Just noticed that SETI@home was instantly finishing all WUs, so checked the log and seems that it started doing it as of about 45 min ago (at the time I write this), after it finished an Astropulse WU and went back to S@h on one core (still has an Astropulse one on the other which seems to keep running).

Snoozed it, restarted, had it do benchmarks, all seems fine (and Astropulse one restarted fine too), but S@h ones just keep doing this. What's going on?

Temperatures normal, 66-67C each core as reported by OpenHardwareMonitor (before the snooze, 63-65 now shortly after restarting work), it's where it tends to sit at full use.

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Seems to be a core issue. Works on the first core, 2nd just instant finish, assuming with errors. Does this mean something just happened to my CPU?

Just got on the computer around that time today... (But computer's on 24/7 otherwise.)

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Further test, if I start it on the first core, it can continue on the 2nd. No idea if that means it only does the checks at start or the problem is only there or what.

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Definitely there is an issue. Might be a heating issue,could be a core issue. Hard to say. Set your Boinc to No new task. It's probably going to error out all those work units you currently have. After that, you could try deleting Boinc and download a fresh installer and run it and see if it still has the same problem. If so then probably looking at an overheating or bad core. There's nothing in the work unit result so it' immediately ending. Let start there and see if that doesn't correct the problem

Ok, unistalled BOINC and cleared data, reinstalled 7.0.28 which was what I had before, only recently updated to latest version... Jun 27 says the file date, which incidentally marked a moment when my RAC started dropping, quickly from ~1200 to ~1000 where it was for the past week or so.

At first, started 2 WUs fine. Reboot, one of them is instantly reported as complete, but starts another one fine. Suspend both to make it start new ones, starts them fine. Repeat this three times, still seems to work. Close BOINC Manager (as in just the window, not exit it from the context menu), open it again, one of those currently being worked on is reported as completed, after 48 seconds. Now continuing on another that was started, after I unsuspended them, so far going for 8.5 min.

EDIT: Just realized something. Thought it just closed suspended tasks, starting them up again when it gets back to them, but I see several idle instances of S@h there in Task Manager, so guess suspend really is suspend. So new hypothesis: The error is with the second BOINC project process at any point, so if I suspend it and make it start another, it'll no longer be the 2nd process.

Would indicate software issue and that my CPU's fine after all? But what issue then? Not like I did anything today in particular...

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hmm..I'm going to defer to one of the others here. Most of them like to come in and check the message boards later in the day, like in 7 hours. Hopefully one of them will have a better idea of what things to try next. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Zalster

Hoping I won't jinx it, but worked fine since then. Just had it update, now checked task report in my account here, 17 reported tasks today, 11 valid, 5 validation pending (4 that ran normally plus the one that finished after 48 sec), 1 validation inconclusive (the one that stopped after some 3 min, which as you can see has the other result with little CPU time as well, so either we both glitched or the WU has issues).

Also glanced at the reports a bit more yesterday and saw a whole slew of instant finishes reported on Jul 13 too, so guess the problem was older and I had just noticed it then. Granted, did notice that it was working on Astropulse WUs unusually often, as in one almost always, occasionally two, recently, not sure if since the update or just for the past week or so, so may be that it just kept skipping any S@h WU that ended up being 2nd for quite a while, but as long as it had AP ones, and considering how long those take, I didn't happen to see it.

Not daring to reboot again just to test what will happen then though, will see when I'll next really need to I guess. Also, not updating BOINC again after this :/
Calculating average daily credit from the last 40 days report on BOINCStats, Jun 7 - 26 (before update), 1187.7. Jun 27 - Jul 15 (on latest version), 955.3, which is actually boosted by a 2357 on Jun 28, so just after update, possibly clearing away what was already finished before, so 877.4 if you exclude that day. For today, what was crunched after reverting, says 1188.

