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#1 not going well

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 11:34 am
by davidbam
As I no longer need my only Windows machine for boinctasks, I redeployed it to try Gerasim.

All WU have errored :evil: :evil:

Code: Select all

Boinc Manager 7.14.2
<message>
(unknown error) - exit code 195 (0xc3)</message>
<stderr_txt>
wrapper: starting
10:58:20 (2884): wrapper: running spstarter.exe ()
(3-453,30-540)
(1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2)
(2,2,2,2,2)
app exit status: 0xc0000135
10:59:39 (2884): called boinc_finish

</stderr_txt>
Any clues please? In case it is relevant, I loaded boinc from the WCG website as Berkeley sites seem to have been down for several days now

#2 Re: not going well

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:32 pm
by Bryan
You have to have MS C++ 2010 and C++ 2013 both 32 and 64 bit versions installed. I think it only needs the 32 bit versions but while you're at it you might as well install the 64 bit also.

#3 Re: not going well

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:57 pm
by davidbam
Okay thanks. Hope my massive Core2 duo laptop can handle it.

#4 Re: not going well

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 9:06 pm
by Hal Bregg
This is strange. I run Gerasim sucesfully on Windows 10 Home and I don't have any of those C++ packages. Are they bundled up with Windows 10? In fact I remember I removed some of them as I was running out of space on system disk.

#5 Re: not going well

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 6:58 pm
by davidbam
Bryan wrote: Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:32 pm You have to have MS C++ 2010 and C++ 2013 both 32 and 64 bit versions installed. I think it only needs the 32 bit versions but while you're at it you might as well install the 64 bit also.
I have no earthly idea how to do this. I even created a Microsoft account when asked to & still got nowhere fast

Did I start at the wrong place? https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... -downloads

#6 Re: not going well

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 9:31 pm
by davidbam
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downloa ... px?id=5555 is all that is needed. I am hopeful that I will be able to contribute to Gerasim sprints at long last

Edit : SaM has just pointed out that Gerasim isn't even on the list of potential FB Sprints. :oops: :oops: Sigh

#7 Re: not going well

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 10:08 pm
by davidbam
got my first points - on a sample of 1WU, with the Windows VM route, I'd be getting about 46K per day from a Xeon E5-2696 v4 @ 2.20GHz. Is that Good, Bad or Ugly?

#8 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 12:18 am
by Bryan
A E5-2683 v4 (64t) does about 160k/day running native. Don't forget to "optimize" your benchmarks. I'm not sure how much difference it makes inside a VM though.

VBox supports a max of 32 threads so to fully engage a 2696 you need to run 2 VMs each with 22 threads. 4 VMs if it is a dual CPU machine. Don't crunch anything else on the non-VM threads. The regular CPU threads will have priority over the VM threads.

#9 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 4:41 am
by davidbam
Ah - okay thanks. I just had 4 threads running in the VM with the other 40 running native on something else. (single processor unfortunately)

TBH, in the longer term, I'll probably not bother now that I know it won't be an FB Sprint but I will give it a wee run with nothing else running native to complete the experiment

#10 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 7:22 am
by Bryan
It would be an interesting experiment. The problem with VMs is that they have the absolute lowest priority of anything running on the HW. If you have native threads crunching something else the VM will suffer. If you had 2 VMs with each running 22 threads then you could run something in 1 and something different in the other without a penalty because the scheduler would see all threads with equal priority.

There is a penalty to running a VM vs running native. On a couple of I7s single CPU machines I've run the VM produces only about 88% as much as native. On some dual processor Xeons I used to have the penalty was 28%. VBox doesn't work as well across CPUs.

#11 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:32 pm
by davidbam
Bryan wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 7:22 am There is a penalty to running a VM vs running native
I felt sure there would be & I guess it applies equally - maybe moreso? - to folks running Linux in a VM on a Windows host (which is probably more common). Virtualisation has its uses but I prefer bare-metal if at all practical

#12 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 2:59 pm
by scole of TSBT
Dual boot is the way to go. All but one of my rigs are that way and that's only because it's out general purpose system, server, etc.

#13 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:03 pm
by Bryan
To be honest, I haven't run a VM (except where we scammed the Thor challenge) in years. Since discovering BOINC instances and having dual boot machines I haven't had a reason.

