Mersenne: Differences betwixt NTPrime and Prime95
Hmm... well, then again, I'm looking at the NTPrime. I've only got one machine running Prime95, and it's been so long... I thought it had all the same options though, but I could just be terribly mistaken. Running NTSetup (part of the NT service package), I show version 20.6.5... I have version 20.6.1 - and the web page reads that all versions were last updated June 15 2000. Something odd is going on... Turns out that Prime95 is indeed 20.6.1 and NTPrime shows up as 20.6.5. And yes, NTSetup will show the option I mentioned above, but Prime95 only has a checkmark for receiving occassional newsletters. How interesting. Well, clears up that mystery. Aaron _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Overriding assigned exponent type (was Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents)
On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:00:02PM -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: I fear that many folks may not be aware of the list, or find that subscribing seems too hard (odd as that may sound to us experts :) Or perhaps being set back by the description of an in-depth discussion about Mersenne primes... ;-) When people start throwing the maths around, I feel like I should take more maths soon :-P Anyhow, no critique, but perhaps this _isn't_ a mailing list for the general user. I personally like it, but the average SETI@Home `convert' might not. Perhaps we could have a general `users' list instead? /* Steinar */ -- Homepage: http://members.xoom.com/sneeze/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Overriding assigned exponent type (was Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents)
On Mon, 14 May 2001 23:33:48 +0200, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote: On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:00:02PM -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: I fear that many folks may not be aware of the list, or find that subscribing seems too hard (odd as that may sound to us experts :) Or perhaps being set back by the description of an in-depth discussion about Mersenne primes... ;-) When people start throwing the maths around, I feel like I should take more maths soon :-P I'd tend to agree - the list is, at times, too in-depth for my understanding, though it's lead me to do a fair amount of research on my own. There are still discussions about CPU architecture, as well as off-topic discussions about systems adminstration, that I don't pretend to follow, but I've found that I've learned a lot reading through those discussions. As for a 'users' mailing list, I don't feel that that's necessary; if 'ordinary users' want to get on the list, they can simply read only those threads that they understand and are interested in. The list isn't so high-volume as to make that in any way prohibitive. Nathan _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Yeti at Home
You may be interested (briefly) in a new distributed computing project that I have come across - Yeti at Home. Details at: http://www.phobe.com/yeti/index.html Kevin Edge {:)} --- Kevin Edge - [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- The opinions herein are my own and, unless explicitly stated, may not represent those of Northgate Information Systems _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: games one can play with genuine composites
If a prime Q | M_C then Order(2,Q) | C ;but not 1 Order(2,Q) | Q-1 F:=GCD(C,Q-1) != 1 F will either be C or one of it's divisors. If Order(2,Q)==C then it has almost zero information to tell us anything about the factors of C. If C has 2 factors P0 P1 then the product of factors with Order == C is M_C/(M_P0.M_P1) with Order == P1 is M_P1 Order == P0 is M_P0 (For more than 2 factors of C, Pofwo(C) is recursively defined as M_C / all the pofwos of the divisors of C). I would expect the probability that a factor of M_C has these orders to be a non-decreasing function of these products. An approximation for the probabilities could be just the ratio of these products. Sadly for composites such as M727 which guesses have as having a small number of factors and it is known that the smallest factor is bigger than a decent bound, F will equal M727 nearly all the time, and rarely will a factor be found. There is also the rare case where the order of Q = M_C but F=M_C The distribution of Mersenne Divisors is such that small Q will tend to have a smaller order, and any Q=2M_C will not have order M_C. If you are only searching for factors of M_C of the form KC+1 then these will always have F=M_C and tell us nothing about the factors of C. The only factors of M_C that help with factoring C are those not of the form KC+1. Stating the obvious, M_C is exponentially bigger than C and even a trial divison of M_C using exponentiation will take longer than meaningful operations on C. For example a division of M_M727 is not practical, but if a factor of M_C is found it is worth doing one GCD. So an approximate heuristic that anyone can better by not using a geometric mean or using knowledge of the distribution of Mersenne Divisors, is that for C having 2 factors, the probability of Q | M_C helping with factoring C is approx:- M_P0 + M_P1 --- M_C+ M_P0 + M_P1 - M_P0.M_P1 or not a lot! Cheers, Paul Landon ps. Every train driver knows that Scottish sheep have a maximum of 7 colours :-) _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne Digest V1 #851
