WCG team position

[Megacruncher]

The March to 100th progresses. Thankfully largely uninterrupted by the penultimate 2018 FB challenge.
115th Now!
We shall be up another place by the weekend & up 2 more by the end of next week.
As flagged up by Bryan the Neumannium Labs juggernaut is bearing down on us and will overtake us probably at the beginning of December, ish.
That aside: All good.

[Alez]

As reported we are up to 115th place now. Seemed like a good excuse for a table post and who doesn't love a good table ?

WCG position

Position	Team	Points
112	Romania	210,633,694
113	Bulgaria	210,512,202
114	BRASIL	207,674,929
115	The Scottish Boinc Team	206,851,047
116	US NAVY	206,062,479

[Bryan]

114th

In less than 4 days we'll move up 2 more spots We're doing quite well

[Megacruncher]

We are doing fantastically Bryan & most of the credit must go to you. Thank you.
What once looked like it would take a year or more is going to happen within a couple of months at most.
And this time we will hold on to top 100 status!
Not squander it like we did 10 years ago.

[Bryan]

Within a few days my WCG is going to drop. OET pays about 15-20% better than the other projects but it is finished. My machines will run out of OET cache over the next 3-4 days. None are trusted on any other app so what I produce will go into pending for a while.

I also need to start getting ready for remote operation - we'll be heading south for the winter around the 1st of the year. I want to upgrade all machines from Mint 17 to Mint 19. Of course when I do that I'll take machines off line 1 at a time so it won't be a complete drop.

I figure we'll get it done within 2 months ... maybe sooner.

EDIT: I will also be retiring 2 machines (48 threads) around Dec 10th. There is a possibility that I will retire 3 machines (72 threads) but if I do that I will be adding a 2nd 2990WX

[davidbam]

Aborted a lot of units

I've done a bit of this myself but can't help feeling a touch bad about it. Is it quite prevalent because, if so, I'll abort jobs rather than wait for hours before, say, reloading a machine with a different OS

[Bryan]

[mention]davidBAM[/mention] - on most projects aborting WU is no big deal. Most projects immediately put them at the front of the queue and they get resent quickly. So even if they have a wingman it won't delay them that long.

[mention]Cruncher Pete[/mention] - Don't run the MIPs WU, they pay very poorly! Anything else pays quite a bit better. I hope you get that new 2990WX for Christmas. You'll love it!

[Alez]

It's better to abort tasks staright away so they can be sent out again to others rather than hanging onto unwanted work and finally aborting days later.

[Megacruncher]

I just tried Linux (Mint 19) on the 2990WX.

In the past I’ve generally tried Linux on what ever was the feeblest rig in the farm at the time. Even if I did manage to get BOINC running, the improvement over Windows was usually modest & heavily offset by the fact that I could never get the GPU crunching.

Not this time. Installed & BOINCing, GPU & all, in less than 40 minutes.

I am massively impressed at the performance improvement on WCG. For instance It used to complete an OpenZika WU in c.150 min. On Linux it takes c.55min & earns the same credits.

This is collosal. Why didn’t you tell me it was this good? I know you are, mostly, Linux fans but I assumed that a matter of geek snobbery. If I’d realized I could double my credit I would have persevered.

Verily, I am a sinner saved!

Is it like this across the board or is this magnitude of improvement particular to WCG or to this processor?

Anyhoo the point is that my WCG RAC should be increasing quite a bit very soon. Which is nice.

Whatever, we will be 112th by tomorrow.

[davidbam]

Why didn’t you tell me it was this good?

I would have (if I had known myself)

which GPU?

[Bryan]

Hmmmm, did anyone bother to read post 156 in this thread?

It is that way on all machines not just the 2990WX.

Avoid MIPs ... it pays very poorly.

[davidbam]

Seems I did I can't actually remember unchecking this box but obviously I did

[Bryan]

[mention]Megacruncher[/mention] - your timing is perfect. The 2990WX ran out of OET WU and I've transitioned to Zika. It's too early to tell what the reduction will be. I was getting 100k/day on OET.

Within 24 hours all machines will have to make the move to Zika. None of the machines are trusted so it will take at least a day to get back up to speed so I'm going to take a hit for a few days.

With you switching to Linux it should more than compensate for my drop Onwards and upwards!

[Bryan]

BTW, if you have to or want to switch projects and you aren't trusted the best way is to either set WCG to ZERO resource or better is to set an individual machine to .01/.02 in your Boinc Client Preferences.

