Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10,gigadigit LL?
-Original Message- From: Russel Brooks [EMAIL PROTECTED] How about a Prime95 option where it makes a daily backup for you, saved to a datestamp fileid? It could save them to a subdirectory with the exponent name. That would make it easy for the user to do a cleanup occasionally. There is already a feature which does effectively the same thing. Set 'InterimFiles=100' in prime.ini and it will write a save file in the working directory with a sequential extension every million iterations (or however often you set it). You must manually edit the prime.ini file, it's not a menu option. It's still a good idea to back up the savefile to some other medium every so often in case you lose your whole hard drive. Regards, Steve Harris _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10,gigadigit LL?
Steve Harris wrote: There is already a feature which does effectively the same thing. Set 'InterimFiles=100' in prime.ini and it will write a save file in the working directory with a sequential extension every million iterations (or however often you set it). You must manually edit the prime.ini file, it's not a menu option. Maybe we could have another option, InterimKeep=x or such, that only the last x files are kept? Does Prime95 delete the interim files after successfully completing an exponent? If not, that might be enabled with another option, or by some logic that cleans up files in excess of InterimKeep even if they are of a previous exponent. This should keep disk space usage unter control while allowing a good chance of backtracking to a good residue in case of an error. Alex _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10,gigadigit LL?
On 14 Feb 2002, at 0:47, Russel Brooks wrote: George Woltman wrote: ***NOTE: There is an important lesson to be learned here. All testers of 10M digit numbers should backup their save files regularly!! You don't want a hardware glitch, disk crash, etc. cause you to loose months of work. How about a Prime95 option where it makes a daily backup for you, saved to a datestamp fileid? It could save them to a subdirectory with the exponent name. That would make it easy for the user to do a cleanup occasionally. Look up InterimFiles in undoc.txt This is a highly convenient method of getting backups. It's also easy enough to have a scheduled daily job move these checkpoint files to an archive directory throw away the oldest ones just leaving the last N. Well it's trivial on a linux system, I guess it's easy enough on a windoze system - especially if you already have a task scheduler running (e.g. because you installed Norton Antivirus). Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10 gigadigit LL?
On 13 Feb 2002, at 16:39, George Woltman wrote: ***NOTE: There is an important lesson to be learned here. All testers of 10M digit numbers should backup their save files regularly!! You don't want a hardware glitch, disk crash, etc. cause you to loose months of work. Same applies to LL tests, or even DC assignments, running on slow systems - these can take months too. Is there _ever_ an excuse for _not_ backing up recently created / modified files - which obviously includes Prime95/mprime save files? Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10,gigadigit LL?
Steve Harris wrote: From: Russel Brooks [EMAIL PROTECTED] How about a Prime95 option where it makes a daily backup for you, There is already a feature which does effectively the same thing. Set 'InterimFiles=100' in prime.ini and it will write a save file in the working directory with a sequential extension every million iterations (or however often you set it). You must manually edit the prime.ini file, it's not a menu option. Thanks Steve, I'll give it a try. Cheers... Russ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10 gigadigit LL?
Hi, At 09:44 PM 2/12/2002 -0800, Gerry Snyder wrote: I was seeing a bunch of suminputs != sumoutputs, and after rebooting, the errors switched to round off [4] 0.40 Was I just unlucky about timing, with only about 0.3% left? Dang. That is unlucky. Looks like a hardware problem. Is the CPU overheating? Get motherboard monitor or similar program to find out. Did a fan go bad? Did airflow in the cabinet get reduced considerably? Did a memory chip go bad? Did the power supply go bad (insufficient voltages can cause this)? Or did my stupid PC just decide to take now to blow it? As far as I know, the previous part of the LL was trouble-free. W98, Prime95 V2 21.2.1. 1.3 GHz P4, 384 MB RAM Or You could have tripped over a bug in v21.2. This was a beta version of prime95 and whatsnew.txt for 21.3 states: A bug was fixed in the error recovery code. After getting a Disregard last error message, the user was treated to a new error on every iteration. The end result was incorrect. The bug only affected the error recovery of the new P4 FFT introduced in the beta version 21.2. I'm pretty sure I notified this list about the problem urging P4 users to upgrade to v21.3. I am bummed. I would be too. I hope you have a recent backup of the save file before this mess started. Thanks for advice or condolences. Condolences. Upgrade to v21.5. If you have a backup of the save file restore it. Run a torture test for several hours. Then resume the computation using the restored save file. ***NOTE: There is an important lesson to be learned here. All testers of 10M digit numbers should backup their save files regularly!! You don't want a hardware glitch, disk crash, etc. cause you to loose months of work. Sorry, George _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10,gigadigit LL?
George Woltman wrote: ***NOTE: There is an important lesson to be learned here. All testers of 10M digit numbers should backup their save files regularly!! You don't want a hardware glitch, disk crash, etc. cause you to loose months of work. How about a Prime95 option where it makes a daily backup for you, saved to a datestamp fileid? It could save them to a subdirectory with the exponent name. That would make it easy for the user to do a cleanup occasionally. Cheers... Russ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Are problems more likely in the last 1% of a 10 gigadigit LL?
HELP! Until this evening I was expecting to see my first result from a LL test on a 10,000,000-digit Mersenne number tomorrow morning. When I got home from dinner tonight I was seeing a bunch of suminputs != sumoutputs, and after rebooting, the errors switched to round off [4] 0.40 Was I just unlucky about timing, with only about 0.3% left, or is there something systematic that could cause this, or any other guesses? Or did my stupid PC just decide to take now to blow it? As far as I know, the previous part of the LL was trouble-free. W98, Prime95 V2 21.2.1. 1.3 GHz P4, 384 MB RAM I am bummed. Any guess--RAM, CPU, Thanks for advice or condolences. Gerry -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gerry Snyder, AIS Director Symposium Chair, Region 15 RVP Member San Fernando Valley, Southern California Iris Societies in warm, winterless Los Angeles--USDA 9b-ish, Sunset 18-19 my work: helping generate data for: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/ _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
