Gents,
I'm trying to program my Boinc manager to switch between "idle" and "in use" modes but I can't find a way to do so. I'd like something like 10% of processor use while I'm using the computer and 100% processor use when its idle. Is it possible to do so? Has anyone tried it?

Regards!

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Gustavo Kaufmann
msn: kaufmann_gustavo@hotmail.com
www.portalcr.com.br

As far as I know (It may actually be possible), you can only suspend work while the computer is in use. Not throttle it down.

If you want to suspend work whilst your computer is in use, go to:
Your Account > Computing Preferences > And change "Suspend work while computer is in use?" to yes.

Hope that helps. Wait for a few more answers since I can't be sure there isn't that option.

- Luke.

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- Luke.

Gents,
I'm trying to program my Boinc manager to switch between "idle" and "in use" modes but I can't find a way to do so. I'd like something like 10% of processor use while I'm using the computer and 100% processor use when its idle. Is it possible to do so? Has anyone tried it?

Regards!

It is really unnecessary. The science applications run at low priority. If there is any higher priority application waiting to run, it will run before the science application.

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Gents,
I'm trying to program my Boinc manager to switch between "idle" and "in use" modes but I can't find a way to do so. I'd like something like 10% of processor use while I'm using the computer and 100% processor use when its idle. Is it possible to do so? Has anyone tried it?

Regards!

There is a feature in BOINC where you can tell it "suspend work when computer is in use" -- set this in the computing preferences on your account, and BOINC will pick up the settings next time it updates.

Then, if you type on the keyboard or move the mouse, BOINC will stop whatever science application is running and release the resources.

... but as others have mentioned, it's pretty unnecessary. The science applications run just above the "idle" task, so practically everything takes precedence.

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Gents,
I'm trying to program my Boinc manager to switch between "idle" and "in use" modes but I can't find a way to do so. I'd like something like 10% of processor use while I'm using the computer and 100% processor use when its idle. Is it possible to do so? Has anyone tried it?

Regards!

There is a feature in BOINC where you can tell it "suspend work when computer is in use" -- set this in the computing preferences on your account, and BOINC will pick up the settings next time it updates.

Then, if you type on the keyboard or move the mouse, BOINC will stop whatever science application is running and release the resources.

Well, it won't release the RAM if it is set to keep idle tasks in memory, the default. And if you do tell it to release the RAM, the system has to pause while it is written to disk, and pause again to read it back to restart the science. The O/S will do this anyway if there isn't enough RAM in the machine.

... but as others have mentioned, it's pretty unnecessary. The science applications run just above the "idle" task, so practically everything takes precedence.

Most of the controls that are in the preferences were there for single core no hyper-thread CPU's. System schedulers are much smarter about the mix on a system today and in general it is much better to allow them to do their job without a hand tied behind their back.

Let me ask what hasn't been said. Are you trying to prevent a problem, or is there a real problem?

From experience running SETI on some woefully underpowered boxes, the first thing to do is kill and remove all the cute stuff, like funny cursors and the like. It is amazing how much that stuff can bog down a system. Next get in and increase the swap file size above the recommended amount. Then you can look at doing something like setting BOINC to run 95% of the CPU. That's enough in human scales, the run bursts are in the 10 milli-second scale, to be sure that there is idle time between key-presses while typing to allow the other app time to function. If the system is still sluggish then set the go idle while in use timer to a minute. But the number one thing to do is upgrade the RAM! If it all lives in RAM the system scheduler will keep you a happy camper without any fine tuning.

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... but as others have mentioned, it's pretty unnecessary. The science applications run just above the "idle" task, so practically everything takes precedence.

Most of the controls that are in the preferences were there for single core no hyper-thread CPU's. System schedulers are much smarter about the mix on a system today and in general it is much better to allow them to do their job without a hand tied behind their back.

My daily-driver is an Athlon XP 3000+. Single core, no hyperthreading (which is a work-around, not a feature), and I do not use any of the special controls.

The OS does fine. Most of the time, it's waiting for keystrokes anyway.

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Thanks everyone for the answers!

Let me ask what hasn't been said. Are you trying to prevent a problem, or is there a real problem?

