FAQ Service (English)

Yes you can.

When you have more than one computer with an internet connection (they don't need to be in the same room), you can make one account per Project and attach all these computers to it.

When attaching a project use the use existing user option in the attach to wizard. Fill in your email address and your password. You're done. :-)

As long as you remember that the email address you used is the unique identifier for attaching to a project, it's no longer much of a question.

There are ways to stop the "wobbling" effect, but otherwise no. The screen saver was ported over to OpenGL graphics so that it would support multiple platforms with the same code (Mac OS, Windows, Linux, etc)

The screen saver was made to move due to many monitors suffering from "screen burn", where the image would permanently burn the phosphors in the substrate causing a ghosted image effect even after the monitor is powered down, essentially rendering the monitor ruined (much to the dismay of many LCD owners out there and the occasional CRT owner).

A backup option written by Les Bayliss:

Backing up on these two projects is possibly the single most important thing a Boinc participant can do to successfully complete an entire climate model.

Why make a backup?
Because, for the vast majority of people, if you join a long-duration project such as ClimatePrediction.Net or the BBC/CCE, this is the largest, most complex program that you'll ever have on your computer. And a lot of these computers are 'minimum entry level'. That is, they have just enough resources to run 'normal' household programs.
Which often means minimum memory, often no separate graphics card, (just a few chips on the main board, which use some of the system memory), minimum cooling, (and often no 'case fans' at all), and a minimally rated power supply.
So you need to do everything possible to decrease the very real risk of crashing a climate model over the months it will take to complete.
This post is about just one of the ways to improve your chances.

********

There are several ways to make a 'backup'.
One is with Windows Briefcase.
Another (on the BBC/CCE project), is to use Richard Rodway's automatic backup program.
(Documented and linked to from this post.)

********

This post is about using a simple 'Copy and Paste' process.

To make a backup:
1) Somewhere on your hard disk outside the Climate Change Experiment (or BOINC) folder, make a new folder with a name suitable to label it as a backup folder. (Or several folders if you want to keep several backups.)
2) In the menu, click on Suspend. (The location varies with different versions of the Manager, AKA BOINC.)
3) Watch what it says in the Status section of the Tasks tab, until it SAYS Suspended.
4) In the menu, click Exit.
5) Wait until the manager has disappeared, and also the small round B icon in the system tray. (Bottom line of screen, right hand side.)
6) Using Explorer, select the Climate Change Experiment (or BOINC) folder.
7) In the explorer menu, click Select all.
8) In the explorer menu, click Copy.
9) Go to the new folder created in step 1), and right click in it.
10) Click paste.

To restore:
A) Using Explorer, select the CCE (or BOINC) folder.
B) In the explorer menu, click Select all.
C) In the explorer menu, click delete.

All the contents of the folder(s) should now be gone, leaving only the CCE (or BOINC) folder.

D) Go to the backup folder and click on it.
E) In the explorer menu, click Select all.
F) In the explorer menu, click copy.
G) Go to the CCE (or BOINC) folder and right click in it.
H) Click paste.

The older copy of the experiment should now be restored to its original location.

I) Reboot computer to remove anything in ram that may cause a problem, and to also restart the CCE (BOINC) Manager.

Addendum, 22 Sep 2006
There are indications that a Windows System Restore can scramble working models, and perhaps, backups.

It is therefor safer to store backups on a separate drive, either physical or logical. If you must store backups on the C: drive, placing them in My Documents seems to offer most protection from Windows System Restore, though we have not tested this.

Addendum 2, 5 December 2006
People who run multi-project need to read my posts on this subject on these boards, or this page in the BOINC Wiki.

Basically, if you run multiple models/projects, EVERYTHING gets copied in both directions. So some work is needed before copying back.

BOINC Manager Message: Using earlier-deadline-first scheduling because computer is overcommited.

Tasks marked as running in High Priority.

