Posts by TBMS
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(Message 3819)
Posted 26 Nov 2014 by TBMS Post: Actually, as far as I’m aware it’s only been us two that have complained. Maybe other crunchers don’t care that much? |
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(Message 3817)
Posted 26 Nov 2014 by TBMS Post: I see now you’re not crunching anymore. I’m going in the opposite direction. I’m about to buy a used dual X5650 (6c/12t) that I’ll have on 24/7. I’m surprised to find out how cheap used workstations are on Ebay.de. http://www.ebay.de/sch/Desktops-AllinOnePCs-/171957/i.html?_from=R40&LH_BIN=1&_nkw=2x%20x5650%2024GB&_sop=2&_clu=2&_fcid=77&_localstpos&_stpos&gbr=1 http://ark.intel.com/products/47922/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5650-12M-Cache-2_66-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI They are even cheaper to buy on US Ebay, but not if one lives in a EU country that has high VAT, like I do. Don’t let your computers idle for too long ... |
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(Message 3781)
Posted 14 Nov 2014 by TBMS Post: Are you still crunching Asteroids? I left soon after and now I’m crunching World Community Grid’s different projects. https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/viewAllProjects.do But some of the crunchers over there also seem to share the same feeling of perceived lack of progress. Some of the busiest crunchers have given up, while some of the casuals have simply forgotten they ever signed up for this. http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=37012&offset=0 |
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(Message 3303)
Posted 4 Jul 2014 by TBMS Post: Sorry Andras, I've never been a team player. |
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(Message 3231)
Posted 14 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Kyong Is it even possible to discover new asteroids using the freely available data from NASA, ESA and all the ground based telescopes? If it is possible, what would it take in order for you to start up and run this project? Money; how much? |
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(Message 3196)
Posted 11 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: That’s fine. And if it where up to me you wouldn’t even have to write all the numbers in the columns under the Greek letters. Not only do they not mean anything to me, but also because the asteroids rotational characteristics can be found in DAMIT. Keep the shape column though, I like that one. : ) |
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(Message 3194)
Posted 11 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Andras I couldn't have written it any better myself. I agree completely. Everyone's free to do whatever they want, as long as they don't try to prevent me from expressing my doubts. |
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(Message 3193)
Posted 11 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Kyong Like I wrote before, I, and others, would like to be able to se what kind of progress we are making, because as it stands now it’s impossible. Numbering the asteroids would ended be very helpful. If I were able to look at the science results page today and see that as of 20140609 there was, lets say, 179 asteroids and then next week I would maybe see – oops – there’s another one, because THE NUMBERED AND CHRONOLOGICALLY DATED LIST shows asteroid number 180 was listed 20140615. At the bottom of the page. Chronologically. Number 180. Not all projects can do this, but this one can. I don’t know how much time it would take, maybe too much, but please don’t say it’s unnecessary. I understand that this is your project and that you set the rules. I wont complain about this again. Also, I wrote that ”it feels like the watts are going down a black hole.” I realize that they don’t. But it feels like that. Sometimes. |
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(Message 3183)
Posted 10 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: Here is a link to the Gaia mission objectives. I’m convinced that more than 99% of the time being spent on observations will be of objects far beyond the solar system. http://sci.esa.int/gaia/28890-objectives/ Also, had ESA been serious about detecting NEO:s they wouldn’t have sent their Gaia satellite to the Lagrange point L2, but to a Venus following orbit, like B612 Foundation's Sentinel satellite. Lets hope the Sentinel mission happens in 2018 like planned. https://b612foundation.org/sentinel-mission/ http://sci.esa.int/gaia/40413-solar-system/ http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/observatory_l2.html |
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(Message 3181)
