Just getting back in to all this I had found a while ago that BOINC would take over my computer whether I told it to or not - so I'd stopped it completely apart from at night, and then it seemed that power setting or something was killing it.....
ANYWAY
Now I'm back doing it I see that my chart on the GR homepage doesn't have any data (though BOINC desktop shows progress on my desktop ap). I did "synchronize with GR" from the desktop.
BTW - the new facebook page with charts etc looks great - I didn't realize that it would now do more than just say "Quentin is doing stuff for free" every two weeks, but "Here is a milestone that QP has reached etc" - awesome!
Q
You've mentioned a couple issues here --
{1} "BOINC would take over my computer whether I told it to or not" :: is this still happening? Can you describe in more detail?
{2} "power setting or something was killing it." :: is this still happening? Can you describe in more detail?
As for your current issue:
{3} "my chart on the GR homepage doesn't have any data" :: Seems like your various project accounts somehow have different CPIDs. This is extremely unusual; provided you have at least one computer which is attached to all your projects the CPIDs should synchronize.
I seem to recall that you have in the past participated in testing of old versions of GR and/or PTP. Very possibly, you ended up in some weird state as a result of testing activities. Meanwhile, there is probably a simple fix:
...Then the page should reload. Your "Stats ID" (CPID), shown on that page, should change. If so, your stats & chart should be corrected (though this may take 24 hours). If it works, this will fix both your PTP and your GR accounts at the same time.
So please give it a try and let me know how it goes.
I don't *think* BOINC take over is still happening, but ayear ago I would allow 10% of processor while busy, only one processor etc, and I would find my computer at a standstill, and a CTRL-ALT-DEL would show BOINC continually jumping from 5% to 50% and back again and nothing else gettting a chance (on 2 processors I find if one is maxed then you're out of luck).
Power setting was just me not paying attention - I let it run overnight, but my power settings would suspend or hibernate or whatever.
I've tried your fix for my current situation - I wasn't linked on my real facebook account - and I am currently running on at least 4 different ciomputers, and have run it on more than a dozen since when BOINC first launched SETI, so I may be in a mess all over the place. I have now linked my real Facebook and will wait for it to propagate -my "ID" very interesting what is possible on that ap.
My facebook email isn't my BOINC email, but somehow it knew who I was - as it got all the right project, just no state. It looked on my HDD, I guess.
Thanks for the help.
Quentin
about your #1 above (CPU throttling) --
note that the CPU useage percentage you specify is treated as an average. what really happens is that the volunteer computing apps use 100% of your CPU, but only x% of the time. so for instance, if you specified 10% use, then the apps would run 100% for 10% of every second and 0% for 90% of every second. so the result would be a sort of "saw-tooth graph, that oscillates between 0 and 100%, and has an average value of 10%.
Thanks.
I first did PTP using a test fb account. Long story short - I've now deleted that FB account, deleted and reinstalled PTP on my real account, followed your advice and all is working (also recommended to a bunch of friends), both here and on FB,
I *love* what you are doing with the user interface and wall of photos (I had the exact same vision as a TV ad years ago!!) and posint updates and milestones.
Got it on the power - that was me being lazy and not realizing how my power setting were configured. A feature, not a bug as you say.
Last point - I can't read yopur posts while I'm writing this, which means I have to try to remember what you said, but I think I got it all.
Thanks again
not sure i understand what you are saying in your last post: "it does seem that if one processor maxes out you are slowed WAY down"... this should not happen. there really shouldn't be much if any noticable effect on your activities.
but if there is, you might try lowering the CPU resource share in home > my computers > edit > "View/Edit Preference Sets"
I've noticed with Excel (eg) if it gets stuck and takes all of one processor then the whole computer becomes almost unusable. I have 2 cores Core 2 Duo T7500.
I believe it is (or WAS) the same with BOINC - limit to one core and 25%, but it bounces to 100% of that core for 25% of the time and during that time the computer stops. WIll update if I'm still seeing this.
what you report is quite irregular; never seen (or heard of) anything like that.
what OS are you running? and are you running the GR desktop software, PTP, or BOINC?
XP SP3.
When I saw this behaviour in the past it might have been a previous SP. It's running quite politely now as I type - so that's good.
Exce still does that thing - gets lost on a huge sheet or some other terminal loop and there's barely enough cycles left to open Task Manager and kill it - even though it's only maxing one processor.
I have little idea what I am running. I downloaded the latest BOINC from their site. It says I am using GR as account manager and I just signed up for PTP on Facebook. What that means I am "using" I don't know!
Yeah, yeah - it's a "feature" of multiprocessors under windows as far as I am aware - take all of one processor and you're stuck, even if you have another.
Right now GR/BOINC is behaving very nicely - I have it running while I am using the computer for the first time in 2-3 years.