Did you know that dual boot works really well :lol:

#14 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:06 pm
by davidbam
Might need to do that on a couple of machines where I can get a screen / kbd / mouse on them fairly easily. Reasons to run Windows being
  • Gerasim for challenges - any other Windows-only projects?
  • NFS pays better
  • AMD GPU cards run better e.g. on Einstein and Milkyway
Any others please?

#15 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:13 pm
by scole of TSBT
Sometimes a new opti app may run faster under Win64,
You can run both AMD and Nvidia GPUs at the same time under windows (I think that's a problem under linux)
I'm sure there are other apps that better under Windows.

I run linux most of the time but it's nice to have Win64 when you need it.

#16 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:31 pm
by Bryan
Like Steve, I normally run Linux but there are some projects that are a little quicker under Windows ... most of them Linux is better. There was one of the biggies that until they released new apps about 4 months ago had 30% better payout for Windows. After the new app the differential dropped to 5%. Unfortunately I don't remember which one it is but I challenged Mumps and won. He said he refused to put more than 1/2 his machines on whatever project it is.

I haven't benchmarked it in a number of years, but Yoyo used to pay better on Windows. Muon (dead now) and ECM, which were the 2 highest paying apps, paid 18% better on Windows.

I've never tried Wine but that might be a better alternative than a VM.

#17 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:31 pm
by davidbam
Is this one of the projects with a toy server?

I've got completed WU which refuse to upload - the expire in 19hrs. I've tried everything I know in boincmgr

#18 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:50 pm
by scole of TSBT
which project?

EDIT: I see this is under the Gerasim folder...It's usually a stable server but it appears to be down right now. Bryan, Mumps and the other server farms must be loading up.

#19 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 2:56 pm
by davidbam
Yeah - I should have sussed that it would be Bryan's fault.

#20 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:20 pm
by Bryan
Twasn't me! I was going to put a machine on it this morning but I can't reach it either.

You don't know what a bad day is, I had to do a new Win7 install last night ... pain to the max! Hours of watching hundreds of updates download and install.

#21 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:26 pm
by davidbam
Bryan wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:20 pm You don't know what a bad day is
Yup. Yesterday. Also down to loading a Win7 machine so that I can contribute some Gerasim and AMD GPU for challenges.

Took me about 90mins to suss out that Notepad had called my file remote_hosts.cfg.txt ... I mean WTF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was after finding the correct (hidden) directory in the first place

Don't anyone ever tell me that Linux is difficult

#22 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:52 pm
by Bryan
If you did a WIn7 install on your Xeons there are some updates you DON'T want installed ... if they were you can remove them. These are the Spectre patches and can slow up HT crunching by 30%.

The following KB #
4056892
4056897
4880960
4880970
any of security rollups dated 1/18 or later

You turn off automatic updates and tell it to check but let you determine whether to download them. Once you get to the point it wants to start doing to rollups or the above listed updates then TURN OFF UPDATES entirely.

PS I don't think Gerasim has enough server to handle a Sprint.

#23 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:55 pm
by davidbam
Thanks. Does 1/18 mean January 2018 or 18-Jan-2019 ?

(must teach these Americans to write dates properly)

#24 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:59 pm
by Bryan
J A N U A R Y 2 0 18 :lol:

In your case, you probably should install ALL the updates it will give you :twisted:

#25 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:03 pm
by davidbam
No need to get tetchy :D :D :lol:

#26 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2019 2:44 am
by Alez
:shifty: At least you recognize win 7 as the king of windows :D #
Schoolboy error with notepad, did you honestly expect nix performance from doze ? :lol:

#27 Re: not going well (okay now though)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 1:47 pm
by davidbam
they aren't exactly good about keeping their server running 24/7 :roll:

#28 Re: not going well

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 1:03 pm
by davidbam
225 completed WU now 1.5hrs passed deadline because their damned server has been down for 36 hours. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

#29 Re: not going well

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:08 pm
by scole of TSBT
Maybe they are doing it on purpose because TSBT took 2nd in the challenge :lol: :shock:

#30 Re: not going well

Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2019 9:07 pm
by davidbam
:D :D Yeah, maybe they didn't like that

#31 Re: not going well

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2020 1:51 pm
by davidbam
Work units running for over 9 hours !!! Really?

#32 Re: not going well

Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:30 am
by davidbam
Detached. I will leave this project to the Windows experts