Can 'you' or anyone else use the preferences to turn off Boinc when 'you' want to use the computer?

Yes.

OK so I have been monitoring my CPU usage and it would seem that Boinc and Seti still use 100% of the CPU, just 50% of the 'time' so it pulses the CPU on a steady frequency. I can still get 'TOP' screens showing Seti at 94% for an instant, then averaging down to 40%.

When this frequency coincides with the 'call' frequency of the network card, I have a visual on the TX and RX, things go bad fast. Sometimes the pulses the program monitors show are alternating and then my internet programs work, slower, but work.

Could you show me a TOP screen shot of yours when it is in pause mode because your PC is in use so I know what I am looking at? Maybe my perceptions are off or there is a timing issue I can address.

I am running client 5.10.28 with boincmgr 5.10.8

Thanks

---

Well I'm actually running 5.10.8 straight out of the Ubuntu repos and the suspending works... after I edited global_prefs.xml as described above and I think the only reason I had to do that is because my web settings are set to do work while I'm using the computer. From my Messages tab in boincmgr:

Fri 18 Jan 2008 01:09:01 AM CST||Suspending computation - user is active
Fri 18 Jan 2008 01:12:02 AM CST||Resuming computation

The only issue is that it doesn't recognize mouse movements because of a small bug so it will only suspend if you type on the keyboard. I have submitted a patch that fixes this so the next release should handle the mouse correctly.

---

A member of The Knights Who Say NI!
For rankings, history graphs and more, check out:
My BOINC stats site

So I went back to a fresh install of the Ubuntu package 5.10.8 'boincmgr' with 5.10.28 client installed.

Apparently this still does not work. It 'does' allow the CPU use to be changed though which the old one didn't so it's 'halfway' fixed.

What other options do I have?

You could also copy over the BOINC client from the actual offical release to your BOINC directory and use the old BOINC manager from the Ubuntu distribution.
Please did not complain permanently about fixed bugs and things we already has noticed and fixed in newer versions.

I have not been able to locate a 'fixed' program. THAT IS WHY I AM HERE. Sorry for shouting, but geese it gets frustrating going around in circles.

As I written in my previos mail, download the offical BOINC client, and use the offical the BOINC client with the BOINC manager from the Ubuntu package.
You can unpack the offical binary package in a temporarly directory, stop the BOINC client, backup the Ubuntu BOINC client (file "boinc) and copy the file "boinc" from the offical package to your BOINC client directory and start the BOINC client again.


Could you please post the output from "time nslookup setiatome.berkeley.edu", "time nslookup localhost".
Is "ping localhost" successfull ?

Btw. I am still waiting on some awnsers of my last questions, how exaclty the system slows down at which actions and what happens if you make a stress test.

My firefox and my Thunderbird 'hang' when trying to connect to a website or Usenet server with boinc and seti running. The little circle up in the right corner just keeps on spinning and spinning and... When I suspend the project, the 'hang' instantly goes away and I connect. Happened yesterday on the first page I tried to access after I fired up Boinc and Seti and it is only using 50% of my CPU now. [/quote]
What happens, if you go to the BOINC manager, select "Activity"/"Network Activity Suspend" and now SETI is running and you are using FF and TB ?

It passes the grub memory burn test and Norton's hardware burn test run from a disk.

OK. But do you find the prime bianry from other download sources ?

---

OK so I have been monitoring my CPU usage and it would seem that Boinc and Seti still use 100% of the CPU, just 50% of the 'time' so it pulses the CPU on a steady frequency. I can still get 'TOP' screens showing Seti at 94% for an instant, then averaging down to 40%.

This is excatly the right behavior of the CPU throtteling. The "pulsing" CPU usage of the SETI application indicates that the CPU throtteling is working as it should.

When this frequency coincides with the 'call' frequency of the network card, I have a visual on the TX and RX, things go bad fast. Sometimes the pulses the program monitors show are alternating and then my internet programs work, slower, but work.

I think, that this is the root cause for your slowdown problems with firefox and thunderbird. I think this should not happens and there should be no network activity while running SETI and the BOINC client is not downloading some work or other applications using the network.
Toby and Byrn, do you have an idea, what's going wrong here ? - Interrupt or Hardware problem's of the network card ?

