Getting Started

Quick start:

  1. Read the Rules and Policies
  2. Download, install, and run the BOINC client software.
  3. When prompted, enter this URL: http://www.nanohive-1.org/atHome/  
    (Note the capital "H" in /atHome/)

For more detailed information about participating in BOINC projects, see this Participating in BOINC Projects guide.

If you encounter any problems or issues while setting up or running the software, please take advantage of the Questions and Answers forum. For discussion of all aspects of NanoHive@Home, and to report bugs during beta testing, visit the Message Boards.

And here's the FAQ.

System Requirements

Windows

  • OS version
    • Microsoft Windows XP Professional or Home Edition (Service Pack 1 or 2)
    • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
    • Windows Server 2003
    • Windows 2000 (Service Pack 2)
    • Windows NT (Service Pack 6 or 6a)
  • 128 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended)
  • Up to 100 MB of available hard drive space
Support for earlier versions of Windows is in the works.

Mac

The client application for this OS is in development.

Linux

The client application for this OS is in development.

Solaris

A client application for this OS is planned.

Project Characteristics

Client application size  4 MB download, expanding to 20 MB on the hard drive
WU and results size WUs are around 10 KB, expanding to 20 KB
Results (for uploade) are around 200 KB
WU processing timeWUs can take between 40 minutes and 140 hours to compute. This wildly varying time is intrinsic to the search algorithm in our quantum mechanics software.
WU deadlines9-12 days, depending on the WU
Credit determinationQuorums of two and three will be used (depending on the simulation) and granted credit will be calculated as follows depending on the number and validity of results:
  • Two valid results - the canonical credit is the average of the two valid claims and is granted to the two valid claimants. All other claimants who made reasonable attempts at calculating the WU will get their claim, up to the canonical credit.
  • Three or more valid results - the lowest and highest claim is thrown out and the canonical credit is the average of the remaining claims. The valid claimants get the canonical credit. All other claimants who made reasonable attempts at calculating the WU will get their claim, up to the canonical credit.
  • All invalid results - the lowest and highest Successful (non-Error) claim is thrown out and the canonical credit is the average of the remaining Successful claims. All claimants who made reasonable attempts at calculating the WU will get their claim, up to the canonical credit.
Scripts detect and correct both over-claimage and under/zero-claimage.
  • Credit is granted for WU calculation attempts that fail due to client application errors.
Occasionally, WUs don't finish due to internal criteria failing to be met, and they error-out. This is normal, and the scripts will grant credit for those WUs. We don't return a success status for those, even though they've finished "normally" so that the BOINC mechanism can issue the WU to another participant in hopes that they will be able to finish the WU with all criteria met.

Beta Testing Guidelines

If you detect an issue, either a WU processing error, or problem with the website, or anything else that looks wrong, please post a description of it in an appropriate thread in the Beta test feedback forum. To make the Results page a little easier to read, on the "Your account" page, under the "Work done" section, you'll now find a little "+" link next to the "View" link for results. This opens a page with a results table that stretches out to the full width of the window, and highlights "Client error" outcomes in red. It also shows 50 results at a time instead of 20.

WU Processing-Error Posting

While our monitoring software shows every error that your BOINC Manager reports, it doesn't give us what happened leading up to the error, so posting a bit of context often helps. If you see a WU processing error that doesn't look like it's already been reported, or you have some different looking Messages tab entries for it, please post around twenty lines of Messages tab entries, with the error in the middle. This gives lots of context wrt what was going on at the time of the error. If you get what looks like the same error again, you don't need to post it.