Posted 9 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: Thanks Andras. @ Alexander I think I might stumbled onto a sensitive subject. I don’t criticize the SETI crunchers for their objective: finding ET. I’m convinced there is intelligent life in universe – even in our galaxy, right now – and we might one day come into contact with them, but now is not the time to search for them. I think we should use our recourses as effectively as possible and the task you have undertaken is simply beyond our technological reach. You are, maybe, ruling out intelligent life in a area that covers only a miniscule part of all the, almost, endless possibilities for why there hasn’t been any contact. Never mind the search model’s theoretical limitations, which exist as a consequence of the practical hurdles; it goes beyond that. Read about Fermi’s Paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Again, I’m not criticizing your objective. I’m criticizing your – almost gullible – approach and your acceptance of the low probability of ever receiving any return on your investment. The yields are almost zero. I’m also not saying it’s wrong crunching for SETI – if you do it for fun. Like you said, they have a vibrant community. But make sure you debit your social account and not your altruistic account. This is also why I’m a bit hesitant when it comes to crunching for all the protein folders in the BOINC community and why I liked the SIMAP project: the former have poor yields and the latter have good return on invested kWh. One could argue that A@H also has poor yields, and one would be right, but I do this almost as a protest against the scientific communities’ priorities. How can it be more important to map the galaxy, our and all the others, instead of mapping all the asteroids and comets that have the potential of ending all life on this planet, or at the very least, ending our civilization? It all centers around the ego, the scientists’ and the politicians’. The scientist are motivated by recognition, mostly from their peers but also from the general public, and they don’t get any of that if they map asteroids. But they receive recognition if they can verify the existence of gravitational waves. And for God’s sake, let’s not forget the Nobel price. So the scientists go to the politicians and ask for money and the politicians give it to them, on the only condition that whatever the scientist are doing will generate news articles with colorful pictures. Perhaps a nebula and the mandatory reference to the politicians in question. Said and done. Again and again. Pulsars, quasars, neutron stars, black holes, black matter, multiverse, gravitational waves and so on. Sending a probe to Pluto, yes, building a special purpose probe to map and track asteroids and comets, no. It’s not sexy and sexy rules, sets the agenda. Meanwhile the people in Chelyabinsk are counting their healed scars from flying debris. This ought to be everybody’s concern and it should be funded through UN, since it’s everybody’s potential problem. |
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(Message 3178)
Posted 9 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: I actually did a few days of crunching for SETI in 2001, or was it 2002, but lost interest almost immediately and didn’t return until I joined A@H, two moths ago. It seems I have different priorities today, compared to those I had back then. Also, we have many more choices today. You are of course right about SIMAP, and they haven’t done anything wrong. I wish them good luck, but that doesn’t mean I’m going back. It’s not fun anymore. “//the best ingrediences for a good running project; the feeling of being part of it.” I agree. That’s way I posted a request a few days ago, asking if admin could clarify the science results page by numbering and dating the asteroids that we crunched. It’s difficult to se what progress we are making just by looking at a long data list. A chronologic listing would be much appreciated. If it’s not to much to ask for. http://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/forum_thread.php?id=314&postid=3142 |
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(Message 3175)
