Mersenne Digest Monday, October 29 2001 Volume 01 : Number 897 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 18:54:24 +0100 From: Henk Stokhorst Subject: Mersenne: number of processors participating L.S., I read a message some time ago on this list that claimed that the number of processors had gone down by about 9000. I don't have stats on this other than the actual available from the status pages. Does anyone have stats over the last year, like numer of pc's and/or processor types, processor speeds? If there would really have been a decrease in participating processors, (I don't think so) an updated graph of Primenet throughput would show by now, is there any update in the pipeline? I went through the status.txt file to see if the new 'stress test' button could have played a significant role, I don't think so. By the way if one runs prime95 without a user name the application fills in an S00000 as user name. I found 3170 entries with a name '.' (only a dot) The fast majority of these entries seem to be have been abandoned. They have been reserved over a long time with a constant daily flow. Does anyone know more about this? YotN, Henk Stokhorst _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:37:43 +0200 From: "Hoogendoorn, Sander" Subject: Mersenne: Task Manager Jud McCranie wrote: > On Windows XP ctrl-alt-del shows that information (maybe on Win 2000 > too). On both W2K and XP you also have to press the Task Manager Button, or press ctrl-shift-esc to go there right away Sander _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 15:58:51 -0400 From: Jud McCranie Subject: Re: Mersenne: Task Manager At 09:37 PM 10/27/2001 +0200, Hoogendoorn, Sander wrote: >On both W2K and XP you also have to press the Task Manager Button, or >press ctrl-shift-esc to go there right away C-S-esc doesn't work for me, but C-S-Del and then the Processes tab. If you close with the processes tab selected, it comes back up that way. +---------------------------------------------------------+ | Jud McCranie | | | | Programming Achieved with Structure, Clarity, And Logic | +---------------------------------------------------------+ _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:29:18 -0000 From: bjb@bbhvig.uklinux.net Subject: Re: Mersenne: Mprime crash On 26 Oct 2001, at 11:36, Nathan Russell wrote: > >Presumably a badly written Linux driver > >can cause the same problems as a badly written Windows driver. Yes. There is however a subtle difference. Linux drivers come with source code, so if there is a bug, any competent programmer can fix it. Also there is almost invariably a mechanism for feeding patches back into the source tree. On the other hand, Windows drivers come wreathed in obscurity, usually clouded even further by licenses which prevent disassembly and therefore effectively make it illegal for anyone other than the original author to post a fixed version. > > IIRC, Linux drivers that are kernel modules do run in real mode; > someone on the list please correct me if I'm wrong. No, they don't run in real mode - which gives access to only the bottom megabyte of memory, in 16-bit mode, i.e. you're using the system as a fast 8086. Win 9x/ME drivers _do_ run in real mode! Some parts of some drivers (in proper 32-bit operating systems like linux, also Windows NT/2K/XP) _need_ to run in ring 0, which does allow unrestricted access to all memory, thus allowing the driver to trample on memory belonging to other processes. Part of the art of writing successful drivers is to do as little as possible in ring 0. > > This raises the question of why some folks have mentioned that drivers > under NT/2K don't cause these sorts of problems.... They're much less likely to. For a start, it's easier to write ring 0 code than real mode code on a 32-bit system; e.g. there's less room to confuse 16-bit and 32-bit addressing modes. Secondly, as I pointed out above, you can get out of ring 0 to do most of the work, so most of the time you have full protection from the OS to prevent you from clobbering someone else's memory. Regards Brian Beesley _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 14:44:58 -0700 From: "John R Pierce" Subject: Re: Mersenne: Mprime crash > > > >Presumably a badly written Linux driver > > >can cause the same problems as a badly written Windows driver. > > Yes. There is however a subtle difference. Linux drivers come with > source code, so if there is a bug, any competent programmer can > fix it. very very few programmers are qualified to debug obscure device driver problems, especially so when the problems involve realtime interactions such as issues with sound driver IRQ latency or whatever. More so since the vast majority of modern PC hardware is undocumented (ever seen the tech ref for a Soundblaster Live, or a Nvidia Geforce chip, or even a late model network controller?) