1 - Yes, but you can configure BOINC to run while ou are using the computer, which what many do without any performance loss.

2 - Honestly, I don't know but after the initial download, most downloads are very small and only last a few seconds. Uploads also only last a few seconds.

3 - Yes if you enable LAIM (Leave Applications in Memory While Suspended) tasks will remain in the memory. No it is not possible to have the application write to disk (checkpoint) when crunching stops. Checkpoints are usually short, except for CEP 2 and the FAHV applications.

Tell them that the WCG BOINC software is certified by IBM. I have never heard of any hacking attempts through BOINC.

2. Your network will pause the same as your CPU work does unless you have gone to Activity and changed the Network Activity to always available.

3. If LAIM is not enabled, you will lose all your progress from the last check point as BOINC stops the app and clears the memory. The apps will then start again when the computer is in idle and meets the time duration you have set in your preferences (default is 3 minutes). Checkpoints are when the app saves its progress to the Hard Drive. It is like a video games save point. Not all applications in BOINC (notice I didn't say WCG) have checkpointing capabilities. Some applications only checkpoint after really long periods of time like CEP2. You can control this to some degree by telling BOINC to write to disk at most after x amount of minutes, but you can't force applications to check point.

However, you can kind of get around this if you are running a virtual machine by setting your virtual machine up to take snapshots. But that is a whole other discussion.

I was unable to find an area named Activity and under Network Usage I didn't find an option called "always available" See screen capture below.



Also, what does "Disconnect when done" mean?

Hi i_am_jim,


If you open the BOINC Manager on your PC, there is a menu bar at the top that has an option for "Activity".

"Confirm before connecting" and "Disconnect when done" apply to intermittent network connections like a dial up connection. Most of us have connections that are always available now so that option is ignored.

"Allow research to run on my CPU?" goes along with "Do work on my graphics card while computer is in use". If you are attached to a project that has both CPU tasks and GPU (graphics card) tasks, you can pick either or both to run on your machine.

"Stop work after computer is idle for -- minutes" is an odd one. IIRC, it was there so that BOINC work would stop after there was no keyboard/mouse activity for -- minutes which would allow a computer to go to sleep. I did a quick search and couldn't find anything. That option may have been deprecated in current versions of BOINC.

Here is a link to a page that describes current options: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/preferences

Hope that helps.