On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 07:27:04 +0000 (UTC), "Nick M V Salmon"
<spam_dump@btinternet.com> wrote:

"steve" <steve@unowut.org> wrote

My Athlon 1.4GHz system normally does a WU in about 6:10 - 6:30 hours.

The last WU took 53:26.

I hate that.

Please remind me again why a WU would take that long?

There's no reason for _any_ work unit to take that much longer than normal
without some problem somewhere - worst 'normal' case is a VLAR work unit
with a sub 0.1 angle range under a Windows '98 based O/S & they are 'only'
circa 50% slower than the average 0.417AR work unit.  Windows NT based O/Ss
don't suffer even that much slowdown for VLARs...

If you get one like that again then have a look in Task Manager (Win2k/XP)
or Iarsn's TaskInfo (Win98/ME) to see what process is hogging all the
system's resources.  Occasionally some software or other starts hogging
resources for no reason - either killing & restarting that process or
rebooting will clear it...

I had 4 or 5 of these last this past Spring.   The only thing that was
heavily using resources was the seti client.  These were running on a
.19XP + Athlon.  I let one run. It had been projecting 53 hours, but
that kept getting bumped up.  Up around 58 hours it was saying 68...So
I flushed it and got a new WU.  Over the next few weeks I had several
more.  When a WU appeared to be taking longer than about 3X normal,
I'd flush it.  All of those WUs were indicating a projected finish
time of some where in the 50 hours range.

I've never had one since.

BTW: I have never had even a ONE work unit take that much longer than normal
here - ie. 743% slower..!   I currently have 23,600 results returned and
that figure is increasing at roughly 74 results/day from 7 machines, all

I'm running 4. 2 1900s, a 2000 and a 2800. All Athlon XP +.  It's been
so long since I checked I'm not sure just how many WUs get returned
per week... High 200s "I think".  Some where between 1/3 and 1/2 of
what you are getting.

AMD.   Longest (wallclock) time WUs I get at the moment are whilst I'm using
the 'TV on Demand' facility (Like a TiVo.) of my ATI All In Wonder Radeon
8500DV. (+30% or so above normal for that AR.)  That one's a real resource
hog & would probably take all 100% of a 1.4GHz Athlon...

All mine run at 100% most of the time.  This one (the 2800) also gets
all my internet work, programming, and even FS9.  I use the CLI with
default settings.  The other programs including FS9 don't appear to
even realize the Seti client is even there.

Roger Halstead (K8RI EN73 & ARRL Life Member)
www.rogerhalstead.com
N833R World's oldest Debonair? (S# CD-2)

Ciao...

[UK]_Nick...