Humongous tasks, miniscule credits

[NZjelle]

I just ran a number of tasks that took almost 2 hours to complete, on an Intel i7-3770 CPU running at 3.4GHz, and provided 0.99 (that is less than 1) credit. What gives?

[Gibson Praise]

Something strange is going on, I agree. Units that won't end, or run for hours. Both intel and AMD chip

[bones cruncher]

I'm getting these too on my Intel(R) Core(tm) i5-3450 CPU @ 3.10GHz.
WU used to take 6-8 minutes. Now I have 4 that look like they will be passing the 7 hour mark.

[bones cruncher]

Yippe, two just completed and gave me 12.81 credits compared to the .90 that I usually get. Taking about 70x as long but only get 13x the cobblestones. I wonder if these longer WU are less efficient for some reason.

[Conan]

I have had 7 work units that now have taken many Hours to run not a few munutes as normal.

Windows 32 bit computer (AMD Phenom II X6 1100) ---- Normal run time 180 to 520 seconds and 15 cr/h ave

232055284 27,007.34 seconds (7.50 hours) for 2.66 credits (0.35 cr/h)
232055283 27,179.34 seconds (7.55 hours) for 12.69 credits (1.68 cr/h)
232055282 27,171.22 seconds (7.55 hours) for 12.69 credits (1.68 cr/h)
232055281 27,157.70 seconds (7.54 hours) for 12.69 credits (1.68 cr/h)

Linux 64 bit computer (AMD Phenom II X6 1090) Normal run time 140 to 410 seconds and 30 cr/h ave

232056812 13,307.30 seconds (3.70 hours) for 2.01 credits (0.54 cr/h)
232056120 13,306.62 seconds (3.70 hours) for 100.81 credits (27.27 cr/h)
232053969 13,314.59 seconds (3.70 hours) for 58.18 credits (15.73 cr/h)

Other than one of the results (on Linux) all the results give bugger all points for the long run times.
The Windows work units seem to have a credit limit at 12.69, which for a 7.5 hour WU is lousy and hardly worth the effort (32 bit credit on my Windows machines is already very low at 15 so going down to less than 2 is not funny)

Can we have an answer as to what is going on please?

Conan

[Conan]

Well I finished another 7.5 hour Windows work unit today the 21/6/13 (it's the 21st in Australia) and got very little reward for it.

Since the last long work unit has been completed EVERY WORK UNIT NOW FAILS with the following ERROR


<message>
The system cannot find the path specified. (0x3) - exit code 3 (0x3)
</message>
<stderr_txt>
17:59:14 (7288): No heartbeat from core client for 30 sec - exiting
18:00:03 (6488): No heartbeat from core client for 30 sec - exiting
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::bad_alloc'
what(): std::bad_alloc

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

For example see WU 232102339 and WU 232102927


This only started today (21st June) all work unit OK up till the 20th then the long work units now all errors.
Have done another WU on Linux it was successful but longer than normal (over 1800 sec) waiting to see if I get Linux errors when I get some more work.

Conan

[Matthias Lehmkuhl]

One important additional point: there is no restart from a checkpoint for this long running WU.
For a runtime longer than a hour this is not usable for me.
I had some results, that run more than 6 hours and start from beginning after a new boot of the machine.
And the restart is not visible in the Stderr output

Oh, and I've just seen, abort of a WU causes a crash:
<core_client_version>7.0.64</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<message>
aborted by user
</message>
<stderr_txt>

Unhandled Exception Detected...

- Unhandled Exception Record -
Reason: Breakpoint Encountered (0x80000003) at address 0x749D3219

Engaging BOINC Windows Runtime Debugger...

[Balmer]

Hello ...

Something is wrong.

Too Long Tasks (or not ending Tasks or ...).

5 to 10 Minutes Tasks are OK.

AND WE WANT GPU SUPPORT (ATI and NVIDIA).

Best Greetings

Balmer



Switzerland