What seems to be the appropriate setting for this ?

I figure one thing that matters is the overall size of the CPU since say 35% on a 2GHz might be something like 10% on 3.5GHz

One reason I asked is because certain things that arent CPU intensive might give a spike somethimes. Like right now I notice certain things like opening a new browsers or hitting a new page might spike to 40+% and then drop to almost nothing.

Depending on the setting for this option, BOUNC could be playing it's over version of red light green light where it's just stopping and starting alot.

Suspend work when non-BOINC CPU usage is above
0 means no restriction
Enforced by version 6.10.30+

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BOINC won't react to spikes on this, just to sustained values. A spike is normally over in a second, maybe 5. Not nearly enough time for BOINC to suspend all work. But if you do not want to use it, why not disable it with setting it to zero? Zero or 100, they're equal.

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BOINC won't react to spikes on this, just to sustained values. A spike is normally over in a second, maybe 5. Not nearly enough time for BOINC to suspend all work. But if you do not want to use it, why not disable it with setting it to zero? Zero or 100, they're equal.

While that is true sometimes it might become useful... does anyone know what the timeframe for that setting is ?

By that I mean how long would the non BOINC usage have to be above x% before work is suspended.

Although, on a quad core 3.7 stock CPU (4.0 - 4.5 clock with luck) I could probably get away with 0 or 100.

On a similar note for arguments sake, what about GPU work... why wouldnt there be a setting for that ?

ex. Suspend work when non-BOINC GPU usage is above x.

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does anyone know what the timeframe for that setting is ?

I believe that for GPUs to pause what they're doing, this could be 10 seconds or more to start responding, as GPUs aren't polled every second as that would take up too much CPU cycles. As for CPU, it can take between up to 15 seconds, taking time into account to unload applications and work out of memory.

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OK, I wasn't sure about my answer, so I did ask the developers.
Here's what I got back: non-BOINC CPU usage is calculated every 10 seconds. If it exceeds X, everything is suspended for the next 10 seconds.

This doesn't handle short spikes in CPU usage; the goal is to turn off BOINC while you're watching a movie.

Hope that helps.

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