Why?
This message will occur if BOINC finds, that the total time required to finish all on-hand work units, exceeds one or more deadlines if all work is run with the resource shares specified by the user. The CPU scheduler normally runs in modified round robin mode between projects and First In First Out mode within each project.

Thoroughly over commited:
If you have 10 work units downloaded to your machine, and each will take about 24 hours to complete. But, all deadlines are within 4 days. BOINC starts with the earliest deadline, attempting to complete as much work within the deadlines as possible. The CPU scheduler is going to miss some deadlines in this case,.

Slightly over committed:
Most of the time it is merely that a task will not complete on time if it is run with the user specified runnable resource fraction. The runnable resource fraction is the resource share / the sum of all resource shares of projects with work on the system. In this case the CPU scheduler can recover on its own by the earliest deadline tasks from projects with tasks in deadline trouble. The CPU time spent clearing this up will be paid back by not downloading work from that project until such a time as most of the CPU time borrowed has been paid back to the other project(s).

False Overcommited Message?
At times, this message can be false, and not require attention. Because, when starting a different size work unit. BOINC automatically assumes the work unit will take a longer period of time, than usually required. So, you may be able to wait until one or more work units finish, to find the actual time required to complete one. In either case, BOINC will eventually update the time estimates to a more accurate completion time.

What do I do?
If this message is because the CPU is thoroughly overcommitted, and your computer is going to miss deadlines, the best option is to stop this from occurring in the future. When updating your account, using General Preferences, from one of the project websites, under 'Connection To Network Every ... Days'. Lower the amount of days. If you are using a constant internet connection. 1 day, may suit you well. If you are using dial-up, and do not connect to the network every day, set this option to the period of days, that you do connect to the internet. In this way, your computer should not download, more work that it is able to complete before deadlines. Another option for those that are not connected all the time is to disconnect from projects with deadlines that are too short. Not all projects are suitable for dialup connections.

NOTE: If you "Connect To Network Every ... Days" is already set to 1 day. The most likely cause of the issue, is your machine is not able to complete the work units in time, due to your General Preferences. You can attempt to set your preferences to work during all times, not only idle time. Or also, you may set it to use 100% CPU power as well.

From About Seti@Home:

Before we can get to the "what happens" part, we should let you know more about the "what if" part. One of the most important things to know about this data and the results of your analysis is that there are LOTS of sources of radio signals. Many are produced here on earth. TV stations, radar, various other microwave transmitters. Satellites and many astronmical objects are also sources. There are also "test signals" that are intentionally injected into the system so the SETI@home team can confirm that the hardware and software is working properly at all points through the system. The Arecibo radio telescope will pick up all these signals and happily send them along to your screen saver. The radio telescope doesn't care about any of these signals just as your ear doesn't care about what sounds it collects. Your screen saver is going to sift through the signals looking for any source that is "louder" that the background and also rises and falls in 12 seconds - the time the telescope takes to pass over a spot in the sky.

Any signals that qualify will be sent back to the Berkeley SETI@home team for further analysis. The SETI@home team maintains a large database of known radio-frequency interference (RFI) sources. This database is constantly updated. At this point 99.9999% of all the signals that your screen saver detects will be thrown out as RFI. Test signals are also removed at this point.

Remaining unresolved signals are then checked against another observation from the same part of the sky. This could take up to 6 months since the SETI@home team does not have control of the telescope. If the signal is confirmed, the SETI@home team will request dedicated telescope time and will re-observe the most interesting candidates.

If a signal is observed two or more times, and it's not RFI or a test signal, the SETI@home team will ask another group to take a look. This other group will be using different telescopes, receivers, computers, etc. This will hopefully rule out a bug in our equipment or our computer code (or a clever student playing a prank...) Together with the other team, SETI@home will do interferometry measurements (it takes two observations seperated by a big distance) This can confirm that the source of the signal is at interstellar distances.

