Why did my test back up 15%??

[petrw1]

Last night my LL test was 99.6% (yes almost done).
Overnight Windows applied some updates and restarted the computer.
This morning the test restarted at 84.7%.

What would cause this to happen?

"In a related news story" ... my very first LL test 11 years ago was at 99.98% done when my son crashed the computer very quickly by running a program that gobbled up all the memory in an instant. This test restarted at the very beginning. :-(

Is there a setting I have wrong?
Maybe one of these?

Minutes between disk writes: 30
Iterations between results file outputs: 999999999

[rogue]

Originally Posted by petrw1

Last night my LL test was 99.6% (yes almost done).
Overnight Windows applied some updates and restarted the computer.
This morning the test restarted at 84.7%.

I would suggest that you configure automatic updates to not download and install automatically, but to warn you so that you can choose when you install. This has screwed me on more than one occasion, especially when I am away on vacation.

[retina]

Originally Posted by rogue

I would suggest that you configure automatic updates to not download and install automatically, but to warn you so that you can choose when you install. This has screwed me on more than one occasion, especially when I am away on vacation.

I'm not quite sure this will help the problem mention by the OP. No matter when the Auto-updates are applied, when the test starts again it will back up by some amount. whether that be from 99% --> 84% or 36% --> 21% there is still a significant loss.

Although now that I seem to have flamed rogue, I can not come up with a suitable solution either. So feel free to flame me also.

[Brian-E]

As a Linux-user who knows nothing about the strange world of Microsoft I may be missing vital points here or merely stating something which is too obvious to bother with, BUT:

do you make regular backups of your data- and config files so that whenever something goes wrong you can restart from a point not too long ago?

[rogue]

Originally Posted by retina

I'm not quite sure this will help the problem mention by the OP. No matter when the Auto-updates are applied, when the test starts again it will back up by some amount. whether that be from 99% --> 84% or 36% --> 21% there is still a significant loss.

Although now that I seem to have flamed rogue, I can not come up with a suitable solution either. So feel free to flame me also.

I was implying that by having control that one could stop the test manually, which should write the checkpoint, then after applying the updates and rebooting, one hasn't lost work.

BTW, I never read a flame into your post, so no harm done.

[petrw1]

My question was more centered around: "Is there anything in Prime95 that could cause this to happen (such, as a suspicious residue that would cause it to back up to more reliable place) ... or was it definitely something on my machine compliments Bill Gates (such as, Windows deciding to restore the PC to an earlier Restore Point)?"

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by petrw1

My question was more centered around: "Is there anything in Prime95 that could cause this to happen (such, as a suspicious residue that would cause it to back up to more reliable place) ... or was it definitely something on my machine compliments Bill Gates (such as, Windows deciding to restore the PC to an earlier Restore Point)?"

Considering it went back far more than would be done in 30 or 60 minutes (with 30 minute backups and two files, it could revert to one of these if it detected an error, but it doesn't keep records further than 60 minutes back), I'd say it wasn't some Prime95 feature and was instead something Windows was doing or something else strange.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by petrw1

Last night my LL test was 99.6% (yes almost done).
Overnight Windows applied some updates and restarted the computer.
This morning the test restarted at 84.7%.

In our responses, we seem to be assuming, without its having been explicitly stated, that this 15% step back represents more than 60 minutes of test time. So let me ask specifically: what was the exponent (approximately) and how long would that LL test normally have taken (approximately)?

my very first LL test 11 years ago was at 99.98% done when my son crashed the computer very quickly by running a program that gobbled up all the memory in an instant. This test restarted at the very beginning.

That could have been due to either (a) failure of Prime95 to write save files, for one of several reasons, or (b) destruction of existing Prime95 save files, perhaps related to the reason for the system crash.

=> => Now, this also suggests a possibility for your more recent 15% setback: If, after the 84.7% point, something (such as the disk filling up) caused Prime95 not to be able to write any later save files, then that would account for what you observed! I.e., even if Prime95 shut down (when Windows notified it to shut down after the updates) and restarted (after the system started back up) in entirely normal fashion, it could restart only from its most recent save file, no matter how old (such as at the 84.7% point) that was.

Originally Posted by petrw1

(such as, Windows deciding to restore the PC to an earlier Restore Point)?"

AFAIK, System Restore doesn't save or restore non-system data files such as the Prime95 save files. I don't think there's any way that going to an earlier Restore Point could cause an LL test to restart at any point earlier than your oldest Prime95 save file.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

AFAIK, System Restore doesn't save or restore non-system data files such as the Prime95 save files. I don't think there's any way that going to an earlier Restore Point could cause an LL test to restart at any point earlier than your oldest Prime95 save file.

But if all your Prime95 files are stored under C:\Program Files, then won't Windows consider them "system files" and thus part of what System Restore will mess with?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

But if all your Prime95 files are stored under C:\Program Files, then won't Windows consider them "system files" and thus part of what System Restore will mess with?

You may be right. I never put Prime95 in that folder, so I may be confusing the causes, not to mention forgetting how untypical my setup is.

[petrw1]

My system is a 2.4Ghz P4 processing exponents 24X365 at the leading end (42M). It completes about 1.7% per day ... less than 0.05% per half-hour (my Primenet backup interval).

My system is slow to load applications with lots of disk thrashing. I think it is becase I have about 2GB free on a 30GB drive. The CPU and memory continue to perform near benchmark rates.

Even if it is lower than optimum, 2GB is more than enough for Prime95 to save results files and as far as I know it has never failed to do so.

The Prime95 folder IS in C:\Program Files\ ... maybe NOT a good plan.

My system has FarStone installed to manage System Restore Points.