Downloads make the computer freeze, though they all complete eventually after a few re-starts.

So far, I have only seen this happen with BOINC. I will try downloading some files via a browser to see if I can make it happen but

http://climateapps2.oerc.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/show_host_detail.php?hostid=1384830 This box often freezes during the download of new tasks requiring reboot by pressing power switch till it turns off. The last time it happened about 8 of the one month tasks were downloading at once (from the testing site) but it happens with main site too.

On Friday I am going away from internet access for a couple of weeks so have set all my machines for no new tasks till I return. I will try restricting the bandwidth of downloads for BOINC then to see if it makes a difference. Will also see if it is possible to restrict the number of concurrent downloads in config.xml

Irrespective of whether these measures work or not I am interested to know if anyone else has experienced this and why it happens. Only hints I have seen via Google are to do with large amounts of disk activity, so might try suspending computation during downloads though this would not be a final solution as I don't want to have to micro manage downloads for main site all the time.

I haven't had that precise problem but have acquired about 60 of the new EU batch on a machine that is restricted to only 2 out of 4 processors. Presumably if it was running at 4/4 then there would be over 100 tasks in my buffer; these are not even all one month tasks. (Some AFR mopping up may have skewed things too.)

So I wonder whether the compute estimate is awry somewhere and your download problems are an indirect consequence, amplified by being one monthers.

Perhaps keep a smaller buffer.
My prefs are set to only get what I need at that moment. That way I don't have the potential of losing net allocation time if for some reason a bunch of data sets that I have sitting there gets cancelled. And there's so much work available, that I don't feel that it's necessary to stockpile enough to last for several weeks.

(Although I keep getting extra up/down load time for "being a good customer". :) )

Thanks, box in question is actually Linux using WINE. Over half the tasks were aborted by the project before they actually started running. The three from a different batch have all produced one zip which isn't going at the moment but hey ho! As I say, once I have some time I will attempt some diagnostics to see if I can reproduce the freezing problem outside of using BOINC. Most of the time that is all the machine is used for.