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Cavalary did you just receive a Nvida update or a Microsoft update for windows ?

did you stop Bionic while doing said update ?

did you restart after said update ?

if no to last 2 then .....silly boy ... a restart should fix problems

if yes to Nvida then did you do clean install ?

if no to clean install of Nvida then redo but this time clean install not just update and then restart machine

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if you updated the Bionic client while still having units to do ...

ops ther's your problem always run down all the units before update of Bionic Client or it will make all units in the list invalid.

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Actually, don't recall what I did with the WUs before updating. But either way nothing to do with the units already downloaded, much less possibly active, at the time, since the update was on Jun 27 and on Jul 15 I watched it instantly go through each in the list, download 100 more and instantly "finish" each of those too, and checking the tasks list here showed a whole other bunch like that on Jul 13 too.

No NVIDIA update (and also not using GPU). Did the last Windows update on Jul 9. Sure, BOINC was running while the Windows updates were installed, always is, never caused any trouble so far. And obviously rebooted after said updates, how'd you finish installing them otherwise?

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well sorry then mate can't help unless you can remember anything you have done you may just have a cpu on it's way out hope not for you sorry again ...

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One thing, and it is a pain when it happens - Windows Update sometimes updates the Nvidia driver with what it considers to be the "correct" version, but this is more often than not a hobbled version that is missing a whole load of stuff that is required for crunching. Do a CLEAN update with the correct driver FROM NVIDIA. Doing a clean update makes sure that any old driver is completely removed before the new one is installed (be aware that your display will do some strange things during the installation process)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

He is not using the GPU, he's doing CPU only crunching...

Yeah, that's what I was saying, so that driver should have no relevance either way. Plus that if I get around to playing something it's usually an old game, and I've learned quite a long time ago that avoiding a video driver update unless absolutely necessary is a good idea in this case.

(Also, don't think I'm letting Windows Update do what it wants. It's set to check and notify, then I do the rest, ignoring video driver updates as a rule, and looking into any other drivers that may show up before ticking them.)

Thing about GPU processing is that as an environmentalist there are times when I find it hard to justify keeping my computer to crunch on either way, so adding the GPU power use on top of the CPU one is not something that ever seemed right. When we'll get to 100% renewables I may reconsider, though I'd still be very edgy even then, for a number of different reasons.

Otherwise, 4 more completed fine, 2 more going now... Though 2nd is slow and uneven in pace, should be one of the typical ~3h45m ones but 1.5h gone and 3.5h remaining estimated, nearly all CPU power going into those but seems to be going in fits, alternating the speed I'd expect with barely crawling, estimate either increasing by a second per second passed or dropping by 3-5 / each. But maybe just paying too much attention... I hope.

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so adding the GPU power use on top of the CPU one is not something that ever seemed right.

All the wise ones say one gets more credit, work done, per watt on a GPU than the CPU.

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Cavalary sounds like the machine is running normal now . your times are out now because you update client and crashed so many units the servers probably think WTF see how it goes for a day .

Also 3 250watt solar Panels umm guessing here 4 big batteries and 1 750 watt inverter should stop you worrying to much about the CO2 .

I'm thinking it was the update to client and you didn't run down the units so all of them aborted and always turn off the client when updating ALL WAYS

A simular thing happened to me many moons ago when I was a neewbee , yes I know your not a neebee your 2 months older than me at seti but I'm a weird guy that does wired things on his machines so if can happen I've probably had the problem

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While performance / watt is a crucial characteristic when I'm looking into CPUs and video cards in general, when it comes to crunching I'm largely just looking at total power use... And have to say, didn't so far consider GPU-only crunching as a possibility (is it? as in strictly GPU-only, not sort of "well, mostly GPU, but there are things it can't do so there will keep being times with both CPU and GPU whenever"), so I was just thinking it'd be added on top. Plus that I'd be worried about driver updates required, which as I said may cause issues with what I'd sometimes want to play, and with how priorities work for GPU and of any performance hit if crunching while the video card would be under high use otherwise.

