Discussion AnandTech needs your help

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Skillz

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Feb 14, 2014
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Calling to arms all the members of AnandTech.com. The BOINC team is currently participating in a BOINC event called the Pentathlon. This is the biggest BOINC competition of the year where all the biggest teams compete for bragging rights. Are we going to let other sites claim they have more CPU and GPU power than we do? I think not!

Currently, the team is overall in first place with Gold.
1620651859320.png

As you can see live here: https://www.seti-germany.de/boinc_pentathlon/statistiken/pentathlon.php

What we need help with is helping us secure this position for the remainder of the Pentathlon which ends on the 19 May 2021 00:00 UTC.

What you can do to help.

CPUs - About 24 hours remain on this. 8PM EST on the 18th marks the final results.
  1. Put all your CPUs on project called SiDock@Home: https://sidock.si/sidock/
  2. Join the team which is located here: https://www.sidock.si/sidock/team_display.php?teamid=52
  3. Download BOINC software here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php (You shouldn't need the one with vbox, but it wouldn't hurt to install that version. Either version will work)
  4. The invitation code is Crunch_4Science and it is case-sensitive. So copy-paste that exactly. (Thanks @Markfw I forgot about the invite code)

GPUs - This part of the competition is over. Return your GPUs to normal operation or you can remain on the project to help science.
  1. Put all your GPUs on the upcoming Cross Country event. That project is Einstein@home
  2. Einstein@home: https://einsteinathome.org/community
  3. Join the team: https://einsteinathome.org/community/teams/172283
  4. Go into your settings on your account page and make sure it does NOT run on CPU. Select AMD, Nvidia and Intel GPUs only. (You can run projects on the Intel HD Graphics)
  5. Download the BOINC Software here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php (You shouldn't need the one with vbox, but it wouldn't hurt to install that version. Either version will work)

BOINC Software: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php (You shouldn't need the one with vbox, but it wouldn't hurt to install that version. Either version will work)
You only need to install this once. Then attach which ever project you wish to help with or both of them if you want to run them on both.
If you are running them on both then ensure you go into your Esinstein@home preferences and make sure CPU is not selected. You want SiDock to use the CPUs and Einstein to use the GPUs.

Notes about SiDock@home
  • There is a wingman/validation of tasks required. When you return work, someone else will need to return the same work unit. They will compare the two results, if they match, you're rewarded credits. This can take a couple days to happen sometimes.
  • There is no checkpoints on SiDock@home tasks. So if you shut down the instance or restart your computer you'll lose all currently running progress on your tasks.
  • SiDock tasks take a long time to complete. On some of my CPUs I am seeing times as low as 8 hours. On some of my slower CPUs I am seeing over 12 hours.

Notes about Einstein@home
  • There is a wingman/validation of tasks for this project as well. When you return work, someone else will need to return the same work unit. They will compare the two results, if they match, you're rewarded credits. This can take a couple days to happen sometimes.
  • AMD GPUs run slightly better then Nvidia, but not by a whole lot.
  • Einstein tasks have a very short run time. They will complete quickly.
  • Task availability may be low. If you attach to the project and do not get any tasks immediately give it some time. You can go into advanced mode on the BOINC client, click the project and click update to tell it to try again to fetch work. (This happens automatically as well, but sometimes the time between tries is a lot) Do not spam it. It will not help. Every ~5 minutes is the fastest you can update.

If you need help or assistance you can reply here and myself or one of the other BOINC commandos will help you with your questions or troubles. Additionally, you can check our official Pentathlon thread here: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/12th-boinc-pentathlon-2021.2592634/

Useful links

Compare your output with other team members at SiDock@home.

Compare your out with other team members at Einstein@home.

Last year the team won Silver overall. This year we are going for the Gold. All help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all. Let's help scientists unravel the mysteries of our universe!
 
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Skillz

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jpiniero said:
You'd think people would dump DC for mining by now.
Click to expand...

I only DC when their is a competition. During competitions I turn all my mining stuff over to DC. Once it's over, I'll go back to mining on them. A few days isn't gonna make or break my mining operations so no sweat there. Plus, I get to help cure diseases and solve complex questions of the Universe.
 
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Icecold

Icecold

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What is nice about DC is that, generally there's very little minimum hardware level required for participating. A several generation old i5, that would make < 25 cents a day doing CPU mining can still make a meaningful contribution to DC, and potentially contribute to solving world issues like Covid, major diseases, etc. A 750ti for example, can still put up okay points on some DC projects, but you wouldn't try to mine with it since there isn't enough memory for the DAG file. Mining and DC aren't mutually exclusive - if you're mining eth on your GPU's and don't want to join in on Einstein, throw Sidock on a spare machine to run CPU tasks. Every bit helps, and even something like a $75 Haswell i5 used Dell Optiplex puts out okay points on a lot of DC projects.
 
