Hope you guys dont mind me picking your brains as the Picard forums have dissapeard. Have not done any DC for years and decided it was time to have another bash.
I think I just installed folding@home.
after reading through the excellent stickies I believe folding is up and running due to the horrendous noise coming from the fan lol.
I have set up as a service and have no idea if I have done it right but its definately hammering the processor. Fine for now but the noise will give the game away when the missus is on the pc tommorow as it is way to noisy (already abandoned plans to run second instance). as its’ been so long and I have never run as service before is there any easy way of limiting the processor been used so its not running flat out. From memory any problems I had previously years ago required an edit to a txt file can I still just edit this and change setting or is procedure different when run as service?
(decided against the graphical option or standard command box as I know folding would have got the blame for any problems on the pc and I wanted it invisible)
Stop the exe and open a command prompt window - navigate to the F@H folder and run the exe using the -configonly flag - this will take you through the set-up again - choose yes for the advanced options and change the value for CPU usage (default=100) - editing the client.cfg file is also an option although less reliable. you should be able to check the CPU usage using Windows Task Manager, instead of running another client - multi-core processors should run with the -SMP flag, more efficient, bigger points value as well.
so I rerun with config only options and change there, excellent. presumably I stop the service first then run exe from fah folder
Must have missed the bit about -smp (means nothing to me at this stage) when the question about locking to cpu comes up should this be disabled? (affinity I think it said).
My original thoughts was to run a second instance in another folder so I think I locked fah to one processor core, is this still better leaving the other core to work on everything else? or should it be set to use either core (p4 2.8 ghz GenuineIntel, Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 9) if that helps
Correct - when you complete the set-up the exe will end and you can start the service again, the client.cfg file will now have a line detailing your CPU usage preference. be aware that this is only a time slice modification - at 70 it will use 100% processor for 70% of the time if there is nothing else running.
SMP - symmetric multi processing is for two cores and more, so one instance can use all the cores available - its more efficient and the scores tend to be higher - there is also a bonus scheme for quick returns after a ten unit qualifying period - (mainly for 24 hour crunching) - details can be found in the FAQs at the F@H website.
I have never found that it makes much difference - except when I was using 10 out of 12 cores for SMP work and running 3 GPUs as well - keeping the GPU and SMP clients separate helped performance.
not running at all now. I think I mucked up -smp command which should have read -smp 2
sorted that but it wouldn’t allow me to run at all even -configonly (somehow managed to get around this ) re-ran eventually and made changes, set to 30 instead of 100%
if I try to start the service I get unexpected error and nothing happens. Ran from the cmd prompt and get following error
C:\Program Files\FAH>folding@home-win32-x86
Note: Please read the license agreement (folding@home-win32-x86 -license). Furth
er
use of this software requires that you have read and accepted this agreement.
Using local directory for work files
2 cores detected
‘mpiexec’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
[13:35:48] Error running mpiexec. Please check your configuration and re-run in
stall.bat if necessary
cant see an install.bat file unles it means the folding@home-win32-x86 command which is what gives the error
(from client config file in fah directory flags I added are : extra_parms=-verbosity 9 -forceasm -advmethods -local -smp 2
think I managed to get something running again
went in to client configand removed -smp 2 flag
service is now running and cpu is between 16 and 21% appears to be spread across both processors.
PC is much quieter than last night,wait and see now I guess
Name: p2977_humanIAPP_300K
Tag: -
Download time: September 15 22:58:38
Due time: October 5 12:25:02
Progress: 4% [__________]
Just turned to 4% completed. Pc been on a couple of hours this morning, was on for at least 12 hours yesterday and also on on thursday night but not sure of times.
something that confuses me is that fahcore_78.exe ptetty much constanty on 16 in task manager processes, I set it the config to 30 rather than 100 % during setup.
does this seem right?
at this rate I am not sure it is worth running it at all, worried I wont make deadline even and apparently I will only get 700 points or so.
dont really want to affect performance on our everyday pc so and with the noise issues I am reluctant to try to get it running at a higher % of cpu power.
Still unsure whether this is set up correctly, wouldn’t run at all if I try to add -smp so not sure if this is making any use of hyperthreading?
summary of setup
p4 2.8 ghz GenuineIntel, Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 9 (I have two cpu history boxes in task manager under performance tab)
verbosity 9 -forceasm -advmethods -local (Flags entered during setup)
on a brighter note at least it is working, service starts and stops ok - thats a new one for me
Name: p2977_humanIAPP_300K
Tag: -
Download time: September 15 22:58:38
Due time: October 5 12:25:02
Progress: 4% [__________]
Just turned to 4% completed. Pc been on a couple of hours this morning, was on for at least 12 hours yesterday and also on on thursday night but not sure of times.
something that confuses me is that fahcore_78.exe ptetty much constanty on 16 in task manager processes, I set it the config to 30 rather than 100 % during setup.
does this seem right?
at this rate I am note sure it is worth running it at all, worried I wont make deadline even and apparently I will only get 700 points or so.
dont really want to affect performance on our everyday pc so and with the noise issues I am reluctant to try to get it running at a higher % of cpu power.
Still unsure whether this is set up correctly, wouldn’t run at all if I try to add -smp so not sure if this is making any use of hyperthreading?
summary of setup
p4 2.8 ghz GenuineIntel, Family: 15, Model: 4, Stepping: 9 (I have two cpu history boxes in task manager under performance tab)
verbosity 9 -forceasm -advmethods -local (Flags entered during setup)
on a brighter note at least it is working, service starts and stops ok - thats a new one for me
In windows, 100% is when all cores are active. So 30% of one core is about 15% on one of two. So that sounds about right. Personally I’m not sure how much value there is in CPU folding as the GPU or even PS3 crunching on it is so much faster.
cheers mackerel - that makes sense, guess I just automatically expected to see 30% from habit (never had two cores before).
As for folding with GPU I didn’t realise there was that much difference Just have whatever graphics card is built in on this pc so that is out of the question. might raise the % a bit in the setup to see how much difference that makes. If it really proves to be more trouble than its worth I might just knock it on the head.
question though - if GPU is that much quicker is it the same for all projects or is folding client particularly set up to use this? Won’t bother running anything if that is the case.
A CPU can do a variety of complex calculations. A GPU is much faster at doing relatively simple tasks. So different projects will have different use for it. There’s many tasks where the GPU can’t out-perform the CPU, so GPUs wont render CPUs obsolete any time soon.
As you guys were good enough to give some pointers and advice. Thought I would at least give you an update.
managed to complete the unit above exactly on the deadline day (phew) made a huge difference changing the % of processor allowed to be used. Kept changing it to 100% when I was the only one here and unexpectedly got to leave PC on overnight twice.
I have Since gotten some smaller units which dont seem too bad and I seem to be within the time limits. Also managed to install on a work machine (volunteering temporarily at the moment). This seems to be working fine and is faster than my home pc.
Not going to break any records but it will be nice to have somebody else active on the team even if nothing else.
I also learnt one very important lesson - clean the heatsink.
If anybody reading this thread has not given it a second thought lately just a quick reminder, after cleaning a layer of dust I am now running a single instance of folding at 100% and it is quieter now than when I was trying to run it at a reduced rate (earlier in thread).
