Posted on 02/05/2006 7:51:13 PM PST by texas booster
And as a bottom feeder here in the computer junkyard, it runs well on Win98SE and on W2k.
Excellent. I like yours better-- less math, similar results.
SB XXXXXXC?
Great advice in general but I don't think the above is needed. In fact I would argue that 98% of users should set it and forget it. Putzzzing with the configuration isn't worth it and will lead to trouble IMHO...and shutting the 'puter on and off, which some-people may be inclined to do, is destructive.
It will be really interesting to see what things look like in a month or two.
I agree, I thought that was a little much, unless your cooling fan seems to be overworking. I'm looking for instructions on how exactly to set up the console version, step-by-step. I tried it first, and had nothing but trouble, so I went to the GUI version for all of my CPUs. It's working fine, but I may have to set up a computer for my son who's just returned from Ghana (Peace Corps) and is staying with us for a while, until he decides where he wants to go next. He claims to be fiscally conservative, and I don't quite believe him on that, and is decidedly liberal. If I do set up another 'puter for him to use, I will be installing Folding@Home for the FReeper team, but this way he won't be tempted to click on the red flower in the systray and want to change Bush_Democrat to something else or, God forbid, run across the DUmp and want to join their team. My home, my computer, my folding team!
That's what I get for trying to do a real link without looking at my cheat-sheet!
On some PC's, my laptop in particular, the fan sorta seems to get locked into a "run at top speed" forever mode, and it gets annoying. An occasional reboot, seems to cure it for about 3-5 days.
It may be world class advise, but I very seldom go to DU, and I'm not going this time... "Power users" who want to tweak their systems also can try this forum
http://forum.folding-community.org/homepage.php
It has a forum and a wiki. (say what?)
It's been a good run, but is ~70x the normal home computer lab use and the folding farm that began to overtake the guest bedroom will have to be dismantled before it creates a fire or a divorce.
I think he's full of it... but if people want to play with priorities the way he 'recommends', let them play. I doubt they'll see any measurable benefit.
I've already posted references to a discussion on the Hyper-Threading issue. Running multiple consoles in an HT environment could get you a few more points over the long run, but could also delay the submission of folding results.
I've tried most of that on a dual processor W2k machine, but find my standard setup (one graphical client and one console) seem to provide the same output within a few percent. FAH seems to be all about processor speed.
Sorry to hear about the possibility of a fire... that's not good. :-)
For the humor impaired, please ignore the previous comment.
Fire b bad.
Indeed. I keep telling my "little" brother that... after all, he's the one that managed to set the farm's gas pump on fire many years ago. The kid never listened to his big brother. :-)
Does it seem stable running a GUI and a console? I know Standford says there are problems reported when running that way, but I wonder how many reported problems are from people that set things up incorrectly.
A word of caution though, to anyone who uses this method, only do this to machines that you do not intend on using for any sort of normal
activities, in between folding sessions. Setting the cpu priority to high, pretty much renders that machine unusable for anything but folding.
The recovery time, lags anywhere from 10-15 seconds, and on older machines, up to 60 seconds. If anyone else is going to be using that machine, then
you need to warn them, that they can't just shake the mouse, and begin surfing. What you're doing, by cranking the cpu priority up, is decreasing the "detected" idle time, so if you quit surfing, for even a half second, the core is back to 100%, and the time it takes to resore cpu resources back to other programs, is also increased. ie, it's quicker to shoot up to 100% utilization, and slower to release the cpu, for other activities.
I've only got 12 machines that I can do this on, and they're all older AMD 1.2's, that were retired from active service anyway, and are doing nothing
but taking up space, and heating my garage.
But for machines that wouldn't otherwise be doing anything, Berni is right, this will give you anywhere from 5-20% boost in efficiency.
disclaimer ---- previous post...
That 5% to 20% estimate means, your mileage may vary. But me, for one, am not going to sit there, with a stop watch, timing frames, as I'm tweaking cpu settings. On the surface, it appears to make your machine marginally faster, but then when you consider the "babysitting" aspect, my inclination is to say "nah"... it ain't worth it.
Finishing up a 72hr workunit in 61hrs, isn't worth it, if you have to run through all of your cpus, to make sure that they're all reset, and tweaked again.
Fire them up, and forget them. If you don't see one show up in the 7 day period, hunt it down, and find out what's wrong.
This is fun, but it doesn't have to be obsessive.
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