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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: TOTALLY |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 11
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Baywhale
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Post Count: 88 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I've been having problems with the UD agent. Recently while running the HCMD project I've found that the agent ignores throttle settings and the snooze command.
----------------------------------------I reported this problem on the forums several days ago as have others yet problem work units are still being sent out – I would like to suggest that World Community Grid needs to reappraise the relative importance it gives to members donating their computers to process research, as opposed to the organisations commissioning the research. It should be clear that any charity is TOTALLY reliant on its donors – however valuable the current cause it is the longterm goodwill of its donors which is paramount. A commercial organisation would consider each donor an invaluable resource not to be inconvenienced at any cost, invaluable not only for their individual contribution but for their word of mouth. To avoid any risk of even the mildest inconvenience to general users I would suggest the creation of a large group of Advanced Contributors to work exclusively on new projects for an extended period of time before the projects are released to the community at large. No doubt a small group of such testers already exists – but clearly too small a group and for too short a time if problems still get through. Without a doubt in these forums you would find many people who would be honoured and inspired to be part of such a group. I do realise that currently when a particular project causes problems on my computer I have the option of deselecting that project from my profile – however, the onus should be on World Community Grid to stop such problems getting to a donor in the first place. I'd like to make it clear that I think WCG is a very worthy cause and in the past I've encouraged a small number of friends and colleagues to participate. The overriding concern has always been the possibility of a negative impact on the individual donor's machine, whether due to a security lapse or some sort of malfunction – I believe this extra layer of protection between general users and potential risks would be a very good selling point. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by Baywhale at May 11, 2007 2:30:43 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
It's not a new project. HCMD has been running for months without problems. This problem has only emerged with recent work units.
WCG are already testing a fix. We can only ask for your patience in dealing with this. |
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Baywhale
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Post Count: 88 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thank you for the reply, Didactylos. However, the point I'm making is that WCG or any charity-based organisation cannot ask for people's patience. What the grid needs is people's computers – if the grid can only be marketed to volunteers who have a computer plus can tolerate disruption and damage to their equipment then World Community Grid is turning away a large number of possible participants.
----------------------------------------Some time ago a decision was made to globally set work units to operate at 60% of capacity and the throttle utility was made available to allow further modifications. As far as I recall, the rationale for this move was to minimise the risk of inconvenience to participants, and from a recruiting point of view this move was essential to reach a wider base of potential donors – presumably this is still the case. We're now in a situation where that 'selling point' has been replaced with the complete opposite – a decision has been taken to send out units which flout the stated rationale. Again from a recruiting point of view, this is a serious blunder. If a project is found to have defective work units it should be suspended from the general population until it has been fixed. Without the shadow of a doubt, it is not the donors who should display patience but the organisations commissioning the research. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
That's not the case....
The throttle has always had periods where it allows the CPU to reach 100%. There's nothing wrong with that. The goal is to keep the temperature down, and prevent the CPU from running hot for prolonged periods of time. It is not about inconvenience - the WCG agent will always yield to your other applications whether it is running at 100% or 60%. These work units have the throttle at 100% for longer than normal, but not dangerously long. Nothing wrong with 100%. It's not ideal, of course - it's not how people expect a throttle to behave. So WCG are fixing it. But there's no need to pull the work units. I'm sorry, I feel you are overreacting. The snooze failure is a far bigger bug, and the infrequent checkpoints in these units a far bigger inconvenience. |
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Baywhale
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Post Count: 88 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Sorry, Didactylos, but it is the case. I've checked the posts on this issue and the reason for making this 60% adjustment was to prevent inconvenience: in this post https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=2683 we're told that "We have changed the default CPU throttle settings from 100% to about 60% to be less obtrusive to certain kinds of PC's and novice users who may own them. "
----------------------------------------The amount of time on this forum given to the question of overheating justified WCG making this 60% adjustment and developing a simple snooze utility. Clearly there must have been a practical need for these changes even though they would initially result in a lower volume of processing. While the snooze function is being ignored WCG has reverted to making my CPU run at 100% – and if my computer is crashing then the 100% period is indeed dangerously long. The WCG home page encourages people to simply install the software with the promise that no further action will ever be necessary. That should be the case in order to attract the maximum number of participants. The current reality is that WCG is sending out units that will cause disruption and will require people to take further action. I have taken the 'action' of deselecting this project from my profile but the point I am making is that individuals shouldn't need to take any action. That is what is stated on the home page. I firmly believe that WCG should show itself willing to prevent untested projects being issued and to suspend a project at the drop of a hat – protecting the concept of a safe and simple grid is infinitely more important than generating results for one particular project. To make it clear, this is not a tech issue, it is a marketing issue. I don't suppose the WCG marketing team regularly frequent this area of the forum so I would be grateful if you could bring this post to their attention. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by Baywhale at May 11, 2007 2:34:40 PM] |
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KLiK
Master Cruncher Croatia Joined: Nov 13, 2006 Post Count: 3108 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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if it won't start and is still on 0%, just end the program named UD_xxxxxxx.exe in which the xxxxxx are the numbers...and the UD agent will donload a new unit...
