Folding Forum

It was announced some time ago in this thread that the project 6701 WUs would have an extended preferred deadline. I've seen that on the 6702, but still get the old 3.2 days on 6701. Did I misunderstand something?

According to the project summary page, both 6701 & 6702 are 4.9 days for preferred deadline. Where are you seeing the 3.2 days?

Probably from a client monitor program that hasn't updated it's psummary info lately...

Thanks for the replies.

You're correct, 7im. I was perhaps overly concerned because I had a couple of freeze-ups on my folder, including one right after I left for work. That 17 hours of lost folding time pushed me past the deadline reported by HFM and it indicated I would only get base credit. I thought HFM pulled that info from the stats page or somewhere else. Anyway, I just checked my Stanford user stats and it credited me with bonus points.

My SMP laptop is slow but has been running fine for most WU's. Unfortunately it takes just under 2 hours per step for 6701's and 6702's. That means it will run 8 days or time out not making the deadline. Can I deliver partial results and get partial credit? Is there some way I can make settings to avoid these long WU's? It is a waste for both me and Stanford to have a computer running and then achieve nothing. Advice?

It might be the time to get this machine back to running multiple uniprocessor clients ... or to replace it

This machine has already been discarded for a new one. Its purpose is solely for folding. I'm asking if I can alter settings to avoid long WU's? It runs fine with shorter WU's. Rather than run singles, I would shut it off.

AFAIK, the SMP2 Client is hard-coded to use big WU:

Acceptable size of work assignment and work result packets (bigger units
may have large memory demands) -- 'small' is <5MB, 'normal' is <10MB, and
'big' is >10MB (small/normal/big) [normal]?

This option states a preference for the size of work units downloaded and uploaded to the project servers. Note that all SMP WUs are large in size, so big is the required setting. Bigger units will also have bigger memory requirements. If you run on a slower broadband or dialup internet connection, small is the recommended setting to ease your bandwidth usage and you may want to switch to the CPU client instead.

Source

Is there a reason to avoid Classic Client (unless its a Mac)?

Thank you. That answers the question about "big" WU's. Note I have a few other SMPs running for bonus points. Most of the time they don't get 6701's or 6702's which I wouldn't mind at all for those machines. That my slow SMP machine is getting 670x's must be the bad luck of the draw. So now my question now is, since I must kill this WU because it will not make the deadline and if I keep getting 670x's and I have to kill them too, I may fail to make the 80 percent overall success rate, will I not? Will that impact my bonus qualification for those other machines or will I be forgiven? I realize this may be a hard question to answer.

AFAIK, the Passkey/Username combination is checked for Bonus Qualification. I haven't read anything about it being machine specific. Here is me thought: (all machine use the same Passkey/Username)
Machine 1 = 8 WUs assigned; 8 WUs received (100% return rate)
Machine 2 = 20 WUs assigned; 18 WUs received (90% return rate)
Machine 3 = 10 WUs assigned; 5 Wus received (50% return rate)
Overall = 38 WUs assigned; 31 WUs received which equates to 81.58%
Thus I believe that you will still be qualified for the bonus. (I could be wrong)

BigApplePi wrote:This machine has already been discarded for a new one. Its purpose is solely for folding. I'm asking if I can alter settings to avoid long WU's? It runs fine with shorter WU's. Rather than run singles, I would shut it off.

I'm not sure why.

Are you missing the Preferred Deadline (hence no bonus) or the Final Deadline (no credit)?

The bonus program is specifically designed to encourage prompt returns. Some hardware simply does not qualify for the early return bonus or does so intermittently.

I have a slow dual-core laptop, too. If I run SMP, I often miss the bonus deadline but complete the WU for the baseline points. The WU is reassigned and somebody else has to process it, too. I have a choice to make: whether running one SMP WU (with no bonus) is better than running two classic WUs. For me, the choice is simple. Two classic clients is a lot less hassle than one SMP client, simply because when I go on the road, I don't have to be constantly worrying about meeting tight deadlines.

bruce, 670x's are guaranteed to miss the Final Deadline which means potential negative credit.

No such thing as negative credit, only zero credit.

It's a matter of what is meant by "negative credit." If failure to meet deadlines causes the loss of bonus points for other faster machines because there were enough failures to fall below the overall qualification for bonuses, the loss of bonus would be negative credit of otherwise earned bonus credit. Read what is said at Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:21 pm and Thu Aug 12, 2010 1:21 pm in this thread.

BigApplePi wrote:It's a matter of what is meant by "negative credit." If failure to meet deadlines causes the loss of bonus points for other faster machines because there were enough failures to fall below the overall qualification for bonuses, the loss of bonus would be negative credit of otherwise earned bonus credit. Read what is said at Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:21 pm and Thu Aug 12, 2010 1:21 pm in this thread.

I read the whole thread, thanks.

I define negative as a number that is less than zero. Stanford does not credit your account with a points total of less than zero for any work unit. You may get less of a positive number for points, if your machines do not meet and maintain the 80% return rate, but that's just part of the bonus program guidelines.

And those guidelines are there to promote the fast return of completed work units. As mentioned above, it's not worth it to have one slower computer missing the deadlines, which then causes your other faster computers to fall out of bonus eligibility. Failing to maintain that eligibility will have a negative impact on your PPD, but it won't be negative points. But we're not here to debate semantics...

As mentioned above, if the dual core laptop can't meet those deadlines, either run 2 CPU clients, or upgrade it, or overclock it, or replace it. Stanford does not allow the blocking of specific work units, otherwise people would only chose to do certain work units, and the remainder of the needed work would remain undone.