BOINC@AUSTRALIA FORUM

Retired Non BOINC Projects => THESKYNET - See POGS => Topic started by: Dingo on October 04, 2011, 04:32:36 PM

Title: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 04, 2011, 04:32:36 PM
I am running on a few multi core machines and have the browser application running multiple times on those PC's. I do however seem to be downloading a lot of work as my MB counter reset on the 01 Oct and to now I have already uploaded 18,707 MB of data. The files that are sent must be fairly substantial compared to BOINC which I am used to.  I went over my allocation of 70 Gig download this month for the first time ever on TPG and I am now shaped down to 1 meg download speed for a while. I will have to make changes to how much work I do for this project.

So be warned that it uses a lot of your quota if you have one especially if you are charges for any extra MB that you use..  :boom:
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: LawryB on October 04, 2011, 09:59:16 PM

Me too.  Hungry bugger isn't it?  Might have to limit running it to my so called "free time"
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 05, 2011, 12:09:17 AM
I have found out that each work unit is about 5 mb in size.  I have reduced the number of browser applications I have running so my credit will be reduced but also the my download limit might be saved next month.  When it gets to the last two weeks of the month I will see how much I have to go and increase or decrease as required. 
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 08, 2011, 12:39:46 AM
The project has used over 33 Gig of my 70 Gig Download in seven days.  I now only have one application running on my 4 pc's and have put a limit of 45000 Mb monthly.  This will result in the Team not getting up the Ladder as fast as we have but members are joining and also other Australians are joining.  We now have 10 members and kirdnem-vince, from Cruncher Junkies in BOINC, has taken over the Lead in credits and I hope he can keep it up.

So  :rocks even in non BOINC projects.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: owner on October 08, 2011, 05:16:22 AM
I put on a limit of 20 gig a couple of days ago.  Will see how that pans out a t the end of the month for overall usage. :greet
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: veebee on October 08, 2011, 08:53:44 AM
just thought I had better check mine.

I have 200 Gb monthly limit with TPG (off net - whatever that means) and now my youngest son has "run away" there wont be a cpl of movies being downloaded every day, so I think I will be OK

As far as I can tell, I have only "used" 32 Gb for Skynet - can anyone tell me, is that usage listed on our dashboards, from the start of each calender month ? or in relation to the join date (then that day of each month).
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 08, 2011, 01:53:21 PM
Quote from: veebee on October 08, 2011, 08:53:44 AM
can anyone tell me, is that usage listed on our dashboards, from the start of each calender month ? or in relation to the join date (then that day of each month).

Yes the usage gets reset at the beginning of each calendar month.  I put in a suggestion on their forum to have a time that we want it to run.  I have 70 gig Peak and 70 Gig off peak.  The off peak is only eight hours of the day so most of my usage id during Peak time.  If I could use all of Off Peak and part of Peak I might be able to run all month.  As it is this month I will be stopping next week.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 10, 2011, 02:47:53 PM
I changed my plan at TPG and for $10 more a month I changed from the ADSL2+ $49.99 130 gig plan to a ADSL2+ $59.99 Unlimited plan.  The new plan will have the same download and upload speed( about 10.5 Mb down / 0.860 Mb up) and same IP address and no limit of any kind and no shaping.  I have opened up more browser applications and I have taken off the limit I placed earlier.  I have dropped 8 places in the ranking since I stopped crunching as much so hope to get some of that back.  Never had an unlimited account before  :cheer1:
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: danhtruong on October 18, 2011, 12:08:58 PM
Hi all,

Just have a question about CPU usage of this project.
On this machine I'm using, I'm not boincing, just running theSkyNet because it's a work computer.

I have 3 open java clients (is that the correct word?) to utilise 3 of the 4 hyperthreaded cores of an Intel Core i3, but the CPU usage on each core doesn't seem to go above 25%.
Every mintue or so, it spikes to about 80% for a second and then drops down to the average of about 20%.

Dashboard: Machines Online Now (Last 10 Mins): 3 (1490 MIPS)

Does the CPU usage on your computers hover about the same?
I thought it would be similiar to WCG, where it immediately takes the CPU usage up to 100%

Any help/advice would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance,
Dan
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 18, 2011, 03:47:56 PM
Yes the usage is very different from BOINC.  It seems to very erratic and at times all your Browser clients are trying to run at once and at other none or one might run.  theSkyNet is not as as efficient as BOINC that uses all of the CPU you allocate if that is how you configure BOINC.   There is no configuration in theSkyNet other than having the Browser Clints on or off or running the background client.  The background client only uses one core no matter how many are available but still is erratic as the browser apps.   My Network Usage this month so far is 57684.16 MB but I am now on Unlimited Download so it is not a problem any more for me.

Do you have any points and have you joined the BOINC@AUSTRALIA Alliance ?  You are not on the user list of the Alliance yet ??
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: danhtruong on October 19, 2011, 02:49:21 PM

Hi Dingo,

Yes, i now have 294 credits earned, and i'm in a humbling last position number 14 in BOINC@Australia theSkyNet.
Unfortunately, the default ladder only shows the top 10 and have to navigate to "Your Ladder" to see the full listing.

