There was very little validated yesterday looking at the daystats ... just 28 CPU years. The 7.81 hours per job average will only represent the fast machines and if my quad on summer speed needs near 13, we'll be seeing some steep numbers in the coming days until the promised shorter ones go into the feeder.

faah4000_ ALP007223a_ min_ xmd15140_ 01_ 2-- Valid 04/22/2008 22:43:43 04/23/2008 17:26:55 15.65 145.5 / 169.4
faah4000_ ALP007223a_ min_ xmd15140_ 01_ 1-- Valid 04/22/2008 16:43:19 04/24/2008 07:19:18 12.73 193.3 / 169.4

27 yrs * 365 days = 9,855 days + 225 days = 10,080 days * 24 hours = 241,950 hours + 4 = 241,954 hours / 30911 = 7.81 prox. per job.

Could have been a mix of v5.42 and v6.03 work, but since the launch announcement was on the 22nd, can't have been much.... we'll see.

No, I dont know what comes out the feeder. Just see twice a day what was validated, like anyone can.

On my fastest computer (AMD X2 3.45GHz) that FAAH 6.03 took 20 hours, 2 minutes, 13 seconds. Another one finished in 9 hours, 17 minutes, 5 seconds. Since then it finished a couple of HCC in 4:52:21 and 4:48:52.

You're absolutely right on that. No difference at all, 8 or 16 hours. It takes twice as long to do twice the amount of work. Points per hour stay the same and for the servers it is more efficient on top of that. There is though horsepower to consider. 16 hour jobs on a C2D is okay, but they turn into 60 hours jobs on the oldies, so the aim to have an average target of 7-8 hours is with reason.

Now, the forthcoming project is more interesting. Does not matter they will just cut off after 7 or 8 hours after which the Units of Data completed in that time frame determines the amount of credit (which is averaged from a pool of 5 or more other unique work units).

What OS would you want to cool things down under?

- Universal, but a bit coarse is the BOINC internal throttle which causes only for a part of the available CPU cycles to be used. Less cycles used, less heat. WCG is pushing Berkeley to make this a more refined tuning. The option can be found in the local prefs or on the web profile

- Limit the number of cores used on a multi processor machine. On a 4 core e.g. allow only 2 cores. Again this reduces heat generation.

- Then there are software solutions like Threadmaster that are a bit involved to install (see Start Here FAQ), runs very smooth but only works on XP/W2K. Some of the BOINC projects are so intense that they generate considerable more heat. Those I've individually set to a lower %.

- And, there is of course tools like Intel Speedstep or AMD's Cool & quiet that allow to reduce the actual cycles the CPU runs at (my quad has this enhanced Speedstep function).

I prefer the 3rd method, for it keeps the full power available yet running cooler.