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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Multiple Instances of Client open, Use Triple Resources |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 10
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Kerboose
Cruncher Joined: Aug 27, 2012 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I'm in charge of a small computer/gaming group, and we got a hold of an old server that we are planning to use to host multiple game servers. It's running Windows Server 2012 R2. I'm trying to set up BOINC to run in between gaming sessions, but the program seems to bog down the system to the point where I have to restart the machine to get normal functionality back.
At first I ran 100% CPU usage (24 cores over 4 AMD Opteron 8439's) as a stress test, and it chugged along just fine for an hour or two before the system started to slow down and stop responding. Through a bit of trial and error, I found that BOINC is trying to use three times as many resources as I tell it too, possibly because of multiple instances of the client. My final test was this: 25% of the CPU's allocated (6 cores) with 100% usage. When I start the client, two instances of 'BOINC Client' open in Task Manager, on top of the tray agent and the process for the actual BOINC window. For the first 30 seconds or so, CPU usage is where it should be (25% constant,) but then spikes to 75% constant and stays there until I quit out of the tray agent AND force kill the two 'BOINC Client' background processes. I would like to fix this issue so that I can reliably run BOINC when my group isn't gaming with it. What can I do? Are there any settings I am missing? Thanks for your time. |
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
Confirm you've not selected to run Clean Energy as one of the WCG sciences
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Kerboose
Cruncher Joined: Aug 27, 2012 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thank you, that has helped somewhat. I deselected the project in the profile I'm using, reset the project in the client, and restarted the program. The program is, at the moment, working on Outsmart Ebola Together, and is using twice as much CPU time as I allotted. Will I have to remove that project as well?
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
Don't know what you're expecting but 25% of CPU [processors], on a 24 core system is 6 cores, of which then 100% is used for each science app. On my W7 that shows as 12-13% for each of the 8 cores in the system [100% of processors]. I'm running 8 cores on my octo at 100% and not noticing as BOINC is running at lowest priority... it yields to practically anything.
----------------------------------------If you want to allocate 25% of processing time, then that setting will appear in the Windows task manager as undulating. 25% in effect uses 1 second, then pauses 3 seconds. That function is designed for systems with heat dissipation problems [laptops]. Since you have a server, ThreadMasterGUI is maybe the tool of choice. That allows you to control loads on a per-app basis, in a very 'smooth' way. Used to use that a lot in summer to reduce the cycles used, to reduce temperature. Nowadays I just use the CPU cycle control. Laptop runs at 1.9Ghz instead of default 2.5Ghz, but that's an aside. [Edit 1 times, last edit by SekeRob* at Dec 19, 2015 8:44:13 AM] |
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LCB001
Advanced Cruncher CANADA Joined: Oct 14, 2009 Post Count: 69 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I have an almost identical system, 4x 8435's on WinServer 2008 R2, and it runs 22 threads of Boinc at 100% cpu without breaking a sweat.
----------------------------------------Your system slowing down to a crawl sounds like it's bottlenecking somewhere, usually insufficient Ram. Perhaps check your task manager to see what its running out of. Not sure why you would need more than one instance of the Boinc client running as that might cause conflicts if they are trying to use the same resources...  |
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
Unless you've explicitly configured BOINC to allow multiple clients, only 1 will be allowed to start. Multiple clients comes with some work on used ports admin and directing the RPC calls.
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LCB001
Advanced Cruncher CANADA Joined: Oct 14, 2009 Post Count: 69 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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... I found that BOINC is trying to use three times as many resources as I tell it too, possibly because of multiple instances of the client. ... When I start the client, two instances of 'BOINC Client' open in Task Manager, on top of the tray agent and the process for the actual BOINC window. I realize that Boinc won't normally allow multiple Boinc clients to run at the same time but am just responding to what he has posted. I'm no expert on server based stuff, I just run Boinc on mine. All I can say is from what I've seen based on my experience running a similar set-up he should have no problem running WCG or most other Boinc projects on that machine. Older AMD server chips seem to do quite well at crunching perhaps because they are real cores and not hyper-threaded ones... |
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
It's likely a bad install [e.g. a service and user install]. Two clients fighting over the same BOINC data directory will give seriously bad effects [the noted multi-client install is quite a bit involved and needs setting up separate data directories for each instance]. If it was not the intend would recommend full uninstall of all instances and a new install, as service only.
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Kerboose
Cruncher Joined: Aug 27, 2012 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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It's likely a bad install [e.g. a service and user install] Thank you, it was a botched install that was doing it. I uninstalled, making sure to delete the BOINC folder in ProgramData, and re-installed as a service (not sure if it would be relevant, but I also unchecked the 'allow all users' option under it.) Now the resource usage is actually following my settings. I'm going to do some more stress testing now. Again, thank your for the help. |
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SekeRob
Master Cruncher Joined: Jan 7, 2013 Post Count: 2741 Status: Offline |
Sorry for the initial Babylonic, but when crunchers speak of 'multiple clients', they often talk about the science applications [poor assumptive reading on my part]. Normally it really should not happen that multiple core clients start... the default is to check if one boinc.exe is already running, then any additional just not loading.
----------------------------------------Yes, without 'allow all user' [not default] on a shared server is a good, since else you'll find one day someone going in and pausing BOINC or unloading it. The mentioned ThreadMasterGUI (TMG) was specifically developed for servers and load balancing for anything and allocate reduced cycles to named processes. You could have 12 running smoothly at 50% e.g. [a science process getting 1/24th * .5 = 0.021 fraction each on a 24 core machine. There's an FAQ in Start Here to explain. Your gamers will never know as beyond the OS is best managing where to place the high and low loading apps. Good crunching. [Edit 1 times, last edit by SekeRob* at Dec 20, 2015 10:12:26 AM] |
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