Posted 8 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Andras Don’t eat before swimming, or you‘ll sink : ) “For me, watching an ARM farm crunch is fun, but then again others prefer a nicely shaped case with x86 hardware in it :)” I, too, would like to have a farm, but why choose? The Asus I pointed out earlier is X86 and has a ”nicely shaped case”, and is cheap enough to be farmable. What I like most about it is that it has a passive cooling. I don’t like listening all day to a hissing sound. These hissing sounds tend to get worse as computers age. Sometimes even new computers have a high noise level, like one laptop I bought which I had to give away after a few months, simply because it gave me a headache. @ Alexander ”Milkyway has a gain factor up to 50 when running on AMD cards, much less when using nVidia.” This is a good number. I whish the project leaders could be more open about these numbers so that we could allocate the hardware in a more efficient way. ”Einstein has a average gain of 8 for both AMD and nVidia, Asteroids is a special theme, the gain is below 2 which makes it senseless using graphic cards from the view of price and power consumption.” I think that A@H should discontinue their support for Nvidia graphic cards since the app’s energy efficiency is so low, or at least post a warning sign, in red letters, on the front page. I wonder how many Watts/wu it’s grilling? One alternative is to advise crunchers to only use it during winter and only if they have electric heating i the house. That way we can turn of the radiator in the room where the computer is. “Looking backward, the first gpu app for MW came from a private person, not from the project dev's, the fma4 app here comes from a private person, Seti and Collatz have excellent apps from private programmers//” Maybe someone could contact whoever wrote the Milkyway app and ask him if he could do the same for A@H? Do you know what the gain is for Seti and Collatz, and all the other projects out there – not that I’ll ever waist a single nWh on the Seti project. I’m sad to see SIMAP ending their project later this year. I just recently began to crunch and I saw their project as one of the more important among the many different BOINC projects. I’ve already bailed. It’s no fun crunching a dead end task. |
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(Message 3170)
Posted 8 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Alexander Thanks for the input. I also forgot to include the interest on the part of the price of ARM devises that exceed the price of the X86. This will move the breakeven point even further into the future, although not much in today’s low interest rate economy which is constantly importing deflation from Asia. I must say that I’m surprised, I really thought ARM SoCs where more cost effective than X86 sockets. Maybe they’ll be one day when smart phones become a commodity in developing countries, but we’re not there yet. I have a steep learning curve, since I’ve only used X86 and Windows. Even my tablet is X86 Windows and I use it mostly for e-books. It’s been convenient to remain in Microsoft’s garden, but I suppose I ought to broaden my horizon. So in that spirit I followed your previous link to Hardkernel and saw: http://hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138503207322 Do you know if it’s possible to crunch on all 8 cores simultaneously on this odroid? Your latest link to Mainboard Zotac ZT-JSTK1-10L, could, apart from the Nvidia graphics, be much the same story as with the ARM sticks, high upfront cost that are never recouped. And that leads me to the next question: how do graphic cards stand up against X86s from a purchase price and energy efficiency perspective? Perhaps it makes more sense to keep the old computers and to install new, expensive graphic cards instead? This is all very confusing since I want to have maximum crunch for my buck, but at the same time there are so many choices. You mentioned faster RAM as a way to speed up things. Another way to increase crunching speed is to install a RAM-drive, at least for some projects. I’ll try that for CEP2. Their time limit of 18 hours has meant that my wus have timed out at 60%, far from completing the task. I tried a few wus but ended up aborting them. I felt if I can’t finish them then I might just as well drop them. I hope it will work, because their research is important. Finding the semiconductor replacement for silicon, in a time when we are fast approaching peak-all-fossil-fuel, will not only enable more efficient solar cells, but maybe also prevent a technological plateau after 2025 when the shrinkage of ICs in silicon hits a wall. Sure, a few years here or there, but we will see it during our lifetime. Both events. Stealthy, and with profound consequences. 4 GB RAM-Disk for free (at the bottom of the page) - Dataram http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk/ http://blog.laptopmag.com/faster-than-an-ssd-how-to-turn-extra-memory-into-a-ram-disk Also, I’ve been meaning to ask if any of you are running antivirus on your dedicated crunching computers? I don’t have any dedicated machine yet, but will soon. |
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(Message 3167)
