Strange problem with new Albert app

Ross Morgan
Ross Morgan
Joined: 20 Feb 05
Posts: 18
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Topic 190487

For some reason on one of my computers an AMD Athlon XP 1900 the new Albert app will not use more than 50% of the CPU power available. The other 50% just runs the idle cycle. There wasn't this problem with the 4.79 app and none of the setting have changed since then. The problem results in a Albert WU that should take about 6hrs reporting as taking 6hrs but in real time actually takes 12hrs to complete because it's only using 50% power.

Anybody else had this happening on a single core non HT processor or no of any solutions to the problem?

Richard M
Richard M
Joined: 11 Nov 04
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Strange problem with new Albert app

Quote:

For some reason on one of my computers an AMD Athlon XP 1900 the new Albert app will not use more than 50% of the CPU power available. The other 50% just runs the idle cycle. There wasn't this problem with the 4.79 app and none of the setting have changed since then. The problem results in a Albert WU that should take about 6hrs reporting as taking 6hrs but in real time actually takes 12hrs to complete because it's only using 50% power.

Anybody else had this happening on a single core non HT processor or no of any solutions to the problem?

Have you attached to another project? The default resorce share in BOINC is 100. This will cause your Albert workunit to take twice as long because it will be switching to the other project every hour (default).

Ross Morgan
Ross Morgan
Joined: 20 Feb 05
Posts: 18
Credit: 122,639
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No it's not that,

No it's not that, Predictor@home is attached to this machine as well however only 1 WU runs at a time as it's not a HT or dual core machine. Besides i have tried running it with Einstein as the only project on the machine and there is no difference.

The problem is that the CPU is only running at 50% max load for the Albert WU's when it was running at 100% when the 4.79 Einstein units were being processed.

Richard M
Richard M
Joined: 11 Nov 04
Posts: 79
Credit: 508,416,065
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Are you seeing 50% in BOINC

Are you seeing 50% in BOINC Manager or in Task Manager. If you are running two projects using the BOINC default config and you have work for both projects, then every hour BOINC will stop running your Albert work unit and switch to Predictor for a hour. Therefore, your Albert work unit will take 6 hours of cpu time to complete but in real time it will be 12 hours.

PS Open Task Manger and click on the performance tab to see what your cpu usage is.

TTYL
Richard

Ross Morgan
Ross Morgan
Joined: 20 Feb 05
Posts: 18
Credit: 122,639
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RE: Are you seeing 50% in

Message 23011 in response to message 23010

Quote:

Are you seeing 50% in BOINC Manager or in Task Manager. If you are running two projects using the BOINC default config and you have work for both projects, then every hour BOINC will stop running your Albert work unit and switch to Predictor for a hour. Therefore, your Albert work unit will take 6 hours of cpu time to complete but in real time it will be 12 hours.

PS Open Task Manger and click on the performance tab to see what your cpu usage is.

TTYL
Richard

The CPU occupancy is only 50% when running Albert WU's. This is confirmed in the task manager and I also have checked it in Taskinfo as well.

When the Predictor WU is running that is running at 100% so there must be a problem with the Albert app itself on my computer.

J D K
J D K
Joined: 27 Aug 05
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You might try setting up

You might try setting up another venue for that computer, use the work venue and set number of CPUs to 1 and see what happens.....

Richard M
Richard M
Joined: 11 Nov 04
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Credit: 508,416,065
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This has got me stumped.

This has got me stumped. :-)
You don't have anything like Thread Master installed do you.

Richard

gravywavy
gravywavy
Joined: 22 Jan 05
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hi, I know you have said

hi,

I know you have said that Albert is taking only 50%, but please check what is taking the other 50%. Is it the system Idle process, or Predictor, or some other task (please say which)?

edit: NB Predictor may show up as mfold or as prion in the task list.

If it is Predictor this is a known problem with Predictor that it does not always let go of the CPU when told to. This means BOINC thinks only Albert is running, but the operating system knows two tasks are running and gives them 50% each.

You will find the Albert takes more than twice as long to run because of the inefficiency of multi-tasking - the operating system probably swaps from one to the other 50 times a second whereas BOINC tries to leave to once an hour!

I have no idea why this only appeared with Albert, however if this is what you are seeing it is a Predictor issue, not an Albert one. I've seen this with Rosetta + Predictor and with Einstein + Predictor but not yet with Albert + Predictor. My solution was to stop running predictor except as a backup project.

However, if you come back and say it is not Predictor but some other task, or system idle, then I am as much in the dark as Richard.

~~gravywavy

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