This cpu-load of always 100% really bothers me. I see that it is a central idea of the whole thing, but with my mashine and using habits I'd really see that on my energy bill at the end of the month (additional 50Watt when working on seti!). Plus working on 100% load so often must shorten the lifetime of several parts of my computer.
Thats the reason for me not to partizipate in any boinc-projects, although I'd like to.

If I could tell the software to use eg only 10% capacity I'd be in it. 10% would be better than nothing at all no?

There is an option under your account to change this, but it does not work as you would think. It works on a 10 second cycle, so if you set it for 50%, it will run 100% for 5 seconds, then 5 seconds off (or maybe 1 on 1 off).

As for shortening the lifetime, this is a misnomer. Actually PCs run 100% all the time, when they are running, just a large percentage is idle processes. You are giving up these idle processes to work on a project like this. Yes the electric may go up a little because the fans will run 24/7, but it does not do anything different than the processor is capable of doing.

I had a P4 computer running from 2003 - just about a month ago that was 24/7 on DC projects. It never failed, and to this day is still being used by someone who needed a computer for school (is poor and could not afford one for himself, so I gave it to him). Even with 90F+ (32C+) degrees in my house when the air conditioner was down, etc. It ran fine. If your fans and PSU are good quality, you keep the computer / vents / fans clean from dust, it can run for a long time.

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My movie https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/502242

There is an option under your account to change this, but it does not work as you would think. It works on a 10 second cycle, so if you set it for 50%, it will run 100% for 5 seconds, then 5 seconds off (or maybe 1 on 1 off).

As for shortening the lifetime, this is a misnomer. Actually PCs run 100% all the time, when they are running, just a large percentage is idle processes. You are giving up these idle processes to work on a project like this. Yes the electric may go up a little because the fans will run 24/7, but it does not do anything different than the processor is capable of doing.

I had a P4 computer running from 2003 - just about a month ago that was 24/7 on DC projects. It never failed, and to this day is still being used by someone who needed a computer for school (is poor and could not afford one for himself, so I gave it to him). Even with 90F+ (32C+) degrees in my house when the air conditioner was down, etc. It ran fine. If your fans and PSU are good quality, you keep the computer / vents / fans clean from dust, it can run for a long time.

Actually, it tests once per second to see how much CPU time it has used. 50% is one second on and one off. 75% is 3 on and 1 off. 95% would be 19 on and 1 off...

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