----------------------------------------errors do happen! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Just to be clear, this is the official explanation of the throttle:
When running the grid agent for Windows you will now see that 100% of the CPU is not used by default. We have introduced a default setting of 60%. If the agent sees the overall system CPU usage go above this value, it backs off (with some exceptions) to try to not add to the CPU usage. Thus, if some other applications are using more than the specified percentage of CPU utilization, the grid work will almost completely stop. The agent runs at the absolutely lowest CPU priority, so it instantaneously gives up the CPU to anything else needing it in the machine, except for any other process also running at the lowest priority, with which it would split the remaining CPU time. There are usually very few if any other processes running at the lowest priority. (Emphasis mine) The details about overheating are explained by Viktors in the very post you linked to. The snooze feature has always been there, since the launch of WCG. I think the real issue here is you personally have had some issues while crunching. I'm sorry, I seem to have missed the details of that. Perhaps you would like to tell me what actually happened? Did your computer crash? |
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Baywhale
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Apr 18, 2006 Post Count: 88 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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The fact that this project has caused my computer to crash is not in itself the problem. What is hugely concerning to me is that I have recruited people to WCG on the basis that all they had to do was install the software and forget about it – that is how the process is described on the home page but at the moment it clearly isn't the case.
----------------------------------------I'm sure that anyone responsible for the marketing of WCG will tell you that in order for the grid to grow beyond the confines of committed computer literate professions it has to be made accessible to people whose only qualification is that they are the owner of a computer with internet access – that is the reason for the home page telling people the process is simple and there will be no need for further action or commitment. I'm not sure of the relevance of the part you quoted – the fact that the agent will give priority to other programmes does not prevent it from commanding my PC to use up the remaining 100% as it currently does under this project. It is the use of that 100% that is causing problems. The development of the throttle feature shows that WCG did recognise this issue as an impediment to further growth of the grid. Now if a project comes along where members say that it doesn't take account of this then that project should be suspended until it complies with the requirements of the grid. To summarise, the need for the grid to offer its members guaranteed simplicity by far outweighs the value of any individual research project. Clearly there are members who don't need simplicity but this is what WCG is 'selling'. I hope it's clear that this is a marketing issue and as I said I'd like you to bring it to the attention of the people concerned. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Yes, crunching still isn't as easy as it should be.
Perhaps I wasn't clear.... WCG are tremendously concerned about avoiding any inconvenience to users. My point is that running at 100% (in itself) doesn't cause any inconvenience. It is the side effect of over heating that can (in a tiny minority of cases) cause problems - usually for laptop users where the temperature tolerances are smaller. As I understand it, these work units only run at 100% during a small (larger than normal, but still small) part of their execution. If they ran at 100% throughout, then that would be a serious problem, and I would agree with the measures you suggest. |
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retsof
Former Community Advisor USA Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Post Count: 6824 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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See the read-only announcement at the top of the forum for a new version of HCMD to address some of these concerns:
----------------------------------------http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=13442
SUPPORT ADVISOR
Work+GPU i7 8700 12threads School i7 4770 8threads Default+GPU Ryzen 7 3700X 16threads Ryzen 7 3800X 16 threads Ryzen 9 3900X 24threads Home i7 3540M 4threads50% |
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