work unit production

[prc00l]

I've just started out doing this seti thing and I was wondering if I could do something to process work units faster. Ie. like more ram. It usually takes 5:30 hours or so to do one wu, is that normal?

 

[blcjr]

That's a pretty good time!

On my home fleet, the times run from ~8 hrs on a P3@906Mhz to 12-14 hours on a Celeron@533Mhz. Oh, I do have a Tbird@1.53Ghz turning in times of ~4 hours. So your 5.5 hours is pretty good.

-bazilla

 

[aiex]

there are several things u can do.
First of all make sure you are running the cli version this will give a bit increase in performance
Then seti is very FSB intensive so if u overclock make sure u set your FSB as high as possible

Also seti is very dependant on ram so set your ram timings as agressivly as possible.

Hope this helps

Ai3x

PS what rigs are you running?

 

[ishmael2k]

It really depends on what system you are running it on.

If that is from a P100 then it is awesome!!!! :Q

Actually it sounds like a very good time to me. My Cel II @ 850 averages around 8hrs per WU while my PII 400 hits 18hrs+ ea.

Don't know where my PIII will be until I get it set up.

Welcome BTW from one newby to another!

Rob

 

[Sukhoi]

Good WU time.

If you're not on Team AnandTech, join us!

 

[prc00l]

thanks for the info. i'm not overclocking anything so I guess this is as good as it gets. I am running the cli one.

So the fsb for ram should be as high as possible, should I also have as much ram as possible? I have 256mb ddr2100, would seti use an extra stick?

I'm running a asus a7m266, t-bird 1.33, leaktek geforce3, ibm 75 gb. I can't wait to see what my other computer will run it in, which is an ecs k7s5a, 1.4 t-bird, 256 ddr, all it needs is a monitor

Thanks

 

[ledzepp98]

seti definately likes fast memory...but not really a lot of memory. it uses about 16megs of ram...adding more to what you have will not help seti (but since memory is so cheap you could add some anyway ). i guess 5:30 sounds about right...i have my 1.33ghz t-bird running at 1496 (11x136) and i average ~4:30/wu. make sure you have the ram set to cas2 (i think the default might be cas2.5)

 

[serialb]

SETI@home uses ~16MB of RAM during operation. If you have 256MB RAM, it's pretty safe to assume your performance will not improve with more RAM, unless you runs memory-hungry apps all the time.

Also, the SETI@home client is very sensitive to RAM speed (CAS setting) or FSB. For comparison, one of my remote herd is running a 1200@1200 Tbird on Epox 8K7A (same chipset as A7M) and 256 MB of DDR. It has crunched 35 WUs for me so far and its average WU time is 5 hours 13 minutes. So, I am guessing you should be able to improve your WU times a little bit by tweaking your memory CAS setting to 2.

Hope it helps and happy crunching

serialb

 

[prc00l]

I will definintely change the ram from cas 2.5 -> 2.0 . . .

just as soon as i figure out how to do that

thanks

ps changing the timings doesn't make the computer more prone to crashing right? Crucial only has 2.5 ddr memory, I've never heard of this changing the memory cas timings.

 

[serialb]

Most OCers out there changed their CAS timing to 2 AND increasing the FSB to 150+ MHz. Don't worry, I am sure your crucial memory can handle the CAS 2.

serialb

 

[ledzepp98]

changing the ram timings *can* lead to instability...but only if the memory can't handle the faster timings. i have yet to hear of a stick of crucial cas2.5 that crashes when run at cas2!!! overclocking results vary, but the general experience is that cas2 is a sure thing

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hi Prc001, I have an Epox 8k7A that also uses the AMD 761 chipset ( same as your ASUS.) With crucial PC2100 ram set to CAS2 and the FSB set to 156, I run a SETI WU in 4hrs 15 mins. The CPU is a 1.2GHz Tbird. Your board should do the same. Search this forum for memory setting for the Epox. They were posted a few months ago.

Good luck!

 

[ober]

The other thing that helps is a cache program for SETI. This way you can download several WUs at once and have your system process one after another, so if you get a fast WU, your system won't wait for you to come back and realize you need to send the results back. Also, a caching program will allow you to keep crunching when (not if) Berkeley's data servers go down. Cache 3-5 days worth of WUs. The two best ones (my opinion only) are SETIQueue for managing a central cache for a network and (shameless plug) SETI Driver for single PCs. SETIQueue can handle the caching chores for any SETI Client and OS combination and SETI Driver is designed to support MS-Windows PCs.

Welcome to S@H.

Mike Ober.

P.S., If you're running Windows 95, 98, or ME, go to the SETI Driver download page and download default.zip. Unzip it into your windows directory and reboot. Now windows will be able to close the SETI CLI Client (and any other DOS or 32-bit console application) without that annoying confirmation box. NOTE: _default.pif is a global change.

 

[Sukhoi]

That's a good shameless plug!

What website should we use for SETI Driver? The wakeassoc one or the one in your link?