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Boinc Pentathlon 2024

Orange Kid

Elite Member
The BOINC Pentathlon starts on 05 May 2024, 00:00 UTC, and ends on 19 May 2024, 00:00 UTC. So, it will run for exactly 14 days.

  1. New discipline: Steeplechase. This discipline runs for 7 days and features two one-day obstacles. At each obstacle, each team gets a bonus of 20%, 30%, or 50% of the credits it scored on the day in this discipline's stats. The obstacles and the bonus are announced at the beginning of the respective day. Steeplechase replaces Cross Country.
  2. The 14-day Obstacle Run is replaced again with the Marathon without obstacles.
  3. The projects are now announced universally on the third day prior to the start of each discipline. As before, the announcements may happen at 00:00 UTC, 06:00 UTC, 12:00 UTC, or 18:00 UTC.

The BOINC Pentathlon consists of 5 disciplines:
  1. Marathon (14 days) PrimeGrid: only subproject Cullen Prime Search LLR (CUL) 1st Place and a GOLD MEDAL
  2. Sprint (3 days) NumberFields@home 1st Place and a GOLD MEDAL
  3. City Run (5 days) The Ramanujan Machine on BOINC 1st Place and a GOLD MEDAL
  4. Steeplechase (5 days, with bonus credits on 2 one-day obstacles) MilkyWay@home 1st Place and a GOLD MEDAL
  5. Javelin Throw (5 x 1 day, only each team's third best daily score counts) NFS@Home 1st Place and a GOLD MEDAL
Not necessarily in this order.

ProjectMay 5May 6May 7May 8May 9May 10May 11May 12May 13May 14May 15May 16May 17May 18Final
Marathonmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.pngmarathon.png1716083305445.png
Sprintsprint.pngsprint.pngsprint.png1715129028966.png
City Runcityrun.pngcityrun.pngcityrun.pngcityrun.pngcityrun.png1715539393207.png
Steeplechasesteeplechase.pngsteeplechase.pngsteeplechase.png+30%steeplechase.pngsteeplechase.png
+20%
1716083202784.png
JavelinThrow
javelin.png
javelin.pngjavelin.pngjavelin.pngjavelin.png
1716074949077.png
Overall StatsIt is here
 
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15th BOINC Pentathlon calendar: Edit - now available in post #1

Rules are changed this year again:
  • 14-day Obstacle Run, which once replaced Marathon, is now replaced by… Marathon!! Yay! :-)
  • 5-day Cross Country is replaced by 7-day Obstacle Run Steeplechase. This one has got two bunker days obstacles, i.e. days on which credit is multiplied by a random factor of 1.2, 1.3, or 1.5.
https://www.seti-germany.de/boinc_pentathlon/15_en_Rules.html

Our forum threads of past Pentathlons: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013
 
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Glad they took the Obstacle Run away and replaced it with the regular Marathon.

The 5-day Steeplechase should be interesting though depending on which project gets picked.
 
A redo of my initial post #1.
I'll do my best to keep it up to date as the Pentathlon progresses as @StefanR5R does enough with the stats and helping us stumble through scripts, work, life, etc.
Your calendar doesn't have bunker event run-up days like Stefan's had. 🙁 Edit: Meaning the time between event announcement and start.
 
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I wish to run for SG this year, as a token of appreciation for the many many many spectacular events they have hosted over the years. I won't peek at your plans, I promise. I'll just run the Marathon and GPU project(s). (Assuming the marathon project is STABLE, might switch up as needed otherwise.) (I hope nothing requires multiple threads, because I REALLY suck at configuring chiplets efficiently.)
 
All systems are up and ready for action. The weather forecast predicts rain all week, which is perfect for this kind of stuff. 🌧️
Now I just need a project to point these computers towards...
 
Likewise, I'm draining my work queues also. Although I got mostly Denis@home work.

Also, for those who don't know. We are aiming for a three-peat this year. That's three championships in 3 consecutive years. Only one other team has ever done this at the Pentathlon who many of you know by the name of Planet3D.

So if we can achieve Gold place overall this year, well stand on an elite category only one other team is part of. Could be a huge accomplishment.
 
I feel only half prepared, at best...

+ Some time ago I finally repaired most of the wall outlets and junctions of the electrical circuits which have computers attached. (The outlets and junctions were corroded and got hot when put under heavy load. They were installed in the 1990s or so and were in this state when I moved into this home five years ago.)

− I still have got my terrible internet connection. It always had the issue that the cable modem loses connection at random, and sometimes does not dial back in. But since last fall or winter, I additionally have got huge troubles with file uploads, at least to servers outside of Europe. It seems I can keep this somewhat in check with an upload speed limit set in BOINC. But that's inconvenient to configure when there are several hosts with stuff to transfer.
 
− I still have got my terrible internet connection. It always had the issue that the cable modem loses connection at random, and sometimes does not dial back in. But since last fall or winter, I additionally have got huge troubles with file uploads, at least to servers outside of Europe. It seems I can keep this somewhat in check with an upload speed limit set in BOINC. But that's inconvenient to configure when there are several hosts with stuff to transfer.

Perhaps a 4G/5G home broadband modem can help alleviate this issue? I presume you have stable mobile phone reception? I am not sure on the cost, but they can be unlimited data with generous speeds
 
...and the Marathon will be...
PrimeGrid: only subproject Cullen Prime Search LLR (CUL)

Well, won't this be an interesting one. 😵😱
 
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Yeah I was wondering about that. The Sprint was announced a little over 2 days before? Guess they rounding up over at SG?

I mean it techincally starts on the 5th and technically was announced on the 2nd. It's just not 72 hours between the two.
 
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All is well.
– The sprint starts on May 5.
– The sprint announcement is dated May 2, 18:00 UTC.
– May 2 is the 3rd day prior to May 5.
– 18:00 UTC is one out of the four possible times of day when disciplines¹ are announced.
(Edit: I am referring to May 2 and May 5 of an UTC aligned calendar, of course.)

________
¹) Note, Steeplechase's credit bonus days are announced on the credit bonus days themselves at 00:00UTC = without lead.
 
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Having pre-tested all my rigs on the most recent PG challenge, I was more than surprised and frustrated that one machine would immediately power down once the CPU was loaded with tasks. Temps at idle were good, must be a failing power supply? Nope, but definitely a hardware failure, lol. Good thing I have a bunch of those left over from other cooler mounting solutions. 😉
 

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