If this is confirmed, SETI@home will make an announcement in the form of an IAU (International Astronomical Union) telegram. This is a standard way of informing the astronomical community of important discoveries. The telegram contains all of the important information (frequencies, bandwidth, location in the sky, etc.) that would be necessary for other astronomical groups to confirm the observation. The person(s) who found the signal with their screen saver would be named as one of the co-discoverers along with the others on the SETI@home team. At this point we would still be unsure if the signal was generated by an intelligent civilization or maybe some new astronomical phenomenon.

All information about the discovery will be made public, probably via the web. No country or individual would be allowed to jam the frequency the signal is observed on. Since the object will rise and set as seen from any given location, observations from radio observatories around the world will be necessary. This will, by necessity, be a multi-national effort. All this information will be made public.

Because of this protocol, it is important that participants in the SETI@home project do not get excited when they see signals on their screen and go off on their own making announcements and calling the press. This could be very damaging to the project. It's important that we keep our heads cool and our computers hot while they grind away at the data. We can all hope that we will be the one that helps receive the signal of some extraterrestrial civilization trying to "phone home."

To read the whole text, start here.

FAQ: Can I attach multiple computers to one account?
Title:	Can I attach multiple computers to one account?
Author:	Jorden
Views:	8586
Category:	05. Project Questions and Answers
Available in:
Created:	21/12/2006 19:25:51
Last Modified:	21/12/2006 19:25:51
Contents:	Yes you can. When you have more than one computer with an internet connection (they don't need to be in the same room), you can make one account per Project and attach all these computers to it. When attaching a project use the use existing user option in the attach to wizard. Fill in your email address and your password. You're done. :-) As long as you remember that the email address you used is the unique identifier for attaching to a project, it's no longer much of a question.

FAQ: Can I get the old SETI@Home screen saver back?
Title:	Can I get the old SETI@Home screen saver back?
Author:	Ozzfan
Views:	8483
Category:	05. Project Questions and Answers
Available in:
Created:	13/01/2007 00:56:49
Last Modified:	13/01/2007 00:56:49
Contents:	There are ways to stop the "wobbling" effect, but otherwise no. The screen saver was ported over to OpenGL graphics so that it would support multiple platforms with the same code (Mac OS, Windows, Linux, etc) The screen saver was made to move due to many monitors suffering from "screen burn", where the image would permanently burn the phosphors in the substrate causing a ghosted image effect even after the monitor is powered down, essentially rendering the monitor ruined (much to the dismay of many LCD owners out there and the occasional CRT owner).