Can you see me there now?
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 19, 2011, 11:37:43 PM
I see you, good to have you on board... :cheer1:
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: danhtruong on October 20, 2011, 09:24:49 AM

Hi Ding o,

I noticed that you run WCG in conjunction with theSkyNet.
Not sure if you run them concurrently on the same computer, but because of what seems like low CPU usage from theSkyNet, have you found it to have much impact on your WCG results/credits?

For the last two days, i've run WCG and 8 instances (8 threads of HT i7) of theSkyNet on the same computer and found WCG to still be spitting out the same amount of credits.
It would almost appear like "free" credits from theSkyNet -apart from it devestating my download limits...
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 20, 2011, 11:06:46 AM
In BOINC I reduced the the cores that BOINC uses.  If you go to "Tools" / Computing Preferences / Processor Usage, I reduced the second last option "On Multiprocessor Systems use at most ??? % of processors".  On my 4 core machines I changed it to 75% and on my 8 core PC I changed it to 87.5.  This leaves one core for theSkynet on each PC.  So I have reduced the amount of BOINC work that I do and the spare core is not used 100% all the time by theSkynet but it is available.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: danhtruong on October 20, 2011, 11:17:45 AM
my god, man.  thats genius.

something seriously wrong with the dashboard though.
Machines Online Now (Last 10 Mins): 0 (0 MIPS)

Even though i have credits ticking over, my MIPS has been on 0 all day.

edit: hopefully we'll hit 7th spot tomorrow or the day after  :dance:
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on October 20, 2011, 11:31:24 AM
Yes mine is at zero as well.  Just a note on the preferences that the local ones take precedence to the Computing preferences that you change on the project.  To reset the local back to Global you need to go to the preferences in BOINC and there is a CLEAR button at the top.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: kashi on October 21, 2011, 01:58:18 AM
I've just started up again today. Dashboard didn't work and credit didn't increase for hours but it seemed to be affecting everyone so no worries. It's all going again now though. I have followed Dingo's lead and upgraded to unlimited so I won't have to worry about excess bandwidth until the NBN starts up here in about 18 months.

I'm currently running 2 SkyNets with WCG running on 6 BOINC cores. I will increase to 3 SkyNets after I get my ruby badge for Leishmaniasis in a week or so. May run 5 for a day or 2 to catch up a bit, can't run more than that because I don't have enough memory.;D

Haha I got a new trophy:

"The Gigabyte" (3,380 credits)

IBM introduced the first hard disk drive to break the 1 GB barrier in 1980. It was called the IBM 3380 and could store 2.52 GB (500 times more than the consumer options at the time). Its cabinet was about the size of a refrigerator and the whole thing weighed in at 250 kg.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: danhtruong on October 21, 2011, 09:54:05 AM

Hi kashi,

Is it still working for you?
I've had 2 theSkyNet clients open for the past 1.5 days and no luck so far.

Wish they had a 'server status' page to let us know.

Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: kashi on October 21, 2011, 10:35:54 AM
No, it's showing zero Machines Online Now on the dashboard again and is currently not using any CPU resources. Machines Online Today is showing 3 because I closed one earlier this morning when it went idle and started a new instance. My 2 instances did about 5 hours of CPU time each when they were active and my score increased by 67.

It's a bit annoying this on, off inconsistency. Doesn't matter for BOINC throughput because 2 cores idle increases the speed of the 6 cores active, but for WCG badge hunting it adds a few days to acquire the next colour.

I don't know why they can't work out a way to allow you to cache some work. I did a fair bit of work for Community TSC and that was Java but allowed you to cache a day of work. I'm not surprised that the SkyNet server is down often though, that was common with Community TSC and I expected the same from any Java based project. They test these Java applications in a limited way and when they are hit with large BOINC style numbers of connections they do not scale and repeatedly fall over. Even WCG reluctantly moved to BOINC when their United Devices grid system closed, unfortunate these projects feel the need to do it all themselves with limited resources when the BOINC system has had years of development.
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Mike Mitchell on November 04, 2011, 11:49:57 PM
I have a couple questions:
(1) What can be done to make it finish the current work and not download any more?
(2) How can it be stopped from starting?
Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Dingo on November 05, 2011, 12:34:39 AM
Quote from: Mike Mitchell on November 04, 2011, 11:49:57 PM
I have a couple questions:
(1) What can be done to make it finish the current work and not download any more?
(2) How can it be stopped from starting?

(1) What can be done to make it finish the current work and not download any more?
You do not know what work is in progress so all you can do is close the browser applications you have open and it will stop processing.  If you have the installed application running, as opposed to the browser application, I do not think there is a way to stop it unless you uninstall the application.  It is nothing like BOINC where you can configure most things to either happen or not.

(2) How can it be stopped from starting?

When you close the browser applications it stops and will not start till you open a new browser application.  As above If you have the installed application running I do not think there is a way to stop it unless you uninstall the application.

Title: Re: Hi Bandwidth usage
Post by: Mike Mitchell on November 05, 2011, 12:37:41 AM
Quote from: Dingo on November 05, 2011, 12:34:39 AM
If you have the installed application running

I think that's what I have, so I'll try and delete it with Control Panel.

Thanks Dingo, plus one.

Cheers