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Bookrat
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What happens if an SMP WU misses its deadline?

Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:41 am

Short question: What happens in the case when an SMP WU is uploaded a few hours past the deadline?

Long explanation for short question:
So, I have brought a couple of new folders in at the office. One of these people is running a core duo laptop that never leaves its docking station... so I decided to the beta Windows SMP on there.

My policy is that the client does *not* run during the day; I have batch files and scheduled tasks that turn it off during work hours and on overnight. (This has turned out to be the best for me, because it does not cause fans to run noisily, nor does it make people wonder what those fah processes are that are running at 98% utilization on their CPU and therefore obviously causing their machine to bog down so could you please come and take it off now? I figure that ~14 hours of processing per machine per day over the long term is far better than 24 hours per day until they they get pissed off and disable it. :D)

Anyway... this laptop is not exactly a beast; it appears that in the 14 hours of processing it will crunch ~23.5% of a WU. Extrapolating, this means that if it happened to download a WU on Monday or Tuesday, then by the time the deadline hit (four days later) it would still be a couple percentage points short of completion. It should never take it more than 100 hours (from download) to complete a WU ... but that's still more than the 96 hours that F@h gives you.

Hence, the short question. TIA for any help.
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Nitrodist
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 11:43 am

Short answer: no points.
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Flying Fox
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:02 pm

Core Duo's are no good for the SMP WUs. I would probably stick to running 2x single core instances if RAM is not an issue.
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Bookrat
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:32 pm

Flying Fox wrote:
Core Duo's are no good for the SMP WUs.

How do you figure that? This machine is running at 14 hrs/day, and needs to run at about 16/day to hit the deadline. That's only 2/3 utilization.

Even if it were only to run on Thu/Fri/all-day-sat/all-day-Sun that would be enough to finish an SMP unit. At 1760/unit, that's ~250 points per day over the course of the week.

Two single core instances would not get me anywhere near that, based on past experience (and running only 14 hours/day).

So how is it 'not worth it'? What am I missing?
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Flying Fox
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:48 pm

Basically the SSE performance is nowhere near the C2Ds. Some WUs it may be really close, assuming the CDs are similar to the X2's. So if you are not on 24x7, may be the potential loss of points does not justify running the SMP clients?
The Model M is not for the faint of heart. You either like them or hate them.

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just brew it!
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:55 pm

Bookrat wrote:
How do you figure that? This machine is running at 14 hrs/day, and needs to run at about 16/day to hit the deadline. That's only 2/3 utilization.

There's enough variation between different SMP WUs that if you're cutting it that close to the wire on "typical" ones, there will also be some that miss the deadline. I stopped running the SMP client on my old Athlon MP box for exactly this reason.
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Usacomp2k3
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:02 pm

My laptop's C2d @ 2ghz is taking 34 hours of processing time for the current WU (done through the linux 64-bit SMP VM).
 
1970BossMsutang
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:07 pm

I just started doing folding and i've been spreading my cpu powers to as many computers as i can find. Whole bunch of computers in my office and now all my friends i build or have built computers for will have folding going on in the background to help get some WU's done.
E6600 2.88GHZ | Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe| 4GB DDR800 Corsair XM2 | 3x 320GB Barricuda RAID 0 |BFG Geforce 8800 GTX OC2| X-Fi Xtreme music | OCZ 700 Watt PSU
 
Tarx
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Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:36 pm

After missing the preferred deadline that WU gets put back on the list of WUs to get reassigned. I don't know how fast it gets reassigned (i.e. if it goes to the front of the list or the back) and what happens if it get completed before it is reassigned.
Apparently statistically if a WU missed the preferred deadline there is a very good chance it will miss the final deadline. If the results for the WU is returned before the reassigned one returns it it will (as far as I'm aware) use the first results it gets. This project is iterative so rapid completion of a the full set of WUs is important in many cases before the next set of WUs for that project can be released.

Surprisingly full points are awarded if miss the preferred deadline but complete before the final deadline (I would have expected partial points).

In general if don't expect to meet the preferred deadline, should consider running a different client otherwise it doesn't help the research as much as it can.

Folding on notebooks. I want to raise a yellow flag on that one. Notebooks are often designed not to be used at 100% 24/7. In quite a few cases I've seen fans get very noisy (or even burn out), clogged with dust, etc.
Desktop PCs are easy to clean or swap out a fan by the user. Notebooks usually are not. Notebook temperatures also get quite toasty and in some cases that can cause damage over the long run. This is a generalization as some notebooks are built substantially better than others and the selection of components also has a major impact.
My normal suggestion for notebooks is 40% CPU with the regular client for each core and then go up & down so the fan doesn't get too loud and the notebook doesn't get too hot. If want to do some serious folding on a notebook, then I suggest taking a look at control software like NHC (Notebook hardware control) http://www.pbus-167.com/ and playing with multipliers and voltages to get the best over performance for the desire noise & temp. It can make a huge difference!
Keep folding!

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