BOINC struggles with Win98, but works fine with Win XP, and also with vista with a couple of caveats.

Pray for them. [couldn't resist]

My 6400+ 3.2GHz (overclocked to 3.45GHz) X2 has an industrial strength fan running at low RPM (2400) surrounded by some copper fins that take out the heat. It's more quiet than two other computers next to it. Two BOINC workunits stay busy 24/7 in there.

You may get better results by turning off the hyperthread in the BIOS. It's a "pseudo dual core", but there's only one floating point register in there, so it thrashes back and forth. The most gain on a HT is running a floating point application (like this) with a non-intensive integer based application, like a word processor.

The BOINC throttle is available in processor tab of advanced options but it is very uneven and starts and stops to get an "average". BOINC works better at 100% with adequate cooling to keep the computer running smoothly.

There are a few grid computing applications out there that don't use BOINC, but they are still going to try to use 100% of the idle cycles by design. That's the whole idea. Folding@home, some astronomy and mathematical packages, and a few others come to mind.

Depspid/Dependency Spider/BOINC (must be online), DIMES (must be online), are two that can run in conjunction with other things, and don't use all of the power.

There are some simple solutions, like elevating the machine on a metal pie rack, getting one of those base pad coolers with some fans in it, or simply opening the CD drawer so air can get in. One of those might work. If not, go for the BOINC throttle.

Everybody seems to read different things in sbsidlov's post. What I read is that the BOINC default of running as many threads as possible is not what he wants. I understand this since I always urged people with Pentium 4 computers to only run 1 thread.

Go to My Grid - Device Manager - (selected profile) and choose Custom Profile. Then set 'On multiprocessors, at most use: 1 processors' in the Advanced Options. This will let your computers run speedily and much cooler, the way they did while running UD's single thread. If they are still too hot, go to Basic Options and set 'Use no more than: 50 % of processor time' which will run for 1 second and pause for 1 second. You should be able to run a single thread at 100% without any heat issues on a desktop.

Lawrence

no more so than the title of this thread in the first place, "BOINC Agent sucks". We tried to contribute a lot of assorted hints in spite of that, which I see as parting shots. "BOINC still sucks" sounds like a preemptive insult, which dares us to say anything or else.

Whenever I want to do anything during the day, BOINC backs off or stops completely when another application wants 100%. It runs at low priority. There's no inferference here.

My $800 off the shelf components-for-the-first-one-I-at-age-60-ever-put-together-computer runs Vista Ultimate quite well at the moment, but I did turn off the aero glass graphics to save some cycles. For $800 and watching the Frys sales, I got an AMD X2 6400+ Black Edition 3.2GHz overclocked to 3.45GHz, an ASUS M32N32-SLI Deluxe Mobo, 4 Gb of OCZ memory, LG DVD recorder and 2 hard drives with a total of 1 terabyte of space, Antec case with 475 watt power supply and a large Zalman fan.

The Win98 0.5MHz machine was retired. UD ran OK, but BOINC is too intense for it.

My oldest currently crunching computer started out as a Dell 1.7GHz from Goodwill, which kept it out of the landfill. It crashed soon after. I had a computer store transmogrify it into a 2.0GHz AMD, overclocked to 2.4GHz, which runs cooler than another 2.4GHz because it is newer. Reuse of components meant a total cost of about $300.

It's sitting on a Win3.11 DOS computer, which is too old for any of this.

Hello, Malcw and Ziggy66, and others frustrated with the UD - Boinc transition,

I experienced a great deal of frustration installing Boinc and getting it to work properly on Linux (I did not have any difficulty replacing UD on my M$ XP machine), so much so that I believe I caused people like Didactylos to pull out their hair. But Didactylos and company kept up, as unpaid volunteers, until I was able to get the thing running properly. I am grateful for their help.

However, the key to my success was my perseverance, too, and willingness to be open to new ideas. In the end, I had Boinc working just fine as a good guest in my home where it remains. Contributing unused computer power to good causes is worth the effort.

So, as a cruncher, I ask you to continue on. When you find a success to a transition problem, let the WCG team and other users know by publishing the solution in this forum. It will help other users.

Perhaps WCG ought to consider making a separate forum for the UD transition in which users can ask for advice and share their experience on transition problems.

It would be sad if you leave the community simply because of some frustration when I know there are solutions to each problem with a bit of effort. Remember, we are the Grid. Our efforts contribute to understanding disease. In the big picture the sufferers of those diseases experience far greater frustration than certainly we experience installing Boinc and connecting to the WCG. I am glad I stuck it out as I now see it was worth it. It is truly good to give. Persevere. Hope you stick around.

Good luck.

Mark

Hi, the email I also got says:

but on My Grid page after I log in I see

So which is the right term?