Mersenne Digest Monday, May 14 2001 Volume 01 : Number 851 -- Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 16:14:07 -0400 From: Joshua Zelinsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents Nathan Russel wrote: Are you suggesting that, every time George offers exponents to the members of this mailing list, he should send out a newsletter to every participant - guaranteeing hundreds or thousands of replies for him to deal with? I think there may be no good solution to this. Have the e-mails go to an account linked to the server. It would take a little work, but the whole process could be automated. Regards, Joshua Zelinsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 20:23:45 - From: Brian J. Beesley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents On 14 May 2001, at 8:45, Nathan Russell wrote: First of all, as Jud notes, the 'elitism' is already there, in that different machines get treated differently in the assignments that they are given. Sorry, I don't buy that. Every system has exactly the same chance of picking up any given assignment; it's a matter of the time at which you make the request. And you _can_ override the assignment type which would be the default for your system, if you wish to do so. Even readers of this list get opportunities to acquire exponents or prebeta-test software, etc., that are not available to the unwashed masses. AFAIK everyone is entitled to subscribe to this list, whether they participate by running assignments or not. Additionally, GIMPS, unlike most other projects, has exponents taht are 'better' than others. In the absence of completed tests, small exponents are more likely to be prime than larger ones, as well as taking less effort to test. However, note that a considerable number of users have voluntarily chosen to run 10 million digit range exponents, thus reducing the probability that they will discover a prime. The increased reward for being successful counterbalances the reduced chance of success. There is also a theoretical difference between those exponents congruent to 1 modulo 4 and those congruent to 3 modulo 4. However I believe that this is due to the fact that one of these groups has a larger probability of having a small factor; thus this irregularity is removed by the time that LL testing begins. Secondly, if - when I ask the server to give me whatever kind of work makes most sense - it gives me something else, whether out of spurious concern for my feelings or for any other reason, then not only are the programmers betraying my trust in them, they are also indicating that they don't trust me to ask for what I want. I agree. Either you allow people to choose the type of work they want, or you tell people plainly that you will select for them the type of work you will ask them to do. Either works, but a mixture is inconsistent. Note that an exponent given out for triple-checking has a microscopic chance of being prime (something like two in one billion), since it must 1. Be prime (once chance in 60,000-70,000) and 2. Have been missed by both previous tests (1 in 100 for each). NO! Conditional probability: if we need a third LL test run, it is because at least one of the other two _must_ be in error. So the probability of finding a prime on the third LL test run is (about) one half the probability of finding a prime on the second LL test run - - irrespective of the error rate, provided it is small. People need to be informed about departures from documented practice. Are you suggesting that, every time George offers exponents to the members of this mailing list, he should send out a newsletter to every participant - guaranteeing hundreds or thousands of replies for him to deal with? I think there may be no good solution to this. Clearly this is ridiculous. I don't have a problem with George offerring a few exponents selectively through this list, because the list does not have a closed membership. The only sane alternative is to wait for deadline critical assignments to complete in the normal way - something which some people have vociferously objected to. Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 20:23:45 - From: Brian J. Beesley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: Pentium
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
-Original Message- From: Nathan Russell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Brian J. Beesley [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 15 May 2001 03:26 Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents Agreed. Membership to the list indicates a slightly-more-than-casual interest in the project, specifically a willingness to sift through a few dozen messages per month in order to learn more about the project. That interest might well also be a sign of someone who is more likely to faithfully complete 'special' assignments in a relatively timely fashion. I'm sure it is. My intention wasn't to criticise the practice. It just seems absurd to me to worry about 'elitism' in the choice of actual exponent assigned, which the user isn't going to be aware of anyway, and then to be content with the 'elitism' in the 'most sense' choice of test type, or in the additional opportunities afforded to list members. I put 'elitism' into quotes because I don't agree that it is elitism at all. Nathan Russell Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
