The effect is only with the tasks tab. If I display all tasks, and switch to another tab, the usage goes up. When I switch back to the tasks page, it drops. When I show just the active tasks, the usage is up. So BOINC seems to be loading the tasks into memory evey time it looks at all of them, even if most of them are below the scroll line. There is no effect from closing BM, except when the all tasks are displayed, the usage goes back up when BM is closed. The only cause I am seeing is with the tasks page, showing all tasks, which is where I used to have it all the time, although minimized. If I had it set to another tab, it wouldn't have made any difference. This is excellent knowedge, and is definitly the missing piece I was struggling to uncover!

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

@Richard. I may play around with it today, and see how much impact it has on both CPU and GPU.

Steve

One other thing might be worth checking. Does it make any difference whether BOINC Manager is displaying the 'Tasks' tab, or is CPU usage lower when it's displaying somthing simple like 'Projects'?

I don't know whether BOINC Manager is intelligent enough to delay updating hidden tabs - I'm remembering something ancient from BoincView, which certainly saves CPU time by not updating un-needed tabs (and conversely, wastes a lot of time if you have it constantly updating a full tab).

From everything I am seeing, CPU usage stays pegged at 100%, and never drops. When I do other tasks, BOINC gives up whatever CPU power is needed for the other task, but it stays at 100%. When I was crunching Einstein, it stayed at 100% also. Except for suspending BOINC, nothing seems to change that. I will play around with the GPU's to see what happens, but the CPU stays pegged.

Steve

Yes, but the question was more about which processes go to make up the total.

I'd expect to see 6 copies of AK_v8b at 16% (or whatever mix is running at the moment), but you might be interested in how much CPU boinc/boincmgr are using - particularly if you add the non-default 'CPU Time' column to the task manager display.

The effect is only with the tasks tab. If I display all tasks, and switch to another tab, the usage goes up. When I switch back to the tasks page, it drops. When I show just the active tasks, the usage is up. So BOINC seems to be loading the tasks into memory evey time it looks at all of them, even if most of them are below the scroll line. There is no effect from closing BM, except when the all tasks are displayed, the usage goes back up when BM is closed. The only cause I am seeing is with the tasks page, showing all tasks, which is where I used to have it all the time, although minimized. If I had it set to another tab, it wouldn't have made any difference. This is excellent knowedge, and is definitly the missing piece I was struggling to uncover!

Steve

Do you have the task display sorted into any non-native order (up/down triangles visible in a column header)? I would expect sorting 3000 lines every second would take an appreciable amount of time.

I think this is why the show "active" feature was added. I remember having to run a pretty shallow cache when cuda first launched...After we discovered with enough on board boinc.exe would end up running excessively.

I thought that was all fixed long ago so haven't given it much thought as of late. I run 5 BM's open all the time on the main system but they are all set only show active. I don't think is any negative impact. <famous last words>

The best thing to do is to make sure manager is always closed or minimized. Also only display all tasks when necessary.

Just made a test here; "showing all" uses about 10% cpu for BM. GPU's stay loaded 99% but then I am not crunching on all cpu cores so that could be it right there.

Thanks for the heads up Jason!
Gratz Steve, and here I was already impressed with your rig ;)

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"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm... that's funny...'" -- Isaac Asimov

Yes, but the question was more about which processes go to make up the total.

I'd expect to see 6 copies of AK_v8b at 16% (or whatever mix is running at the moment), but you might be interested in how much CPU boinc/boincmgr are using - particularly if you add the non-default 'CPU Time' column to the task manager display.

When all tasks are displayed, BM is using up to 5% CPU. When active tasks are shown, BM uses 0%. Wow!

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Yes, but the question was more about which processes go to make up the total.

I'd expect to see 6 copies of AK_v8b at 16% (or whatever mix is running at the moment), but you might be interested in how much CPU boinc/boincmgr are using - particularly if you add the non-default 'CPU Time' column to the task manager display.

When all tasks are displayed, BM is using up to 5% CPU. When active tasks are shown, BM uses 0%. Wow!

Steve

And how much is boinc.exe using? It has to generate the list first, before BM can display it.

Do you have the task display sorted into any non-native order (up/down triangles visible in a column header)? I would expect sorting 3000 lines every second would take an appreciable amount of time.

The tasks are in the native order. The up triangle is on project. Sorting the tasks may be what was happening. Here I am , like the rest of us, finally loading up my cache, and not realizing I was slowing down my system in the way it was displayed. I have my cache set to 6 days. That way I can sustain a decent sized outage, but don't have more on board than I can handle. The many AP units I have on board make the total number of wu's lower than I would normally expect for a 6 day cache. I do about 1000 MB a day.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

And how much is boinc.exe using? It has to generate the list first, before BM can display it.