As for solar panels, heh, getting past the "little" issue of affording them, I'd put them where? 1st floor (or 2nd, if you count ground floor as 1st and not separately as we do here) of a 10 (or 11)-storey apartment building, on the north side, and with another building of the same height just on the right, perpendicularly.

And if it'd be an update issue still don't see why'd it only affect any SETI@home WU that's the 2nd running at the time, not if it's first and not Astropulse units of any sort, and why it'd keep applying to all newly-downloaded ones too, even weeks after said update.

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Yes you can do GPU work only but it will use a small amount of 1 core like !-2%

I don't have a answer why then Nvida updates do cause prob's other than it doesn't load everything if you do a update but all I can say to you is that it does even days later but most of the users are aware of this and as soon as it starts getting error or invalids and there has been a Nvida update it's the first thing to look at

Also if you wish to use only the GPU you would be better to install Lunatics for that .

If you play games on it then it might cause some prob's if your doing only GPU and more than 1 unit but you could just suspend Seti while you play and restart when your finished

your in between a rock and a hard place facing north so no sun 10 storeys high so no room to put cells . time to get a exercise bike and modify it to generate power it will keep you fit .....or kill you heheheheh

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can you only run the GPU. Yes, go to your account page and in the middle of the page click on seti@home Preferences. Select which ever profile you want or if you don't want to pick then leave it as the default and adjust the preference in that one. Click on use NVIDIA GPU and unclick Use CPU. You can also select which type of work units you want there, seti@home V7 and astropulses. Seti will then finish up whatever work units you have then will follow your preferences. Make sure you have the most up to date video drivers for your Nvidia cards. You can to go to

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/75996/en-us

if you want to update your drivers. Always use the Nvidia website. Don't let windows download it. Always do a clean install each time. You can also download Geforce experience which will help you keep track of what drivers you need for your system

http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience

Lastly, you might want a program to monitor the temps and speed of your GPU. Depending on who manufacture it. If it was made by EVGA then you can download their Precision X which monitors those things.

http://eu.evga.com/precision/

after all this then you can run only GPU work units as you choose. If you decide to go this route. Remember that you need at least 1 core to support any work done of the GPU so you don't want to total max out your chip and then "Starve" the GPU. It needs a portion of a cpu core to analyze data and by totally utilizing the chip, the GPU has to wait for help.

Good luck

Yeah, that's what I was wondering, about the amount of CPU help needed and the drivers. Not going to do GPU processing on this comp, was just asking hypothetically... Though if it requires latest NVIDIA drivers, I'd much rather not at all.

Knew the other stuff, and yes, card actually is EVGA and using Precision X on the odd occasion that I play something newer, for custom fan curve. Hasn't happened in a while though.

You know what the nasty thing is? I really don't want a new computer (or a major upgrade, that is, as I'd keep some stuff from this one). Ever since the first one I was thinking of upgrades as soon as I got one, planning. Now I just keep hoping I won't have to change this, obviously not because of hardware, better hardware's always good, but because it'd require some newer software, and in recent years each new version of a lot of things seems more dumbed down, less customizable, more restrictive, drivers less compatible with old stuff, free software I used to consider trustworthy coming bundled with all sorts of crap that at times you can't even opt out of, and don't even get me started on Win 8 or recent versions of my antivirus, no way I'm getting anywhere near any of that.
Used to jump on new versions and updates on release, now for the past few years I go increasingly out of my way to avoid them unless necessary for security (and if security requires an actual new version of something over just a minor update, I start trying to figure out how to do without it altogether). But since a new computer would require some new software, and different versions of most anyway due to the 32/64-bit switch...
Sad, ain't it?
/rant

Hm, a WU that should have taken some 3h40 done after 2h20, but validated here, -9 and a spike count of 30 for both me and the other person listed there with it, so not something on my end I gather, which means still fine.

Well, if it keeps being fine I guess I'll stop pestering people around here. Sorry for the rants :/

EDIT: You know, think it's the first time I check WU results here.

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