Posted 7 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ Andras I’m trying to sort out what approach is best for me and I don’t know if this is right, so if anybody can point out errors I’d be grateful. I’m using Andras numbers. The cheapest similarly* configured computer to match your Core i7 2600 computer, which by now is difficult to find in stores, would maybe be an i7-4770. This one cost today, in Sweden, about SEK6000, which is about €663 (EUR/SEK rate: 9,05). You wrote earlier that you needed 24 USB sticks to match the performance of this computer – 6 sticks per cluster and 4 clusters to crunch 96 wu in 42 hours, by this time the i7 did 100 wu, but I will view this as equal results – which comes down to 24 x $60 x 1,2 (added VAT and toll tariffs) = $1728. This is about €1267 (€/$ rate: 1,3641). So, you are right, the initial cost, the entry price of the altruistic investment, is lower for X86, about 48% lower, but over time that edge is lost because of the lower Watt/wu that ARM SoC has. According to this calculation by [TA]Assimilator1, which is based on your measurement ... “So your PC does ~57 tasks/day whilst the ARM cluster does ~55/day (no need to round up :P), which with A@H's bizarre fixed credit rate per task regardless of it's length (compared with the same h/w) makes it easy to work out credit/w. So taking the average power draw of ~173w for the PC & 130w for the ARM cluster that's 3.035w/credit for the PC & 2.363w/credit for the ARM cluster, yep it's much more efficient! Forgot to say at the start btw, cool project :).” ... the difference in Watt/wu is 22%, in favor of ARM. I had the misfortune of locking in the price of my electricity at the very high price of €0,24/kWh (until January 2016). This means I would have to run your ARM clusters for a certain period before I could break even with the lower purchasing price of the X86 computer, i7-4770: (€1267 - €663) / €0,24/kWh x (0,173kW - 0,130kW) = 58527 hours, or 2439 days, or 6 years and 8 months (24 hours a day). Since it’s reasonable to assume that the USB sticks will not last 6 years and 8 months – at least not in my opinion, considering the high temperatures they build up inside the cramped casings and any way, who wants to torture a 7 year old, tired to the siliconbone, computer, which has most of its surviving transistor gates suffering from a leaking bladder – it would lead me to the conclusion that this socket X86 is better than this ARM SoCs, although I admit this is a subjective call. This, of course, provided that I haven’t made any wrong calculation. In reality it would take even longer to break even with the X86, since I’m comparing the energy consumption of an older computer with new android SoC USB sticks. Core i7 2600 TDP is 95W and Core i7-4770 is 84W. This difference is also reflected, to some degree, in the motherboard and perhaps also in the memory modules. So lets assume that the correlation between the lowered CPU TDP transcends over to other components so that the whole X86 computers energy consumption is lowered by a third of the TDP percentage difference. (1 - (84 / 95)) x 0,33 = 0,0382% (€1267 - €663) / €0,24/kWh x (0,173kW x (1 - 0,0382) - 0,130kW) = 69156 hours, or 2881 days, or 7 years and 11 months (24 hours a day). I’ll stop now. TDP values can’t be trusted, since they’re often set from a marketing perspective. Also, when my electricity price goes down, in 2016, the breakeven point will be moved even further into the future. Maybe it’s possible to improve the X86 energy efficiency (wu/Watt) if it’s a SoC, like this one: http://www.asus.com/uk/EeeBox_PCs/EB1036/overview/ And it’s cheap. At €229 it’s possible to buy 3 of these for the price of one Core i7-4770 PC: http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/OffersOfProduct/4290877_-eee-box-eb1036-b0080-90px0041-m00140-asus.html It has a 40 Watt power adapter and it radiates 6.695 W when idle, which is less than 10% of a Core i7-4770 PC (guesstimating). The biggest weakness, as I see it, is that it only has one memory channel, I’m guessing, this despite the CPU and chipset supporting dual. http://ark.intel.com/sv/products/78867/Intel-Celeron-Processor-J1900-2M-Cache-up-to-2_42-GHz http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/chipsets/value-chipsets/mobile-chipset-hm70.html : ( So after all this I’ll still buy the Q7 android, simply because I’m curious. I’ll probably also buy one ASUS EB1039, just to compare, and at some point in the future, maybe 2015Q3, when Intel shrinks desktop CPUs to 14nm, I’ll buy one i7. BUY, BUY, BUY! I’m realizing that, in a time when you can have all the everyday computing you need in a pocket, BOINC is a great excuse to buy new, unnecessary computers. *http://www.prisjakt.nu/kategori.php?l=s174605671&o=produkt_pris_inkmoms#rparams=l=s174629764 http://ark.intel.com/products/75122/Intel-Core-i7-4770-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/52213/Intel-Core-i7-2600-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz |
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(Message 3165)