-Original Message- From: Nathan Russell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 13 May 2001 02:58 Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents On Sat, 12 May 2001 18:21:17 -0400, Jud McCranie wrote: There would still be a distinction drawn between 'new' and 'experienced' users, and I think drawing any such distinction would make new users feel less valued - and quite possibly lead them to join one of the other fairly large projects, all of which are completely, or nearly completely, automated. Why should there be any less automation if multiply expired exponents are only awarded to fast machines with a track record of reliability? Alternatively, since nobody seems to find it objectionable, why not take these exponents off the primmest server, and offer them to list subscribers only? Nathan Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
-Original Message- From: Jud McCranie [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 15 May 2001 04:34 Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents At 09:44 PM 5/14/2001 -0400, Nathan Russell wrote: They would still be contributing towards milestones. If there are exponents below a milestone that never have been assigned, they would get them. Are there any exponents below #38 that have never been assigned? [...] But there could be one smaller than what now seems to be #38, because there are exponents in that range that haven't had even 1 LL. I'm not adept at the number theory, but presumably these are more likely to be prime for no other reason than because they are relatively small, and the density of Mersenne primes decreases with size. | Jud McCranie | Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
-Original Message- From: Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 14 May 2001 07:59 Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents That _might_ be a good idea, except in the eventual situation where both participants return results indicating their number is indeed prime. Whoever had the slightly slower machine will not be very happy! That gets my vote for understatement-of-the-year. :-) BTW what happens now when a first-time check, (or for that matter, if a double-check) discovers a new prime. Surely this is checked immediately on the fastest machine available to the project, and not left to the vagaries of random allocation? Steve Harris Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
I know very little about computer architecture, so please feel free to shoot me down if what follow is complete nonsense. GIMPS clients use the spare capacity of the primary processing resource within any computer:- the CPU(s). But most modern PCs have another component capable of performing rapid and sophisticated calculations:- the GPU on the graphics accelerator. Is there any way that the GPU can be programmed to perform GIMPS processing when otherwise not in use? If this could be done, then it would have the effect of turning every client computer into an multi-processor system. Regards Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: missing exponents?
-Original Message- From: Nathan Russell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 15 May 2001 03:25 Subject: Re: Mersenne: missing exponents? I have version 20.6.1 - and the web page reads that all versions were last updated June 15 2000. Something odd is going on... That's the version I'm running. Has there been an update since last June that I don't know about? Nathan Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
I know very little about computer architecture, so please feel free to shoot me down if what follow is complete nonsense. GIMPS clients use the spare capacity of the primary processing resource within any computer:- the CPU(s). But most modern PCs have another component capable of performing rapid and sophisticated calculations:- the GPU on the graphics accelerator. Is there any way that the GPU can be programmed to perform GIMPS processing when otherwise not in use? If this could be done, then it would have the effect of turning every client computer into an multi-processor system. Virtually all GPU's in use today are fixed function hard wired graphics accelerators. There's no way to use them for general purpose computational use. Also, there's no APIs, and each chip vendor has a radically different architecture. -jrp _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
At 04:34 PM 5/15/2001 +0100, Daran wrote: Are there any exponents below #38 that have never been assigned? Not as far as I know, but there are over 20 that haven't had the first LL test completed. But they should have all been assigned at least 24 months ago. ++ | Jud McCranie | || | former temporary part-time adjunct | | instructor of a minor university | ++ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: P4 executable
Hi all, I've uploaded a version that fixes 2 bugs in the new P4 prime95. 1) Trial factoring was broken. In switching to MASM 6.15, an assembler bug caused the factoring code to blow up. 2) I restored a FPU init instruction that I accidentally deleted. This caused the excessive round-off errors when running the old FFT code. Again, *FOR P4 USERS ONLY* the fixed version is at ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v21a.zip Have fun, George _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
