Subject: My Over-commitment solution (detach from climate prediction)
From: "tjs" <anon@anon.net>
Date: 15/09/2005, 13:36
Newsgroups: alt.sci.seti

Recently while Seti was having their server problems I was running Einstein
100%. I decided that this was a good thing so I re-attached my Boinc manager to
LHC and ClimatePrediction so I could always have work going, unless all 4 were
down! A few days later as my various completed work units were needing uploaded,
I noticed I was not getting new work units from anyone. Climate prediction does
not get new WUs since a unit is so big (6 months to complete on my system). No
mater what I tried I could not get Boinc Manager to ask for new WUs.

I read about BoincDV which can show you internal accounting info for you
specific Boinc manager and the workloads you have banked up, and I guess the
backlog of work your commited to. BoincDV can reset these values. Supposedly if
you zero out the deficits You can fix some problems. I tried this (although
there are warnings in the process) and I got some work units, but all was not
fixed.

All this started after I attached to CPD. This morning I detached from CPD and
immediately Boinc began asking for Seti, Einstein and LHC WUs. Apparently the
nature of Climate Predictions huge single work unit style, causes the Boinc
Manager to report that you PC is fully commited to that work, even though it
only gets 25% of the computing time.

Additionally I notice system instability with the Boinc Manager while running
CPD units. I had the Boinc Manager freeze up as far as the GUI interface goes
(could not click on it to bring it to front) and had to kill the process several
times to unfreeze the computer.

Maybe this will help some others out there. I never have read about this effect
in any FAQ or posting before.