Time tonight.

When running BOINC, always make sure your PC's clock is set correctly.

[Angmaar]

Update - I think all my tasks were being aborted because my Windows time was all out of whack (July 22, 2010) and all my work units were being aborted because they were deemed overdue. I would have assumed BOINC used its own time, not the local time on the client PC, but go figure. Since it won't let me grab any more tasks today (I'm over the quota since all tasks were downloaded and immediately aborted), I will find out tomorrow and hopefully everything will be working.

Make sure you set the windows and BIOS time to the correct time.

[TyCanadian]

My problem is fixed - it looks like having the correct Windows time is critical. It's because the default Windows time server could never connect to sync my time. I changed the server to time.nist.gov and modified my registry value so that it updates once per day.

I still find it hard to believe that BOINC would "trust" the client PC's clock to handle deciding when a task would be overdue - this seems like something that would be easy to do and much more reliable to keep track of on their end. Either way, it's not an issue anymore.

Thanks again for all the helpful comments.

[Angmaar]

My problem is fixed - it looks like having the correct Windows time is critical. It's because the default Windows time server could never connect to sync my time. I changed the server to time.nist.gov and modified my registry value so that it updates once per day.

I still find it hard to believe that BOINC would "trust" the client PC's clock to handle deciding when a task would be overdue - this seems like something that would be easy to do and much more reliable to keep track of on their end. Either way, it's not an issue anymore.

Thanks again for all the helpful comments.

Welcome to the team!

[RCG_Bex]

I'm now officially crunching - looks like my rig isn't selling so might as well make it work!

Although it keeps telling me I don't have a Nvidia GPU? GTX295 was definitely Nvidia last time I checked!

~Bex

[Otis11]

I'm now officially crunching - looks like my rig isn't selling so might as well make it work!

Although it keeps telling me I don't have a Nvidia GPU? GTX295 was definitely Nvidia last time I checked!

~Bex

To do GPUGrid I'm guessing? You need atleast Boinc version 6.10.18

Download it here

Also, make sure you have drivers 186.xx on your card.

just post back if that doesn't work and we'll get you set up.

Edit: and 64 bit client get's a 10% boost if you're running 64 bit os.

Oh, and almost forgot and thanks for helping!

[RCG_Bex]

Well I got the latest 64bit version today. Never done this before so wasn't sure how easy it'd be but the guide made it painless (after noticing I had the 32bit version originally lol)

I had problems runnig newer Nvidia drivers before - I think it's because I lack the newest SP for XP 64bit. Caused me a lot of problems so I just resorted to not using it... Might look at re-installing Vista again if I can be bothered stripping out the crap that I don't need. Haven't got the money to buy into Windows 7 just now

Downloading the latest driver to see what it does...

~Bex

[RCG_Bex]

Ah - explains everything - anything above 182.XX causes my PC to screw up

It reverts everything into 4bit color mode and reduces the res to 640x480 and no matter how much I try to force apply it to run correctly it just doesn't work. I knew there was a reason I'd not updated it...

Thing is, all my games work fine so it's not like it bothers me...

~Bex

[Movieman]

Ah - explains everything - anything above 182.XX causes my PC to screw up

It reverts everything into 4bit color mode and reduces the res to 640x480 and no matter how much I try to force apply it to run correctly it just doesn't work. I knew there was a reason I'd not updated it...

Thing is, all my games work fine so it's not like it bothers me...

~Bex

Welcome to the group!