New with Seti. How long it normally takes to finish a WU?

[Eltano1]

Hi, I just joined last night, I have my pc working overnight and only have 45% processed. is this normal? 😉

 

[Fardringle]

It depends on the computer. My K6-3+ 600Mhz takes about 16-17 hours per Work Unit and my Celeron 700's take about 12-13 hours...

 

[Eltano1]

I have a PIII 600 MHZ with 256 RAM, and is still going after 22 hrs.

 

[Orange Kid]

It sounds like you are using the screen saver.

Make sure you have the settings for the screen to go to a blank screen after 1min. This will cut your work time by about 1/2.

Another option is to use the CLI version unless you really like the pretty pictures🙂. This is a tad bit faster yet🙂

Welcome to the Team

😎 😎

 

[Assimilator1]

Welcome to the team Eltano 😀

BTW the settings for 'blank sceen' are in the screen saver settings & not within SETI itself

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hi Eltano1 and welcome to the TeAm!! 🙂😀

The following are times for my work computer which is a Cel2-600 @900 MHz:

WU1 0.526 7h49m
WU2 0.764 7h51m
WU3 0.506 7h42m
WU4 0.417 7h47m

The middle number is the angle range. I included that so you can see that these are all normal WUs.

I use the command line interface (cli) version, rather than the gui. I use SetiDriver to control it. I also use SetiQueue as a proxy so that I only dial into S@H once each day at 1:00 AM.

 

[Eltano1]

Thanks you guys, I have the screen saver in blank and still hasn't finish, it goes already 49 hrs. What is going on?

 

[Fardringle]

Is there anything else running on the computer at all? A virus scanner, FTP software, games, etc.? Do you use the system agent to automatically run scandisk and defrag at night? If so, any of these things (especially the last two) will significantly slow down the SETI client.

 

[ElFenix]

whoops!

 

[Wiz]

He said it's a "PIII 600 MHZ with 256 RAM"
You should not take this long with that system. I have a slower machine, celeron 300 running @ 505mhz with 64 megs ram and it only takes about 12-13 hours per WU. Of course I am running the command line client with setidriver and that does go a little faster than the screen saver, but not that much. Even my K62 450 does a WU in about 22-24 hours (v 3.03) so there is something very wrong with your setup.
Have you set it in the screen saver to go blank after 0 (zero) minutes? This is very important.
Are you running any other software, bring up your task menu and see if there is something else running that you don't need.

 

[Assimilator1]

Eltano

Use this Task manager to see if SETI is getting around 98% cpu useage with little else running.If not let us know what else is hogging cpu power

BTW you are minimisng the SETI window aren't you?

My Cel 366 @ 550 CAS2 RAM is doing WU's in about 10.5hrs with CLi v3.03

 

[Orange Kid]

If you have (fastfind) in your start up folder nuke it!!!!!!

It is a ploy by microsoft to stay ahead of us it the race to find ET.








ok actually it is an office porgram that constantly scans your office apps and notes an changes and records them so as to make it a tiny bit faster to open last years christmas letter. a resource hog, not needed, IMHO

😎 😎

 

[Eltano1]

Ok, let's go little by little, when I set up my pcs (I have 3), I go into msconfig and I remove what is not essential, and I always have my AV running, no matter what. I have my screen saver in blank, and nothing else is running in the background. The first WU is done (after almost 60 hrs), and now is working in the 3rd one, in 3 hrs has done 30%. Is that good or can be improve? and yes I minimize the SETI (it makes any difference?). As you can see I'm pretty new with SETI, so I will appreciatte any guidance.
Thanks

Eltano

 

[Jalapeno]

That AV is taking away speed, no doubt, but 60hrs does seem excessive!

30% in 3hrs is more like it...

 

[JWMiddleton]

I have had a couple different machinea take a LONG time (20-30+ hours) on one WU, but then the next is OK. I have caught a system when it says it will take 30+ hours to complete a WU and it is ~50% complete. I've rebooted and it then completes in the proper amount of time for the remaining percentage. No idea why. Have wondered if it was because the various systems were OC'ed, but then I had it happen on one that was not OC'ed. Lately things have been fine. Go figure.

 

[Eltano1]

I have another question. What do I need to do when it completes WU's ? Do I need to send them somewhere or it will do that auto?😉

Eltano

 

[Assimilator1]

Depends how you've set it in the preferences ,if you have set it to autoconnect & your on a 24/7 connection it will send off the result & grab a new WU automatically ,if you have set it to manually connect then the SETI icon will flash red & green ,this means it has been sat idle for a while!:Q 😉.
Even with a 24/7 connection though you'll want to store some extra WU's incase the SETI servers go down.

 

[Eltano1]

OK, I have the SetiDriver installed, and I removed the Seti@Home program,
then I set up MAX Pro=1 and desired cache to 1, but then I changed to 3 (that was when the colour of the icon changed from blue to yellow)and CPU =normal. Is there any other setting that I need to be aware of?.😉

 

[Assimilator1]

I assume you have installed the CLi client instead of the GUI client? 😱

BTW you don't need to set the priority to normal,SETI will crunch just fine at idle ,but if you don't notice any system lag then thats fine 🙂.
As for other settings ,I dunno ,I'm a SETIdriver newbie!

BTW can anyone tell me how to get SETIDriver to use SETISpy ,I tick the box & it seems to have no effect😕

 

[Fardringle]

Assim, if SetiSpy and SetiDriver are in the same directory, checking the option to use SetiDriver will put the appropriate .SAH results files in that directory to allow SetiSpy to monitor the client. SetiSpy still has to be started separately (one way is to have SetiSpy start SetiDriver as the client, and have SetiDriver run the actual SETI program...) but you'll be able to watch the progress in SetiSpy once these conditions are met

 

[Assimilator1]

Thanks 🙂