Question about reserving and unreserving GIMPS exponents

[jasong]

Sorry if this has been answered before, sometimes people give me obvious search terms which I never thought of:

Anyway...

If I get a GIMPS exponent, immediately put it on hold so I can use the Prime95 feature that says about how long it will take, and then decide it's too big and unreserve it: Is that a problem for the project?

Put another way, if I unreserve an exponent, does it immediately go back into rotation, or does it go into some sort of NO MAN'S LAND where it sits for a long time.

I'm sorry that I can't ask this more succinctly, I hope you guys understand my question.

[moo]

Well it doesnt matter if you get a big one or a small one the points are adjusted based on the size of the number. Also it would be better if you just did the exponet or mabey you should be doing retesting.

[thechickenman]

Originally Posted by jasong

Sorry if this has been answered before, sometimes people give me obvious search terms which I never thought of:

Anyway...

If I get a GIMPS exponent, immediately put it on hold so I can use the Prime95 feature that says about how long it will take, and then decide it's too big and unreserve it: Is that a problem for the project?

Put another way, if I unreserve an exponent, does it immediately go back into rotation, or does it go into some sort of NO MAN'S LAND where it sits for a long time.

I'm sorry that I can't ask this more succinctly, I hope you guys understand my question.

All first-tiem tests are roughly the same size. If these times are longer than your patience (no shame here, they are for me too!), you cna run double-checks, which a reasonable computer can do in about a week, or trial-factorings, which take about a day each. The drawback is, double-checks give you a pretty much nil chance of finding a prime, and factoring gives you zero chance... but them's the breaks.

[PhilF]

Originally Posted by jasong

Put another way, if I unreserve an exponent, does it immediately go back into rotation, or does it go into some sort of NO MAN'S LAND where it sits for a long time.

The answer to this question is yes, it does immediately go back into the pool of available exponents. If you want to unreserve an exponent for any reason, it does not do any harm to the project in any way.

[jasong]

Originally Posted by thechickenman

...You cna run double-checks, which a reasonable computer can do in about a week, or trial-factorings, which take about a day each. The drawback is, double-checks give you a pretty much nil chance of finding a prime, and factoring gives you zero chance... but them's the breaks.

I don't know about that nil chance. You have to figure in the fact that the double checks are faster, so you have more chances. And if double checks fall far enough behind, and the error rate is high enough, double checks might have better odds of finding a prime. When the project Seventeen or Bust first started their forced double-check awhile back, the odds went up for awhile.

Strange but true.