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Skillz

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That's right.

It doesn't take much to make points on the projects I've requested help on above. Most teams that are beating us are doing so just because they have a lot of people contributing. Our top 5 members, in most cases, are out pacing their top members. Yet, they have so many smaller contributions from people that we are having difficulties keeping up.

It doesn't matter what kind of GPU or CPU you have. It can make points and points add up.
 
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cellarnoise

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Mar 22, 2017
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If you have some extra cpu, gpu, and electricity that you are not using 24/7 and you can use some additional household heat... think of contributing to the Team!

Your computer hardware is going to likely be worth 1/10th it is today in 5 years so why not contribute to the human rat race :)

Edit: Get with it you RATS! :)

2nd. edit. Forgot Smiley...

3rd edit. We need help to keep 1st place! GPU power at the moment. Plus you will get to learn how to get BOINC to do your bidding!
 
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Markfw

Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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Skillz said:
That's right.

It doesn't take much to make points on the projects I've requested help on above. Most teams that are beating us are doing so just because they have a lot of people contributing. Our top 5 members, in most cases, are out pacing their top members. Yet, they have so many smaller contributions from people that we are having difficulties keeping up.

It doesn't matter what kind of GPU or CPU you have. It can make points and points add up.
Click to expand...
Just to add.... I have 1,000 threads running in this. But 50 members with 20 threads total can equal me. Thats just 10 cores per person.

In sidock, we only have 31 members ! if we added 50 more, we would be in the lead most likely. This is covid research.
 
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DrMrLordX

DrMrLordX

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Markfw said:
Mining does not help my cause. All of my DC work goes to medical research. Since I lost my bladder, prostate, and my hearing and balance to cancer, I am kind of determined to help the cause.
Click to expand...

It could have helped. CureCoin and GridCoin had the potential. PoW doesn't have to be a waste. Satoshi Nakamoto and Vitalik Buterin could have made it happen, but they didn't. And at least in the case of BTC, they're so locked-in with SHA256 ASICs that it will never go in that direction. Ethereum is abandoning PoW so that's a no-go as well. Other projects, however? The potential is there. Not sure if you would want XMR miners to be helping the cause though.
 
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Skillz

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We are slowly gaining ground on SiDock at home. We need more help though. You can configure the BOINC client to use how every many cores/threads you want. So you don't have to run it 100% on your CPU. Ask me how and I will help you configure it. Just tell me how many cores and threads you have and how many tasks you want to run (1 task runs on 1 thread or 1 core if you don't have 2 threads per core)
 
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cellarnoise

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This thread covers the help needed.

Info - 12th BOINC Pentathlon 2021

[URL unfurl=false]https://www.seti-germany.de/boinc_pentathlon/[/URL] from 05 May 2021 00:00 UTC to 19 May 2021 00:00 UTC — 5 disciplines, 1 winner We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 SiDock@home __...
forums.anandtech.com forums.anandtech.com

We could use some help specifically in this project:

Thanks
 
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Skillz

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BP2021_Cit_1.png


Sure would be nice to get another one of these in NFS@Home or even SiDock@home. If you lazy bums would share your massive CPU that is over kill for everything you're doing and toss a little love our way we could achieve the impossible. But no.... you just wanna browse Reddit and Youtube all day with your massively over powered CPUs instead.
 
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S

Skillz

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Well, well, well. Would ya just look at that?

1621287797988.png

In the last 12 hours we have overcome a ~16 million point deficit to propel the team into Gold. We got about 2 hours remaining, so long as we hold our ground TAAT will win it's 2nd Gold medal in this contest.

But wait, Skillz, is that all?

Well no, stranger. That's not all. We have one more battle ground. SiDock@Home.

1621287951609.png

As you can see here, we are behind here by 12,444,059 that's nearly 12.5 million points behind earning Gold here as well. So come on you couch potatoes. Check the OP for instructions on how to overcome this major feat. We have less than 24 hours to make this happen and the team is spread extremely thin now due to all the resources we put on NFS@Home.

If we win this, we will win Gold overall in the entire event.

So what do ya say? Toss some CPU love our way. Follow the directions on the first post. This will be, as far as I can remember, the first time overall Gold has been decided at the very last day of the event. It will also be the first time AnAndTech has ever won overall Gold.

CPUs guys, load them up. Let's gooooooooo
 
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Skillz

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Thanks for the quick reply @Markfw. Guess I fell asleep at my desk waiting on my DoorDasher. LOL


edit
Updated the OP with the invitation code as well as made some adjustments on the GPU project that has ended.
SiDock@home ends at 8PM EST on the 18th.
 
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Skillz

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Click View | Advanced View

Then click on Tasks.

It'll show each tasks running time. My 3600 does them in about 6 hours. So it may be combining the total runtime in that calculation on the simple view.

edit
Thanks for joining.
 
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