If you only have one computer, and you can really only crunch for one at a time...how do some people have a ton of credits for several different projects?

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Computers Crunching:
Laptop (1.4GHz, 512mb RAM)
Main Laptop (Dual Core 2.16GHz, 2gb RAM)

> If you only have one computer, and you can really only crunch for one at a
> time...how do some people have a ton of credits for several different
> projects?
>

One of the reasons for BOINC. You can attach to more than 1 project. As you can see this machine is attached to 4 projects. Each project is given 25% of it's processing power or each is given 6 hours a day theoreticaly if it did nothing but crunch Work Units/WU 24/7.

Ziggy

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Hello,

OK, I have 2, but run all 4 of my projects on both.

The projects change every 120min at least (as I said in my general preferences), or when a WU is finished. I've chosen this amount, because PPAH finishes a WU within this timespan on my machines.

What will start next is decided by Boinc, using my project preferences, the crunching history of the machine, and unfortunately not the deadline, but I have set my cache to only 1.5 days, so it's not really an issue with me ;)

The current preferences for my projects are:
CPDN 40, EAH 30, SAH 20, PPAH 10.
So it will happen, that perhaps CPDN will crunch for 4h in a row, but so what?

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Gruesse vom Saenger

For questions about Boinc look in the BOINC-Wiki

> If you only have one computer, and you can really only crunch for one at a
> time...how do some people have a ton of credits for several different
> projects?

BOINC is designed with the goal of being cross-project capable. What it does is, it runs one project for a while (typically an hour if preferences haven't been changed), then it suspends that project and starts another one. When doing that project for an hour it suspends that one as well.

An example: You participate in two projects. Time to complete a wu on both is three hours. Resource share is 50% on each project. BOINC then:

run project1 for one hour
suspend project1
run project2 for one hour
suspend project2
resume project1 for one hour
suspend project1
resume project2 for one hour
suspend project2
resume project1 for one hour
resume project2 for one hour

So you can crunch for several projects with just one computer. Just create an account, and attach your computer to it ;) Be aware of deadlines though - too many projects can get you into trouble with meeting report deadlines.

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And watch out for how much work you have stored. I detached from SETI while it was down and ran CPDN and Einstein. BOINC downloaded enough data for a few days processing on the 50-50 share. When I reattached to SETI, giving each project 33% time now, I still had all the packets already downloaded for Einstein, and as a result they barely had enough time to finish before the report deadline.

With multi-projects the cache can be kept at 1 day or smaller.
I am running with .2 connections per day on all projects.

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Red Bull Air Racing

Gas price by zip at Seti

> With multi-projects the cache can be kept at 1 day or smaller.
> I am running with .2 connections per day on all projects.

My project prefs are set at 1 day. It's just that Einstein demands its data fast. :)

> > With multi-projects the cache can be kept at 1 day or smaller.
> > I am running with .2 connections per day on all projects.
>
> My project prefs are set at 1 day. It's just that Einstein demands its data
> fast. :)
>

Mine are set to 0.1 - 0.5 day, so I never have more than max 2 - 3 WU's in cache. Then I don't miss the deadlines.

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"I'm trying to maintain a shred of dignity in this world." - Me

> Mine are set to 0.1 - 0.5 day, so I never have more than max 2 - 3 WU's in
> cache. Then I don't miss the deadlines.

I guess I should also explain that I'm on dialup, and I've had a rare but recurring problem with the modem locking up during sync. I keep the modem speaker on so I can hear when this happens, because I may have to reset the machine afterwards, as sometimes this will lock up the network and prevent the OS from attempting redial. So to cut down on the number of daily dials and hence the noise, I like to cache a bit of work. Therein lies the balancing act.

[edit] I once had the machine set to 7 days, but then a different disaster struck and I lost my cached packets. I felt very bad about losing so many packets others were waiting on for credit, so I backed off the settings to 1 day [/edit]

> And watch out for how much work you have stored. I detached from SETI while
> it was down and ran CPDN and Einstein. BOINC downloaded enough data for a few
> days processing on the 50-50 share. When I reattached to SETI, giving each
> project 33% time now, I still had all the packets already downloaded for
> Einstein, and as a result they barely had enough time to finish before the
> report deadline.

Just curious: why did you dettach from seti? you don't have to do that because seti is down ;)

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> Just curious: why did you dettach from seti? you don't have to do that because
> seti is down ;)

I got tired of it dialing out so often trying to find a server (four packet results to upload, each causing a dial about once an hour and at different times). Add to that dials for CPDN and Einstein, and it tends to be annoying when I'm actually at the computer and trying to do something else, or when I'm trying to go to sleep (I'm an insomniac, yet I'd forget to turn the speaker back on when I woke up, which is a bad combination). There's no way of suspending an individual project short of detaching it, and I didn't want to suspend network access because 1) I didn't really think about it, and 2) even if I did I'd worry a little about how it would affect the other projects.

> > Just curious: why did you dettach from seti? you don't have to do that
> because
> > seti is down ;)
>
> I got tired of it dialing out so often trying to find a server (four packet
> results to upload, each causing a dial about once an hour and at different
> times). Add to that dials for CPDN and Einstein, and it tends to be annoying
> when I'm actually at the computer and trying to do something else, or when I'm
> trying to go to sleep (I'm an insomniac, yet I'd forget to turn the speaker
> back on when I woke up, which is a bad combination). There's no way of
> suspending an individual project short of detaching it, and I didn't want to
> suspend network access because 1) I didn't really think about it, and 2) even
> if I did I'd worry a little about how it would affect the other projects.
>
4.25 allows you to suspend individual projects. If you use BOINCView, you can actually do this gracefully (complete all work first).

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