How to Use Prime95: Test Menu

# TEST MENU

##### Applies To

PrimeNet | Continue
User Information | Stop
Vacation or Holiday | Exit
Status |

## PrimeNet

The PrimeNet menu choice lets you configure the type of work you get from the server. The "Use PrimeNet..." option can be turned on to switch from the manual method to the automatic method. The "Request whatever..." box should be left checked. However, if you are running a slow computer and don't mind waiting several months for a single Lucas-Lehmer test to complete OR you are running a faster computer and would rather do factoring, then uncheck this box and choose a different type of work to do. The "Always have at least this many days of work queued up" value should be changed based on how often you connect to the Internet. As long as you connect at least once in the given time period, prime95 will have an uninterrupted stream of work. However, the program will not checkout more than 20 exponents no matter what this value is set at.

## User Information

The User Information menu choice lets you change your name and email address. Your name will be used in credits and "top producers" web pages. Your email address may be used to send you a newsletter once every few months. Select the "Receive occasional newsletters..." checkbox to enable these emails. The userid you use will appear in the status pages on the PrimeNet server. You can also set the ComputerID field if you have several computers and want to keep track of which computers produced which results. You can create a team by choosing the "Create a team..." checkbox. The user name you entered becomes the team name and a message is sent to the server which prevents the team name from changing. Thus, you can handout the userid and password for others to join your team and these team members are not able to accidentally or maliciously change the team name that appears on the statistics page.

## Vacation or Holiday

The Vacation/Holiday menu choice lets prime95 update the expected completion dates on the PrimeNet server. This will prevent one of your exponents from being reassigned while you're gone. Also, if you are taking a long vacation, prime95 will get extra exponents to test. For example, if you are leaving for a 6 week vacation, connect to the Internet and choose 42 days.

## Status

The Status menu choice will tell you what exponents you are working on. It will also estimate how long that will take and your chances of finding a new Mersenne prime.

## Continue

The Continue menu choice lets you resume prime95 after you have stopped it.

## Stop

The Stop menu choice lets you stop the program. When you continue, you will pick up right where you left off. This is the same as hitting the ESC key.