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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Memory usage looks wierd |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 21
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I have searched the FAQs and couldn't find the answer. If it is in there, please direct me to it.
I recently added a new (WinXP) machine. It has only 1GB memory. The profile for this machine sets a 10% limit on memory usage. 10% would be very acceptable if it wasn't for the following effect, I never noticed on my old (Win2K) machine. For some reason I get 2 tasks running. Although each of them sticks to the 10% limitation, the sum doesn't. This regularly causes Windows to run out of virtual memory, which some programs (including the tasks themselves) really don't respond well to. I have not been able to find out why my new machine does 2 tasks instead of the 1 I expected. Nor have I found any place where I can set the number of tasks. I have considered just setting the limit to 5%. But I get the feeling that might make it hard for tasks to be allocated, since some tasks might not work on 50MB, but fine on 100MB. A single task taking 100MB is ok, as long as there isn't another taking that. Has anyone seen this before, and maybe already solved it? |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Hi,
----------------------------------------The lowest WCG set in profiles is 50% when in use. 10% is not enough as when 2 jobs are running side by side the conditions can occur that > 100mb is needed. That will cause 1 or more jobs to go into "waiting for memory" state until the system goes idle. The WCG default idle is i think 75% or 750mb in your case. Virtual memory should be freely expandable. Restricting that percentage could again cause for jobs to pause. For comparative data see the Start Here forum for the System Requirement Matrix post. On the 2 simultaneous, you could have a so-called P4 Hyperthreaded CPU. Create an additional profile (home, work, school) and set that to 1 processor and attach these computers to that profile. 1 job at the time runs faster on a Hyperthreaded computer. The default setting is actually 16 processors so go here: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/device/v...iguration.do?name=Default select custom and go down to On multiprocessors, at most use: X processors. Change that and save. On next client-server contact the client adjusts. If you have a true dual core CPU in your new computer, than 2 jobs concurrently is fine. Just adopt the default values which are Use no more than: 50 % of memory while computer in use Use no more than: 75 % of memory while computer idle Use no more than: 50 % of virtual memory
WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 3 times, last edit by Sekerob at Jan 30, 2008 11:40:41 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ah, so no restriction to 10%. So far the biggest task I have seen took something like 110MB, which should work fine if there is no other task.
The machine is indeed a P4, so I guess I should use the 1 CPU setting. I'll go tinker with the other parameters a bit and see what happens. Thank you for the quick reply. |
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retsof
Former Community Advisor USA Joined: Jul 31, 2005 Post Count: 6824 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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One of my Win XP machines is more borderline and has only 512Mb. It is only used for crunching and web browsing. With default memory use, it doesn't have any problems running a workunit, especially with a larger windows swap file.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The WinXP machine is not used for crunching and browsing only. It is also running Visual Studio 2005. Every now and then I get the popup stating Windows is running out of virtual memory. At such moments, Visual Studio tends to have problems only solved by restarting it. Also, often one of the tasks of BOINC has status "Calculation error".
----------------------------------------These problems didn't occur before I had installed BOINC on it. I have set the values as indicated. 1 processor and defaults for the memory usage. Old tasks not finished yet, but new tasks have been fetched....and that's 2 of'em again. I'll check tomorrow how things are going. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jan 30, 2008 3:47:17 PM] |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Could be mistaken but read of a few problems in the combination VS and BOINC. If you expand the VM setting in the System Control Panel, Advanced Tab, Performance, Advanced, the issue is likely to go away. Personally recommend a minimum setting of 2gb and free growing per the requirement of the OS. Disk and Pagedefrag-ging before and after help overall system performance too.
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WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I have never seen this problem.
VS isn't particularly memory hungry when compared to some of the software out there. Still, Sekerob's solution should fix the problem even if we can't explain it. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ok. I didn't install the WinXP machine myself, so I don't know all the settings that were made. (And the person who did is hard to reach.)
I checked the VM, and I think that was the problem. It was set to 256MB fixed. Way too little, even by the values WinXP recommends. I have set it to 2GB fixed. Not found how to set a minimum, and allow for free growing. But I'll see how things go with 8 times the VM that was set. Thank you for he help. I'll keep an eye on it, and report back if there is anything to report. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello superguppie,
Virtual Memory is deep down in the menu. Click on Start - Settings - Control Panel - System - Advaqnced - Performance Options - Virtual Memory then check System Managed Size and then apply. This is much better than a fixed size. The problem is that any time the paging file size is increased, a new fragment will be created, which will slow down disk access times to the paging file. Looking in the 'Useful Utilities' thread in Start Here ( http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=2490 ) I find the Microsoft Sysinternals site at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046.aspx Download pagedefrag ( Defragment your paging files and Registry hives! ). Be sure to RUN chkdsk /f to ensure that your disk's file system is uncorrupted before you execute PageDefrag. I have tried it and it really seems to consolidate the page file into one contiguous block. Fixed virtual memory sizes are an old way of avoiding page file fragmentation. Pagedefrag is a much better way to fix this problem. Lawrence |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thank you for the looking up, lawrencehardin.
I did find the option to let Windows do it all for me. From Sekerob I got the impression I could set a minimum, and allow for growing. It seems that combination is not in there. I will likely look into the fragmentation issue over the coming days. (Have to do it alongside normal activities.) For now I will keep the 2GB on to see if the most acute problem is gone. As for the 2 tasks problem, I did set my profile to use 1 processor only. But there are still 2 tasks running. Both were started a few hours ago. |
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