Got an e-mail the other day from World Community Grid saying they’re on android now, and also note Einstein@home have also.
Just downloaded the Berkeley BOINC client onto my Nexus 7 and got some WCG units on it. This offered Fight Aids at Home units which are looking like around 3 hours each. Options seem set to use 2 cores, where I have 4. CPU-Z reports they’re going at 1.2 GHz while crunching with a top speed of 1.3 GHz (maybe when only single core in use?). Even with this running, the tablet hardly gets warm. It gets warmer than that playing various games on it. I might try putting all 4 cores on later.
While I don’t expect this to do as much work/time as a PC would, I have to wonder what the work/power ratio would work out to be?
interested in the same stuff at the moment, many low power, lower speed cores versus a juice munching Intel or AMD beastie - here’s hoping the host stats will tell the story in a few weeks time
I was debating this on my Smartphone. While I’m all for crunching, I think the hit to battery life might put a quick stop to this. My battery will last a couple days on light use, and 8 hours on very heavy use (pinball arcade… ). If it was crunching 24/7, I suspect I’d have to have it plugged in to the wall 24/7.
I’m using the official BOINC client. There are others available but I have no experience of them, so they may work differently than what I’m about to describe.
The official client is set by default to only crunch when plugged into power, and the battery charge is above 90%. I presume this is to let it recharge quickly, without the user worrying about battery life. Of course, this does mean you wont get any work done while not plugged in. The way they describe it is that you may, for example, charge it overnight so you can get some hours in then. In theory there should be no hit on battery life this way. If you want to run while on battery, you can configure it to do so. Similarly it will only transfer data over wifi not mobile data so shouldn’t eat into what is usually a more expensive allocation, unless again you configure it to do so.
Anyway, the first two units have completed and did take around 3 hours. I then set it to run on 4 cores and CPU-Z doesn’t report any drop in running frequency, so maybe I’ll get double the throughput. It does feel slightly warmer.
I tried to measure the power consumption with limited success. By connecting it up to a power supply at 5V I can monitor the current over the USB port. It was taking about 2.6W while crunching, and HIGHER than that when I suspended it. Don’t know what it was doing… I then noticed the battery charge was dropping. Basically my dumb simulated USB power supply wasn’t giving it enough juice. I connected it back to a dedicated USB charger, and saw it creeping up in charge once again. Note the USB standard allows higher currents from dedicated chargers, so maybe I have to fool it into thinking my test charger is one. Anyway, roughly speaking the power usage is probably somewhere in the 3 to 4W ball park. I’ll see if I can refine this later.
Stopped on WCG now. I’m sure the number of crunched units doesn’t match the results on their site, even allowing time for them to filter through since they only appear to update twice daily. And as they don’t have the standard boinc stats on their site I can’t check the individual units.
Trying some Einstein@home units now. Currently estimate they need almost a day each. Running 4 does make the tablet noticeably less responsive than normal. Going to 2 cores helped a little with responsiveness, but for now I’ll leave it on 4 and once this set is done I don’t think I’ll get more.
There are other projects listed on the list but I haven’t considered any of those yet.
I’m crunching on a Galaxy S5 mini, doing SETI and Einstein. I put it on the charger at night and let it work away, and again when I am at the desk at work. It adds a few WU’s to the pile, and as a bonus my phone is always charged now! Notgoing to stop me getting totally :stomp: by Dave S though :hail:
The only down side I can see, is with battery health. Like any battery device if you leave it permanently plugged in, you can effectively “cook” the battery reducing its effective life in the process. Might not be a good idea unless you can remove the battery and just run it on the charger instead overnight. Never tried this so I’ve no idea if it’s feasible.
). If it was crunching 24/7, I suspect I’d have to have it plugged in to the wall 24/7.