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:11:51 -0500 From: "Steve Harris" Subject: Re: Mersenne: number of processors participating Henk, I don't have a consistent set of statistics, but I do save the world test status page every few months. So I can tell you that on 2-apr-2001 it showed 38652 machines on 20983 accounts, and right now it shows 30186 machines on 15659 accounts. I'm sure I didn't just happen to catch it at its peak; I recall there being over 21000 accounts at one time. WRT team '.', I recall a few months ago it seemed to be holding up some double-checks at the low end of the assignments, but it did eventually complete them all. Steve Harris - -----Original Message----- From: Henk Stokhorst To: mersenne@base.com Date: Saturday, October 27, 2001 1:20 PM Subject: Mersenne: number of processors participating >L.S., > >I read a message some time ago on this list that claimed that the number >of processors had gone down by about 9000. I don't have stats on this >other than the actual available from the status pages. Does anyone have >stats over the last year, like numer of pc's and/or processor types, >processor speeds? > >If there would really have been a decrease in participating processors, >(I don't think so) an updated graph of Primenet throughput would show by >now, is there any update in the pipeline? > >I went through the status.txt file to see if the new 'stress test' >button could have played a significant role, I don't think so. By the >way if one runs prime95 without a user name the application fills in an >S00000 as user name. I found 3170 entries with a name '.' (only a dot) >The fast majority of these entries seem to be have been abandoned. They >have been reserved over a long time with a constant daily flow. Does >anyone know more about this? > >YotN, > >Henk Stokhorst > >_________________________________________________________________________ >Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm >Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 01:19:13 -0400 From: Nathan Russell Subject: Re: Mersenne: number of processors participating (Sorry Steve, I meant to send this to the list) On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:11:51 -0500, "Steve Harris" wrote: > >Henk, I don't have a consistent set of statistics, but I do save the world >test status page every few months. So I can tell you that on 2-apr-2001 it >showed 38652 machines on 20983 accounts, and right now it shows 30186 >machines on 15659 accounts. I'm sure I didn't just happen to catch it at its >peak; I recall there being over 21000 accounts at one time. My first guess is that we're beginning to compete with the various commercial projects (of which there are several now, and were none 2 years or so ago). It's hard for me to envision that causing a fifth of the participants to leave, though! Nathan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 00:28:45 -0700 From: "Terry S. Arnold" Subject: Re: Mersenne: number of processors participating My take is that due to the long test times the "instant gratification" that used to come fairly quickly even on a most speed machine is no longer there. This will turn off a lot of casual testers. In spite of this the total production keeps climbing. The last time I looked PrimeNet was just over 2 TFLOP. I guess that before long only the hard care testers will be left. Most of them have a number of machines running and many cases several of these are high end machines. Another consideration is that many system/network administrators have gotten ludicrous about what they will allow on their networks. They think that Prime95 just might let in a virus or even worse spill "company secrets". By and large they are totally ignorant of the real issues involved with securing networks. All most of them know about the implications of the various protocols in the TCP/IP suite was what it took get their MCSE if they have even that much training. Been around GIMPS since before PrimeNet. Terry At 01:19 AM 10/28/2001 -0400, you wrote: >(Sorry Steve, I meant to send this to the list) > >On Sat, 27 Oct 2001 21:11:51 -0500, "Steve Harris" > wrote: > > > > >Henk, I don't have a consistent set of statistics, but I do save the world > >test status page every few months. So I can tell you that on 2-apr-2001 it > >showed 38652 machines on 20983 accounts, and right now it shows 30186 > >machines on 15659 accounts. I'm sure I didn't just happen to catch it at its > >peak; I recall there being over 21000 accounts at one time. > >My first guess is that we're beginning to compete with the various >commercial projects (of which there are several now, and were none 2 >years or so ago). > >It's hard for me to envision that causing a fifth of the participants >to leave, though! > >Nathan >_________________________________________________________________________ >Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm >Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers _Terry S. Arnold 2975 B Street San Diego, CA 92102 USA tarnold@computer.org (619) 235-8181 (voice) (619) 235-0016 (fax) _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 02:25:56 -0800 From: "Paul Leyland" Subject: RE: Mersenne: number of processors participating Speaking only for myself. > My take is that due to the long test times the "instant gratification" > that used to come fairly quickly even on a most speed machine is no > longer there. This will turn off a lot of casual testers. This is certainly one reason why my contribution (the MSRC team) has halved the amount of computation dedicated to GIMPS. It's not the major one, though. > Another consideration is that many system/network administrators have > gotten ludicrous about what they will allow on their networks. They think The major reason is that I no longer build the workstations for our researchers, and so I no longer get to install the NT service version by default! Another, very important reason is that there are a number of other CNT projects in progress to which I contribute and/or organize. It might not be too tactful to proselytize here, so I won't go into detail. However, some of the stuff we do is eminently suitable for 486 and low-end pentium machines. Drop me a mail if you may be interested. > Been around GIMPS since before PrimeNet. Ditto. Paul _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 03:42:57 +0200 From: "Daidalos" Subject: Re: Mersenne: Re: Mersenne Digest V1 #895 > It's actually a Microsoft program and is one of their "kernel toys" package. > > http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wutoys/w95kernel toy/ > > ...a very useful tool for prime95 users. It allows you to spot processes that > go into busy waits and the like which waste CPU time. Indeed a usefull program. I wonder why the information files you get with Prime95 don't mention it, and users are not advised to use it? - -- Lampros Kallenos Lefkosia, Kypros Polytexnitis@hotmail.com . _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 06:58:23 +0100 From: "Magnus Adielsson" Subject: SV: Mersenne: Re: Mersenne Digest V1 #895 Hello, I'm fairly nuew to this group and this is actually my first message here. :-) Can I use wintop on Windows 98 or windows Me? The download page says that "NOTE: This download is not intended for use on computers running MicrosoftR WindowsR 98" or is there another version of wintop for Windows 98 or Windows Me? (I have Thanks in advance /Magnus - --- It's actually a Microsoft program and is one of their "kernel toys" package. http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wutoys/w95kerneltoy/ I'll answer to the group as well since this is a very useful tool for prime95 users. It allows you to spot processes that go into busy waits and the like which waste CPU time. Try holding the mouse button down on the desktop - went to 100% CPU on my Win95 system, but I haven't used that in over a year now! RSNFLD@aol.com wrote: > > Hi group > > This question was asked before but I lost the info. What is the website to obtain a copy of WINTOP, the memory usage program. Also, what is the site for the archives of this list. > > Please answer this directly to me. > > Thanks > Irv Rosenfeld - -- ======= Gareth Randall ======= _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers _________________________________________________________ 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 08:30:51 +0100 From: Achim.Passauer@RegTP.DE Subject: Mersenne: Statistics Hi all, I mentioned that we lost about 9000 machines during the past 7 months. One year ago I started collecting data about numbers of machines, accounts and so on. Please find this information at the bottom of may mail. GIMPS has now as many contributing machines as it had 13 months ago. In the meantime there was a peak of 38950 machines (26 March 2001). After that date we lost about 9000 machines which we had gained between September 2000 and March 2001. As I pointed out earlier, the number of participating P4-machines is still unknown. Source of information is http://www.mersenne.org/primenet/ Though we lost many machines since March 2001 CPU-power is now higher than ever before. +26% since March 2001 and +57% since September 2000!!!! Regards Achim date time CPU Acco. GFlops CPU-yrs dd.mm.yyyy 29.10.2001 0500 UTC 30191 15683 2043,646 169,770 22.10.2001 0500 UTC 30307 15642 2008,321 166,836 15.10.2001 0600 UTC 30431 15730 1901,848 157,991 08.10.2001 0500 UTC 30566 15727 1857,497 154,307 24.09.2001 0600 UTC 30653 15766 1864,789 154,912 18.09.2001 0500 UTC 30790 15857 1785,983 148,366 11.09.2001 0500 UTC 31520 16261 1756,467 145,914 03.09.2001 0500 UTC 31609 16333 1736,277 144,237 27.08.2001 0500 UTC 31711 16435 1690,763 140,456 20.08.2001 0500 UTC 31945 16548 1581,901 131,412 13.08.2001 0500 UTC 32196 16751 1576,293 130,946 06.08.2001 0500 UTC 32362 16907 1620,202 134,594 30.07.2001 0500 UTC 32701 17110 1487,373 123,560 23.07.2001 0500 UTC 33261 17458 1606,075 133,420 16.07.2001 0500 UTC 33733 17811 