I have two problems, the minor is that running a single CPU P II and a dual core Pentium I\'ve got three CPDN\'s running but they are not showing in the system as a cumulative count in work units. I see in the one group I\'m a memeber of that the dual core system is reported. If I check the total work units credited, everything appears fine. How do I tell if the slower system work units are counted into the same account? If not, how do I fix it? More major problem I had is I can\'t load the BOINC software so it runs all the time, I have to install it as either single or logged in user. It works, but tells me that I have to quit the program first. I did that, no luck, tried uninstalling the original version when I upgraded from .9 to .11, still no luck. What am I doing wrong there? Thanks all.

B. B. Stanfield III

---

Hi, B.B., welcome to the Boards.

Your account shows two computers and both checked-in yesterday.

By the way, the P4 2.4 is a HyperThreading CPU, not dual core. Also, please make regular backups; you can expect some troubles along the way, especially from the PII, which has about half the recommended processor power to run a Coupled Model; it has enough memory, though. The P4 is marginal on memory for two runs and the 502Meg suggests on-board video. That\'s almost sure to be a problem somewhere along the way, especially if you use the screen saver option or use graphics a lot.

Les\' How to backup/restore:
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_thread.php?id=4890

Thyme Lawn\'s Testing Graphics Compatability:
http://bbc.cpdn.org/forum_thread.php?id=1038

Edited for typo.

---

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

Hey there,

Yes, you are right, not very precise in my terms. Sorry about that, I was very tired and in a hurry. I\'ve not really kept up with the technology the past few years, just too much going on at my end. I\'m slowly getting back up to speed on those areas, but it\'ll be slow. As I learn more about the newer technology, hardware, these sorts of programs; I\'ll figure a lot of it out naturally. The P4 system is not doing much except the model program, so I have not had any real problems with it. I\'ve had more problems with my P III laptop. It\'s a nice Dell, Inspiron 8000, bought in July 2001. It\'s my primary system, with a few upgrades, and the video has been a problem in the past. I routinely backup this system. The P4 system has multiple drives and is acting as a file server, BOINC system, and that\'s about it. Unless I love two drives there and also my laptop and it\'s backup, I\'m pretty well set.

When I checked the system I saw both machines listed, but only one had any recent activity. After I read your post I checked, and lo and behold, they had both checked in recently. Go figure. Right as I ask the question it makes me a liar. Something like a watched pot won\'t boil? Thanks for the reply and I\'m considering upgrading my hardware a bit. Recommendations?

Thanks again,

B. B.

---

Hi, again, B.B.,

Recommendations? I\'m not a good one to make hardware recommendations but have gained a bit of experience in the last year, thanks to some excellent help. However, I can share a bit of my experience, for what it\'s worth.

Rebuilt a P4 3.4 as a Pentium D 940 after the P5P800 MB cooked a capacitor and burned three chips on the (low end) graphics card (or vice versa). New MB/CPU/PS/DDR2 RAM/low end graphics card/Raptor HD. Runs hot, but then, it\'s Pentium D. I wouldn\'t have bothered with upgrading, since that\'s almost a completely new machine, but the case is Antec SLK1650, which has a ducted side air inlet for the CPU and 120MM case fan (which was also replaced with a quieter model).

Have three AMD X2 4400+, two of which I built (much less expensive that way but can be a bit of bother) and those two have WinXP-64. There is still a paucity of drivers for 64-bit, even after all this time.

Also built an X2 4400+ for a friend, with the best Kingston memory I could find -- because my last machine was built with Kingston, though a bit slower variety, and I was impressed with the performance. (Her machine\'s graphics card suffered infant mortality, but that\'s the luck of the draw.) That machine is the fastest of the four X2 4400+ boxes we have.

The shop-built 4400+ had two Gig of Corsair, 2*1Gig, dual channel. One stick recently went belly-up, so the box was returned to the shop under warranty. Corsair required nine days merely to authorize the RMA! I\'m still waiting for the replacement memory...

Don\'t know whether it\'s industry-wide practice but I paid premium for factory-certified matched sticks. Corsair won\'t replace the pair, only the bad stick. Seems I\'ve lost some of what was paid for -- unless it makes no difference, in which case, why do we pay premium for matched pairs? Either way, I feel \'taken\'. Caveat emptor.

The new dual core Intels made a leap over AMD Athlons in performance and low-energy operation and Intel has a quad core on the horizon, supposedly next month. (I\'ll believe that when I see it.) Intel has the price/performance edge but AMD recently came through with heavy price cuts and the wide array of MBs for AMD are time-tested, including the newer AM2 variety, which use DDR2 memory. (From all I\'ve read and been told, good/fast memory is more important to AMD CPUs than to Intel CPUs.)

