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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Only 12% of my processing power is being used |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 13
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SSSheridan
Cruncher Joined: Nov 13, 2008 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sorry if this has been answered before.
----------------------------------------I just downloaded BOINC. It wasn't making much progress, so I checked task manager. There were two processes running, each of which was only using 6% of the processor's power. I'm running the Human Proteome Folding 2. I have Windows XP. I have an HT processor: it has a single core, but it acts like two (in task manager, you can assign a process to "Processor 0," "Processor 1," or both). Each process was set to lowest priority and was set to only run on Processor 1. As I said, they were each using 6% of the processor time. I assigned each to both processors, and set them to high priority, and they're still only using 20-30% each. My System Idle Process is running anywhere from 10%-50%. This is after I went to Preferences and set "Use at most ____% CPU time" to 100%. Any ideas? Edit: Noob question: I'm now also running Rosetta. Under the Resource Share column in the Projects tab, it's getting 50%. I'd like to give the World Community Grid a larger share of the resources. I feel like this should be easy, but I can't figure out how to to change that. [Edit 1 times, last edit by SSSheridan at Nov 13, 2008 4:36:56 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Change your settings here: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/device/v...iguration.do?name=Default
Firstly, set the multiprocessor setting to 1. HT gets you no advantage here. Then, set the project weight to 500. World Community Grid have 5 active projects, so that's fair. Save your settings, then click on "Update" in BOINC Manager. Also, clear your local preferences if you set anything there. Because you have hyperthreading, the Task Manager values are not accurate. The best you can expect is 50%. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello SSSheridan,
You are trying to do too much. Assigning tasks to specific processors using Task Manager is meaningless make-work. Instead, let BOINC and your OS handle it. Make sure that you saved your Device Profiles page after setting your CPU to 100%. That should eliminate the System Idle process unless you are overriding it with local preferences. Unless you have a lot of memory, my personal preference is to run a single task on a Pentium 4. The reason is that it only has a single FPU, so floating-point scientific programs gain very little speedup from hyper-threading. Running 1 BOINC project unclogs memory and lets the hyperthreading handle local OS routines (without floating-point) simultaneously. As for resource share, the default is 100 per project. If you want to increase WCG's share go to My Grid - Device Manager - (selected profile) which takes you to the Device Profiles page. At the very bottom, under the Cross Project Settings heading, change the Project Weight from 100.0 to ???? If both WCG and Rosetta have a Project Weight of 100, t6hen WCG will run 1/2 of the time. If WCG is changed to 300, WCG will run 3/4 of the time. If changed to 400, WCG will run 4/5 of the time. And so forth. Lawrence |
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SSSheridan
Cruncher Joined: Nov 13, 2008 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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To clarify: The program's default setting had the processes set to only CPU1... that's when I got 12%. The performance improved when I manually set the processes to use both CPU 1 and CPU 0.
----------------------------------------Also, I will be referring to different CPUs out of convenience. I do know that they're the same processor. I followed your advice: I changed the multiprocessor setting to 1, and I kept the max CPU at 100%. Previously, there were two separate processes each running on "both" CPUs, each process using 20-40% of the CPU; now, there's one process running at 40-45% of the CPU, even when it's set to highest priority. The System Idle process still sometimes makes an appearance when my other programs slow down. So it's still not fully utilizing the CPU. I wouldn't be complaining, as 40% out of 50% isn't bad; however, that'll slow down my computer, because to accomplish that I need to use "both" processors at high priority. Here's the complicating factor: with the number of tabs I usually have open in my browser, there's always a background CPU usage that can actually be as high as a constant 50%. It's not accomplishing anything, but it will drown out any process at a lower priority. My typical solution to this is to relegate any processor-heavy application to CPU 1, and set it to high priority. It gets to share the processor time without interfering with the computer's responsiveness. But when I try that with BOINC, it uses 10-20% of the CPU time. EDIT: the process, shared between CPUs at high priority, is now hovering below 20% CPU usage. Basically, my problem is this: I want to eliminate the System Idle process, and I want BOINC to be competitive with the other processes on my computer which will inevitably drown out BOINC if it is on low priority; however, I don't want BOINC to interfere with my use of the computer. I apologize if I'm ignoring something you already said--I don't have a very firm grasp of what we're talking about. Finally, I want to thank you for your time and for dealing with my wordiness. I'll be setting BOINC up on 2 more computers when I get this figured out. [Edit 1 times, last edit by SSSheridan at Nov 13, 2008 5:56:15 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
The program's default setting had the processes set to only CPU1 No. That's not how it works. BOINC doesn't assign processes to one CPU or the other. The fact that both were using the same CPU is an indication that some other process was hogging the other one, causing the mere 12% you observed remaining for BOINC.I think you need a better browser. Firefox in particular is terrible about stealing more CPU than it should be using. I recommend a plugin such as Flash block, which will help. Do not, whatever you do, increase the priority of the BOINC processes. |
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SSSheridan
Cruncher Joined: Nov 13, 2008 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Intriguing. What will happen if I increase the priority? Will it lock up the computer?
