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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: Suggestion - Build a Processor Temperature indicator into BOINC/UD client |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 7
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Dirk Gently
Senior Cruncher England Joined: Mar 1, 2005 Post Count: 153 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I run BOINC now. I have used UD client in the past.
----------------------------------------I had processor overheat problems in the past - which were caused by Intel's pathetic cooler (as supplied with socket 775 Pentium D)- which has cooling vanes so fine that they clog within a month! Its now OK that I replaced the cooler with a £20 heatpipe cooler. I now use a free program called Speedfan to monitor the CPU temperature. This gives me Processor temp on the tray, and chipset temp, HD temps, fan speeds etc when maximised. But the most important, and relevant to crunching, is the processor temp. Why not build a display of processor usage and temp into BOINC and UD clients? BOINC shows project progress, why not CPU % usage, which core (for dual processors) and temperature alongside it? This would tell us instantly that all is healthy with our CPUs. All processor models have a built in temp sensor these days, and probably there are only two hardware variants (Intel or AMD) to worry about. This temp measurement could also automatically throttle back the processing, suspend processing, or at least raise an alarm. Robert |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
An interesting idea.
But WCG doesn't have control over either client. UD is proprietary, and while you can suggest it, nothing is likely to happen. BOINC is OSS, so you can write it yourself, or suggest it to the developers. Personally, I feel a temperature monitor is close to feature bloat, but if you just use it for an alarm, and link it to throttling, then it could be a smart thing to do. |
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Alther
Former World Community Grid Tech United States of America Joined: Sep 30, 2004 Post Count: 414 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I have built in a rough CPU throttle on all UD applications...but this is not available on the BOINC apps.
----------------------------------------We are discussing putting in a more sophisticated CPU throttling feature in all future apps, though it may not be for a little while. We would provide a small GUI utility so folks could set it. Here's the best part though: It can also be run in command line mode. This allows other applications to "silently" call it behind the scenes when they need to. Many fan/temperatures monitoring utilities allow you to set trigger events when fan speed/temperatures are exceeded. e.g. You could use this event to call this utility to lower the CPU utilization of the science apps. Note that this is currently only in the discussion/design phase now, but it looks like we'll be doing it. It's also not our #1 priority, so it may be a few months away before you see this.
Rick Alther
Former World Community Grid Developer |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Alther . . .
For those crunchers or would-be crunchers who have an excellent cooling solution (or is planning one) an overclock feature would be nice. Consider the following about gamers/PC-enthusiasts: - A good number probably have a high-end GPU, and the higher the GPU quality/class, the less it is dependent on the CPU. - These folks do overclocking as a matter of routine, whether they need it or not; and a good number of them have a good cooling solution. Thus, we are left with a class of users who have overclocked CPUs laying essentially mostly idle compared to your 'business' or 'typical' user. With an overclock feature in CPU throttle, we may yet be able to attract these class of users into the distributed computing world. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
andzgrid, you don't make sense.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Overclocking is BAD!...I tried it for a little while and it generated errors in data and caused apps to crash with random strange errors at times.
I have an AMD X2 4400 and it runs hot enough at 100% usage even with a coolmaster liquid cooler and without overclocking. I believe one of the ADMINS here even put a post that overclocking isn't reliable for this work! Even a normal clocked CPU generates random errors every now and then but most don't cause apps to crash luckily. To protect against this they send to 4 or 5 computers? I would never recommend using OC computers for this. Plus, my score only went from 220 to 222...that isn't much for the added errors of overclocking. |
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Dirk Gently
Senior Cruncher England Joined: Mar 1, 2005 Post Count: 153 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Rbolo28 is right. Overclocking is basically about pushing a device beyond its design specification, which for me as an engineer is a no no.
----------------------------------------A processor has a certain design specification, going beyond this compromises its design stability and reliability margin. My original point in this thread was that many machines may have latent stability and thermal problems, brought out by the demands of crunching - and this is without overclocking. The fact that duplication is used in grid computing points to the fact that the average PC is not regarded as reliable "as it is". I don't understand the overclocking culture. Intel hate it - and try by design to stop it (you can't change their clock ratio). AMD allow it and many motherboard manufacturers seem to have embraced it as a marketing ploy! It's rubbish, meant to attract the "boy racer" and "something for nothing" mentality. Grid computing needs Volvos not Ferraris. AMD processors may be conservatively rated, which makes them look good when overclocking them works. Personally, I'll stick to Intel! |
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