SETI@Home group

[CiKoTiC]

Are there any users that are interested in joining a techwarelabs group?

If so speak up and I'll start one.

If your not familiar with what SETI@Home is, go to http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ to find out.

Here is our team homepage: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_148903.html

[MIK3]

the group thing sounds like a good idea...and that site is pretty cool lookin, kinda querky, but i like it. :nod:

[Keefe]

I used to run seta@home on all of my computers.

I think that we should wait until another DC project starts, it would be too hard to be top ranking just starting now.

Anyone know of any DC projects that are fairly new?

[Omega]

I'm not sure, but I think some of them do ladder rankings on a monthly basis (to accomidate newcomers). I'm currently running a project called United Devices (UD). It works for finding cures for cancer. I'm on the ArsTechnica team (alas, there was no HWP, NetSmog, or TWL team). I've been moving up the ranks there. I'm around 75th place, I think. I run it on no less than four computers, and have been up at 10 simultaneous computers running for my account alone (ranging from P3 450 MHz to AMD XP 1900+).

I personally would rather stay with UD (I've had big debates about which project is the best, and have argued for this cancer cure project since the beginning. I'm not in the mood to argue at the moment, though, but we'll see how it turns out.

[accurateimage]

Could someone explane to me what all this stuff is all about..?? Dc..?? sorry I am a blonde I have an excuse hehe :)

[Omega]

DC is (in this case) distributed computing. It is a centrally organized program where thousands/millions of people download a client application to their computer. That application then retrieves data from a server, and processes the data however the application has been programed to do (ex. if it's SETI, aka Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, it takes readings from satelites/telescopes and goes through them for things that could signify intelligence...whatever that may be, but the application would know). Once the application is done processing the data it retrieved from the server, it sends the results back to the server, and repeats the process, over, and over, and over again.

[accurateimage]

So basically instead of trying to come up with millions of $$$ in cash to try to buy computrs to figure this out they use ours..?? cool idea. Can you easily delete it..?? Also how much does it tax your system? how much does it tax your upstream / download. I have cable at 3.2mb/s so I am not worried, but would be nice to know :)

[Omega]

The applications will use 100% of your unused CPU cycles. What this means, is it is an extremely high-intensity application, but it's set at a very low priority, so basically any other application you're using will be uneffected. It only uses bandwidth when sending or receiving data, which only occurs once or twice a day, on average. It will then download maybe 800 KB, and presumably upload less than that, but I'm not sure exactly how much. It should be extremely easy to remove...just uninstall the program. None of the projects that I'm aware of have any spyware, or special needs for uninstalling.

[Bear]

As I'm already in this group:
Uncreative labs (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_35530.html)
and they would suffer severely if I left and joined another group
I think you should start a group but I will not join.

[Jazzman]

once or twice a DAY?

what seti version are YOU using?

[Bear]

I worked theaching word and powerpoint I put seti on 15 733 mhz
celeries on weekends they cold work undisturbed and get all the
cpu time.

Now I'm just running it on this amd K6-II @ 574mhz so it takes a few
days per unit.

[CiKoTiC]

As soon as my email is back up - I'll create a techwarelabs group. Should be in the next 24 hours or so.

I'll post the info asap.

[accurateimage]

<<< AVERAGING 1 PACKET EVERY 11 HOURS, IS THAT GOOD OR BAD..?? ;)

[CiKoTiC]

That's about average AI.

[accurateimage]

Odd, last packet took 8 hours 50 somthing minutes..? woner why..?? computer has been on the same time. Strange. are different packets differen sizes or..?

[Bear]

I think it depends on how much you use the computer, if it is on
a you're not doing anything on it seti will have all the cpu time.

[accurateimage]

Odd! I was off all day yesterday and my comp is always on and it took over 12 hours, I was on it allot today and it took a bit over 8!!! Strange :) mabey the packets or units come in differnt sizes :) Oh well it's cool I am glad to help!

[Bear]

Could be different sizes as well or maybe they differ in how hard they
are to compute.

[Omega]

Yes, the data segments the server distributes are different sizes.

Jazzman: I'm not participating in SETI (as I said in an earlier post), but rather UD. Sometimes it does take my computer upwards of 50 hours to finish a particular project though, so it really depends on a combination of factors.