--- Daran [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know very little about computer architecture, so please feel free to shoot me down if what follow is complete nonsense. GIMPS clients use the spare capacity of the primary processing resource within any computer:- the CPU(s). But most modern PCs have another component capable of performing rapid and sophisticated calculations:- the GPU on the graphics accelerator. Is there any way that the GPU can be programmed to perform GIMPS processing when otherwise not in use? If this could be done, then it would have the effect of turning every client computer into an multi-processor system. Regards Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 04:48:19PM +0100, Daran wrote: BTW what happens now when a first-time check, (or for that matter, if a double-check) discovers a new prime. Surely this is checked immediately on the fastest machine available to the project, and not left to the vagaries of random allocation? It is run on a different architecture, with different software. The three first were (as far as I know) tested on Crays, while the 4th (M38 (we think)) was tested on an Alpha machine with mlucas, as far as I remember. The idea is to completely eliminate any possibility of a persistent program or hardware bug :-) /* Steinar */ -- Homepage: http://members.xoom.com/sneeze/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
Daran, This is an interesting piece of lateral thinking that deserves to go further than I think it actually does. Essentially, I'm not sure how the operations that a graphics card can provide, such as line drawing, texture overlaying, raytraced light effects etc, could be made to implement a LL test or FFT etc which would require things like bit tests, conditioning branches and loops etc. Conceivably additions could be done by superimposing textures and reading back the resulting frame buffer, but these wouldn't be 64-bit precision additions! Maybe some form of matrix multiplication could be done by rotating textures before superimposing? However, I think the resulting calculation efficiency would be very poor, and may never achieve useful precision. Also, any code would be very hardware specific, and may only work if the display was not displaying, say, a desktop. However, if someone could implement it, it could provide the *ultimate* in Mersenne related screen savers! What you'd see on the screen would be the actual calculations themselves taking place before your eyes, and with no overheads for displaying it either! Yours, === Gareth Randall === Daran wrote: I know very little about computer architecture, so please feel free to shoot me down if what follow is complete nonsense. GIMPS clients use the spare capacity of the primary processing resource within any computer:- the CPU(s). But most modern PCs have another component capable of performing rapid and sophisticated calculations:- the GPU on the graphics accelerator. Is there any way that the GPU can be programmed to perform GIMPS processing when otherwise not in use? If this could be done, then it would have the effect of turning every client computer into an multi-processor system. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents
On 14 May 2001, at 21:56, Nathan Russell wrote: otherwise, you might have someone using a 486 suddenly realize that their computer was doing a first-time check that would take over a year, get frustrated, and give up. A first-time check on a 10M exponent would take _several_ years on a 486! Actually I think that there may be a perceptual problem with many new users in that they may give up as soon as they realize that a most sense assignment is going to take several weeks to complete. Unfortunately there seems to be no easy way to fix this! There is also a theoretical difference between those exponents congruent to 1 modulo 4 and those congruent to 3 modulo 4. However I believe that this is due to the fact that one of these groups has a larger probability of having a small factor; thus this irregularity is removed by the time that LL testing begins. I think I read something similiar. Might it relate to whether the first potential factor itself is prime, specifically whether it is divisible by 3? I can't do the arithmetic in my head, but I have a hunch... Um. 2p+1 = 3 mod 4 irrespective of whether p = 1 mod 4 or p = 3 mod 4 However for large p there doesn't seem to be any link to divisibility of 2p+1 by 3, or any other small prime. The obvious bias against 3 mod 4 exponents is that those which are Sophie-Germain primes are guaranteed to be divisible by 2p+1. We can also examine 2kp+1 mod 8, which must be 1 or 7 if it is a candidate factor of M(p). When p = 1 mod 4, p = 1 mod 8 or p = 5 mod 8, so 2p = 2 mod 8, therefore: 2p+1 = 3 mod 8, so can't be a factor 4p+1 = 5 mod 8, so can't be a factor 6p+1 = 7 mod 8, so might be a factor 8p+1 = 1 mod 8, so might be a factor ... so the values of k which checking are 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, ... When p = 3 mod 4, p = 3 mod 8 or p = 7 mod 8, so 2p = 6 mod 8, therefore 