SETI not fast enough

[EmperorNero]

ppl have told me that my comp is taking unusually long to crunch an SETI work unit.

I'm running a 700mhz Athlon classic and my CPU time is 11hrs 39mins while I'm only 71.8% done. what's wrong? I would be online, listening to mp3, and use the graphical version of SETI but it should be that slow.

see here for a bit more of background info.

 

[TwoFace]

EmperorNero:

Check for other CPU intesive tasks! Maybe a virus scanner?

Are you running the client "always"? not using it only as a screensaver? If you use it as a screensaver be sure to enable the option "blank screen" in the screensaver, and set the amount of time to something like 1 minute. If you don't do that your CPU wastes precious CPU cycles computing nice graphics instead of science!

Hope this helps some.

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[blade47]

I second what TwoFace said.

Also AMD chips aren't very good for seti with the current client v2.04 gui or v2.4 command line. They do much better with the beta client v2.76. When v3.0 comes out AMD chips will do much better since v2.76 and v3.0 should be the same. You might want to run the beta version for now since it'll be much faster on your chip.

Secondly seti is very memory dependant. If your ram can handle it make sure it's running at cas2 and try to tweak all your memory settings for maximum performance.

BTW my P3-500e@620mhz (cas3 ram) gets between 5.5-6 hours while listening to mp3's and surfing so that shouldn't be hurting you all that much.

 

[Sukhoi]

Check out your welcoming thread...I posted a reply there.

 

[EmperorNero]

1) I usually run SETI when I do stuff like surf online; so there would be the graphics thing...but should it really slow it down THAT much?

2) and I also have it as my screensaver with the blank mode and set to 3 mins.

3) I'm using CAS2 ram but I read on the anandtech/seti site that ram has little to do with the number crunching.

4) I would be connected online, have several windows of IE opened, sometimes listen to Mp3 w/ winamp, have a lexmark usb driver program running in the background, and CPUIdle but cpuidle always sturns itself off when seti is running so I doubt background apps is my problem.

5) so I guess the only problem left is what blade said about seti 2.04 being crappy on an athlon system...but I saw that an athlon 700 usually finishes a work unit in 5 hours and I think that was w/ 2.07.

 

[Sukhoi]

1. AFAIK SETI doesn't do a whole lot when you're actually using the computer, so you may want to set SETI to just run when the screensaver is on, so it will get full CPU usage.

2. Good.

3. Good too. The current version of SETI are very dependent on FSB and RAM speeds.

4. If you're running SETI all the time, CPUIdle will do absolutely nothing, so get rid of it.

5. If you can't get v2.04 GUI running at a decent speed, you might want to try the i486 CLI client...I've heard it's faster on Athlons. Or, you could try one of teh 2.7x GUI betas.

Can someone post a link here for one of the programs that shows what percent of your CPU power each program is using? I lost my link.

 

[Assimilator1]

EmperorNero

Hi

1.Showing the graphics(window maximised) significantly increases the WU time ,roughly doubling the time! :Q ,minimise it for best times.

2.Good
3.Thats RC5 your thinking of ,SETI is very memory dependant ,so setting CAS2 will make a very noticeable difference.

4.That shouldn't take up to much ,though dont have Winamp showing flashy graphics ,it uses about 4-7% of cpu time with the normal graphics .Dunno about USB thing though.
If you want to see yourself how much cpu time is taken by various apps then get this free task manager,ATM.
When I use Winamp & have about 6 windows of IE open I still have 90% of cpu time left for SETI

5.I have GUI v2.04 running on an Athlon 700 classic ,it manges around 7.5-8 hrs ,with CLi v2.4 it was averaging WU times in 7 hrs.
This system has an Abit KA7 ,PC133 RAM (@ 133 MHz),set to CAS2 & normal timings on a RY bios .I was able to set Turbo for the memory timings on the previous bios which reduced the WU times to about 6.5hrs.The fastest I could set them on the RY bios was normal ,though there was the option to enable 4way interleave which shaved off about 10-15 mins off the WU times.
If you had really high quality RAM ,set to CAS2,133MHz mem bus ,turbo timings & 4 way interleave enabled I reckon you could get WU times down to about 6hrs with CLi v2.4.
V2.70 is a different story altogther ,it seems to be much less memory dependant & is much faster on Athlon systems

 

[Assimilator1]

Sukhoi

LOL ,we were writing at the same time ,you posted 1st ,just

And you read my mind ,I've included the link for a task manger

 

[blade47]

Assim1 thanks for the link. I'm going to try it out myself.

 

[Neurodog]

How I have it setup is that I put it as normal in the system process instead of idle and so it use more of the processor when browsing the net or playing STARCRAFT with no slowdown!

And that's just with a P3 500 with 256 megs of ram.

You could try a program that you can change the system process, like TF2000.

 

[EmperorNero]

well, I just keep cpuidle on because I would give my cpu a 15 min treat after 1 hr of hard labor.

I already have winamp graphics stuff turned off.

with ATM, it says seti is using 80-97% of my cpu (WOW!) and with WCPUCLK, it says my processor's running 699-700.13 mhz.

plus, I have an asus k7v motherboard so that's a 200mhz fsb with 128mb Crucial 133 CAS2 ram.

and SETI wouldn't run when it's minimized...or do you mean resize the SETI window so the graphics wouldn't show? and I just resized the window to the smallest size possible - it's now 1.5x.5 inches...hope there'll be an improvement.

btw, I'm 96.6% done @ 14 hours 42 mins.

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

My advice is not to run the graphics AT ALL. I don't even have SETI as a screensaver. I set it to run all the time and it loads at bootup. I double click the icon on the system tray every once in a while since SetiSpy isn't as pretty to look at for a progress check , but I've had great luck doing it this way. These PIII-450's at work here are set like this with GUI 2.70 and the complete WU's in a little less than 8 hours. Even this system that I'm using all day during my shift completes a WU in less than 8 hours. You can't even tell it's on either because it's such a low priority on the system that anything YOU do will override SETI and give you all the cycles you need.

 

[EmperorNero]

finally! 100% done in 14 hours 51 mins.

how do I turn off the graphics for the GUI seti program?

and I don't get the whole setting seti to low priority thing - someone explain?

 

[Tetsuo316]

don't make it the smallest window possible. minimize it. as long as the s@h icon is on the system tray, and the prferences are set to always run, it will run, and run quickly. don't keep the window open because that's when the slowdown happens. that's my first piece of advice. as a second, it may just be a big wu. some wu's take longer than others. do try and run version 2.76. that should decrease your average wu time. my third piece of advice is to listen to the seti team members in this forum, they know what they're talking about, and will work their asses off to help you. oh, and by the way, welcome to the team!

 

[Sukhoi]

<< Sukhoi

LOL ,we were writing at the same time ,you posted 1st ,just

And you read my mind ,I've included the link for a task manger >>



hehe. Someone in the ignore me thread said I must be a psychic (I said the thread would never be locked). I've just proved it to them.

 

[EmperorNero]

yay, just got done with my 2nd unit - in 8 hours 41 mins. thanks for the performance tips all of you.

 

[ReDSkuLL]

That sounds better as thats what I get on my Athlon 700 classic. I have a SD-11 with cheap PC-100 ram though.

 

[Assimilator1]

No probs

Performance tweaking in the bios is the next step (if you want to or are able to)