I'm recently started running BIONIC with three projects running: Rosetta, bionicsimap and climateprediction. I'm running on a laptop so I have set in the preferences that a maximum of 80% CPU can be used (to avoid over heating), however I only seem to use an average of 20%. First I thought I must have specified to leave 80% free but I have double checked the preferences and it definately says 'Use a maximum of XX%'

Any ideads would be welcome as it feels like I am wasting lots of crunching power here!

Thanks!

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Firstly, the setting is not used unless you have version 5.6 (beta) or higher of the Boinc Manager.

How much memory does your laptop have?

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I'm running BIONIC version 5.4.11 so I guess my 80% setting in preferences has no effect!

My laptop is an IBM thinkpad with Intel Pentium M processor 2.00GHz and 1GB RAM, I'm running XP.

When I look in process manager then my big memory users are:
Iexplore.exe 27000kB
Winword.exe 35000kB
BIONIC 36000kB
Desktop Weather 40000kB !!
F-secure 25000kB
Winlogon 31000kB
ISUSPM.exe 30000kb ??

So I guess the obvious thing to do is uninstall desktop weather.

As for CPU time Idle is around 70%, BIONIC around 20% and the last 10% is a whole load of small tasks

Hope this helps!

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If these are your biggest memory users, then your 1 GB RAM must be at least 1/2 free (or at most 1/2 full, choose what you want), I think no need to uninstall any of your apps. What is your Avaliable Physical Memory (as seen in Task Manager's Performance tab)? And, does BOINC consume these 20%, or any of your project's apps?

Peter

Sorry for a slow reply I've been away a couple of days.

Under the task manager I get the following results (I hope the translations are OK)

Physical Memeory (kB)
Total: 1046896
Available: 276480
System Cache: 437956

Allocated Memory (kB)
Total: 574988
Limit: 11185364
Top: 819120

Kernel Momory (kB)
Total: 85396
exchanged: 61612
un-exchanged: 23784

By totalling all the tasks under processes tab (not just the large ones) I get 656448kB.

Not sure if any of this info helps with a diagnosis, otherwise I'll keep crunching away at 20%...look like my climate prediction deadline of 2008 is looking doubtful!

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
/neil

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With 1 GB of RAM and approx. 10 GB swap space, totalling the memory consumption of all running processes to 650 MB, you have many plenty of free memory (both real and virtual) available. Moch more than I expected.

As you are running BOINC version 5.4.11, the % of CPU really do not apply, so I'd like to know what do you exactly mean with "however I only seem to use an average of 20% (CPU) [....] As for CPU time Idle is around 70%, BIONIC around 20% and the last 10% is a whole load of small tasks". Do you really see boinc.exe (or boincmgr.exe) constantly consuming these 20% of CPU? Or any scientific application executable (Rosetta, SIMAP, CPDN) running on behalf of Boinc?

I could only imagine any Boinc application taking 20% of CPU if the system would be under heavy I/O, like constantly swapping to HD running in PIO mode instead of DMA, but I doubt the Idle would be getting 70% and you have plenty of memory available anyway. Could you please point me to your CPDN/Rosetta/SIMAP hostid? Maybe I'll get any idea then...

Peter

The Bionic.exe proram file is using 0% of CPU and 6000kb memory, the scientific program (currently climate change) is using 19% of CPU and 67000kb memory, idle is using 70-80% CPU and 28kb memory.

I'm not really sure what you mean with host id, is that computer id? If so the computer ID's for my projects are:

Rosseta 307324
SIMAP 41959
Climate Prediction 480884
uFluids 29572

regards,
Neil

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I'm not really sure what you mean with host id, is that computer id?

Yes, exactly. Thanks. P-M 2GHz, benchmark values look well.

Rosseta - 3 hours for result, the second one crunched in 2 runs and the first one in at least 7 runs... what's your switching interval between applications? Did the 20%CPU problem happen already at the beginning, or some time later?

SIMAP - only one result there, run-time 3 hours, run in four parts - looks well for default 1 hour switch time?

Climate Prediction & uFluids - no results yet, no idea :-(

...the scientific program (currently climate change) is using 19% of CPU and 67000kb memory, idle is using 70-80% CPU...

Weird. If you're not using something like Threadmaster or the new Boinc beta versions, then I have no ideas.

Maybe one idea - in the Task Manager (English version, you'll find it in your), it is possible to set the window refresh speed (View / Update Speed) to High (1/2 second). Please do this and select also View / Show Kernel Times. Then take a look at the currently running science application, whether it is constantly claiming these ~20% (and Idle the approximate rest) of CPU, or the usage is continuously jumping like between 100% and 0%. And also the CPU Usage History graph - both green and red line - are they steady (and the red one somewhere at bottom), or also jumping up and down.

Peter

The CPU use varies between 16 and 25%, occasionally up to 50% (green line) the red line follows the green one but at about a third of the amount. Not sure if this helps..?!

THe memory use flat-lines at 582MB which looks to be about a fifth on the graph.

