Primegrid Challenge Series

vato · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 2:41 am Post subject:

Yes indeed!

I'll have all the machines that are able to run boinc on this.
Unfortunately, that's only ~20% of my herd.

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

A few hours to go and the servers are already getting hammered. They say the servers are doing fine but they are seeing bandwidth problems. I have machines that I just started BOINC up on and they are having problems getting work. This could be a long 48 hours for the project.

S.

Kosh · Little higher than a newb Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 35

vato · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 9:48 am Post subject:

yeah - i've been getting work, but haven't been able to get to the website at all today
i can tcptraceroute to it though.

now getting "Message from server: Server error: can't attach shared memory"

what i don't understand is why it went to shit before the contest even began.
normally, it only dies a few minutes before it begins.

Kosh · Little higher than a newb Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 35

Basically, they (as in PrimeGrid) screwed the pooch on this one. In thier hurry to get PPS up to the level of entring The Top 5000 Prime List they jumped the gun on opening the candidates up to the general public. (There are others testing these same K values that are not associated with PrimeGrid, therefore PrimeGrid wants to beat them to the punch). Anyway, the workunits are too short in duration to be opened up to a massive deployment like this, the issues are bandwidth and datebase connections.

One other thing for those wanting to find primes with PrimeGrid, the key is a small cache and fast turn around time(returned workunits). [This is also an issue causeing the server slowdown] As you may know the server issues the same workunit twice (usually within seconds of each other) the first returned workunit gets credit for the finding the prime, the second one returned acts as a double check. The person returning first workunit gets credit on The Top 5000 Prime List, the second gets nada.

So those serious about finding primes have thier clients set to upload immediately when complete.

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

I think they just decided to call it. Something about the having a problem generating work units. Time to get on all the machines and have them finish off what work they have and get back to their regular projects.

S.

Kosh · Little higher than a newb Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 35

he Prime Time Challenge
2008-11-14 21:00 UTC
The Prime Time Challenge has been cancelled. While the server is fine, we are having issues that we are not yet able to resolve. We sincerely apologize for this. More information to come when we have it.

You cannot insert new workunits into the database when there are thousands of database connection request coming from the clients .... and it is not like they were not warned. #Cussing out

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

It looks like they can not get any new work units out right now. You are seeing more of their projects with no work to do.

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

Looks like I found a small prime from what work I was able to get. not big enough for the top 5k.

vato · Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 2:11 am Post subject:

yeah - PPS is up to top 5000 territory now.
Number 5000 in the list is 163*2^343190+1 as I type this.
PPS is now testing n=353965.

Another important thing for that project is that the tests are now longer than the old TPS WUs with n=333333, so the scaling issues should start to calm down.

Hope they get the root causes fixed...

vato · Posted: Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:13 am Post subject:

Proof that some of PPS is double checking, but also that we're back in top5000 territory.

I just found this one - which was already listed well inside the top5000 as follows:

4483 65*2^354875+1 106830 g381 2005

There were numerous new primes found during earlier doublecheck so there are definitely some listings to be had, and we're almost in the range where it's first time testing.

EDIT: and another one...

4399 995*2^357089+1 107498 p161 2008

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

they have announced the rescheduled challenge for this weekend. Too bad I will be out of town and not able to swap things over.

vato · Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject:

That's a shame.

I'll do my usual bit, but I doubt I can score points alone.

Sloth · Earning respect Joined: 29 Jan 2008 Posts: 82

I am bored with PSP right now. I have things set to fire up primegrid before I leave tomorrow and will just let it run while I am gone. I expect I will not do as well as normal but I think after the new year I am going to through everything at PG for a while. Move up the ranks there and with BOINC in general.

vato · Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject:

Some folks are complaining that they can't get work - is working ok for me though - haven't filled my caches yet, but it's getting there and all my hosts are working hard...