[CiKoTiC]

Sorry about the delay. I created a TechwareLabs group for us. Just do a search for "TWL SETI Team" and join up. If you have any problems, let me know.

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

:)

[TheRogue]

it analyses the data so each packet will be different as it is different data

nice to see a new face (AI) since i got back

when i run SETI on my comp it keeps crashing... though this may of been due to my cooling problem which (hopefully) now have been fixed with new heatsink and fan (quite large!) courtesy of my computer supplier free of charge :D

ill join a TWL DC group once bb is setup (only a week to go!)

[Omega]

Hm, now I have a conflict of interests. I mean, I've donated almost a year and a half of CPU time to UD (a good chunk of that to the ArsTechnica team), but I mean...it looks kind of bad for me to be promoting a different site rather than my own.

[CiKoTiC]

Nobody wants to join eh? I'll give the group another week and then I'm nix'n it.

[MIK3]

once again...

the group thing sounds like a good idea...and that site is pretty cool lookin, kinda querky, but i like it. :nod:

[Omega]

I'm in once I figure out my password.

[Omega]

Update: I am in.

I do feel kind of bad abandoning the cancer project though. I still feel the cancer project has more noble merits behind it than SETI, as does folding@home (researching how/why proteins fold the way they do). What's everyone's obsession with SETI...it seems so gimicky compared to medical research.

[Omega]

Oooh, one last thing. A direct link to the TWL SETI@Home team is here (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_148903.html).

[wizbones]

You guys are off to a start :D If you'd a started this a while back I'd a hooked up with ya. Been runnin Seti for just under two years.

I took my points over to ExtremeDC

I'm also running ECCP with ExtremeDC and TSC with Team Allegiance

Don't have any other puters yet to add to anything else. If I come up with a spare and help out your seti team, I'll get it going. Good luck with it.

I would think with the amount of members you could get a rock solid team going. I mean even if you only crunch two WU a day, with 200 members minimum we're talking 400 a day.

Seti is the easiest to run out of them all and it doesn't affect anything else you're doing. Do not need a dedicated connection either. :D Crunch on guys n gals.

If you're interested in finding other projects etc check out DCers.com (http://www.dcers.com)

[Omega]

Well, I've pulled into the lead on the team with 227 hours of CPU time (as of 1:15 AM CST 8.29.02). I'm kind of dissapointed to see only two members on the team still. Remember, I dropped out of a team to which I had donated over a year of CPU time for the TWL SETI team...you can join...it won't bit, I swear.

[CiKoTiC]

Actually, you want to keep the work time to a minimum. It's the units completed that counts.

Omega, how many machines you have running SETI? I noticed you did 5 units in 4 hours.

[Omega]

Well, I find it difficult to believe they can keep all projects the same size...meaning time and completion both matter. UD seems like a much more refined project (hm, maybe because it's sponsored by Intel?)...the software is nicer (has a pause feature, more configuration, and calculates points based on time to complete and speed of computer), the web interface is nicer (has more detailed statistics for personal and team statistics), and like I've said before, I liked the cause more (Cancer).

Regardless, though, I've now entered the lead for projects completed as well. I'm running SETI on 6 computers. 5 are running nearly constantly, and the 6th (and most powerful) only runs some of the time, because it's my personal computer. I turn it off for gaming, and then some times forget to turn it back on. I'm getting better about that though.

[CiKoTiC]

All data chunks sent are the exact same size (you can find this in the FAQ section). If you notice, my avg time is decreasing. I did one chunk on a 200MHz machine that took about 96 hours so it messed up my time. Right now, I avg about 4 hours per unit.

I'll add more computers in the future but until then, I'm only using my home computer.

If we can get more people from here to join up, we could have a hell of a team. :)

Regardless, though, I've now entered the lead for projects completed as well.

Better look again. :biggrin:

[accurateimage]

How many hours does everyone have now..? I do not have that many yet, I am at 114 hours 43 minutes and 8 sets, have not been running it that much :)

[Omega]

accurateimage: Why haven't you joined the TWL team yet?

Anyway...