2p+1 = 7 mod 8, so might be a factor 4p+1 = 5 mod 8, so can't be a factor 6p+1 = 3 mod 8, so can't be a factor 8p+1 = 1 mod 8, so might be a factor ... so the values of k which need checking are 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, ... The multiples of 4 are common to both series, but the other possible k values are smaller in the p = 3 mod 4 series than those in the p = 1 mod 4 series. And, other things being equal, smaller k values are in general more likely to be provide a factor than larger ones. However, trial factoring to k 10^6 surely reduces the difference to a miniscule amount. Perhaps clicking the 'give me the work that makes the most sense' box should immediately set the appearance of the others to the work that will be chosen, rather than simply graying them out. Agreed. Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
We currently use the FPU (floating point unit) which most office software doesn't use. The GPU is hard coded for graphics and not really useful for anything else. --- Daran [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know very little about computer architecture, so please feel free to shoot me down if what follow is complete nonsense. GIMPS clients use the spare capacity of the primary processing resource within any computer:- the CPU(s). But most modern PCs have another component capable of performing rapid and sophisticated calculations:- the GPU on the graphics accelerator. Is there any way that the GPU can be programmed to perform GIMPS processing when otherwise not in use? If this could be done, then it would have the effect of turning every client computer into an multi-processor system. Regards Daran G. _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Overriding assigned exponent type (was Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents)
On Tue, May 15, 2001 at 10:23:33PM -, Brian J. Beesley wrote: If you understand _nothing_ discussed on a mailing list, there's no point in subscribing. Similarly if you understand _everything_. You can always delete the messages which you consider beyond your intellect, or beneath contempt. Personally I like the range we have at present. Yes -- that is my opinion too. I skim quite a lot, though ;-) Some of the deeper maths makes me go away read up on the topic, occasionally I get a bit wiser as a result. Hmmm, I think I've learned quite a bit of maths just be skimming :-) It's surprising how much you can learn just by looking at a clueful calculation, even if you don't really understand the maths behind it. Now, just to print out my maths hand-in where one of the proofs utilizes (simple!) modular arithmetic, which I've learned... here. :-) (We haven't had it in school yet, but I suppose we will next year.) (If anybody wants to know, it's `prove that n^3 - n has 24 as a factor, for odd n' :-) ) /* Steinar */ -- Homepage: http://members.xoom.com/sneeze/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Primestats perl script updated, (bug fix).
Hi All I've noticed that sometimes the topproducers table goes a bit strange, this causes the primestats script to output 2 Meg worth of error messages, not good if you run it in a cron job, and then the cron job backs up your inbox. So I've tracked the bug down and fixed it so now you only get 24 lines of error message when we have a problem with topproducers.shtml rather than 2 Megs worth. It's here: http://www.zeropps.uklinux.net/linstuff.html -- Cheers Steve email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] %HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee 0 pps. web http://www.zeropps.uklinux.net/ or http://start.at/zero-pps 1:35am up 103 days, 2:22, 2 users, load average: 1.03, 1.08, 1.11 _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: SUMOUT errors
In the course of a single P-1 run, I've gotten 3 SUMOUT errors: [Tue May 15 08:20:24 2001] SUMOUT error occurred. [Tue May 15 12:04:41 2001] SUMOUT error occurred. [Tue May 15 20:05:15 2001] SUMOUT error occurred. In the past fifteen months with GIMPS, I had gotten only two errors. I can't help wondering if this could have something to do with a corrupt Win98 swapfile, since all of the errors occured during Stage 2; however, I would think that that would have caused far more errors. Additionally, I've only had one system I'll run a thorough Scandisk tonight. I don't know if CPU overheating might be a problem, since I just moved the machine home and it's about 70-75 Farenheit here during the day. The machine 'sounds' exactly the same, and since I have Asperger's Syndrome (a mild form of autism) I tend to trust my sense of hearing implicitely. That said, if there's a hardware problem of some sort, I'd want to have it checked out very promptly! The major changes in the past several days: 1. I am now using my modem rather than my ethernet card. 2. As said above, i'm home, and it's warmer (though the machine has operated in an environment that was warmer still this past August). Also, when I put my hand at the vent, it barely feels luke-warm - and it felt hot to the point of being uncomfortable before. 3. The machine was transported about 70 miles, and might have been somehow jolted - but appears to work fine. 4. All three errors occured during P-1 Stage 2, and I specifically remember that the machine was swapping fairly heavily at the time of the first and second errors (I had stopped back to check email). I'll reduce the allowed memory by 10 megs or so when this run is over. 5. I was using my software modem at those times - but not at the time of the third error, and I'd used it without trouble earlier this weekend, but not during heavy swapping. Any insight would be appreciated. I've never had stability problems before. I'll be more concerned if they continue when this P-1 run is over, at about midnight. Regards, Nathan _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
