Evan T. Kaiser
Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:45:17 -0700
My first recommendation is that you run the command line version of the client. Although people seem to have varying amounts of improvement over the graphical version given the wide variety of system configurations, I think it's safe to say that your processing time is going to get better if you use the command line version. Get it here: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/setiathome/setiathome-3.03.i386-winnt-cmdline.exe or here: ftp://alien.ssl.berkeley.edu/pub/setiathome-3.03.i386-winnt-cmdline.exe Next, I'd recommend using Windows 2000 on that system if you can. It's not likely to improve your processing time, but it's a much superior OS to any version of Windows 98. I suspect that you have some other process consuming most of the processor's time, and that's why SETI@home is completing so slowly. Under Windows 2000 you could just look at the task manager and see which processes are taking up what percentages of the processor's time, but there is no such built-in function like that in 98. Fortunately, there's this freeware thing (which I haven't tried) that hopefully does the same thing: http://download.com.com/3000-2094-5728379.html?tag=lst-0-3 If it indeed adds a task manager just like in NT/2000/XP, go to it and go to the Processes tab. There'll be a list of processes there which you can organize in several methods, one of which is by CPU usage (in percent). Hit that CPU one until it displays them as highest percentages on top, and see what programs use the most CPU. If the system is idle, the SETI@home client should be using well over 90% of the CPU, probably in the 97 or 98% area. If there is another process or two that uses double-digits CPU percentage, that'll slow things down considerably. That's not to say you should just end the process, but have a look at the other process(es) and see if you can figure out what it/they does/do. If there's nothing else using a significant percentage of the CPU time, and SETI@home still takes a really long time, Windows is probably messed up so you'll want to put on a fresh installation. Evan At 07:24 PM 4/18/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Hi, I'm new here, so apologies in advance if this is the umpteenth time >you've seen this question. > >I just started with setiathome. I'm running at 400MHZ Pentium II, >Windows '98 system with 256MB of RAM. I've got the program set to run >in screensaver mode with graphics off. To my dismay the first workunit >took over 93 CPU hours to complete :( My second unit is 23% complete >and has used 20 hours :(( I've tried some different things - killing >all programs except setiathome for overnight run, rebooting the >machine. I don't typically stay connected to the net. I have 260MB of >free disk and defragged not too long ago. > >Can someone suggest why my machine might be running so slow? Also, does >anyone have recommendations on CPU/memory monitoring software? Any help >much appreciated :) > >Thanks, >Elby > >== >Unsubscribe instructions: http://www.talkspace.net/mlists/setiathome.html >This list sponsored by talkspace.net: building space communities online. >Mailing list services provided by klx.communications -- www.klx.com == Unsubscribe instructions: http://www.talkspace.net/mlists/setiathome.html This list sponsored by talkspace.net: building space communities online. Mailing list services provided by klx.communications -- www.klx.com