BOINC app for Android is out!

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
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I'm currently crunching FightAIDS@Home using 4 cores on my Nexus 7. Takes a while to finish one project but since I rarely use my N7, its a good use. I'm gonna put it on my Droid 1 and crunch with that too.

Usually takes about 3 hours per project (for my N7 to crunch)
 
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EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
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Oct 30, 2000
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How bad is the power consumption.

Safe to use it off charger?
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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I haven't done a very thorough test yet, but I started up the Asteroids@home app on all four cores on my Nexus 7 and told the tablet that it is not allowed to go to sleep, just to see what it would do. I have let it run for 60 minutes so far and based on the current % progress I'm estimating that the tasks will take between 70 and 100 hours to complete. The Nexus has been plugged in the entire time and has actually lost 9% of the battery charge even though it is running off of AC power, so it certainly looks like the Asteroids project is a big power drain.

edit: Also, the tablet is VERY warm even though I have it propped up to get air circulation on all sides. I'm interested in the possibilities, but I'm not too keen on the idea of letting my Nexus run for around 100 hours at full power (and full heat) in order to find out what credits it gets for these tasks...


edit again: 2 hour update. The Nexus is still running very warm and the charge (while charging) has dropped a total of 26%. However, the Asteroids app appears to be making progress now and the four tasks are between 7.7% and 10.4%, while they were at or below 1% after the first hour.
 
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T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
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795
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How bad is the power consumption.

Safe to use it off charger?
No.




I haven't done a very thorough test yet, but I started up the Asteroids@home app on all four cores on my Nexus 7 and told the tablet that it is not allowed to go to sleep, just to see what it would do. I have let it run for 60 minutes so far and based on the current % progress I'm estimating that the tasks will take between 70 and 100 hours to complete. The Nexus has been plugged in the entire time and has actually lost 9% of the battery charge even though it is running off of AC power, so it certainly looks like the Asteroids project is a big power drain.

edit: Also, the tablet is VERY warm even though I have it propped up to get air circulation on all sides. I'm interested in the possibilities, but I'm not too keen on the idea of letting my Nexus run for around 100 hours at full power (and full heat) in order to find out what credits it gets for these tasks...
There are settings to make it pause if the battery temp gets too high. My nexus is charging but very slowly. There's also a setting to make it stop computing and let it charging at a certain percentage.
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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There are settings to make it pause if the battery temp gets too high. My nexus is charging but very slowly. There's also a setting to make it stop computing and let it charging at a certain percentage.

Yes, you can adjust the settings. I was mostly just giving my first impressions as well as indirectly answering the question about running the app on battery power.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
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My HTC can get warm just browsing and battery is at 30% by end of day (even while "working")

So 8 hours of continual processing will potentially cook it when on a charger

Pass :(
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
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May 13, 2003
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Great in theory, but my cell phone runs slow enough already -- I don't need another reason to hate it. Although I do have a unused tablet that might be crunching in the near future.
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
Yes, you can adjust the settings. I was mostly just giving my first impressions as well as indirectly answering the question about running the app on battery power.

Oh okay.

My HTC can get warm just browsing and battery is at 30% by end of day (even while "working")

So 8 hours of continual processing will potentially cook it when on a charger

Pass :(
You can change settings so it doesn't cook...




Great in theory, but my cell phone runs slow enough already -- I don't need another reason to hate it. Although I do have a unused tablet that might be crunching in the near future.
You can make it run only when charging. Also there are settings for pausing when the CPU is being used and you can change the amount of ram it has access to as well.
 

Sheep221

Golden Member
Oct 28, 2012
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I would definitely didn't run it on a cell phone, they just don't have power capabilities to do such a things.
 

GLeeM

Elite Member
Apr 2, 2004
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We want to know how long a WU takes to finish and how many points it got :)
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
We want to know how long a WU takes to finish and how many points it got :)
Well on my N7, it takes about 3 hours per WU. I don't know how to check the points per WU.

In less than 24 hours, it says I have accumulated 13 points.
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
Okay I got some results. 4 WUs verified, these are the FightAids@Home Vina WUs. 4 WUs=249
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
Okay, here is what I got.

My Nexus 7 takes an average of ~4 hours per FightAids@Home Vina WU
While my 9800gt takes an average of ~2.5 hours per FightAids@Home WU
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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763
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It took some time since I didn't want to leave my Nexus 7 running BOINC 24/7, but here are the results of my test running four tasks on four CPUs on Asteroids@home app.

Each task received 120 credits regardless of the processing time.

Task 1: 18 hours 25 minutes
Task 2: 20 hours 16 minutes
Task 3: 21 hours 36 minutes
Task 4: 20 hours 12 minutes


So, an average of 480 points per 20 hours of total run time (about 576 for 24 hours). Not terrible, but not much considering the device is completely useless while BOINC is running. Even if BOINC is set to go idle when the tablet is in use, it still reserves the system RAM so other apps can't use it. And it can't really run 24/7 anyway, at least not on my Nexus since it gets too warm and has to idle to let the battery and SOC cool, and it drains the battery (albeit slowly) even when plugged in to the charger.

It's definitely an interesting idea, but I don't think I'll be running it any more on my Nexus 7. I might try some other projects to see how they turn out, but Asteroids doesn't seem to be a good option.
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
It took some time since I didn't want to leave my Nexus 7 running BOINC 24/7, but here are the results of my test running four tasks on four CPUs on Asteroids@home app.

Each task received 120 credits regardless of the processing time.