On Tue, 15 May 2001, Gareth Randall wrote: Also, any code would be very hardware specific, and may only work if the display was not displaying, say, a desktop. However, if someone could implement it, it could provide the *ultimate* in Mersenne related screen savers! What you'd see on the screen would be the actual calculations themselves taking place before your eyes, and with no overheads for displaying it either! This question pops up every once in a while. A few years ago I looked through a postscript manual wondering how difficult it would be to build a postscript file that crunched RC5 keys when a printer tried to render it. The latest bleeding edge graphics cards are programmable to a limited degree (am I thinking of the ATI Radeon here?) but not nearly programmable enough, I'm sure. Heck, at least these ideas have a better chance than the guys who want to crack the programming on kids' toys to make them crunch RC5 keys :) jasonp _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
John R Pierce wrote: Virtually all GPU's in use today are fixed function hard wired graphics accelerators. There's no way to use them for general purpose computational use. Also, there's no APIs, and each chip vendor has a radically different architecture. Too bad, the idea might also have given us an interesting screen saver as a side effect! :-) Cheers... Russ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: SUMOUT errors
I don't really know how much help this will be since I don't know your exact situation and am not a expert by any means, but here goes! First, the software modem may be a culprit. I have had problems with ones of the HSP variety. Most show up as 'HSP Micromodem56' or something very similar on your system. Most of these modems also use a chipset manufactured by PCTel. Fairly stable, but use a nice chunk of CPU time when online, and I have received errors when I am checking email and/or surfing the web while using this type of modem. I have no hard evidence to tie this modem to the errors, but all errors happened when I was using that modem or soon after (I hooked up a external modem just to see if the same would happen with it and I did not receive errors when using it). I have no idea if you have a modem similar to that one or not, but it may be the problem. Also, the electrical environment may be vastly different. I am assuming that where you had your computer was at school, and it is now at home. At my home, I have problems with various utility problems, and have been told by others that utility problems could cause such errors. I invested in a UPS with line conditioning to hopefully control some of those problems. Maybe one of these two things could be your problem.. I wish you the best of luck in finding and fixing the problem! - Jeramy _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
This question pops up every once in a while. A few years ago I looked through a postscript manual wondering how difficult it would be to build a postscript file that crunched RC5 keys when a printer tried to render it. postscript is essentially forth, after all. Trouble is, most postscript interpreters are pretty damn slow. The latest bleeding edge graphics cards are programmable to a limited degree (am I thinking of the ATI Radeon here?) but not nearly programmable enough, I'm sure. NVIDIA's chips are semi programmable too, but a big hurdle is lack of documentation on the 3D rendering engine. That stuff is trade secret. I *do* suspect you could use the geometry engine (aka Transformation Lighting and Projection) to do large numbers of fixed point 3x3 vector-matrix dot products with limited precision rather quickly. The question is, how useful would this be? The pipeline is probably such that you load one matrix and transform a large number of x,y,z vectors through it at a rather high speed. I'm not sure how useful this primitive would be in doing FFT operations. The newest Geforce3 chip also has both Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders which are each a SIMD programmable vector processors. The Pixel Shaders operate on every pixel and generate the actual RGB pixels while the Vertex Processors operate on the geometry and texture mapping coordinates of the 3D mesh... I don't know much about these, but pixels are only 8 bits per component so the pixel processors can't be very wide. I'm also not sure how fast you can get results OUT of the nvidia memory. Typically, these cards have 32-64MB of very high speed dedicated DDR SDRAM, but its optimized for the GPU to write into the memory, and the display refresh engine to read from it, I don't know how fast results could be read back into the host system -jrp _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS accelerator?
