Possible Prime95 bugs

[JuanTutors]

I have prime95 on my laptop running iterations once every 60 seconds. (The reason is I switch work around from one computer to another pretty frequently.) I noticed when I go to stop and/or exit prime95, it doesn't work at all.

Another thing, I'm not completely sure it's writing a save file at all. I have it set to make a save file every 10 minutes on this laptop, but every time I go to restart it restarts atiteration 561295.

I don't know if these are bugs, or if they're just randomly happening on my laptop. Figured I'd report it here instead of the software section.

[Prime95]

Is the directory that prime95 writes its save file to write protected or full? Is there an rXXXXXXX file in there (if so, delete it). Are there any error messages being written to results.txt or prime.log?

[JuanTutors]

Originally Posted by Prime95

Is the directory that prime95 writes its save file to write protected or full? Is there an rXXXXXXX file in there (if so, delete it). Are there any error messages being written to results.txt or prime.log?

I know for certain it's not write protected or ful and that there is no error message. I think there is no rXXXXXXXX file, but I'll check when I see it.

I think this has something to do with the throttle time. If i don't throttle it, It stops exactly when I tell it to. The time it takes to actually stop seems to coincide exactly with the throttle time that I set in prime.ini. I don't know the exact reason why it's not writing a save file unless I go into Test and click Stop.

[Prime95]

OK, I think I understand the situation better now.

Doing 1 iteration every 60 seconds is not worthwhile. It would be better to not run prime95 on this machine.

Throttle is designed for a very short time interval -- milliseconds. The code puts prime95 to sleep for the throttle time, so even stop requests will be ignored until the throttle time expires.

[JuanTutors]

Originally Posted by Prime95

OK, I think I understand the situation better now.

Doing 1 iteration every 60 seconds is not worthwhile. It would be better to not run prime95 on this machine.

Throttle is designed for a very short time interval -- milliseconds. The code puts prime95 to sleep for the throttle time, so even stop requests will be ignored until the throttle time expires.

Gotcha.

I'm just having a fan issue, and want to keep it running at least so it can update the server on occasion and I don't lose work. This is temporary, just for the next few days, maybe 3 more weeks. I didn't know if this was a bug or intentional. Thanks for letting me know.

[S00113]

Originally Posted by dominicanpapi82

I'm just having a fan issue, and want to keep it running at least so it can update the server on occasion and I don't lose work. This is temporary, just for the next few days, maybe 3 more weeks. I didn't know if this was a bug or intentional. Thanks for letting me know.

Regarding fan issues -- would it be possible to include an option in the next version to throttle when the CPU temperature goes above a certain level? I'd like to keep the fan on a laptop from starting, and to keep the CPU at constant temperature to reduce stress from components expanding and shrinking with varying temperature. The option would work similar to the MaxLoad and MinLoad options with PauseTime in milliseconds.

Originally Posted by dominicanpapi82

I have prime95 on my laptop running iterations once every 60 seconds.

Originally Posted by Prime95

Doing 1 iteration every 60 seconds is not worthwhile. It would be better to not run prime95 on this machine.

A quick quantitative analysis on just how unworthwhile 1 iteration per minute is:

There are slightly more than 31.5 million seconds in a year. That's slightly more than half a million minutes per year. At one iteration per minute, a 32,xxx,xxx exponent will take 64-65 years to L-L. Got plans for retirement?

But perhaps you're doublechecking a 17,xxx,xxx exponent -- that'll be in the 34-35-year range. Your career may last that long, but your laptop probably won't.

Exercise for the reader: how much P-1 work can one do at 1 iteration per minute for a year?

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by (cheesehead)

A quick quantitative analysis on just how unworthwhile 1 iteration per minute is:

There are slightly more than 31.5 million seconds in a year. That's slightly more than half a million minutes per year. At one iteration per minute, a 32,xxx,xxx exponent will take 64-65 years to L-L. Got plans for retirement?

But perhaps you're doublechecking a 17,xxx,xxx exponent -- that'll be in the 34-35-year range. Your career may last that long, but your laptop probably won't.

Exercise for the reader: how much P-1 work can one do at 1 iteration per minute for a year?

I believe he meant it runs iterations for 1 second every minute. The time loss would be 60x, still a very high amount, but not in the 65 year range; also, he said that it's just temporary and he's not planning to have it be run as a cruncher full time

[JuanTutors]

I feel like I should reiterate that the reason I'm doing this is a fan issue.

I don't plan on having this laptop for the next few decades, nor do I plan to have it broken for the next few decades, so this arrangement is very temporary.

Granted, it's not as temporary as I was hoping, but it's still temporary.

I still have one computer that I'm running at 140ms/iteration and another which I'm running two copies each at 65ms/iteration.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

he said that it's just temporary and he's not planning to have it be run as a cruncher full time

True, so I really shouldn't have butted in. After all, I'm the one who's argued against poaching by pointing out that it's better to have the contribution of even slow computers than not to have them (101 units per day > 100 units per day).

I believe he meant it runs iterations for 1 second every minute.

If he's using the Throttle=n line in prime.ini, then "n is the number of milliseconds to sleep after each iteration", so I imagined he has something like Throttle=60000, and there's only one iteration per minute.