The inevitable introduction.

[Coaltar]

Guess it's time I introduce myself, having joined a few days ago.

I've been hanging out in the IRC channel so I've talked to a few of you already.

Anyway, I'm not new to crunching; been at it off and on (mostly off) since 1999. If you peek at my stats you'll notice I don't have any big numbers. I've picked it up again though and I'm gonna stick with it.

About myself, I'm on Whidbey Island in Washington state, 39 years old, where myself girlfriend and I live together.

As for what I run, I've currently got 5 machines and 6 devices crunching. All CPU though, no GPUs for the time being. All but one of the machines are pretty old. 3 of them are laptops, one is a netbook, and one is a desktop. The only modern one I've got is my main machine (laptop) that I allow to crunch as much as it can if I'm not doing something else that requires the resources (such as gaming or whatever). It's a gaming spec laptop and has some pretty nice hardware. The i7-4700 CPU accomplishes more crunching than all the other systems combined I think.

As for the devices, there are 3 retired phones and 2 retired tablets. The one other phone is my actual phone that I just let crunch whenever it can.

Out of all of the crunchers, 2 laptops are crunching dedicated, the netbook is dedicated, and the desktop is dedicated. Of the devices, they are all crunching dedicated except for my main phone, and even then it's crunching most the time, as is my main machine.

As for my history in teams, I don't really have one. Always been solo mostly. Before joining SETI.USA I was with USA for about 2 days or so. Decided SETI.USA was more appealing to me. Before that though, I was either solo or sitting alone in an old team I created years ago that never took off (my own fault). I have since disbanded that team.

As for projects, currently I am solely focused on SETI@home across all machines and devices. I just recently switched over from crunching on Universe@home. I moved over to SETI@home when U@H ran out of android WUs. I think I'll stick to SETI for a bit. The other projects I've worked on are Asteroids@home, Cosmology@home, Einstein@home, MilkyWay@home, and the SkyNet pogs. I of course always run WUProp@home regardless.

I refuse to run any mining or mathematical based projects, such as BitCoin Utopia and Collatz. I have my reasons.

Well I guess that about sums it up. Not sure what else to add. Hope to see you all in IRC for those of you that go there.

[John P. Myers]

Welcome to the forums. Glad to have you around

[Cruncher Pete]

Thank you Coaltar for your introduction. I am sure a lot of the team members can relate to that of your experiance. Make yourself home, glad to have you with us.

Keep on crunching and have a nice day...

[Bryan]

Welcome aboard and it is nice of you to join us. The one nice thing about BOINC is there is something appealing to everyone. It is great that you can find something that you are interested in and willing to help their proejct. With your experience I doubt there is anything that we can help you with, but if questions do arise please feel free to give a holler.

[Al]

Welcome! The nice thing about this team is we offer a lot of direction without expecting anyone to follow it. :) Crunch what you want and when you need help or just some conversation someone is usually home. Like you, I'm never happier than when I'm crunching a science project but, alas, I do fall prey to badges. ;) Welcome to SUSA.

[Mike029]

I'm sure most of us have had a similar path in this hobby. Welcome to the team and give a shout if you need anything.

[cineon_lut]

Welcome to the team! Thanks for joining. We're the crunch what you want team so you've come to the right place! Never been a fan of the number-game projects either, but my inner badge-whore and credit-whore gets the better of me sometimes :))

I gotta get back on IRC...it's been a while for me. Is that bot Jimbo still there?

[Dave gpu]

Hi Coaltar and Welcome to the forum, a great bunch of crunchers hear. GPUs are a good thing :)) just joking. and lots of help with anything computer is just a tap away

[Duke of Buckingham]

Welcome Coaltar
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BvPa6A-VWCg/VtlNiVVe0NI/AAAAAAAAAR8/6pHIXR6hE0s/s320/welcome_thumb_tacks_1600_clr_9661.png

[Coaltar]

Thanks for all the welcomes so far, really appreciate it.


Like you, I'm never happier than when I'm crunching a science project but, alas, I do fall prey to badges.


Never been a fan of the number-game projects either, but my inner badge-whore and credit-whore gets the better of me sometimes :))

I'm one of those that doesn't care about the credits and badges. Same with achievements in gaming haha. I do realize that not participating in those projects, due to the severe credit inflation, it makes one look like they are hardly doing anything and/or contributing at all. It's okay though, my name doesn't need to be at the top of any lists/stats; I'm perfectly fine with that.