Posted 7 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: Was GPU crunching or was it idle? |
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(Message 3163)
Posted 7 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ alexander “The Images for two Android versions and 2 Linux versions are free downloadable from the odroid forum. There is also a cyanogen image available for that device. This means, you can load a vnc server and run the device without keyboard, mouse or monitor via you pc.” That’s good to know, especially if there are many devises. ”In general, Native Boinc has less overhead which makes crunching a little bit faster than using the Berkely Boinc.” That’s even better to know. Perhaps I need to try WCG’s native BOINC to see if it performs better on CEP2. @ Andras Earlier you wrote that your “strong pc” did 100 wu in 42 hours and needed 172,5 Watts during the crunching. Which of your computers was that? |
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(Message 3159)
Posted 6 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: @ alexander If I could choose between two similarly priced minicomputers that have comparable performance I'd choose one that runs Linux, simply because all projects support this OS. Your last link is interesting and almost convinced me. I see that it has DDR2 (Q7 has DDR3). Do you know if it’s a 28nm CPU? This is first time I’ve heard of odroid. Are there any other minicomputers that support Linux? @ Bazso You are right, it will be warm, but I’m guessing also less likely to overheat and I'm willing to go down to 80% if necessary. The Q7 has a larger casing than a USB stick and more ventilation holes. http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Q7-TV-BOX-RK3188-Bluetooth-v4-0-Android-4-2-External-Wifi-Antenna-Ethernet-Port-with-2-4GHZ-wireless-Air-Mouse--Black-324259.html |
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(Message 3150)
Posted 6 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: If I go for this I'll probably take your overheating experience into account and try one of these instead: http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_23175.html http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box/pp_24448.html It cost a few dollars more and the power adapter radiates a few watts, but it probably wont overheat. I'll buy one of these and if it works well I'll buy more, maybe 5 more, and ask for a discount. Android is not suitable for all projects. For instance, CEP2 is so I/O intensive that even an i7 computer has to sweat. I recently found out that some of the people over there use RAM discs to mitigate the problem; they think a SSD is to slow. Android is probably good enough for A@H. |
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(Message 3148)
Posted 5 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: Can't you lower the CPU time to maybe 80% so that they don't overheat? Also, do you need to reboot them after a few weeks. I've never had Android before so I'm not familiar with this OS and microcomputers in general, but I'm willing to explore any possibility that can increase the flop/Watt. |
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(Message 3145)
Posted 5 Jun 2014 by TBMS Post: OK, I've done the measurements. My strong PC, which can process about 100 A@H tasks in 42 hours, consumes about 170-175W when running BOINC at full load and 95-100W when not doing anything, just running idle. On the other hand the ARM cluster, which completes 24 tasks in 42 hours, consumes 30-35W. Assuming I would have 4 such ARM clusters, processing 96 tasks in 42 hours (let's consider taht equal to the 100 tasks of the strong PC), the total ARM power consumption would be 120-140W, so it's actually more energy efficient compared to the strong PC! Also less noisy, cheaper (assuming you catch some really good deals from China, like I did) and more fascinating :) This sounds interesting. How much does it cost to buy from China and from which store? I found these: http://www.geekbuying.com/item/EU-Plug-CX-919-Android-4-1-1-Mni-PC-TV-Box-RK3188-Quad-Core-1-6Ghz-2G-8G-BT-HDMI-Black-314978.html http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Tronsmart-MK908II-RK3188-Cortex-A9-Quad-Core-1-6GHz-Google-Android-4-2-Mini-TV-BOX-2G-8G-BT-External-Wifi-Antenna-Black-318432.html Four 1.6 GHz cores for $59.90 sounds cheap. Also this one, if you like x86 for Windows: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856501006 http://www.ecs.com.tw/LIVA/spec.html Mobil geeks claims it's a 2 core N2807, but maybe it's a 4 core? http://www.mobilegeeks.com/ecs-liva-worlds-smallest-mini-pc-kit-hands-video/ http://ark.intel.com/products/81072/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2807-1M-Cache-up-to-2_16-GHz |
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