1637,079 135,996 09.07.2001 0600 UTC 34270 18188 1652,384 137,267 02.07.2001 0500 UTC 34812 18562 1639,516 136,198 25.06.2001 0500 UTC 35156 18840 1600,189 132,931 18.06.2001 0700 UTC 35117 18841 1675,095 139,154 22.05.2001 0500 UTC 37275 20269 1628,585 135,290 14.05.2001 0500 UTC 37713 20544 1633,160 135,670 07.05.2001 0500 UTC 38025 20785 1666,983 138,480 30.04.2001 0500 UTC 38084 20747 1692,778 140,623 23.04.2001 0500 UTC 38199 20729 1586,019 131,754 16.04.2001 0600 UTC 38383 20813 1662,104 138,075 09.04.2001 0500 UTC 38474 20842 1598,232 132,769 02.04.2001 0500 UTC 38652 20983 1615,256 134,183 26.03.2001 0500 UTC 38950 21141 1622,482 134,783 * 19.03.2001 0600 UTC 38646 20929 1467,637 121,920 12.03.2001 0600 UTC 38565 20901 1563,653 129,896 05.03.2001 0600 UTC 38426 20857 1547,440 128,549 26.02.2001 0600 UTC 37867 20534 1474,404 122,482 19.02.2001 0700 UTC 37045 20077 1540,198 127,948 12.02.2001 0600 UTC 36546 19786 1464,081 121,625 05.02.2001 0600 UTC 36017 19496 1510,121 125,449 29.01.2001 0600 UTC 35619 19300 1477,466 122,737 22.01.2001 0600 UTC 35149 19039 1541,203 128,031 15.01.2001 0600 UTC 34693 18721 1509,874 125,429 08.01.2001 0600 UTC 34295 18493 1402,836 116,537 02.01.2001 0700 UTC 33644 18136 1288,028 106,999 18.12.2000 0600 UTC 32755 17520 1400,193 116,317 11.12.2000 0600 UTC 32773 17525 1396,369 116,000 04.12.2000 0600 UTC 32755 17532 1472,300 122,307 27.11.2000 0600 UTC 32970 17653 1413,927 117,458 20.11.2000 0600 UTC 32815 17557 1351,143 112,243 13.11.2000 0700 UTC 32420 17318 1378,667 114,529 06.11.2000 0600 UTC 32193 17166 1357,534 112,774 30.10.2000 0600 UTC 31766 16900 1278,675 106,223 23.10.2000 0500 UTC 31507 16717 1312,163 109,004 16.10.2000 0500 UTC 31111 16463 1275,128 105,928 06.10.2000 1200 UTC 30521 15954 1291,741 107,308 29.09.2000 1200 UTC 30154 15699 1297,677 107,801 _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 09:35:40 -0700 From: "Alan Vidmar" Subject: Re: Mersenne: number of processors participating Hi all, One thing to remember ppl, A LOT of system testers tend to use Prime95 to test overclocking/cooling. I'm sure that *many* abandoned assignments are due to this fact. Due to this usage (which I don't mind BTW, maybe a few will stay on and contribute, I did) I suggest that there be a switch added so that ppl can use Prime95 as a processor test but without ever getting real assignments, thus slowing down the project. Just my two cents. Alan On 27 Oct 2001, at 18:54, Henk Stokhorst wrote: Date sent: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 18:54:24 +0100 From: Henk Stokhorst To: mersenne@base.com Subject: Mersenne: number of processors participating > L.S., > > I read a message some time ago on this list that claimed that the > number of processors had gone down by about 9000. I don't have stats > on this other than the actual available from the status pages. Does > anyone have stats over the last year, like numer of pc's and/or > processor types, processor speeds? > > If there would really have been a decrease in participating > processors, (I don't think so) an updated graph of Primenet > throughput would show by now, is there any update in the pipeline? > > I went through the status.txt file to see if the new 'stress test' > button could have played a significant role, I don't think so. By > the way if one runs prime95 without a user name the application > fills in an S00000 as user name. I found 3170 entries with a name > '.' (only a dot) The fast majority of these entries seem to be have > been abandoned. They have been reserved over a long time with a > constant daily flow. Does anyone know more about this? > > YotN, > > Henk Stokhorst > > ____________________________________________________________________ > _____ Unsubscribe & list info -- > http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- > http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers "A programmer is a person who turns coffee into software." Alan R. Vidmar Assistant Director of IT Office of Financial Aid University of Colorado Alan.Vidmar@Colorado.EDU (303)492-3598 *** This message printed with 100% recycled electrons *** _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 12:52:41 -0500 From: Nathan Russell Subject: Re: Mersenne: number of processors participating On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 09:35:40 -0700, "Alan Vidmar" wrote: >Hi all, > >One thing to remember ppl, A LOT of system testers tend to use >Prime95 to test overclocking/cooling. I'm sure that *many* >abandoned assignments are due to this fact. > >Due to this usage (which I don't mind BTW, maybe a few will stay on >and contribute, I did) I suggest that there be a switch added so >that ppl can use Prime95 as a processor test but without ever >getting real assignments, thus slowing down the project. This is already the case as of the latest version, IIRC. Nathan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #897 ******************************