The Lone Mersenne Hunters (LMH) use trial factoring outside the normal range of exponents currently being assigned by PrimeNet in order to eliminate Mersenne numbers as possible Mersenne prime candidates. This work is suited to older and slower processors, often without a direct connection to the internet.
The newer versions of Prime95 allow one to select LMH as a worktype. This option can also be selected from the PrimeNet user's page. Since the upgrade of PrimeNet, it has become easy for a user to obtain a factoring report for a given range and then self-assign the exponents in that range. Alternately, a user can use the manual assignment page to obtain a suitable list of assignments.
Past Methodology
This was done in a breadth-first approach. Each LMHer claimed a range, usually ~1M (1,000,000) in diameter, announcing to trial factor it to a certain bit-depth, e.g. 62 bits. When the whole range is TFed to the announced bit-depth and eventually during the process, the results are emailed to George Woltman and merged into the database.
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