Among others, I raised the question with George Woltman some time ago. I trust his judgment that his time is better spent elsewhere. However, I wonder if there might be some possibilities in trial factoring there. That would present the possibility of a factoring screensaver, and an FPU LLtest, running together on what is nominally a uniprocessor. Just speculation, Ken _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne Digest V1 #852
Mersenne Digest Tuesday, May 15 2001 Volume 01 : Number 852 -- Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 23:33:48 +0200 From: Steinar H. Gunderson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Overriding assigned exponent type (was Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents) On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:00:02PM -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: I fear that many folks may not be aware of the list, or find that subscribing seems too hard (odd as that may sound to us experts :) Or perhaps being set back by the description of an in-depth discussion about Mersenne primes... ;-) When people start throwing the maths around, I feel like I should take more maths soon :-P Anyhow, no critique, but perhaps this _isn't_ a mailing list for the general user. I personally like it, but the average SETI@Home `convert' might not. Perhaps we could have a general `users' list instead? /* Steinar */ - -- Homepage: http://members.xoom.com/sneeze/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 10:43:00 -0400 From: Nathan Russell [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Overriding assigned exponent type (was Re: Mersenne: Re: 26 exponents) On Mon, 14 May 2001 23:33:48 +0200, Steinar H. Gunderson wrote: On Mon, May 14, 2001 at 02:00:02PM -0700, Aaron Blosser wrote: I fear that many folks may not be aware of the list, or find that subscribing seems too hard (odd as that may sound to us experts :) Or perhaps being set back by the description of an in-depth discussion about Mersenne primes... ;-) When people start throwing the maths around, I feel like I should take more maths soon :-P I'd tend to agree - the list is, at times, too in-depth for my understanding, though it's lead me to do a fair amount of research on my own. There are still discussions about CPU architecture, as well as off-topic discussions about systems adminstration, that I don't pretend to follow, but I've found that I've learned a lot reading through those discussions. As for a 'users' mailing list, I don't feel that that's necessary; if 'ordinary users' want to get on the list, they can simply read only those threads that they understand and are interested in. The list isn't so high-volume as to make that in any way prohibitive. Nathan _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 16:48:14 +0100 From: Kevin Edge [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mersenne: Yeti at Home You may be interested (briefly) in a new distributed computing project that I have come across - Yeti at Home. Details at: http://www.phobe.com/yeti/index.html Kevin Edge {:)} - --- Kevin Edge - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - --- The opinions herein are my own and, unless explicitly stated, may not represent those of Northgate Information Systems _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 18:12:39 +0200 From: Paul Landon [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: games one can play with genuine composites If a prime Q | M_C then Order(2,Q) | C ;but not 1 Order(2,Q) | Q-1 F:=GCD(C,Q-1) != 1 F will either be C or one of it's divisors. If Order(2,Q)==C then it has almost zero information to tell us anything about the factors of C. If C has 2 factors P0 P1 then the product of factors with Order == C is M_C/(M_P0.M_P1) with Order == P1 is M_P1 Order == P0 is M_P0 (For more than 2 factors of C, Pofwo(C) is recursively defined as M_C / all the pofwos of the divisors of C). I would expect the probability that a factor of M_C has these orders to be a non-decreasing function of these products. An approximation for the probabilities could be just the ratio of these products. Sadly for composites such as M727 which guesses have as having a small number of factors and it is known that the smallest factor is bigger than a decent bound, F will equal M727 nearly all the time, and rarely will a factor be found. There is also the rare case where the order of Q = M_C but F=M_C The distribution of Mersenne Divisors is such that small Q will tend to have a smaller order, and any Q=2M_C will not have order M_C. If you are only searching for factors of M_C of the form KC+1 then these will always have F=M_C and tell us nothing about the factors of C. The only factors of M_C that help with factoring C are those not of the form KC+1. Stating the obvious, M_C