I've seen a few fairly similar problems you and the users may want to
check for:

1.  The workunit crashes in such a way that it stops using any CPU
time at all, and does NOT tell the BOINC client this has happened.
It may or may not tell Windows something has gone wrong.  This
often freezes the heartbeat tests so it may even go well past the time
when it should have halted due to running too long.

2.  A few programs give different results depending on whether
they run on Intel CPUs or AMD CPUs.

3.  Some workunits repeatedly end without an error code, but
also without producing the output file to tell the BOINC client
that it finished properly.  Should be visible in at least some of
the log files.

4.  Are the checkpoints closely spaced enough that those users
should be able to reach them even with the following combination
of settings?

    a.  The usual 60 minutes before possibly going on to some
    other BOINC workunit from a different project.

    b.  Only 60% of the CPU time available due to running on
    a laptop.

    c. Enough other BOINC projects enabled with enough
    resource share that if the 60 minutes is reached, the
    workunit will usually be suspended.

    d. Either the option to keep suspended workunits in
    memory is not enabled, or BOINC is not allowed to use
    enough memory to do it.

5. A few workunits do not have the progress reporting
working properly, but go on to produce correct results
otherwise.

6. Is there any difference between running with graphics
enabled and running without graphics enabled (if you even
have a screensaver section yet)?

7. Does recompiling the application specifically for that
CPU and OS combination offer any improvement on the
machines with the problem?

Robert Miles



> Date: Thu, 4 Aug 2011 10:07:47 -0400
> From: Boyu Zhang <[email protected]>
> Subject: [boinc_dev] 0% progress for Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU and
 >   Windows 7    combination

> Hi All,

> We have a boinc project distributing from our lab, and I observed from the
> database that there is a high percentage of hosts with CPU Pentium(R)
> Dual-Core CPU and operating system Windows 7 has the same problem. The
> problem is that the boinc application running on the hosts constantly has 0%
> progress no matter how long it runs. But on Linux system we don't see the
> same problem.

> Moreover, some hosts with exact the same cpu and os version, but some of
> them are successful while others are having the problem, we tried to
> reproduce the situation on the machines in the lab but with no luck so far.
> Did anyone have the same problem? Any help and suggestions is appreciated,
> thank you!

> Boyu
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