I've got a Compaq laptop with an AMD Athlon 2600+ (XP Home) and it takes about 10 hours to complete 1 work unit. That's almost identical to my desktop that is a PII 600Mhz (2000). The BOINC benchmarks even show that the AMD should be faster. Any ideas?

The following are the two machines benchmarks:

AMD Athlon 2600+
Measured floating point speed: 820.47 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed: 2612.4 million ops/sec

PII 600Mhz
Measured floating point speed: 702.19 million ops/sec
Measured integer speed: 1266.16 million ops/sec

> I've got a Compaq laptop with an AMD Athlon 2600+ (XP Home) and it takes about
> 10 hours to complete 1 work unit. That's almost identical to my desktop that
> is a PII 600Mhz (2000). The BOINC benchmarks even show that the AMD should be
> faster. Any ideas?

It's very strange, as I also have an Athlon 2600+ at work and it takes 4 hours and half to complete a work unit, which is the same time of the Intel P4 2,66 I have at home. This means that the Athlon performs as well as the P4.
I'm talking about desktops, though... usually, notebooks are slower...
Any settings that cuts the processor frequency to save battery?
Wrong BIOS settings? (such as disabled cache or someting like that)

> It's very strange, as I also have an Athlon 2600+ at work and it takes 4 hours
> and half to complete a work unit, which is the same time of the Intel P4 2,66
> I have at home. This means that the Athlon performs as well as the P4.
> I'm talking about desktops, though... usually, notebooks are slower...
> Any settings that cuts the processor frequency to save battery?
> Wrong BIOS settings? (such as disabled cache or someting like that)
>
>

Even that is slow. I have a 2600+ that averages just over 3 hours per wu. My AMD 1900+ averages 4 hours.

Terry - k4vh

[/i]

check thermal throttling for cpu. boinc settings?

Other issues include differences in memory speeds, cache sizes, power saving modes ...

As a general rule, as has already been stated, laptops are slower than desktops ... even with suposidly newr identical configurations.
<p>
For BOINC Documentaion: Click Me!

It is slow for sure. Check for some power saving mode. Is your laptop
always pluged in ? I also have a Compaq here (presario 2800 P4 1.4)
and it takes 6 hours to crunch. My benchmarks are lower then yours.
Something is wrong.

The problem with running a laptop cpu at 100% is, it gets really hot.

Allowing air circulation around the bottom of a laptop helps alot. And make sure that your heat pipe is clean.

---

Account frozen...

> Allowing air circulation around the bottom of a laptop helps alot. And make
> sure that your heat pipe is clean.

Hey Dogbytes still alive ? Looking at your avatar you might have been traveling?
"Allowing air circulation around the bottom of a laptop helps alot"
That is what I did with mine but I just can't figure out where is the air
intake on that blowdy machine. Taking a laptop apart is not always easy but
mine is almost 3 years old now and I guess I should do it. It must be full of dusts.

Marc

Petit Soleil, I use a cookie rack that I got from ikea to lift my laptop off my desk. This is good for both the lap top and the desk, cause I'd been ruining the surface of desks at a phenominal rate (because I had my lap top on all the time) and for the lap top cause it's actually much cooler now.

I can't find an ikea picture but...something like this. But the Ikea one is much sturdier.


<br />

Feel free to take a look inside my brain

> Petit Soleil, I use a cookie rack that I got from ikea to lift my laptop off
> my desk. This is good for both the lap top and the desk, cause I'd been
> ruining the surface of desks at a phenominal rate (because I had my lap top on
> all the time) and for the lap top cause it's actually much cooler now.

Good idea-kea. I have build a stand with a fan that works well. It runs about 3-5 Celsious cooler. I am just puzzled with the machine air intake. I will open it this week-end (nothing better to do...) to clean it with an electronic dust buster and to find out how the air intake works and where it is located. I am used to take all kinds of electronic equipment appart (it's my job after all) but I just hate laptop. They are all different and it sometimes takes lots of time just to figure out how it is assemble. Not to mentionned that it's fragile.
How is the stage going, Still enjoy Montreal ? Have a nice week-end ! Now I am going to watch how Villeneuve will perform for the F1 qualification on TV !!!

