I have SETI set to run while I work. It is however not using only idle CPU. When I compile my code, navigate folders or use the Internet I get freezes of many seconds. Are you aware of this error? I've seen some other people complaining about it, esp. when Outlook is started, but at my place, it happens even more often. This is an issue on all five computers I'm running seti on!

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Applications such as outlook run even lower priority threads than BOINC.

I don't use outlook, and don't experience any slowdowns.

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I really can't understand yoyr problem.
As far as I know, Outlook does not use cpu for any reason
so these slowdowns are strange..
Try lowering seti's priority or increase outlook's
from the task manager..
good luck :P

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Firegate_13 Was Here!
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> I really can't understand yoyr problem.
> As far as I know, Outlook does not use cpu for any reason
> so these slowdowns are strange..
> Try lowering seti's priority or increase outlook's
> from the task manager..
> good luck :P
>
If you would have taken the time to read my question you'd have found out I don't experience this troubles only when using outlook. It happens for instance when I start IE. It sometakes a few seconds to even start loading it... Or for instance when I'm writing in a firefox inputbox sometimes text doesn't show up until after a few seconds. My PC is 2600+xp and it helps if I don't run SETI but that's not what I want.

BTW, SETI's priority is by default set to lowest - low and it cannot be lowered more.

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I've noticed this also. It seems to be mostly Office2000 apps that are affected. I've never noticed any slowdowns with my browser.

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> Applications such as outlook run even lower priority threads than BOINC.
>
> I don't use outlook, and don't experience any slowdowns.
>
There is a known conflict with outlook, outlook express, and other parts of the office/works suite and most DC projects. They sometimes spawn very low priority background threads which cannot get any CPU time.

There have been problems with the 4.xx line of BOINC clients to varying degrees. The client will slow things down when it tries to connect.

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BOINC WIKI

BOINCing since 2002/12/8

> There is a known conflict with outlook, outlook express, and other parts of
> the office/works suite and most DC projects. They sometimes spawn very low
> priority background threads which cannot get any CPU time.
>
> There have been problems with the 4.xx line of BOINC clients to varying
> degrees. The client will slow things down when it tries to connect.
>
I believe the issue is deep inside Windows itself, as -if during the time the system is halted by SETI I hover my mouse over icons on the Quick Launch bar some show the correct highlighted state (cached?) while some don't(have to be loaded from disk?) -

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> > I really can't understand yoyr problem.
> > As far as I know, Outlook does not use cpu for any reason
> > so these slowdowns are strange..
> > Try lowering seti's priority or increase outlook's
> > from the task manager..
> > good luck :P
> >
> If you would have taken the time to read my question you'd have found out I
> don't experience this troubles only when using outlook. It happens for
> instance when I start IE. It sometakes a few seconds to even start loading
> it... Or for instance when I'm writing in a firefox inputbox sometimes text
> doesn't show up until after a few seconds. My PC is 2600+xp and it helps if I
> don't run SETI but that's not what I want.
>
> BTW, SETI's priority is by default set to lowest - low and it cannot be
> lowered more.
>
I believe you are experiencing the lag that occurs when the cpu cycles are being switched from one program to another, Seti/Boinc/Climate Predictor/ whatever have to make sure they are not using the memeory etc. addresses the new program wants to use, so it takes a few seconds to start the new programs.

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> > > I really can't understand yoyr problem.
> > > As far as I know, Outlook does not use cpu for any reason
> > > so these slowdowns are strange..
> > > Try lowering seti's priority or increase outlook's
> > > from the task manager..
> > > good luck :P
> > >
> > If you would have taken the time to read my question you'd have found out
> I
> > don't experience this troubles only when using outlook. It happens for
> > instance when I start IE. It sometakes a few seconds to even start
> loading
> > it... Or for instance when I'm writing in a firefox inputbox sometimes
> text
> > doesn't show up until after a few seconds. My PC is 2600+xp and it helps
> if I
> > don't run SETI but that's not what I want.
> >
> > BTW, SETI's priority is by default set to lowest - low and it cannot be
> > lowered more.
> >
> I believe you are experiencing the lag that occurs when the cpu cycles are
> being switched from one program to another, Seti/Boinc/Climate Predictor/
> whatever have to make sure they are not using the memeory etc. addresses the
> new program wants to use, so it takes a few seconds to start the new programs.
>

That may be true for the others, but at work, I live in Outlook/Excel all day long, and at times when one or the other project is NOT just starting up, but just BOINCing along, I see intermittent slowdowns, to the point that I occaisionally have to stop BOINC to get Outlook or Excel to respond.

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Since the problem remains in the new version I ask you to all click on the "I also have this question" button so it may be resolved in a decent time frame ;)

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I believe this problem to be inherent to modern PC systems. My possible explanation:

You are using IDLE cpu time which is the lowest priority available, however the context switching can be costly.

Context switching is where your PC takes a process (e.g. SETI) out of memory to be able to load in a new process. If you have low memory this can result in to "swapping in" and "swapping out" of memory to the hard disk.

So what could be happening is that your program is allowing some threadable room using sleep commands which results into idle time and causes a context switch. Since my BOINC uses >100MB of physical memory (i do clientprediction aswell) it can cause a dramatic load on your memory if it gets loaded back forth, into and from memory. And knowing memory is slow and block transfers using DMA can cost time it could slow down your other processes.

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