This is a strange issue I have not seen on any other platforms I have (including some dual-core Athlons.)

Platform: Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz Laptop.
OS: Windows XP SP2
BOINC 5.7.2, Boinc 5.6.5, Boinc 5.4.11

Symptoms: When BOINC/Seti (or any other project) is running, I can't hibernate, can't open word or excel files by clicking on the file. Can't open a web page by clicking on a link in Thunderbird (whether or not Firefox is running at the time.)

As soon as boinc stops running either by being paused or suspended, or even when I use CPU throttling (which actually (but may be irrelevant)just pauses the app/s regularly) then word/excel document opens, the link is opened, or the laptop suspends.

In other words, the action I tried to do goes into some resource wait state and does not go forward until the CPU drops below 100% - it is waiting for BOINC. This of course should not happen. Nothing should have to wait for BOINC.

Happens with all recent versions of BOINC that I have tried.

Edit: This behaviour does not happen for opening all file types. It happens for Word and Excel, but not PPT and PDF. One thing I can see that is consistent across the file types is that those file types that have a problem have a DDE message in the "open" section under "file types", whereas those that do not have a DDE message. (although they might use DDE)

any thoughts?

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--miw

Check to see what priority the boinc executables are running at...

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Check to see what priority the boinc executables are running at...

Running at low priority, just like on my other BOINC installations. But the effect is as if it were running at "real time" priority. :-(

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--miw

Check to see what priority the boinc executables are running at...

Running at low priority, just like on my other BOINC installations. But the effect is as if it were running at "real time" priority. :-(

How much RAM does the system have? How many Processors? What else is running? (In other words, is the OS thrashing?)

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BOINC WIKI

Check to see what priority the boinc executables are running at...

Running at low priority, just like on my other BOINC installations. But the effect is as if it were running at "real time" priority. :-(

How much RAM does the system have? How many Processors? What else is running? (In other words, is the OS thrashing?)

Go to your user preferences on the website and tell it to not let seti use more than say 95%.. Problem solved..

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Check to see what priority the boinc executables are running at...

Running at low priority, just like on my other BOINC installations. But the effect is as if it were running at "real time" priority. :-(

How much RAM does the system have? How many Processors? What else is running? (In other words, is the OS thrashing?)

Go to your user preferences on the website and tell it to not let seti use more than say 95%.. Problem solved..

Just an addition, this preference setting will only be used if you use the BOINC Beta version. It is silently ignored while using the current "production" version. The current release does not have the ability to throttle cpu useage. This setting was added long ago in anticipation of it being used eventually, and the new BOINC Beta version is the first that uses it.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

How much RAM does the system have? How many Processors? What else is running? (In other words, is the OS thrashing?)

1 Processor, 2 cores, 1GB RAM. Definitely not thrashing.

Except for this process launch problem which I think may be linked to DDE strangeness, everything is fine.

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--miw

Go to your user preferences on the website and tell it to not let seti use more than say 95%.. Problem solved..

Yes. It is a partial solution. At least the processes do actually start in this case. Unfortunately, the throttling algorithm seems to be a duty cycle with a 1s granularity. That is, if you set it to use no more than 95%, then BOINC runs for 19s and then suspends for 1s. If you set it to use no more than 98%, then it runs for 49s and pauses for 1s.

So if I set it to use 95%, then I still have to wait 10s on average for my process to launch.

It would be more intereating to find out why BOINC is blocking DDE messages. Is it a problem with BOINC or with the particular windows setup on my PC. If anyone knows about DDE and could suggest things I could do to debug this, then I would be most grateful.

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--miw

@ miw

Did you find any more out about this problem? Eric is having the same difficulties with an IBM Thinkpad in this thread

Go to your user preferences on the website and tell it to not let seti use more than say 95%.. Problem solved..

Yes. It is a partial solution. At least the processes do actually start in this case. Unfortunately, the throttling algorithm seems to be a duty cycle with a 1s granularity. That is, if you set it to use no more than 95%, then BOINC runs for 19s and then suspends for 1s. If you set it to use no more than 98%, then it runs for 49s and pauses for 1s.

So if I set it to use 95%, then I still have to wait 10s on average for my process to launch.

It would be more intereating to find out why BOINC is blocking DDE messages. Is it a problem with BOINC or with the particular windows setup on my PC. If anyone knows about DDE and could suggest things I could do to debug this, then I would be most grateful.

Yes, the duty cycle in 1 second.

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BOINC WIKI

@ miw

Did you find any more out about this problem? Eric is having the same difficulties with an IBM Thinkpad in this thread

Well, I have not found a decent workaround yet, since setting the Laptop (which is also a Thinkpad - X60) to not work while user is active means it barely crunches during the day.

For the time being, what I do is when I want to open an Excel or Word file or visit a link out of a mail message or hibernate or whatever, I pull the power pack out and go to battery. BOINC suspends, and everything works. Then I put the power back in.

However, knowing that Eric also has the same problem with his thinkpad gives me some ideas, as well as letting me know I am not going crazy. :-)

I'm gonna hunt down all the extra services that IBM install to run thinkpads and see if I can find one of them causing the problem....

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--miw

@ miw

I'm gonna hunt down all the extra services that IBM install to run thinkpads and see if I can find one of them causing the problem....

Found the problem. It's called "Thinkvantage Away Manager". It's a piece of IBM bloatware that is supposed to improve performance by stopping some tasks from running when the CPU is busy. Seems to me it chains itself into some software interrupts and then refuses to run when CPU is 100%.

Anything chained behind it in the SWIs waits forever to run.

Uninstalled it and everything is fine now....

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--miw

Found the problem. It's called "Thinkvantage Away Manager". It's a piece of IBM bloatware that is supposed to improve performance by stopping some tasks from running when the CPU is busy. Seems to me it chains itself into some software interrupts and then refuses to run when CPU is 100%.

Anything chained behind it in the SWIs waits forever to run.

Uninstalled it and everything is fine now....

That's interesting to know. Thanks for the resolution.

The only thing I'm trying to figure out in my head is how to explain this to new users who might potentially run into a similar problem, but blame BOINC/SETI since it would be the "last thing they installed" or, using their limited diagnosis, when stopping BOINC/SETI the problem "goes away", so the software will be to blame. I also wonder how many other users have already had similar issues but didn't even bother to look into it because they "have more important things to do, so until BOINC fixes the issues, they won't contribute", which sounds to me like there's little BOINC can do about this on their end.

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Found the problem. It's called "Thinkvantage Away Manager". It's a piece of IBM bloatware that is supposed to improve performance by stopping some tasks from running when the CPU is busy. Seems to me it chains itself into some software interrupts and then refuses to run when CPU is 100%.

Anything chained behind it in the SWIs waits forever to run.

Uninstalled it and everything is fine now....

That's interesting to know. Thanks for the resolution.

The only thing I'm trying to figure out in my head is how to explain this to new users who might potentially run into a similar problem, but blame BOINC/SETI since it would be the "last thing they installed" or, using their limited diagnosis, when stopping BOINC/SETI the problem "goes away", so the software will be to blame. I also wonder how many other users have already had similar issues but didn't even bother to look into it because they "have more important things to do, so until BOINC fixes the issues, they won't contribute", which sounds to me like there's little BOINC can do about this on their end.

Yes. and as you can imagine, if it is a work laptop, then there is limited sympathy or help given by the corporate IT people. Solution is "stop running BOINC" because that makes the symptom go away, even if the problem is a poorly-written piece of software that comes with the PC.

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--miw

Hi, I had the same problem and posting here only for reference (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=36164).
Maybe you could add a comment into FAQ adressing this special IBM ThinkPad issue

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