NEWS

Hardware freaks trying to make some sense out of a bunch of numbers

Download new version 2.0 clients!
Here are the links where you can download the new SETI version 2.0 clients:

Warning!
Pretty soon the version 1.x clients will be retired.  There was a post today on alt.sci.seti from Hiram which points out something that many SETI members need to know:

I recently discovered that the currently existing command line v1.x and v2.x clients do _NOT_ properly warn users about a version upgrade. The Mac and Win GUI clients _DO_ properly warn users about a version upgrade.

I was hoping to give users a two week warning before turning off the v1.x clients.  Today I begin the process of turning off the v1.x clients as indicated in the timetable at the end of the download page: http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/unix.html

The first indication that users will know that clients need to be upgraded is that the v1.x clients will stop functioning.  They will be unable to upload or obtain work units from the server.  They will at least display a message: "Must download new version of software"

I hope I can get this version warning thing fixed for any future releases.

If you are using any of the text versions of the client you WILL NOT get any advanced warning to upgrade your clients, it just wont upload results or download work units.  Be prepared and switch over before the retirement time of your particular client.

No v 3.0 Non-Intel CLI?
Well, I guess that is misleading....looks like there will not be a specific non-Intel CLI next go around.  On the other hand I am a bit confused with Hiram's explantion:

<>I've been running both of these clients side by side on a dual
<>pentium II 450 Mhz computer with NT 4.0 for the past week.  I see
<>the following results:
<>         i386-winnt-cmdline 24 WUs at an average of 8.4108 CPU hours/WU
<>         i486-nonintel-winnt-cmdline 22 WUs at an average of 8.3205 CPU hours/WU
<
<There doesn't seem to be much reason to keep the i386-winnt-cmdline client.
<Why not drop it and make the i486-nonintel client simply the official
<x86 winnt client? It at least prevents Cyrix users downloading the
<other by accident. Maybe this will be considered for V3.0?

Yes, I'll keep both of the clients for now.  If there really is no significant difference in execution speed, the next round of version updates will see a return to one client. I believe it remains to be seen how much difference in speed these two clients will achieve on various CPU/Memory combinations.

Sounds like they may not have both an Intel, and non-Intel version of the CLI next go around. The two clients seem to be similar, but are compiled differently (see news from 2/20/00).  The two clients seem to have similar times (no significant time difference up or down), so they will probably keep the currently labelled "non-Intel" client which should run on Intel, Cyrix and AMD CPUs.  

Hiram also pointed out that the command line client has quickly become the top WU producing client.  He was quite surprised that it is so popular (not to me :-)....and he may even come up with a graph to track the WU production of the different clients over time.

Rising with the Sun...
Looks like C. Eric Smith has had enough of the talk about him not passing Gonzo first.  His production has skyrocketed over the past couple of days and now looks to be the leader for the Race for #5.  He has cranked out 300+ work units over the past two days....tripling his average WU/day total.  With the recent push he passed up the Tobler Design Powerhouse and Vomesh for #7 today.

...and Riding Off into the Sunset
guru's production has dropped off over the past couple of days....and there is a reason.  He posted in the team thread that he is giving SETI a break for a while:

Well I've decided to give seti a rest for now. I'm finally switching over to RC5. I'm not sure for how long. I may be back in a week.

I am sorry to see guru to go (hopefully for only a week ;-), but it is nice to see C. Eric Smith is picking up some of the slack!

Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes
You may have already noticed, I have split up the top 20 graph into two graphs.....1-12, and 13-20.  I did this because the top 12 members have placed enough space between them and members 13-20, that it is tough to see what is going on with the members in the bottom half of the top 20.  I tried to change the graph to make things look better, but I decided that splitting the graph up would be the best thing to do.

I documented C. Eric Smith's rise above......Tobler Design passed Vomesh, only to get knocked back down by CES...and remains at #8.  R. Marvin moved up one into the #20 spot.  77rickyli moved up one to #30.  The Phrog moved up another spot to #34.  LrdHghFxr is moving up quite nicely himself......he posted a 4 spot over the past 3 days and is now up to #36.  PGS didnt move up any spots today....but he did have his weekly spike with 147 WU processed for the day  CONGRATS TO ALL!

 

Big Thanks!
The days update is up.  I want to say thanks to UltraMaroon, zorro456, Roberto and Randall for sending in a copy of the stats in HTML format!  (Also to those why may send in a copy after I post this also :)  I still cant access the SETI site....there was something on my ISP saying that they were having problems....they better get it fixed.....and SOON!

Apparently the phone problems I had a couple of days ago was due to the gas company slicing into the underground telephone cable.  At least I did get a good yell or two at the telephone company when I talked to them :-).

Up the Charts!
There was only three moves today in the top 40.  The Weeblows moved up two spots today into the #24 spot.  Both The Phrog and mzanthrope moved up a spot each into the #35 and #37 spots respectively.

The Race for #5 is shaping up a bit.  Tobler Design looks like they will be the ones to pass Gonzo first....the estimated date being around March 12th.  C. Eric Smith seems to be upping the ante alittle, but I think that Tobler Design has the firepower to hold him off though.