Gary, none of the options. Last week I finally got myself a new computer; an Intel i7, 6Gb RAM and an Nvidia 250 with 1Gb Ram. The whole system is running on Windows 7. It surprised me that, making use of the processor capacity installed (4 cores and 8 threads for the main CPU and 2 tasks for the GPU), the system ran incredibly "laggy". It wasn't slow but the computer was having really slow and constant freezes... and after some time with it running like that it became realy annoying. Things got better after some tweaking bit it was still a real pain. Since this computer has lots of idle time, the logical idea that came to my mind was to let it run a single task while I'm working and let all 10 tasks run while the computer is idle.

Right now I'm using the "Suspend work while computer is in use" option and the whole system is working like a charm but for me it's still not the ideal situation. Maybe an extra option for future versions of BOINC.

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Gustavo Kaufmann
msn: kaufmann_gustavo@hotmail.com
www.portalcr.com.br

Thanks everyone for the answers!

Let me ask what hasn't been said. Are you trying to prevent a problem, or is there a real problem?

Gary, none of the options. Last week I finally got myself a new computer; an Intel i7, 6Gb RAM and an Nvidia 250 with 1Gb Ram. The whole system is running on Windows 7. It surprised me that, making use of the processor capacity installed (4 cores and 8 threads for the main CPU and 2 tasks for the GPU), the system ran incredibly "laggy". It wasn't slow but the computer was having really slow and constant freezes... and after some time with it running like that it became realy annoying. Things got better after some tweaking bit it was still a real pain. Since this computer has lots of idle time, the logical idea that came to my mind was to let it run a single task while I'm working and let all 10 tasks run while the computer is idle.

Right now I'm using the "Suspend work while computer is in use" option and the whole system is working like a charm but for me it's still not the ideal situation. Maybe an extra option for future versions of BOINC.

One of the options says "on multiprocessors, use at most" and you might be happy with one CPU reserved for your use.

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Thanks everyone for the answers!

Let me ask what hasn't been said. Are you trying to prevent a problem, or is there a real problem?

Gary, none of the options. Last week I finally got myself a new computer; an Intel i7, 6Gb RAM and an Nvidia 250 with 1Gb Ram. The whole system is running on Windows 7. It surprised me that, making use of the processor capacity installed (4 cores and 8 threads for the main CPU and 2 tasks for the GPU), the system ran incredibly "laggy". It wasn't slow but the computer was having really slow and constant freezes... and after some time with it running like that it became realy annoying. Things got better after some tweaking bit it was still a real pain. Since this computer has lots of idle time, the logical idea that came to my mind was to let it run a single task while I'm working and let all 10 tasks run while the computer is idle.

Right now I'm using the "Suspend work while computer is in use" option and the whole system is working like a charm but for me it's still not the ideal situation. Maybe an extra option for future versions of BOINC.

One of the options says "on multiprocessors, use at most" and you might be happy with one CPU reserved for your use.

Yes. IIRC there are issues with using all cores for science and the GPU at the same time. I'm not a GPU guy yet, so I'll bow out.

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Thanks everyone for the answers!

Let me ask what hasn't been said. Are you trying to prevent a problem, or is there a real problem?

Gary, none of the options. Last week I finally got myself a new computer; an Intel i7, 6Gb RAM and an Nvidia 250 with 1Gb Ram. The whole system is running on Windows 7. It surprised me that, making use of the processor capacity installed (4 cores and 8 threads for the main CPU and 2 tasks for the GPU), the system ran incredibly "laggy". It wasn't slow but the computer was having really slow and constant freezes... and after some time with it running like that it became realy annoying. Things got better after some tweaking bit it was still a real pain. Since this computer has lots of idle time, the logical idea that came to my mind was to let it run a single task while I'm working and let all 10 tasks run while the computer is idle.

Right now I'm using the "Suspend work while computer is in use" option and the whole system is working like a charm but for me it's still not the ideal situation. Maybe an extra option for future versions of BOINC.

Mine did that so I put my non cuda GE7950 for the monitor and now it works great and crunches all the time.

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Official Abuser of Boinc Buttons...
And no good credit hound!