Unusually Long Seti Times...

[Splork]

I just began re-running seti@home on my computer. I have a AMD K6-2 400 with 96 Megs of RAM, under the Windows 2000 Pro. platform. My seti times are averaging close to 40 hours to complete one wu. Could someone please help me solve my problem? Thanks. I thought a 400 K6-2 would run a wu in about ~20 hours.

-sp

 

[Fardringle]

Are you using the GUI client (screensaver)? If so, do you have the screensaver set to blank the screen? If not, the graphics part of the program will nearly double your WU times..

Right-click on the Desktop, click on Properties, click on the Screensaver tab, select the Setihome screensaver, click on Settings, click the checkbox next to Blank Screen, then enter a low number in the box (I use 0 to have the screen go immediately blank) to set the delay for the screen to go from displaying the graphics to a blank screen.

 

[Robor]

What client are you using? If you're using the GUI client make sure you have the screensaver settings set to "blank screen" after 0 minutes. This way it will not display the GUI graph while it works. That GUI graph will pretty much double your CPU time. Same with any other screensaver. Depending on which one is used it can seriously impact your SETI times. The safest screensaver is "blank screen".

Rob

Edit: Ya beat me to it! 😉

 

[Fardringle]

Also, using the WinNT Command Line client instead of the GUI client will cut an hour or two more off of your total times.. 🙂

Edit: You just gotta have quicker fingers, Robor.. 😎

 

[office boy]

With the new version 3 client doing abour 20% more work, (but with a smaller working set so it's not as cache dependent) things will be tougher for that K6.

But looking at the ARS benchmark page, seems like some guys are getting 10-12hr times with 400-500Mhz K6's so all hope might not be lost.

 

[Splork]

Thanks guys!
I didn't realize that by running the screen saver it would take that much time!
The problem is fixed! Much appreciated!

-sp