Yes, Firefox is the browser I usually use, but right now Chrome is using a steady 30%. I'll look into Flash Block. I'm trying to understand... but I don't know what I don't understand. Sorry. "The program's default setting had the processes set to only CPU1" What I mean is this: I started the program the first time, and before changing any setting, went to the Task Manager, clicked Set Affinity, and only CPU 1 was checked. After I set it to both CPUs, I restored the default settings, and it went back to only CPU 1 checked. This was true when the multiprocessor setting was set to 1 and when it was at the default 16. Doesn't that mean that BOINC is assigning processes to CPU 1? Also, I doubt that the problem is another program hogging CPU time: my System Idle Process is bouncing around between 0-50% of my CPU time, and that's with my BOINC processes set at Above Normal priority. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Your hyperthreading is likely to cause an anomalous reading for the system idle process. From Windows' point of view, the second CPU is exactly the same as the first. But in reality, it barely exists at all. When the real CPU is maxed out, nothing can run on the virtual one, so it will report 100% idle, leading to the system idle process reporting 50% CPU usage. Daft, no?
Normally, processes will be allowed to run on either CPU. However, when the CPU is hyperthreaded, this may not be the case. It is possible that Windows won't assign processes doing heavy processing to the second, virtual CPU. But that's pretty irrelevant - BOINC has nothing to do with it. BOINC knows nothing about CPU affinity. Zip. Nada. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
right now Chrome is using a steady 30% Open the Chrome Task Manager (Shift+Esc) and kill the Flash plugin if it's misbehaving (as it so often does). If not, this will at least let you see which tab is misbehaving. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Nov 13, 2008 6:54:59 AM] |
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SSSheridan
Cruncher Joined: Nov 13, 2008 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Yes, that does make sense. But unfortunately, the problem isn't resolved quite yet.
When the process is assigned to only one CPU and it uses only 15% processing power... it's still only using (at most) 30%, right? And that's assuming that there's only one CPU-heavy process. Yes, one process can only use up to 50% of the total CPU; however, two processes, each assigned to both CPUs, can use a combined 100%. I've seen it plenty of times before. But right now I've got 3 processes going: Chrome (at 30%) + 2 BOINC processes set at Above Normal priority. In my experience with every CPU-sucking program before now, that brings the System Idle process down to 0. Each BOINC process should be running at 40%. But they aren't. And when I set BOINC to only run 1 process, it leaves unused processor time while never hitting 50% itself. Basically, the problem is that BOINC isn't behaving like processor-heavy programs I've used before. I've never seen a program change how much CPU time it uses depending on whether its set to one or two CPUs (because, after all, that's not really changing much); I've never seen two simultaneous processes, each of which is trying to use as much CPU as possible, leave unused processing time. Now, either something's wrong and BOINC isn't using as much processor as it should, or BOINC is somehow acting different from the other programs in my experience, and is thoroughly confusing the Task Manager. As for Chrome, it's actually the Shockwave Flash plugin sucking up all the CPU. If I kill that, won't it break something (i.e. make Youtube, etc. stop working)? I assume that's why I'd want Flash Block in Firefox. And again, thank you for spending so much time with whatever this problem is (if there even is one). |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
If you kill Flash, it will reload when you next load a page using it.
Okay, when both your "CPUs" report they are fully in use, what it really means is that the real CPU is so under-used by the processes running on it that the virtual CPU can get a lot of runtime. Hyperthreading isn't a simple topic. One fact that will help you understand the Task Manager madness is that the percentages shown by Task Manager are based on the time slices assigned to each process, not the actual CPU activity during that slice. A process might spend most or all of its time waiting for memory or something. The kind of highly intensive processing done in the science projects we have here can keep a CPU's pipeline full, with no gaps for the "virtual" CPU. I suppose the bottom line is - no, you can't ever get a complete view of what is happening with Task Manager. If, when all other processes are near zero (close your browsers) then BOINC gets nearly 50% this means that everything is working fine. The other option is to disable hyperthreading in the BIOS. I have seen this advocated, but frankly, with your heavy browser use, I'd say leave it on. |
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