Boinc.exe uses 1% with all tasks shown, and 0% with active tasks shown.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

And how much is boinc.exe using? It has to generate the list first, before BM can display it.

I think boinc.exe will always have the full Task List (client_state.xml) in Memory. No need to generate anything.

If i shut down BM and connect to boinc.exe with my Mobile Phone there is
no CPU Load on boinc.exe.

Helli

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A loooong time ago: First Credits after SETI@home Restart

And how much is boinc.exe using? It has to generate the list first, before BM can display it.

I think boinc.exe will always have the full Task List (client_state.xml) in Memory. No need to generate anything.

If i shut down BM and connect to boinc.exe with my Mobile Phone there is
no CPU Load on boinc.exe.

Helli

It'll still have to render it into XML, and handle the TCP/IP overhead of transferring it to BM via localhost.

@ Steve,
It'll still be sorting, even if it shouldn't take long.

[Anyone not familiar with editing the Windows registry should ignore the rest of this post]

To disable sorting completely, close BOINC Manager, and use Regedit. Find

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Manager\Tasks

and set SortColumn to 0xffffffff

There should be no triangle on any column next time you open BM.

Thank you Richard! I saved that bit of information in a Word document so I have it on hand for when this thread disapears into never never land. I am getting a nice stockpile of information like that.

Steve

Edit: My rig is flying right now! I can't believe the difference!

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Just to chime in here, I have just been switching to the projects tab instead of leaving it on the tasks tab so the display wouldn't be changing every second or so. I remember reading a thread like this one quite awhile back and that was recommended.

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PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

Just to chime in here, I have just been switching to the projects tab instead of leaving it on the tasks tab so the display wouldn't be changing every second or so. I remember reading a thread like this one quite awhile back and that was recommended.

I must have missed that thread, or forgot about it. The difference is astounding! Since I first saw Jason's post, my RAC has shot up over 300 points. Usually when it does AP work, the increases come at the end of 7.5 hours or so, when the units complete, or when they are finished by a wingman. Now it is climbing with just the GPU's. I will easily pass my old record of 47,000. It's time for a new record!

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

Steve, I guess you should go for 50k :)

Just to chime in here, I have just been switching to the projects tab instead of leaving it on the tasks tab so the display wouldn't be changing every second or so. I remember reading a thread like this one quite awhile back and that was recommended.

No harm in revisting the old assumptions once in a while - both for the benefit of new readers, and to check that they're still true!

Steve, I guess you should go for 50k :)

Possible. But if it's your Main Rig it's hard to let it run with 100% Efficiency.

Steve, how high is "% of time BOINC is running" on your Rig?

Helli

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A loooong time ago: First Credits after SETI@home Restart

Steve, I guess you should go for 50k :)

I have no idea where it will top out. The differences from before are:

Faster CPU speed.
Much faster RAM speed
Faster GPU speed
Much faster GPU RAM speed
Crunching on all 6 CPU cores instead of 5
The realization that the tasks should be set to active only.

Every point beyond 47,000 will be a bonus for me.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website

I have noticed this too, specially on a Q6600 host with 2 (4850+5870)ATI GPU's and showing the whole 8 days cache, now reduced to 4 days, sometimes BOINC manager wasn't even able to build/show the whole list, or took 1 minute! Also 2-4% boinc.exe load in TaskManager.
Only the X9650, running WIN XP64, with twice (4GByte RAM) the memory, does
handle it, without any different, with a 4 days cache and 3 Projects, SETI, Einstein and GPUgrid.

I always minimize BOINC manager, a display of temps, voltages shows if BOINC still is active, but this also takes some CPU cycles!

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This is a fantastic free speed-up development& I am applying the change to all of my machines, thought quite why I don't know yet (but then I'm still reading the thread as of 16:46UT).

This is a fantastic free speed-up development& I am applying the change to all of my machines, thought quite why I don't know yet (but then I'm still reading the thread as of 16:46UT).

The more work units you have on your system, the bigger difference it should make. For me it was a magic bullet, as I keep about 3500 work units on board at any given time. Apparently it takes CPU resources to sort and keep track of what is displayed in BOINC manager. By displaying everything, it reduces the amount of CPU power to feed the GPU's, and to crunch with the CPU. Displaying just the active tasks, or switching to another Boinc Manager tab, or closing Boinc Manager reduces the CPU load, so tasks can crunch faster, and the GPU's can be more easily fed.

Steve

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Warning, addicted to SETI crunching!
Crunching as a member of GPU Users Group.
GPUUG Website