Task 1: 18 hours 25 minutes
Task 2: 20 hours 16 minutes
Task 3: 21 hours 36 minutes
Task 4: 20 hours 12 minutes


So, an average of 480 points per 20 hours of total run time (about 576 for 24 hours). Not terrible, but not much considering the device is completely useless while BOINC is running. Even if BOINC is set to go idle when the tablet is in use, it still reserves the system RAM so other apps can't use it. And it can't really run 24/7 anyway, at least not on my Nexus since it gets too warm and has to idle to let the battery and SOC cool, and it drains the battery (albeit slowly) even when plugged in to the charger.

It's definitely an interesting idea, but I don't think I'll be running it any more on my Nexus 7. I might try some other projects to see how they turn out, but Asteroids doesn't seem to be a good option.
I've been letting my N7 rush 24/7 plugged in. I changed it so that it would stop when the battery reached 36 C instead of the original 40 C. I keep mine on the charger and it does not lose power. I don't use my N7 often, but when I do, I shut down the BOINC app. I've only been running WCG so all I've been getting are the FightAids@Home Vina units, that take anywhere from 4-6 hours
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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763
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I lowered the shutoff temperature as well. The biggest problem is that the battery charge was dropping even while plugged in and charging. That might be due to the Asteroids app using more processing power than the FightAids app. I'll try running WCG/FightAids and see if it does the same thing.
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
I lowered the shutoff temperature as well. The biggest problem is that the battery charge was dropping even while plugged in and charging. That might be due to the Asteroids app using more processing power than the FightAids app. I'll try running WCG/FightAids and see if it does the same thing.
Are you using a tablet charger?
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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Yes. It's the charger that came with the Nexus7. I loaded up some work units for the Einstein project and it also drains the battery while charging. These work units seem like they will finish fairly quickly so I'll let them run to the end and then try WCG.
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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I did some experimenting and figured out my power issue. I have been using the Nexus 7 charger with a longer USB extension cord since the 3 foot cord that came with it just wasn't long enough most of the time. However, I installed the Battery Monitor Widget app and discovered that while connected to the charger with the 6 foot extension cord, my Nexus pulls between 300 and 500 mA from the charger (and uses about 1000-1200 mA while running BOINC), but when it is connected to the charger with only the short cord that came with it, the Nexus pulls between 1100 and 1400 mA (enough to counteract the drain caused by running BOINC). I didn't expect that a longer cord would have any effect, but apparently either the charger or the Nexus 7 (or both) don't like it for some reason.

The short cord also charges the tablet a lot faster while it is idle, so I guess I need to remember only to use the USB extension when I actually need it, and just plug in the short cable any time I'm running BOINC or when I want the Nexus to charge faster.

Unfortunately, the Einstein@home tasks started out running quickly (about 5% in the first 20 minutes) they have slowed down considerably since then and look like they will take about 20 hours to complete, just as the Asteroids@home tasks did.
 

T_Yamamoto

Lifer
Jul 6, 2011
15,007
795
126
I did some experimenting and figured out my power issue. I have been using the Nexus 7 charger with a longer USB extension cord since the 3 foot cord that came with it just wasn't long enough most of the time. However, I installed the Battery Monitor Widget app and discovered that while connected to the charger with the 6 foot extension cord, my Nexus pulls between 300 and 500 mA from the charger (and uses about 1000-1200 mA while running BOINC), but when it is connected to the charger with only the short cord that came with it, the Nexus pulls between 1100 and 1400 mA (enough to counteract the drain caused by running BOINC). I didn't expect that a longer cord would have any effect, but apparently either the charger or the Nexus 7 (or both) don't like it for some reason.

The short cord also charges the tablet a lot faster while it is idle, so I guess I need to remember only to use the USB extension when I actually need it, and just plug in the short cable any time I'm running BOINC or when I want the Nexus to charge faster.

Unfortunately, the Einstein@home tasks started out running quickly (about 5% in the first 20 minutes) they have slowed down considerably since then and look like they will take about 20 hours to complete, just as the Asteroids@home tasks did.

And this is using the Original N7?
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,197
763
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And this is using the Original N7?

Yep, it's an original (about 8 months old) 8GB wifi Nexus 7. And after playing with it some more I have confirmed that the device does charge (very slowly) while running BOINC as long as it is connected to the charger only with the original short USB cable and not the extension. I let it discharge quite a bit so I could watch the battery meter while running BOINC and it's charging about 3% per hour with BOINC running, but it _is_ charging so I can let BOINC run indefinitely now. :)

edit: Interesting. I actually posted this about 3 hours after the post that is now showing up below it. Must be a forum glitch..
 
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Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
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OK, the Einstein@Home project is definitely not an efficient one for the Nexus 7. The four job tasks took an average of 22.2 hours (compared to an average of 20.1 hours for Asteroids@home) and the tasks were awarded 62.5 credits each (compared to 120 for Asteroids).

I may have to do some research later to see if there are any other projects that have Android apps, but for now I think I'll keep going through the six projects that are actually listed in the BOINC app to see how they compare on the Nexus 7. (theSkyNet POGS is next in the list)
 

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,197
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Two more results to report:

WCG FightAids project averaged 2.6 hours per task, scoring an average of 11.4 BOINC credits per task. Slightly better than Einstein but still worse than Asteroids.

POGS Skynet has only validated 2 of my 4 tasks so far, but those two averaged 7.4 hours and 159.3 credits per task. That's 21.5 credits per hour per CPU, compared to 5.97 for Asteroids, 3.38 for WCG, and 2.82 for Einstein. POGS is definitely in the lead so far if you're just looking for the most efficient project for BOINC credits.
 

Philippart

Golden Member
Jul 9, 2006
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doesn't a battery die much quicker when it is exposed for longer periods of time to such heat?

I am surprised that already some projects jumped on this despite the low credits/day paired with high temperatures and the lack of charging of the device...

I guess it must be the ease to port the app. The move to opencl/cuda was a lot slower!