My version of BIONIC is definately 5.4.11.

Looks like I may just have to accept that I'll not top any league tables for results...still everylittle helps.

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The CPU use varies between 16 and 25%, occasionally up to 50% (green line) the red line follows the green one but at about a third of the amount. Not sure if this helps..?!

Yes it helps. I do have no real clue :-)
Something with the Power management? At least the red line is not behaving well, I'm sure about this. With CPU-only intensive task it should be steady and low.

Do you have ANY application which is able to top your CPU usage to 100%? Yes, e.g. running the Boinc benchmarks manually. This should create two green "hills" (or "buildings") in the graph with some "grass" in betwen, the red line should not exceed some (ten) percent. Can you confirm this? Again Task Manager at 1/2 second update interval.

Looks like I may just have to accept that I'll not top any league tables for results...still everylittle helps.

I'm pretty confident there will be some solution.

Peter

OK, I suspended all the projects so that CPU useage was 1-4% then ran the BIONIC bench mark tests. I got the two green Hills with 100% usage , the red line was almost non-existant during these tops e.g. <5%, in between I got the "grass" with both the green and the red up to about 15-20%, the red line followed the green line almost perfectly in this "grass" section.

/neil

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The CPU use varies between 16 and 25%, occasionally up to 50% (green line)

I was asking this because IIRC Boinc's CPU limiting should work in 1 second steps, like 1 second crunching and 4 seconds idle. But you see something different.

OK, I suspended all the projects so that CPU useage was 1-4% then ran the BIONIC bench mark tests. I got the two green Hills with 100% usage , the red line was almost non-existant during these tops e.g. <5%, in between I got the "grass" with both the green and the red up to about 15-20%, the red line followed the green line almost perfectly in this "grass" section.

I'm seeing exactly the same here. So it seems like only something with the science apps is making problems...

Do the other projects behave the same like CPDN? When you suspend all but e.g. Rosetta, does the rosetta.exe also use only some 20%?

Peter

I tried suspending all the projects and then just running Rosseta, got a lovely 100% green CPU and <10% red for about 30 seconds before we returned to the 15-25% green CPU with the red following at about a third of that once more. Just for a moment I thought we might have cracked it!

Also tried it with uFluids and Bionicimap, they do the same thing, full activity for about 30 seconds and then down to 20%.

/neil

PS finishing work soon (or should that be BIONIC work..) so might have to continue tomorrow.

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I'm out of ideas. Because if it were something like heat throttling, then the CPU usage would stay at 100% and possibly the CPU frequency would get lower.

The problem seems to really be only Boinc-related. I think the Boinc Alpha folks might jump in... (like trying out Boinc 5.6.4 with some useful debug flags). I'm only lurking in the Alpha area.

OK, we'll leave it for today.

Peter

Thanks anyway for all your time, I really appreciate it!

/neil

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If you have an AMD chip, is 'cool + quiet' turned off in the bios?

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If you have an AMD chip, is 'cool + quiet' turned off in the bios?

Negative. As I already noted,
Pepo wrote:

I'm not really sure what you mean with host id, is that computer id?

Yes, exactly. Thanks. P-M 2GHz, benchmark values look well.

And Cool+Quiet:
Pepo wrote:

...if it were something like heat throttling, then the CPU usage would stay at 100% and possibly the CPU frequency would get lower.

I can not imagine Cool'n'Quiet causing one process taking only some % of CPU and Idle process the rest :-(

Peter

Problem Solved !!

I posted onto the Climate Prediction forum as well and with a bit of help we tracked down a pesky copy of ThreadMaster running in the background. I've not installed this so it must have either been installed as standard or along with some other software. Anyway I've now reconfigured to let each process have 100% and things are A-OK. Only problem now is making sure I don't overheat my laptop! Any tips on a Max CPU temp for a laptop?

Thanks again for all you help!

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Problem Solved !!

It's nice to hear it!

...we tracked down a pesky copy of ThreadMaster running in the background. I've not installed this so it must have either been installed as standard or along with some other software.

Fine, this was one of my first hints ;-) but I believe you are innocent :-D

Only problem now is making sure I don't overheat my laptop! Any tips on a Max CPU temp for a laptop?

I think you have 3 ways to go:
- limit CPU usage (Boinc apps will not run the whole time) - i.e. ThreadMaster or Boinc 5.6.5+,
- optimize the cooling - as you use laptop, the only possibility is running the existing CPU fan faster,
- lower the heat, produced by CPU (while still running at 100% load) - my way to go on my laptop(s): on many/most recent (mobile) CPUs it is possible to lower the CPU voltage (as opposite to overclocking) thus lower the produced heat and the CPU temperature by 10-20 deg.C. If it is not enough, then additionally lower the CPU frequency. With such combination, you could be able to have your laptop in bedroom run your projects overnight on maybe 1/3 lower clock speed without the fans ever kicking in... RightMark CPU Clock Utility (RMClock) (my tip) or Notebook Hardware Control (NHC) (more fancy).

Peter