It simply isn't an issue for most people running HDC. Your personal experience has given you a very biased picture, which is a pity.

Personally, I think the major issues are caused by a combination of the issue mentioned, and real-time virus scanning. I would like to explore this possibility further. Perhaps you could tell us what antivirus software you use?

Hi DavidHobbs,

Didactylos is not denying that there are individual problems.... "It simply isn't an issue for most people running HDC"..... I had them too and started a thread on it in early HDC days.

The solution is in the next BOiNC version which a few CA's are alpha-ing, does a much better job... for instance one can set the memory use during work and during idle.... with 1gb and HDC models that are running close to 1gb, one can set it e.g. to 40% work, 90% idle. The HDC simply pauses if the ram is not available and give a 'waiting for memory' message and moves onto the next WU... with a little mix in of Genome Comparison or Fighting Aids @ Home, your machine will always be busy. With 'Keep in memory' option active, it will finish the next WU, and if ram availability returns and or idle time, it will resume the paused WU without a 'second' loss. Think we mentioned the 999 seconds write to disk possibility too several times. Often times it's some tweaking that resolves the issue.... admittedly, HDC requires more hardware and a little bit of individual optimization.

Cheers

PS, watch the projects stats (also see link graphs in my sig).... the balancing seems to have markedly improved. My BOiNC instance is set to GC+HDC and receives about a 50/50 mix.

Let me beat my mantra if you will Didy,

BOINC 5.8:
CPU throttle, making tweaks like Threadmaster superfluous
Simplified GUI aka BSG, cum UD Agent
Work Caching (already there), like UD Monitor utility
Manageable Preferences locally, rather than on server.
Memory Management to fit personal needs
Message logging to allow problem analysis
and and and

As for UD agent... at UD Grid.org, there is also an above normal reporting on problems which point in direction of various security apps. Just reading on Grid, that uninstalling Outpost, made the UD agent continue.... similar CA 2007 had to be fixed to get UD to move again.

I ha ve had problems with my desktop machine grinding to a halt from time to time, and it is a very powerful machine. I use the UD client having had severe problems with BOINC in the past. I have now disabled Help Defeat Cancer in my machines for the time being to see if this helps. My problem is that this is the project which for me makes it worth while to keep my machines working 24/7. Will there be a general announcement when this problem is solved?

Robert

Well, I've been here for a year and a half. I did classic seti@home for a long time then switched to BOINC when it was announced. Eventually I started processing the climate prediction module. This was a total disaster and never seemed to work for long enough to find out whether or not it worked at all - job after job would fail after weeks with an error on the client computer. So when IBM told me that WCG was available I switched and apart from odd moments have had no problems since. There is no way that I would go back now to BOINC. Incidentally, since I cut out cancer research my desktop machine is performing much better so following the forums is well worth while.