CiKoTiC: Jebus, 4 hours per unit? You running a P4 2.8 GHz or something? Maybe dual Itanium 2.2 GHz? It takes about 8 hours on my AMD XP 1900+ iirc.

[accurateimage]

No kidding, It takes my overclocked 2100+ around 7-8 hours on a good day to get a set done. Also I am a rebel, I do not join groups *LOL* actually just dumb I have no idea were the group is :) Send me a link :D

[CiKoTiC]

Just the specs you see in my sig. Funny thing though.. I can go into my display properties and change my video clock speed and then change it back and SETI freaking screams.

AI, go here and join up. http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_148903.html

[MIK3]

You're lookin at your newest member...thx to my fasination with the whole idea..

[Keefe]

Hmm, I joined the team however I am the no name man. He he

[MIK3]

ah, #3, that explains it i guess..haha, the mystery is no more...but yeah, ive yet to get hours on it, but will, trust me!

[vee_ess]

Right now I am having trouble signing up. I have made dozens of attempts, and now I have been spacing them out. Servers are just busy I guess. Can someone try and tell me if it is in fact the servers, and not just my computer?

I am going to try and see if I can get my high school to participate under TWL. There are tons of computers that are constantly unused.

[eviltechie]

heh

such a waste eh

labs in my school still keep the comps running even on weekends and no one is in school

but because the comps in my school are restricted and totaly secured with Novel on WinNT and closed most of the ports, there is no point in persuading my school in doing this...

the sign up seems to be working for me

but im not signing up so i only got to the sign up page

[eviltechie]

btw

this program is called SETI SPY
it just shows u ur progress and gives u a more detailed look
it is a must have if u are a hardcore SETI@Home users :)

http://personalwebs.myriad.net/roelof/setispy/default.htm

[accurateimage]

I can run 3 2000+ and above machines I have around the house at one time but I think I would need donations to my power bill *L* My main machine is on all the time so I am using that for the program.

[MIK3]

Yeah, vee_ess, I do think that we could get our school to participate in this SETI@home event. However, I do feel that our teachers will find it a bit far fetched, as to most of them would probably be very dumbfounded on how this all works, when in reality, it is a very simple logic. We mine as well give it a shot, because its true, they are dozens of unused computers. And they too stay on over the weekend I believe.

[eviltechie]

one funny story that my IT teacher told me is that one of the comp in the lab was on fire

the monitor shorted out or something and the plastic was melting and the room was full of smoke

and its by the windows but they are all closed
also there are curtains right close to the monitor
so it was a close call for the school
the lab couldve gotten on fire and school might have been burnt down

darn, too bad it didnt

lol

[MIK3]

LOL, yes that is quite a funny story, but in the same way could be very terrifying. I remeber a time when a downdraft microburst blew through out town, the school roof blew off and the whole building was flooded. We got about 3 weeks off, but had to make up for it, stupid huh? And this all happened about 6 years ago...actaully, ironically enought, i can remeber the date! August 14, 1996.

[eviltechie]

ho ho ho

another stupid thing is we had teachers on strike last year

in vancouver, B.C. Canada
almost every occupation has gone on strike

doctors, nurses, teachers, cops, firefighters... more i think...

lol

[vee_ess]

Well, its working for me now, so it must have just been really busy. It is working on the first one now, and its 1.8% done after 10 minutes; but I am doing a lot of stuff, so I am probably slowing it down.

I remember when the roof came down. It was laying in the middle of the street. Then when we rode our bikes down there, the stupid news casters were saying, "Oh, look. Some curious visitors.". Who, exactly, are the curious visitors??? This actually affects US, not them, us. We got shipped of to a high school every day about 45 minutes away (for 4/5 of the school year!!!), and we were the curious visitors. Hmmmm. You might remember hearing about the roof, accurateimage, if you were in AZ then, because it was all over the news.

They wouldn't go for the SETI stuff, but I was thinking of the cancer research. They might go for that. They have the resources, and it wouldn't cause any harm.

BTW: My comp is processing the stuff at around 38 MFlops/sec. That seems pretty slow...Do you think so?

