Temp is from a probe sitting as far as I could poke it into heatsink but it's quite informative, I can tell at a glance if cpu is idle for some reason.

I've also SpeedFan which gives various temps, latest one (needed for w7) gives individual cores.

******I'VE SOLVED THIS I THINK********

Or rather my subconcious solved this! Woke up this morning and in my brain was bubbling the thought 'when I first put BoincMgr shortcut into startup folder - didn't I have lots of trouble because of that UAC *B*LLSH*T* and changed it to compatibility mode to try and get round it'. I went and checked and it was in W2k compatibility mode. I've switched this off, killed and restarted boincmgr, and so far, they DO appear to be running an amazing > 2x faster, and are on target for reasonable times.

I've no idea why:
* This would only affect SOME tasks and not others, and
* I've certainly run (and am running) FAAH on W2k proper for vast lengths of time with no problem.
* Compatibility mode of a maths crunching program that surely isn't making lots of API calls (?) would have such a devastating effect.

I mean compat mode is NOT an emulator, it just changes ways some API calls are handled etc, i.e. the application <-> windows interaction?

But that seems to have been it (unless launching outwith startup phase is the fix, surely not). I've spent hoooouurs on this myself trying to solve it, was almost giving up. Surely implies the compat mode is inherited by the child processes the way boincmgr creates them?

I'd completely forgotten I'd done this when I installed W7 and didn't think to check my shortcut (but my subconcious hadn't )

So: worth remembering if anyone in future complains,
*COMPATIBILITY MODE SCREWS UP FAAH AND HFCC*.

Re: Startup and UAC if you're interested - when I put shortcut into the startup folder day I installed W7, BoincMgr would fail to start when I booted. It's to do with that UAC nonsense where it asks you every time an app it doesn't like runs (with no way of saying 'don't ask again for this app'), if you are going to allow it. If it decides it want to do this to an app in the startup list, it just won't ask and won't run the ****ing app, so you start machine up and the app just isn't running. I tried a number of things to try and get round this, one of them being trying to run the app in compatbility mode, I think that was a suggestion on net.

Move along, nothing to see here!

It wasn't remotely "couldn't be bothered" it was logical in that firstly I had an existing installation that had half finished jobs that I didn't want to lose, that I was going to be booting back into old windows version from time to time and wanted boinc to continue seamlessly, and I wanted to keep project history attached to this machine and I'm sure last time I reinstalled I lost this.

Also if I remember correctly, you don't give out 6.2 to people who come to WCG, you were referring me to go to berkeley 'special', so it makes no sense for me to be requiring a special version if that's not what you're giving to everyone else.

Also, the 5.X verison CAN already be installed as a service, I tend NOT to do that. I'm pretty sure you never said 6.2 was made to fix vista / w7 issues, and if it was, why aren't WCG giving it out to these users? (unless I'm mistaken they aren't?)

I was correct : it was NOT the client version causing the issue, it was me fiddling with a shortcut, forced because of Microsofts ill thought out UAC security sticking plaster.

The only problem you'll likely to hit on upgrading is if you're switching between 32-bit and 64-bit clients... But granted dual-booting does have it's special considerations to take into consideration, and chances are you'll manually need to change access-rights on BOINC data-directory.


Would expect Sekerob was pointing-out the 64-bit client to you, and if so you'll need to download it from Berkeley since WCG doesn't have any 64-bit clients. For the 32-bit client on the other hand, using the WCG-build is the "recommended" for WCG-users. BTW, if you're not taking part in other BOINC-projects besides WCG, it doesn't really matter on crunch-speed if you're using a 32-bit or 64-bit BOINC-client, since WCG doesn't have any 64-bit applications.

Forgetting to mention that v6.2.xx was mainly geared to make BOINC compatible with Vista is an oversight. Since win7 inherits most of the functionality from Vista, the same is true for win7. If there's any specific win7-tweaks added to BOINC later-on I'm not sure, but v6.2.xx should atleast work without needing any comabitility-mode and UAC-tweaks atleast.

I have the 64bit version installed on all my planets (sorry devices ), that I downloaded from BOINC Berkley site. It is the 6.10.18 version.
Have used it for all projects, works like a dream and never had problems. I have W7 64bit so it seemed to me logical to go that way, so that if 64 bit applications do appear in the future even for WCG I need nothing to change, and should not loose even a hartbeat.
A heartbeat lost is points, lost, runtime lost, results lost. Simply unacceptable