Upgrading Hardware
15 Jan 2006 0:18:23 UTC
Topic 190606
(moderation:
I am getting ready to do a major upgrade on my computer. New motherboard, processor and RAM, so, basically, a whole new system. I plan on moving the hard drives over without installing a new OS. Should I let all of my current work units finish or will it be ok to continue work on them with different hardware? Should I Uninstall BOINC and reinstall on the new hardware or will the project care if this copy of BOINC is suddenly on a new computer? And are there any other problems that I am not thinking of?
Upgrading Hardware
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You should run all your units at present on this system, setting your projects to No New Work. As the hardware change will most probably give you a completely new host ID with a different description. The project's servers will think you have attached a new computer and switched the units over to that, so they won't take them back.
When you are running Windows 2000 or XP, you'd also best prior to switching the harddrives from one computer to the next, change your IDE channels from using what drivers they are set to now, to the Windows standard IDE drivers. That's in Windows under Device Manager.
Then you can power down the computer and change over the drives without having to do a Windows repair install. You can immediately start with installing the drivers for the new motherboard.
You ought to be able to start up BOINC again, run benchmarks and get a new hostID & work without problems.
(this is a Déjà Vu post... didn't I just answer this somewhere else as well? ;))
RE: I am getting ready to
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Brian,
In addition to what Jord has mentioned, if you're on Windows, I'd advise you to have your COA (Certificate of Authorization) ready beforehand, because Microsoft will surely recognize a wholesale hardware change as a new computer, and require re-authorization.
Michael
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
Actually, the program did not
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Actually, the program did not give me a new ID at all. It simply ran new benchmarks and started to download new work. I was informed, however, that once BOINC does run new benchmarks, it will no longer process old workunits. This also happened. I could not complete the CPDN workunit in time, so I experimented with it, and BOINC would not work on it any more.
Oh, and my COA was not necessary. I have Win2k and a university license. Also, I do exactly this kind of thing for a living, and, no offence intended, I wish people had paid more attention to my actual question and not to my hardware upgrade. That went off without a hitch.
Brian