FAQ: CPDN/BBC: Making a backup of your model.
Title:	CPDN/BBC: Making a backup of your model.
Author:	Jorden
Views:	6775
Category:	05. Project Questions and Answers
Available in:
Created:	25/08/2007 13:53:35
Last Modified:	25/08/2007 13:53:35
Contents:	A backup option written by Les Bayliss: Backing up on these two projects is possibly the single most important thing a Boinc participant can do to successfully complete an entire climate model. Why make a backup? Because, for the vast majority of people, if you join a long-duration project such as ClimatePrediction.Net or the BBC/CCE, this is the largest, most complex program that you'll ever have on your computer. And a lot of these computers are 'minimum entry level'. That is, they have just enough resources to run 'normal' household programs. Which often means minimum memory, often no separate graphics card, (just a few chips on the main board, which use some of the system memory), minimum cooling, (and often no 'case fans' at all), and a minimally rated power supply. So you need to do everything possible to decrease the very real risk of crashing a climate model over the months it will take to complete. This post is about just one of the ways to improve your chances. ****** There are several ways to make a 'backup'. One is with Windows Briefcase. Another (on the BBC/CCE project), is to use Richard Rodway's automatic backup program. (Documented and linked to from this post.) **** This post is about using a simple 'Copy and Paste' process. To make a backup: 1) Somewhere on your hard disk outside the Climate Change Experiment (or BOINC) folder, make a new folder with a name suitable to label it as a backup folder. (Or several folders if you want to keep several backups.) 2) In the menu, click on Suspend. (The location varies with different versions of the Manager, AKA BOINC.) 3) Watch what it says in the Status section of the Tasks tab, until it SAYS Suspended. 4) In the menu, click Exit. 5) Wait until the manager has disappeared, and also the small round B icon in the system tray. (Bottom line of screen, right hand side.) 6) Using Explorer, select the Climate Change Experiment (or BOINC) folder. 7) In the explorer menu, click Select all. 8) In the explorer menu, click Copy. 9) Go to the new folder created in step 1), and right click in it. 10) Click paste. To restore**: A) Using Explorer, select the CCE (or BOINC) folder. B) In the explorer menu, click Select all. C) In the explorer menu, click delete. All the contents of the folder(s) should now be gone, leaving only the CCE (or BOINC) folder. D) Go to the backup folder and click on it. E) In the explorer menu, click Select all. F) In the explorer menu, click copy. G) Go to the CCE (or BOINC) folder and right click in it. H) Click paste. The older copy of the experiment should now be restored to its original location. I) Reboot computer to remove anything in ram that may cause a problem, and to also restart the CCE (BOINC) Manager. Addendum, 22 Sep 2006 There are indications that a Windows System Restore can scramble working models, and perhaps, backups. It is therefor safer to store backups on a separate drive, either physical or logical. If you must store backups on the C: drive, placing them in My Documents seems to offer most protection from Windows System Restore, though we have not tested this. Addendum 2, 5 December 2006 People who run multi-project need to read my posts on this subject on these boards, or this page in the BOINC Wiki. Basically, if you run multiple models/projects, EVERYTHING gets copied in both directions. So some work is needed before copying back.

FAQ: Project Overcommited?
Title:	Project Overcommited?
Author:	Dex
Views:	7275
Category:	05. Project Questions and Answers
Available in:
Created:	13/01/2007 16:00:50
Last Modified:	03/07/2008 02:47:48
Contents:	BOINC Manager Message: Using earlier-deadline-first scheduling because computer is overcommited. Tasks marked as running in High Priority. Why? This message will occur if BOINC finds, that the total time required to finish all on-hand work units, exceeds one or more deadlines if all work is run with the resource shares specified by the user. The CPU scheduler normally runs in modified round robin mode between projects and First In First Out mode within each project. Thoroughly over commited: If you have 10 work units downloaded to your machine, and each will take about 24 hours to complete. But, all deadlines are within 4 days. BOINC starts with the earliest deadline, attempting to complete as much work within the deadlines as possible. The CPU scheduler is going to miss some deadlines in this case,. Slightly over committed: Most of the time it is merely that a task will not complete on time if it is run with the user specified runnable resource fraction. The runnable resource fraction is the resource share / the sum of all resource shares of projects with work on the system. In this case the CPU scheduler can recover on its own by the earliest deadline tasks from projects with tasks in deadline trouble. The CPU time spent clearing this up will be paid back by not downloading work from that project until such a time as most of the CPU time borrowed has been paid back to the other project(s). False Overcommited Message? At times, this message can be false, and not require attention. Because, when starting a different size work unit. BOINC automatically assumes the work unit will take a longer period of time, than usually required. So, you may be able to wait until one or more work units finish, to find the actual time required to complete one. In either case, BOINC will eventually update the time estimates to a more accurate completion time. What do I do? If this message is because the CPU is thoroughly overcommitted, and your computer is going to miss deadlines, the best option is to stop this from occurring in the future. When updating your account, using General Preferences, from one of the project websites, under 'Connection To Network Every ... Days'. Lower the amount of days. If you are using a constant internet connection. 1 day, may suit you well. If you are using dial-up, and do not connect to the network every day, set this option to the period of days, that you do connect to the internet. In this way, your computer should not download, more work that it is able to complete before deadlines. Another option for those that are not connected all the time is to disconnect from projects with deadlines that are too short. Not all projects are suitable for dialup connections. NOTE: If you "Connect To Network Every ... Days" is already set to 1 day. The most likely cause of the issue, is your machine is not able to complete the work units in time, due to your General Preferences. You can attempt to set your preferences to work during all times, not only idle time. Or also, you may set it to use 100% CPU power as well.