Salut
Marc

try setting xp to max preformance
Fred BOINC Alpha & BOINC Beta Tester

> As a general rule, as has already been stated, laptops are slower than
> desktops ... even with suposidly newr identical configurations.

Shoulda gotten a centrino :)

1.3 GHz Pentium-M: 2 - 2.5 hours and temperature is not a problem unless you take it into a sauna with you :)


---------------------------------------
- A member of The Knights Who Say NI!
Possibly the best stats site in the universe:
http://boinc-kwsn.no-ip.info

> Shoulda gotten a centrino :)
>
> 1.3 GHz Pentium-M: 2 - 2.5 hours and temperature is not a problem unless you
> take it into a sauna with you :)

Lol my P4 2.8GHZ does one in about 3.5hours! how fast would a xeon with 2mb cach do one?, does duel make a difference?


^ Click Here ^ ^ Click Here ^ ^ Click Here ^

> Good idea-kea. I have build a stand with a fan that works well. It runs about
> 3-5 Celsious cooler. I am just puzzled with the machine air intake. I will
> open it this week-end (nothing better to do...) to clean it with an
> electronic dust buster and to find out how the air intake works and where it
> is located. I am used to take all kinds of electronic equipment appart (it's
> my job after all) but I just hate laptop. They are all different and it
> sometimes takes lots of time just to figure out how it is assemble. Not to
> mentionned that it's fragile.

Hi Petit Soleil. I noticed that you have a Compaq presario 2800. There is a technical manual for it:
Manual for Compaq presario 2800 (it's a 10MB PDF).

Hope it helps in the disassemble ;-)


=================

Professor Desty Nova

-Researching Karma the Hard Way-

First think Notebooks are not slower than Desktops, a Pentium Centrino with 1.5Ghz
is much Faster than a Pentium4 with 2Ghz.
Because the Centrino is highly optimiced.

And than hear on all the others, look for some Powersaving options and give your Notebook a good good COOLING.

I build for a Notebook a seperate dokingcooling station whith 2 aditional fans, one for intake and the otherone for the outtake.
The efect is the Notebook runs at 100% CPU about 10 celsious cooler.

Happy Crunching :-))




TEAMLESS??
Drop by ours and have a look SETI Synergy

> Hi Petit Soleil. I noticed that you have a Compaq presario 2800. There is a
> technical manual for it:
> Manual for Compaq presario 2800 (it's a 10MB PDF).

> Hope it helps in the disassemble ;-)

Thank you very much sir !!!
I have been looking for that but couldn't find it.

Regards
Marc

> I've got a Compaq laptop with an AMD Athlon 2600+ (XP Home) and it takes about
> 10 hours to complete 1 work unit. That's almost identical to my desktop that
> is a PII 600Mhz (2000). The BOINC benchmarks even show that the AMD should be
> faster. Any ideas?

Running CPU-Z (for example) to display realtime Clock Speed (when the System is set to "Desktop" in Energy Management) should help.

If the Clockspeed should be constant at given CPU Specification, with no thermal throttling.
Obviously, the System should not be setup to go into Standby or any other Power-Saving/Hibernation mode.

My good old Notebook (AMD AthlonXP-M 1800+) runs a WU at roughly 4h20m...
(since BOINC doesn't seem to display Angle Range, hard to say a distinct Reference runtime)
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I figured out my problem, it is a heat issue as many here pointed out. It appears this Compaq can only run at full performance for about 5 minutes then it slowly throttles down until it's about as fast as a PII 600Mhz. I don't know if this is a Compaq design flaw or AMD's problem but based on this information I won't be buying either again.

Looks like el cheapo/bad Cooling design from CompaQ side then...

A look at the CPUid (with CPU-Z or an alike Utility) to check if it is a true Mobile Chip might be in order, although AMD Desktop chips are highly uncommon in Notebooks, as those lack PowerNow! support.
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