 

Grrrrrr.....
Yesterday's lack of a stats update was due to ye old Ameritech.  We have two phone lines in our house, and both of them were out....apparently with no reason.  Called for repairs, they weren't supposed to be here to fix it till tomorrow night, but this morning the phone was on.  This has happened before and for no reason...oh well :-P

Stats
Well the stats are a bit screwed up for today....the numbers are for yesterday and today so remember this if you were wondering why your work units for the day were high.  There has been a bit of movement in the top 40 for the past 3 days....starting from the top....svdsinner moved up a notch passing Vomesh for the #6 place.  Tobler Design passed up C. Eric Smith for #9.  mjdewitt moved up one to #14.  Turbo moved up two notches to #18.  PGS moved up 2 spots to #28.  The biggest mover in the past couple of days is The Phrog moving up 4 spots to #36.  Finally LrdHighFxr moved up two spots to break into the top 40 at #40

Carpe Diem
I want to leave you with a little story about something that happened to me today.  It was a bit strange, but it did remind me to "live for the day" and remember that things can be quite different tomorrow.  I am not sure if you are familiar with hockey and the Detroit Red Wings in particular.  A couple of days after the Red Wings won the '96-'97 Stanley Cup, several members of the team were in a limo accident after a team function.  The accident left Defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov (picture at right)  partially paralyzed.  Several days after reaching a goal that he lived for, Konstantinov had lost the ability to be the fierce competitor and intimidating presence on the ice.  Instead, he may be relegated to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Today, I had to make a delivery to The Eisenhower Center.  This is a place specializing in the treatment and care of patients who have suffered  head trauma.  When I was downstairs, over by a table was Vladimir.  It all seemed a bit strange him  sitting in a wheelchair and me standing with my Red Wings jacket on, thinking about my hockey game I had tonight across the street.  

While I was waiting, Vladimir turned the wheelchair around and left the area, shuffling along with his feet.  The person who was caring for him realized he took off and ran up the stairs to beat him off the elevator.  While I was walking to the building's exit, I was thinking of all that he has been through and how tough it is on him.  It was starting to get a bit depressing!  I got into my car and driving to the exit, Vladimir and the other guy was in the parking lot, and when I passed by them Vladimir flashed a big smile, and waved.   Damn that made my day!

 

Computer Maintenance
Figured out why my computer kept locking up tonight.  I took a good look and my CPU fan, and my medium sized blower fan were both clogged with dirt/etc.  Word to the wise, if you overclock make your fans don't get all clogged up!  I wasn't getting any BSODs tonight, but it was just lockups......I have a feeling that it really wasn't my CPU overheating, but my video card (Voodoo 3 3000).  Of course, I am overclocking both my video card and my CPU.....the vid card i was overclocking to 178MHz, and the CPU to 550MHz (Celeron 366).

So, just how bad was the ventilation problem?  With the lockup problems, Motherboard Monitor was showing my MoBo (Abit BX6r2) temperature to be a whopping 114-115 F....and this was with the case OPEN.  Cleaning the gunk out of my blower and my CPU fan, Motherboard Monitor is showing the temp with the case CLOSED to be a relatively frosty 100-102 F (With SETI running).  This was causing me some lost WUs since the computer locked up when I went to bed at night :P

Weekly Stuff
I changed the weekly page a bit today to get a bit more info in less space.....also has to do with something I will talk about later.  I put the weekly milestones on the weekly page also.  The tops this week in the movement department goes to JerkyChew, moving up 30+ spots.....second was pgardner.  In the work unit department, SpeedRacer is tops again this week with 2100+ Work Units processed, second this week was Tobler Design with a shade under 1000 WUs.  Looks like next week there will be a new King of the Work Unit.  SpeedRacer hasn't processed a work unit in the past two days, and has been idling at 15927.

The Pains of Success...
I got away with it last month, but it looks like it may bite me in the ass this month though.  With the addition of the Team Member Charts in the past month or so, it has been chewing up my monthly bandwidth big time.  I am pretty sure other than this main page, those two pages are the most popular here.  The problem with those two pages are that they are a hefty 100-110 kb each!  With that, plus the p1mping on the Ars Technica page, the bandwidth rapidly has been sucked away.  My weekly page report shows that as of Saturday I was at 85% of my allotted bandwith.  I have changed a couple of things to ease the bandwidth drain a bit, but I am not sure if it is going to prevent me from going over.  I had already offloaded all of the .gifs and .jpgs to my girlfriend's account.  On the member charts I got rid of some of the formatting, but that only shaved the size of the page 10-15 kb, and there is little more I can do, other than offloading entire webpages to my girlfriend's account (which I don't want to do).

I have 9 days left to sweat it out :-).  If the pages are inaccessible between now and the beginning of March, I must have went over my bandwidth limit, and the page will be back at the beginning of the month.  Be patient, and cross your fingers!

More on the non-Intel CLI
There has been mixed results with the new CLI for "non-Intel" CPUs.  Most of the people I have been hearing from say that the client is either about the same or maybe runs slightly slower than the old CLI on Intel processors.  There is really no difference for Athlon processors also.

On the SETI newsgroups, Hiram posted an explanation of what difference there is between the regular CLI and the "non-Intel" CLI, and here it is:

The i486-nonintel-winnt-cmdline client was compiled so it will not perform the intel cpuid instruction.  It therefore always uses the same set of safe 486 instructions on all x86 processors.

The i386-winnt-cmdline client was compiled with the cpuid instruction, thus it can adjust itself to the type of processor and thereby make a choice of 486, 586, 686, etc... instructions.

I'm having difficulty detecting any difference in speed between the clients.  Please note: http://www.ocston.org/~hiramc/astro/seti/winnt-cmdline.gif

which is a comparison of the two clients on a dual Pentium II 450 Mhz machine running NT.  The results are mixed so far for 8 different WUs on each processor.

I was waiting for the client to mirror to ftp.cdrom.com before I allow it to appear on the download page.  Probably later today.

--Hiram - http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_160.html

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