On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 04:38:47 GMT, "Eric" <nospam@no.nospam.not> wrote:

Not the outages (they don't bother me), but the BOINC software itself?

Got a few older towers here that I just use as, basically, fileserving
appliances (threw wireless cards into them and then placed them in a closet,
out of sight and mind).  Their only purpose is to just spit out MP3's,
pictures, video, ect.   What could be better homes for also crunching SETI?

Granted, they are dated (500 Mhz P3's, 512MB RAM, Win98SE) but SETI Classic
ran great on them.  SETI Classic ran just fine on them (for years) not only
after I started using them as just dumb boxes but also when they were my
main working computers.

BOINC?  They become a total slugfest.  BOINC also, sometimes, locks up
explorer.exe (shell, not browser) causing it to automatically reboot.
Whenever explorer automatically reboots, the network drivers get all fungled
up in memory requiring physical reboots of the PC's..  Very annoying as the
PC's are in a closet, without a monitor/mouse/keyboard.

I keep the OS and all the drivers updated and also scan them often for
spyware/malware.  They all stay very clean.  There is nothing major running
on them, other than Norton AV/Firewall, UltraVNC (remote desktop, so can get
to their desktop from my "work" computers if need to do some housekeeping
stuff), LCDC (control software for Matrix Orbital LCD's), and of course the
minimum network protocols to get them to talk.  None of running software
caused any problem with SETI Classic.

BOINC slows them down a bit initially, but then gets worse and worse until
eventually there is a lockup (anywhere from right away to within a week).
Without BOINC running, things stay great.  With BOINC running (or, even if
ran just once and then closed out), a lockup is sure to happen.

Grrr. Hate to stop crunching the SETI stuff, but don't have much choice
since it keeps breaking these PC's.  Not about to replace these PC's with
newer ones either since they work beautifully as just dumb file dumpsters -- 
as long as BOINC doesn't run.

Cheers,
Eric

You've hit the nail on the head without even realizing it......
Win98 > WinME > WinXP
You are 3 generations behind on Windows
PIII 500 and 2 generations behind on CPUs......

At some point old horses no longer can "run" the race and must be
replaced or retired.....and so it was for Seti Classic as
well........it had its time and now its time to move on....
Classics days are numbered ..........soon it too be go
away........find a project these older boxes can handle or turn them
off to save the power............not alot of other options....

I've run BOINC for about 8 months now.......not a single
problem.....runs a tad slow on my one "older" PC - a PIII800 but good
enough as that PC is always on anyway....

So (not trying to a wiseacre) maybe it is time to move on
...........Classic is history and BOINC is the new version........just
as inevitable as M$ moving from XP to the next Virus Magnet OS...

Big Bob Smith