I gotta get back on IRC...it's been a while for me. Is that bot Jimbo still there?

Yep. :) jimbojones is in there.

[Coaltar]

GPUs are a good thing :)) just joking.

Oh, and since I first posted I decided to let two of my machines do GPU work that are capable. I typically don't like these two running GPU work. One is my desktop, it has an on-board nvidia 8100/8200/8300 series. It's old and doesn't crunch very fast, but it's something I guess. When I've crunched with it in the past after a while, Windows started to get wonky. That was some time ago though and now with up-to-date drivers and what not I thought I'd give it a go.

As for the other, it's my main computer; a laptop. It's the gaming-spec laptop and has two GPUs. One is the "on-board" Intel 4600 and the other is a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M with 1GB dedicated memory. This one crunches pretty nicely. Reason I don't typically like to let it crunch is heat, and because I do occasionally game on this system. But lately my gaming habits have been pretty mild so I'm letting it crunch in the background. The system uses the Intel GPU for everything except when you run something graphically intensive via DirectX/OpenGL/etc so it's great it doesn't affect Windows performance or other normal apps at all. I've been keeping an eye on it and it's not generating too much more heat than just the CPU alone, temps are far into the safe range. I've noticed with nvidia inspector it isn't even hitting full load, hanging out at around the 70% area. So, so far so good. If I do need that GPU for other purposes it's simple enough to just suspend it. The Intel GPU is capable of crunching also but I'd rather not. I have let it in the past but I don't want it sucking up more system resources and generating more heat.

[Justgeo1]

Coaltar, I started out on SETI@HOME years ago... I think it was on a 486 or an early Pentium... then I got into World Community Grid for a bit... Now I crunch a few different things... some of it is team related and others just sound interesting. As you can see from my sig, I don't do huge numbers, but I keep plugging way! :)

[shiva]

welcome aboard coaltar good to see you here

[cineon_lut]

There's one step missing, we don't see the SUSA logo near Coaltar's name. He won't be able to post in team-only topics until that's there.

[c303a]

Welcome aboard and don't be a stranger.

[Dave gpu]

Oh, and since I first posted I decided to let two of my machines do GPU work that are capable. I typically don't like these two running GPU work. One is my desktop, it has an on-board nvidia 8100/8200/8300 series. It's old and doesn't crunch very fast, but it's something I guess. When I've crunched with it in the past after a while, Windows started to get wonky. That was some time ago though and now with up-to-date drivers and what not I thought I'd give it a go.

As for the other, it's my main computer; a laptop. It's the gaming-spec laptop and has two GPUs. One is the "on-board" Intel 4600 and the other is a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M with 1GB dedicated memory. This one crunches pretty nicely. Reason I don't typically like to let it crunch is heat, and because I do occasionally game on this system. But lately my gaming habits have been pretty mild so I'm letting it crunch in the background. The system uses the Intel GPU for everything except when you run something graphically intensive via DirectX/OpenGL/etc so it's great it doesn't affect Windows performance or other normal apps at all. I've been keeping an eye on it and it's not generating too much more heat than just the CPU alone, temps are far into the safe range. I've noticed with nvidia inspector it isn't even hitting full load, hanging out at around the 70% area. So, so far so good. If I do need that GPU for other purposes it's simple enough to just suspend it. The Intel GPU is capable of crunching also but I'd rather not. I have let it in the past but I don't want it sucking up more system resources and generating more heat.

You're the man, I just love the smell of hot GPU's =))

[Coaltar]

There's one step missing, we don't see the SUSA logo near Coaltar's name. He won't be able to post in team-only topics until that's there.

All taken care of. :)

[cineon_lut]

All taken care of. :)

Welcome to SETI.USA sir! :) :-bd

[dcushing]

Ill send U a couple of nvidia 460 Gpu's in May, that should keep U busy for awhile!



<--- Creo Cat, I mess with his mind... alot!

[Coaltar]

Ill send U a couple of nvidia 460 Gpu's in May, that should keep U busy for awhile!

I look forward to it!

[John P. Myers]

Creo Cat needs a fresh beer...