That way it will only give you enough WU to match the number of threads the machine has. Once the projects VALIDATES 14-15 WU a machines becomes trusted and WCG will give you WU that don't require a wingman. When you get to that point you can open up your preferences and load your cache.

[Bryan]

Not to be outdone, I ordered a 2990WX a few minutes ago and I should receive it in a couple of days.

Fantastic Pete ... it'll do about 50% more credits than ANY of your E5 V4 Xeon machines

I tried to order the parts for a 2nd 2990WX this morning but no one has either ASUS or MSI motherboards in stock There are some Gigabyte MB available but I've used the other 2 brands many times over the years and I've had really good success so I want to stick with those!

[davidbam]

Excellent news Pete

Yes, Linux Mint is 100% my system of choice for my main workstation(s) where I do my day job. I tend to describe it to Windows fans as Windows XP without the crashes

I also crunch quite happily on Linux Mint while I am working BUT I would have to say that GPU crunching is easier on Lubuntu or Ubuntu - especially for AMD GPU

[davidbam]

Does the 2990WX also hyperthread for 64 threads? (Yes I understand that the improvement isn't 100% but it is still an improvement

[Bryan]

Yes sir ... I think AMD calls it SMT instead of HT but there are 64 threads.

[davidbam]

ASUS or MSI motherboards

Asus are one of my favourites mobo manufacturers too. That said, I have a couple of Asrock which I also really like

[Megacruncher]

Bryan
I’m sure I did read post 156 & no doubt that subliminally influenced my move. Your 75% gain claim does seem rather conservative, however. I’ll be switching over 2 of the remaining Threadrippers and the Xeon over the next couple of days. I’d better refrain from forcing anyone else in the family to adopt Mint. My 15yo son would be particularly horrified if I messed with his gaming PC, although, now I think about it, it wouldn’t do him any harm if it ran Linux while he was at school & he could boot it back into windows when he comes home.

davidBAM
The GPU is the 1080Ti. It seems to run Primegrid exactly as it did under windows. I’m not able to get any other GPU project to run on it. But one step at a time.

Pete
Way to go! I can assure you that you are way ahead of me & likely to remain so despite me finally seeing the light at this late stage in the game.

[davidbam]

Collatz wouldn't run for me on Linux Mint/nVidia - something to do with Cuda vs OpenCL driver support I think. I expect that will change as I understand Mint is based on Ubuntu (just that it is based on an earlier version)

[Bryan]

[mention]Megacruncher[/mention]

Run this command to add OpenCL support. My 1080Ti runs both PG (Cuda) and Collatz (OpenCL)

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install ocl-icd-libopencl1

STOP/RESTART BOINC and in the messages you should then see Cuda and OpenCL listed.

[Bryan]

Your 75% gain claim does seem rather conservative, however.

When I was working we always said to under commit and over deliver

[davidbam]

under commit and over deliver

We could use some politicians with that work ethic

[Alez]

[mention]Megacruncher[/mention] In terminal

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install ocl-icd-libopencl1

will probably sort out your issues of only Prime crunching on GPU. Seems this required lib is missing in Mint. I may have mentioned once or twice that Linux was a different beast now a days, especially against the virus that is doze10

[Bryan]

Well I won't be retiring 48 threads on Dec 10 it'll be 72! I scored an ASUS Zenith Extreme MB on Amazon this morning so doing a 2nd 2990WX build. Parts should be here Friday.

So the 3 dual Xeon X5675 machines will be moving on. The 2990WX produces more credits than all 3 of them combined.

[davidbam]

That mobo is £500 here !!!

[Bryan]

$452 here ... quite a bit cheaper.

[Megacruncher]

Re GPU crunching.
Also SETI GPU Yay! & GPUGrid work without any further action. I guess they are both CUDA.
Bryan & Alez: thanks for the suggestion, I’ll try it soon.

Btw 112th Now!

[Bryan]

Looking at the stats - we will be passed by Neumannium Labs before we make the top 100. That means we have to catch the team that is currently 99th and they are ahead by 20M and moving at 400k/day. At our current rate we will catch them and the team in 98th in 42 days. That will put us in position 99.

I'm guessing we will be making some short term detours (ie Sprint) in the next 42 days so we should hit our goal in 50 to 60 days! 10 years ago (2008) TSBT was at 99 so it has been a long time coming! Back to the future

[Megacruncher]

111th Now!
It would be good to be home & dry by the end of the year but after a decade relegated to page 2 I don’t suppose there is any rush.
At least this time we should be able to stay up without committing a huge proportion of our resources to it. An RAC of 100K should suffice.