[eviltechie]

oh yeah

United Device

maybe biology labs will accept these
lol

[accurateimage]

Oh yeah man, 38 m/flops is dead slow :) around a 300mhz..?or less..?? ALso what place got the roof blown off..?? It seems every monsoon season roofs go flying through the air like birds *L*

[MIK3]

Yeah, im at 8% with 12 hrs of running time so far...im not sure on the speed quite yet, but trust me, it aint moving fast...i like it how it takes up only the bandwith in which you are not using.

[accurateimage]

Mine seems to run faster when I am on the pc, when I am away it seems to run slower, has veried from 6 hours a set to over 14, oh well at least I am using it hehe :)

[vee_ess]

It's a 1GHz on a KT7A-Raid and it usually out-performs almost any other system of comprable speed, even if they have Vapochill.

The entire roof got taken off of our elementary school in Glendale. If you were to look from the sky then, you could see right into it. It was totally flooded.

[accurateimage]

ouch, your at 1ghz and only scoring 39mflops..?? you sould be scoring way more than that, did I miss somthing..?

[Omega]

I installed SETI Spy now that SETI is working again for me (it wasn't able to connect to the server for a while, and had no state.sah file for a while). I was under the impression that this replaced the SETI client. Somewhere it said that the need to process the graphics took up ~60% of CPU cycles, so that's a reason SETI Spy was better. Maybe they just meant that it would have to generate the nice graphics whenever you wanted to check on your statistics complete.

Regardless, I'm getting ~110 MegaFLOPs/second, according to SETI Spy. I really have no clue how that stacks up to other computers. I'm running an AMD XP 1900+ with 512 MB PC2700 DDR.

How many f-ing MegaFLOPs/second are you getting where you can complete a task in ~4 hours?!?

[accurateimage]

Detonator 40 drivers made my seti run faster..?? anyone else notice this..? I can actually see it running allot faster and my imes show that also :D

[CiKoTiC]

If I'm not mistaken, SETI spy is just a informational program that reports the progress/performance of what the SETI@home client is doing, not a replacement for the actual client itself.

I'll install SETI spy and check out what mflops it reports on my system and report back.

AI, I'm running the 40.41 drivers also and haven't seen any noticable speed increase. However, I did some registry tweaks today that "seems" to have sped it up some... I'll report my findings when I get concrete proof.

On a side note, I changed the name of the group to Techwarelabs SETI Team from TWL SETI Team. I didn't want any confusion with other web sites that use "TWL" as a shortened name for their site (teamwarfare.com).

Also, thanks to everyone that has signed up and participating. Keep up the good work. :)

[CiKoTiC]

Update: SETI Spy results.

Processing rate: 4.58 hour / work unit 21.81 % / hour
Processing speed: 248.90 MegaFLOPs / second
Processing efficiiency: 7.81 CPU cycles / FLOP
Floating point opperations to process? 4.11 TeraFLOPs

[accurateimage]

OMG did seti spy make my seti sick faster and I have no idea why! I never knew seti timed out, so I set the time out to 9000 minutes *L* that is why it was running so slow. It seems to be running at 1 unit per 2 hours right now, will post specs after all is done with this first unit :)

[accurateimage]

Here is what mine says at 97.10%

257.27 mflops
23.40% hour
6.72 cpf

[vee_ess]

I think graphics cards must have more to do with it than the processor itself. It would make sense too, because interpreting signals can be done easier using 3D type calculations than raw processing. That would explain why your detonator drivers made it faster, and mine is running so awefully slow.

[accurateimage]

Yeah must, but also I am running a crappy card right now, waiting a few more days to try to find a different color 9700

[Omega]

That would make sense if it was highly GPU-dependant as well (in the sense that my computer is processing slowly). I'm only running a GeForce 2 Ti at the moment, and getting significantly lower speeds than people with similar processors.

[CiKoTiC]

It would make sense that a fast vid card would help but in reality it don't. The SETI client is CPU/FPU intensive, not graphics intensive. In fact, you can download the non-graphical command line client and get faster results.

If your interested in the command line client you can find it on the SETI main page under the download section.

[Omega]

Do you know if SETI Spy works with the command line client?

