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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Ignoring Mac "Suspend when non-BOINC usage is above" |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 10
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vonlost
Cruncher Joined: Mar 8, 2020 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Has anyone else noticed that Mac BOINC *after* 7.12.0 does not respect this percentage limit? I had to revert to this version after an update started using *my* time. Four CPUs, using 50% of them at 100%, limit when non-BOINC is above 25%. Thanks.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Not noticed, nor read about such an issue. Just confirm the activity menu is set to "run based on preferences" both for CPU and GPU.
An interesting discussion is underway how this is not bad for the CPU, but instead it could be burning the power-supply. At 50%, that means 1 second full load, 1 second unload, 43200 times a day. It's long been known it is not good for mechanical parts either, speak the cooling fans if that 1 second interval is enough to rev up the ventilator. Best is to decide on the number of full load equivalent, so if your swivel point is 50% running on 4 cores, set BOINC to running 100% on 2 cores. Then 'your time' is always 'your time'. The 25% setting you speak of actually pauses all computing for 10 seconds. I've got it at 80%. It works when the system is really busy. |
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vonlost
Cruncher Joined: Mar 8, 2020 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I should have said "Four CPUs, using two of them at 100%" is the same (in this case) as your "running on 4 cores, set BOINC to running 100% on 2 cores" though my wording was confusing. Two cores running all the time (well, two of the four, bouncing around constantly, sharing the load, not that it matters). But good to know about the power supply issue, thanks.
I set to 25% so that I never (well, theoretically, not always in practice) go above 75% total load. Seems to keep the fans off, or at least inaudible. "Run based on preferences" and "Suspend GPU" both checked. When bouncing between 7.12.0 and the latest I don't change any preferences. The latest just never suspends BOINC no matter how busy things get. 7.12.0 does reliable suspending. In case it matter, mine is iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015). Five years old but still feels big and fast enough. 1TB still less than half full. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Think there's more language confusion, maybe not, but to be sure there are 3 controls
----------------------------------------1) The number of CPU threads allowed to be used 2) The amount of CPU time per unit of time, measured in seconds. 3) The load setting limit, which causes BOINC to pause 10 seconds entirely if exceeded. It's shown in the event log if the right log flags are set with 3/17/2020 10:05:40 AM [cpu_sched] Preempting HST1_306206_000026_AC0005_T400_F00069_S00031_1 (left in memory) 3/17/2020 10:05:50 AM [cpu_sched] Resuming HST1_306206_000026_AC0005_T400_F00069_S00031_1 It's the 2nd point that causes the bouncing and could be bad for fan and PSU, but on the PSU part, in the years only read of few blowing amongst crunchers. People speak of gold standard PSU's which are only partially loaded even when crunching full load, so guess there's good and not so good PSU's around. I've experienced it twice though on a laptop external PSU, never on desktop. They not really made for crunching and certainly not for the way the throttle was implemented in BOINC on that 1 second scheduler rhythm. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Mar 17, 2020 11:16:00 AM] |
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hchc
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Aug 15, 2006 Post Count: 865 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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@vonlost, I noticed the same thing on Linux BOINC 7.14.2 x64. I had another application that ran at 100%, and BOINC kept right on crunching.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
BOINC measures the sum of all threads non-BOINC CPU processing, so if your process was on 1 thread/core and you have 8, BOINC would continue.
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vonlost
Cruncher Joined: Mar 8, 2020 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Ah, hchc, then it's in the app itself, rather than in the interface to MacOS.
----------------------------------------In any case, I've always suspected I couldn't be the only one to notice! [Edit 1 times, last edit by vonlost at Mar 18, 2020 1:28:51 AM] |
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vonlost
Cruncher Joined: Mar 8, 2020 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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lavaflow, crunching never pauses and restarts, it moves instantly from one core to another, as can be seen in, eg, MenuMeters.
Which Mac are you running on? |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Yeah thread hopping. Your OS controls that, not BOINC. On Windows there are tools to lock an app to use certain cores,/threads.
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vonlost
Cruncher Joined: Mar 8, 2020 Post Count: 6 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I am glad to see that Mac BOINC 7.16.14 once again respects "Suspend when non-BOINC usage is above" so I hope Linux BOINC does as well. Thanks!
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