[davidbam]

My fleet will be powered off until Monday evening sorry. Am away for weekend

[davidbam]

A lot of my machines aren't even in cases Just bare boards running on the bench

[Dirk Broer]

All my cases are open -missing the closing lid- and so are easy to inspect/upgrade/cool

[Megacruncher]

I like these.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/streacom ... 59-sr.html

Adds some structure & order but easy access & excellent airflow. They are also a fine bit of design & engineering.

Probably also less of a fire risk than just screwing your mobos to a bit of MDF! Although I got away with that for a long time.

[Alez]

I just take side off cases or cut holes in things. Other than the servers which live outside in a shed in the garage, the only systems I have that are enclosed are the 3 in living areas to cut down on noise. I have a stack of side panels lying in a corner

[Alez]

As reported we are up to 111th place now. Seemed like another good excuse for a table post because we love a good table post, dont we ?

WCG position

Position	Team	Points
108	localwurst	219,976,832
109	IBM Canada	216,629,327
110	IBM Web Innovators & Friends	216,204,346
111	The Scottish Boinc Team	214,217,351
112	Something Awful Goons	212,921,907

[Bryan]

Yep the tables are very nice! It looks like we will gain 2 more spots in about 3 days

[Alez]

Yep the tables are very nice! It looks like we will gain 2 more spots in about 3 days

Thank you, but at this rate of gain I may have to adopt a one table per page of posts rule. Can't have us suffering from table burn out

[Bryan]

1M WCG

1.027M for the day. That's impressive guys We should do better tomorrow

[Megacruncher]

110th Now!

We are crunching at such a rate that we should get to 100th before Neumannium Labs get to us. But we still will probably have to tolerate a spell back in 101st. But not for long.

[davidbam]

Lost almost 3 full days as my main circuit breaker tripped while we were away. Seems you've been doing pretty well without me though

[Bryan]

Lost almost 3 full days as my main circuit breaker tripped while we were away. Seems you've been doing pretty well without me though

Oh, were you gone? We didn't notice

Really good to have you back! That'll certainly help the daily output.

I put an old 750W PSU in the I7 and just brought it back to life. Crunched 1 Collatz just to see that the GPU working. Now back to WCG. 12 more threads for the good guys.

If it weren't for the Sprint we would hit the 101st position in 10 days - hard to imagine gain 9 positions in 10 days. In 14 we would grab the 100th spot. Unfortunately, we need to get the 99th position and that will take 35 days.

[davidbam]

Are you saying I am a blether (don't answer that)

[Bryan]

Are you saying I am a blether (don't answer that)

No, no, I would never say anything like that

It is good to have you back though. We are really making fantastic progress now!

Once again, I'll hold down the fort while you guys kick some butt on the Sprint. I have no choice but to continue crunching WCG until about Jan 15. I promised my wife I would pay for the 2nd 2990WX with my WCG pay check. I only had enough for 1/2 of the new machine so I have to keep crunching for a while.

[Bryan]

Great Pete. I think you are gonna love that new CPU. Be sure to watch the cooling on it. I'd suggest loading HWInfo and running Prime95 for a while. On Hwingo bring up the "SENSORS" and look for the value of Tdie. That is the temperature of the CPU dies. At 68C it will start throttling the CPU due to excessive heat.

On air, you probably won't be able to go above 3.3GHz to stay below the max temp. And I might add you need a really good CPU cooler to do that.

[Bryan]

I found another very fast mover, CharityEngine3, that just passed me. They only have 65M credits but they are adding 7M/day. They will overtake us in 25 days.

[Megacruncher]

Aye.
It’s going to be tough at the top.
Speaking of which we are 109th Now!
Another 4 gains in the next week.

Has anybody actually tried spending their Byteballs yet? I’ve still not figured it all out and anyway they don’t seem to be worth much at present. My 8GB are worth about £200 today whereas 6 months ago they’d have been worth 10 times that.

[davidbam]

I've got most of my machines back on now. CPU for TSBT WCG, GPU for AP Collatz

[Bryan]

I've got most of my machines back on now. CPU for TSBT WCG, GPU for AP Collatz

It's showing! At the 12 hour mark we have over 600k showing on Bstats. A 1.2M credit day would really be something.

Pete, you got that 2990WX humming yet?