On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 15:02:48 -0400, mijikin <mijikin@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

mijikin wrote:

Whenever I run seti (v.4.02) with boinc (v.4.05), my system clock
slows down at a rate of about 5 minutes per hour. My computer is a
Pentium III running Mandrake 9.0. I did not have this problem with the
old seti classic.

Problem remains unsolved. This post is to describe stuff that I've tried 
and respond to those who made suggestions (thanks).

1. I undusted my computer (was badly needed) but that did not make any 
difference.

2. Upgrading to boinc v.4.09 did not either.

3. Problem does not occur with boinc/seti running under Windows 98 SE on 
same computer; nor does it with seti classic (v.3.08) either under 
Windows or Mandrake.

4. Battery failure is not to blame since hardware clock keeps correct 
time.

5. Synchronizing clock with a time server is not really an option as 
this is not likely to fix the other symptoms. As I mentioned in another 
post, computer becomes sluggish when boinc is running. If I move the 
mouse around continually, the mouse pointer will pause briefly every 
second or so, this is annoying. I also seem to experience frequent 
timeouts when trying to access the net while boinc is running, although 
this might be a coincidence.

This seems to be an area of concern! If your mouse stops moving you
are taxing your computer to the max and it is having to store the
motion and do it as soon as it can. This is evidenced by the mouse
jumping when it does move again after it has stopped. If it does not
jump than that is an even worse situation because you are sooo close
to the max that there is no room for a buffer. More memory may help
but a faster computer will fix the problem as long as you are not
running too many background programs, so will running fewer background
tasks. Your system may just be overtaxed by the stuff you are trying
to do.

6. Lost interrupts: I searched the comp.protocols.time.ntp archives and 
did see the articles related to the HZ parameter. I'm afraid this is a 
bit too technical for this newbie, especially if a fix means 
recompiling the kernel.

Anyway I'm planning on upgrading to a more recent version of Mandrake 
before long. I will then give boinc another try. In the meanwhile, I'll 
keep crunching with classic.

Sounds like the best idea for now.