Meanwhile, I have another Antec P-180 case, two Gig of Mushkin DDR2, Thermaltake all-copper mini-Typhoon heat-sink/fan, DVD & Raptor drives, waiting for Core 2 Duo prices to shed the dealer start-up greed factor and sink to Intel \'list\', then I\'ll probably go for an e6600, possibly ASUS P5W DH MB, low-end passively-cooled graphics card and Antec PS.

Re. the Thermaltake mini-Typhoon: It was purchased for the space heater also known as Pentium D 940 but I couldn\'t make it work on the Intel D975XBX MB. For reason(s) I don\'t understand, the thing has a rectangular base plate and, in one orientation, a corner rests on a capacitor. Turned 90 degrees, a heat pipe jambs onto the Northbridge heatsink. (I gave up on the gauntlet to get information from Thermaltake.)

As to whether to go dual-boot (currently, mine are all WinXP & SuSE Linux but, for the first time in more than five years, all are running Windoze): The Transient Coupled Model does better on Windoze, whereas Slab/Sulphur Cycle/Seasonal Attribution were faster in Linux. Of course, except for TCM, they\'re all finished Projects or soon will be. The future? Depends on what can be done with the compiler and whatever Model varient may be forthcoming.

HTH. Best of luck with the upgrade -- and please don\'t overlook a PS upgrade.

Edit: If you are considering a less extensive upgrade, simply upgrading to a faster P4 CPU, for example, please check the User Guide for your MB to see the max it will support. Wouldn\'t hurt to check the PS specs, too. Also, Intel replaced the Northwood P4s with Prescott. Some (all?) of the latter require newer MBs. My P4 Northwoods were all on ASUS P4P800 MBs but the 3.4 GHz Prescott was on P5P800.

---

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

WOW!!

Sounds like you\'ve been into this a lot more than I have, particularly recently. Way back in the \"old\" days I asked for some advice and followed it since it seemed well thought out and I had no better options. I modified it a bit and wound up with the following: ASUS P4P800 with a 2.8 CPU, decent RAM, multiple hard drives, a very strong power supply and crammed it all into a really big rack mount server chassis. It has run as a file server, SUSE 8.1, (I think), LINUX, Windows XP Pro, and of course all the BOINC stuff. It sits mostly idle except for the distributed computing work. I travel a lot, (currently in Costa Rica), and it gets very little use except when I\'m home backing up systems or working it with my amateur radio stuff. Mostly though, BOINC. The fans are a bit noisy and I need to get something quieter, but that\'s about it. I noted that the system runs pretty hot, (CPU), and like you, am concerned about things failing. As long as I don\'t mess with it too much by turning it off or something like that, it runs fine. I\'ve got a servswitch connecting several systems, a wireless network, (some wired ports), and am way out in the country. The chances of someone sucking internet access off my system is zero, (I\'d notice someone close enough). It is pretty open locally and when I move everything in a couple of years it\'ll be even further out in the sticks.

Once the funds are available I have enough old hardware to cobble together a few more systems. I\'d like to put several together an \"up\" the capabilities in BOINC, amateur radio, etc. I\'ll take your thoughts on upcoming improvements and see what that does to prices of the now \"older\" hardware. It could prompt a decent change in pricing so I can not only afford it, but upgrade the old 2.4 GHZ CPU in the batch of computers I\'m hoping to develop. At one time I had 5 systems running full/part time. I\'m down to one full time and one part time. I\'ve got several laptops capable, but just sitting, and so on.

Takes time, attention and interest. I don\'t have the first two right now, but that\'s changing. Now if I were just home to do it..........

Thanks for all the input and I\'m so glad you responded. It is pretty much what I needed to find out. We deviated a bit from my original question, but that\'s what I figure these systems are for, and in my case, I\'m satisfied it worked well. If you ever have any questions for me, please don\'t hesitate to ask.

B. B. Stanfield III

PS: astroWX, origins of that ID?

---

PS: astroWX, origins of that ID?

The \"astro\" part because I\'m an amateur astronomer, and proud to be.

The \"WX\" part because that\'s a standard usage for \"weather\": I was involved with weather in one aspect or another for my 20 years in the U.S. Air Force -- reconnaissance, mainframe progamming at Air Force Global Weather Central (as it was then called), even a bit of forecasting.

---

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.