---

Well I'm actually running 5.10.8 straight out of the Ubuntu repos and the suspending works... after I edited global_prefs.xml as described above and I think the only reason I had to do that is because my web settings are set to do work while I'm using the computer. From my Messages tab in boincmgr:

Fri 18 Jan 2008 01:09:01 AM CST||Suspending computation - user is active
Fri 18 Jan 2008 01:12:02 AM CST||Resuming computation

The only issue is that it doesn't recognize mouse movements because of a small bug so it will only suspend if you type on the keyboard. I have submitted a patch that fixes this so the next release should handle the mouse correctly.

Interesting. I could also force that version of Ubuntu Boinc to suspend by using the keyboard for the 'top' command, but this new client, 5.10.28 won't even allow that.

I do not have the line in my global_prefs.xml file that you deleted.

---

So I went back to a fresh install of the Ubuntu package 5.10.8 'boincmgr' with 5.10.28 client installed.

As I written in my previos mail, download the offical BOINC client, and use the offical the BOINC client with the BOINC manager from the Ubuntu package.
You can unpack the offical binary package in a temporarly directory, stop the BOINC client, backup the Ubuntu BOINC client (file "boinc) and copy the file "boinc" from the offical package to your BOINC client directory and start the BOINC client again.

I have been doing that since you posted it as I noted at the start of this post up top. I even recently wiped it all out and started all over new.

Could you please post the output from "time nslookup setiatome.berkeley.edu", "time nslookup localhost".

mike@mike:~$ time nslookup setiatome.berkeley.edu
Server: 207.236.176.12
Address: 207.236.176.12#53

** server can't find setiatome.berkeley.edu: NXDOMAIN


real 0m0.239s
user 0m0.012s
sys 0m0.012s
mike@mike:~$ time nslookup localhost
Server: 207.236.176.12
Address: 207.236.176.12#53

** server can't find localhost: NXDOMAIN


real 0m0.022s
user 0m0.008s
sys 0m0.008s

Is "ping localhost" successfull ?

Yes.

What happens, if you go to the BOINC manager, select "Activity"/"Network Activity Suspend" and now SETI is running and you are using FF and TB ?

I will try that, it is on 'based on preferences' now. OK, it doesn't seem to affect the program shutting down or anything, I could leave it run like that and see.

When I start up boinc, it gives the preferences it is following in the message area. Here is mine:

Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST|SETI@home|URL: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID: 4139975; location: home; project prefs: default
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 31-Dec-2007 17:42:03)
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||Host location: home
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||Preferences limit memory usage when active to 759.67MB
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||Preferences limit memory usage when idle to 1367.40MB
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:28:36 PM EST||Preferences limit disk usage to 3.69GB
Fri 18 Jan 2008 12:30:00 PM EST|SETI@home|Restarting task 13dc06ab.15843.25021.14.6.129_0 using setiathome_enhanced version 527

Note: No mention of suspending when in use.

Toby also mentions the mouse suspend command 'is' broken in 5.10.8, a keyboard hit is required in his version to suspend it. I had that version too and it would suspend when I typed the top command into the terminal, but not when I typed in the GUI of firefox or thunderbird. This latest version 5.10.28 won't do either though.

OK. But do you find the prime bianry from other download sources ?

All the other prime95 links resolve back to the one server that isn't responding theses days.

---

OK, I got cpuburn and ran burnp6 to work the cpu and burnbx to run the cpu's memory cache.

Ran them for a couple hours, no errors. Managed to warm the CPU up to 62C.

My system seems to work quite well except for just one program in the whole wide world. sigh....

---

OK, I got cpuburn and ran burnp6 to work the cpu and burnbx to run the cpu's memory cache.

Ran them for a couple hours, no errors. Managed to warm the CPU up to 62C.

My system seems to work quite well except for just one program in the whole wide world. sigh....

A Follow-up. I got a windows version of prime95 and loaded in windows XP and ran prime95 in the 'torture test' mode for about 6 hours with no errors.

Prime95 'also' appeared to pause the tests while I was using the system to clean up the old file system and drives unlike Boinc.

I guess it now comes down to is there a different Boinc manager I can use with client 5.10.28 than the one Ubuntu gives out or 5.10.8?

I am up and down from my PC all day and having to manually turn it on and off got old fast as the saying goes.

---

I found out the new Boinc versions don't behave with the shutdown program, they don't acknowledge the preference.

The old version 5.8.16, works quite well.

---