FAQ: What do I do if I "see a signal" on the Seti@Home screen saver?
Title:	What do I do if I "see a signal" on the Seti@Home screen saver?
Author:	Jorden
Views:	4827
Category:	05. Project Questions and Answers
Available in:
Created:	19/05/2008 02:13:01
Last Modified:	19/05/2008 02:13:01
Contents:	From About Seti@Home: Before we can get to the "what happens" part, we should let you know more about the "what if" part. One of the most important things to know about this data and the results of your analysis is that there are LOTS of sources of radio signals. Many are produced here on earth. TV stations, radar, various other microwave transmitters. Satellites and many astronmical objects are also sources. There are also "test signals" that are intentionally injected into the system so the SETI@home team can confirm that the hardware and software is working properly at all points through the system. The Arecibo radio telescope will pick up all these signals and happily send them along to your screen saver. The radio telescope doesn't care about any of these signals just as your ear doesn't care about what sounds it collects. Your screen saver is going to sift through the signals looking for any source that is "louder" that the background and also rises and falls in 12 seconds - the time the telescope takes to pass over a spot in the sky. Any signals that qualify will be sent back to the Berkeley SETI@home team for further analysis. The SETI@home team maintains a large database of known radio-frequency interference (RFI) sources. This database is constantly updated. At this point 99.9999% of all the signals that your screen saver detects will be thrown out as RFI. Test signals are also removed at this point. Remaining unresolved signals are then checked against another observation from the same part of the sky. This could take up to 6 months since the SETI@home team does not have control of the telescope. If the signal is confirmed, the SETI@home team will request dedicated telescope time and will re-observe the most interesting candidates. If a signal is observed two or more times, and it's not RFI or a test signal, the SETI@home team will ask another group to take a look. This other group will be using different telescopes, receivers, computers, etc. This will hopefully rule out a bug in our equipment or our computer code (or a clever student playing a prank...) Together with the other team, SETI@home will do interferometry measurements (it takes two observations seperated by a big distance) This can confirm that the source of the signal is at interstellar distances. If this is confirmed, SETI@home will make an announcement in the form of an IAU (International Astronomical Union) telegram. This is a standard way of informing the astronomical community of important discoveries. The telegram contains all of the important information (frequencies, bandwidth, location in the sky, etc.) that would be necessary for other astronomical groups to confirm the observation. The person(s) who found the signal with their screen saver would be named as one of the co-discoverers along with the others on the SETI@home team. At this point we would still be unsure if the signal was generated by an intelligent civilization or maybe some new astronomical phenomenon. All information about the discovery will be made public, probably via the web. No country or individual would be allowed to jam the frequency the signal is observed on. Since the object will rise and set as seen from any given location, observations from radio observatories around the world will be necessary. This will, by necessity, be a multi-national effort. All this information will be made public. Because of this protocol, it is important that participants in the SETI@home project do not get excited when they see signals on their screen and go off on their own making announcements and calling the press. This could be very damaging to the project. It's important that we keep our heads cool and our computers hot while they grind away at the data. We can all hope that we will be the one that helps receive the signal of some extraterrestrial civilization trying to "phone home." To read the whole text, start here.

FAQ Service (English)

Can I attach multiple computers to one account?

Can I get the old SETI@Home screen saver back?

CPDN/BBC: Making a backup of your model.

Project Overcommited?

What do I do if I "see a signal" on the Seti@Home screen saver?