[vee_ess]

At the beginning of each work unit, it runs really fast for me. It completed about 1.5% in about minute and a half. It was searching for pulses and triplets. At that rate, it would finish a work unit in under 2 hours, probably breaking records. But then, it slowed down dramatically to the point where its at about 4%/hour. So, I did some reasearch and now I've got it worked out (I think):

Your processor is mainly used when searching for Pulses, Triplets and Gaussians. This is because those things are calculated on 2D graphs to choose the best formulas to follow for analyzing the 3D graphs. Mathematicians have developed specific ways of finding formulas from data* and so its dependent on your processor rather than grahics card.

Your graphics card, however, is mainly used in the Fast Fourier Transform passes. What those are for is to determine whether to do further processing on the Gaussian curve fitting. This is done using 3D processing and is therefore dependent on your video card.

*And you thought there was no point to math! Look at all the ET's we've found!

[Omega]

Thanks for the insight.

I downloaded the CLI version, and gained ~10-15 MegaFLOPs/second. SETI Spy does work with this version.

[CiKoTiC]

http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/c/i/cik01/seit.jpg

[accurateimage]

Sweet :) Ok I have to turn on the afterburners now heheh :D

[Keefe]

Somehow we need to get more people to join this team!

Go recruit!!

[CiKoTiC]

How about making this thread a sticky one?

[eviltechie]

i have a certificate too

the one u have doesnt look good to be honest

the old one that i have is better in my opinion

[accurateimage]

I am catching you omega :) better turn on your fast systems hehe ;)

[eviltechie]

sorry..
nm about what i said on the certificate

here is the certificate so u can give yourself a little pad on the back :)
and its still the same as the one i got in 2000

http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/seti@home_certificate1.pdf

[accurateimage]

Ok come on guys! We need more friggin people running this thing, even if your running a 386 you still need to be helping! Who know even the slowest computer may find another race or some crap like that! You never know! It is for a good cause and if your pc is running you should be running seti!!! It is easy to install, runs in the background and does not bothr anything! So do it! You can set it to run when your comp starts and you will never know it is there! But is will be helping us all out :)

[accurateimage]

Got ya dude :) I am in #1!!! Woohoo the croud goes wild!!!! SWEETNESS!

[CiKoTiC]

And CiK answers back with a quick scrore to tie the game!!!

Crowd goes wild!!!! :o

[accurateimage]

*lol* OK DUDE BRINGIN IN THE BIG GUNS HEHEHE A FEW GHZ DEFENSIVE ENDS :)

[CiKoTiC]

And CiK takes the lead again!!!

[accurateimage]

Ok Cik how many machines did you contract out to help you *LOL* By status count I see around 4 *LOL* :)

[vee_ess]

You guys are just lucky I'm not on too much... :goof:

[CiKoTiC]

Just 2 AI... Just 2. :P

[vee_ess]

Anyone know where I can find the CLI version of it?

[accurateimage]

Hehe sweet :)

[CiKoTiC]

Get the CLI version here. (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/unix.html)

[vee_ess]

Thanx.

[CiKoTiC]

Just make sure you pass AI.

:wavey:

[accurateimage]

*LOL* Oh no Cik has it in for me :D

[CiKoTiC]

You know I still lubs ya AI. :blush:

[Omega]

Ugh, omg. So I finally installed the SETI CLI version and SETI Spy on my 1ghz AMD Athlon T-Bird (before it was running the normal version), and I find that it out-performs my AMD XP 1900+. What the hell is wrong with my computer? There's virtually nothing else using CPU time on my AMD XP 1900+.

(Average of about 160 MegaFLOPs/second on the 1 GHz T-Bird, and about 130-140 on my AMD XP 1900+.)

Specs are as follows:

AMD XP 1900+
Gigabyte GA-7VRXP
512 MB PC2700 DDR RAM
Leadtek GeForce 4 Ti 4600
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
RAID 0 array of Maxtor 40 GB DiamondMax HDD x 2

----------------

AMD Athlon T-Bird 1 GHz
ASUS A7V
256 MB PC133 SDRAM
ATI Rage 128 VR AGP
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
IBM 30 GB, ATA/100, 7,200 RPM, 75GXP

[accurateimage]

my 2100+ is running around 260-280 megaflops a sec after calibration, befor that it ran around 230

[accurateimage]

Looks like Ai won the game hehehe :D But hey it's all in good fun and for a goof cause :)