I installed BOINC and Boincstats just over a month ago. I ran SETI@Home and Climateprediction.net and Predictor@Home. SETI hasn't taken any of my uploads in over aa week. Climateprediction.net keeps failing with a Fortran file error. Predictor@Home still hasn't even started.

When I go to the individual project's website, I don't find anything helpful. These sites don't even post timely project status reports!

I'm about to pull the plug. BUT I have loads of unused processing ability and would like to put it to good use.

If you would tell me, Is this what I can expect from these projects?

Have any of you had trouble getting info. about what the heck was going on?

Please check the messages in the BOINC manager to see what's going on. Usually the projects are quite responsive, and you can also check the server status by clicking the "server status" link on the front page of the project:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_status.html
http://predictor.scripps.edu/server_status.php
http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/server_status.php
Here you can also see if the project is out of work. Also consider posting at these websites if you keep having problems.

Please try some other projects, or try these projects at another time. It would be a shame to see your processing power go to waste, and once you get the hang of it BOINC is very addictive.

Hi Timoleon

Mo here from CPDN. We are aware that CPDN puts very little news on the project website, but that's a problem we moderators can't solve. So we put the news on the forum at the top of the Number Crunching section here:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/forum_forum.php?id=2

And we really make a big effort to keep that properly up-to-date. CPDN server status problems are also posted on this BoincStats forum in the Project News section.

Your climate model may well have crashed with a 'visual Fortran runtime error'. I suggest you post about it on the CPDN forum in that same Number Crunching section. Then several moderators etc will be able have a look at your computer details, the model crash details and so on. On the project forum we have direct links to members' project web pages with these details.

Forget about Predictor@Home for the time being. They are in the process of moving from San Diego to Michigan and won't be issuing workunits for at least another month as far as I know. In your Boinc Manager Projects tab, set Predictor to No New Tasks, which will stop it constantly trying to get new work. I would advise against newbies starting off with Predictor even when they have work available because it's difficult to get a quick response on their forum.

I know that Primegrid and QMC (Quantum Monte Carlo) currently have workunits available. From my (limited) experience, the workunits from these 2 projects run very stably.

To S@NL - FilmFreak and mo.v,
Thanks for your help. I will execute your suggestions and take it from there.

To mo.v,

I don't know how I missed it, but I followed your link to the forum and found a thread regarding how CPDN doesn't, and won't, work on 64-bit computers. I have discovered that many apps don't work on 64-bit Vista so I'm surprised that I didn't check CPDN for compatability.

I'll check back from time to time to see if 64-bit Vista is supported. For now, I guess I'll detach CPDN.

So thanks again mo.v!

Hi again Timoleon

I've found your computer and climate model details on CPDN. It looks as if you have 2 models and have run one successfully for several days, sending trickles to the server:

http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/result.php?resultid=7085692

It looks as if whatever message you got about the model didn't mean it had crashed. Why don't you continue running it? There should be no problem about having a 64-bit computer with these models. Just let the other 'dormant' model that you haven't run yet be active occasionally - if a model doesn't send a trickle to Oxford for 6 weeks the server thinks it's been abandoned and may reissue it to somebody else.

I think you should post on the CPDN forum about what precautions you need to take having Vista. Vista shuts down so quickly that it can crash tasks from any project, not just CPDN. There are other people there who will be able to advise you about how to handle this.

By the way, where is the sculpture from?