> Am running E@H / BOINC 4.25 on 11 machines, all installed as a service with no
> degradation in performance of other programs. E@H should show up as using 99%
> in the task manager when no other significant work is going on.
>
> As mentioned above you can also set it only to run when the computer is idle
> if you like.
I'm also running BOINC (4.19) as a service on multiple machines and it doesn't really affect user performance most of the time. Occasionally a user will notice a slowdown, eg when BOINC decides to redo the benchmarks or when E@H decides to download another large data file, which is happening quite regularly at the moment. A regular user becomes quite annoyed with this disruption to his surfing habits. :).
So I decided to use the preference for running the service only when the computer is idle. However, that doesn't work with 4.19. BOINC thinks the machine is never idle, even when nobody is logged in. E@H never gets to run with this preference set.
From searching the message boards, I note that various people have commented on this in the past. The behaviour seems to be associated with the difficulty of actually telling when a user is active.
As you are running a later version, I just thought I'd ask if this "problem" has been corrected. Have you actually successfully tried setting the "run only when idle" preference when installed as a service?
Does anyone know of a way to run as a service but to stop when a user is logged in. In the machines I have access to, each box may spend 50-70% of its time idle at the login screen. I'd love to be able to use that time. At the moment I've stopped the BOINC service because users do notice benchmark activity and large data downloads, which do take quite a long time with each box having a fairly restricted download rate.
> So I decided to use the preference for running the service only when the
> computer is idle. However, that doesn't work with 4.19. BOINC thinks the
> machine is never idle, even when nobody is logged in. E@H never gets to
> run with this preference set.
> As you are running a later version, I just thought I'd ask if this
> "problem" has been corrected. Have you actually successfully tried
> setting the "run only when idle" preference when installed as a service?
I have 3 machines at a remote location running under this option and they're all pumping out work. I also just set my local machines to run after 3 minutes of inactivity (as a test). All seem to work as expected, and the projects are paused instantly by touching the mouse or keyboard. All machines have BOINC v4.25 installed as a service.
That said, it's certainly possible that BOINC could interpret some background activities in such a way as to pause itself, but I haven't seen that behavior here.
> At the moment I've stopped the BOINC service because users do notice
> benchmark activity and large data downloads, which do take quite a
> long time with each box having a fairly restricted download rate.
BOINC v4.25 runs benchmarks once every 5 days. This takes about 30 seconds on my machines. If using BoincView, you could manually give the command to run benchmarks on all your machines before or after working hours, or during lunchtime, and thus reset the 5 day clock every so often. As far as download time, you might have to run another project such as S@H, which has smaller data files, at least until this period is over:
> April 7, 2005
> During the next few days we will finish the first round of S3 analysis
> and begin a second round. As we finish up the first round of S3 analysis,
> users may find that they are getting a new data file with each workunit;
> users with modem connections may want to suspend Einstein@Home for a few
> days to avoid multiple long downloads.
I'm running both E@H & S@H anyway, so if one project goes down, BOINC just switches to the other automatically.
BTW, if you haven't tried BoincView, it's an incredibly useful program:
> I have 3 machines at a remote location running under this option and they're
> all pumping out work. I also just set my local machines to run after 3
> minutes of inactivity (as a test). All seem to work as expected, and the
> projects are paused instantly by touching the mouse or keyboard. All machines
> have BOINC v4.25 installed as a service.
Thanks very much for that. Obviously it's been fixed in 4.25. I'm still running 4.19 so now I've got a very good reason to upgrade :).
> That said, it's certainly possible that BOINC could interpret some background
> activities in such a way as to pause itself, but I haven't seen that behavior
> here.
Don't think that's the problem. There's no E@H progress even while sitting at a login screen with nobody logged in.
> BOINC v4.25 runs benchmarks once every 5 days.
With 100 boxes, that's 20 boxes per day. Users do notice.
> If using BoincView, you could manually give the command to run
> benchmarks on all your machines before or after working hours, or during
> lunchtime, and thus reset the 5 day clock every so often.
Yes, that's certainly an option. However I'm trying to avoid manual intervention if possible.
> As far as download
> time, you might have to run another project such as S@H, which has smaller
> data files, at least until this period is over:
Yes, I'd considered that too but I keep coming back to the same old problem. No matter how low the priority of E@H or S@H, if a user "thinks" his machine is a "bit slow" today, whatever the reason, he will look in the task manager to see what is cooking. And of course, he will immediately see a 99% process which he will not understand and which will enrage him greatly. If 4.25 will honour the "only run when idle for x mins" preference, I'll be in Hog Heaven because anybody using task manager will always see the system idle process at 99% and wont have anything else to blame. They'd have to sit there for three minutes doing absolutely nothing in order to see the background process "kick in".
> BTW, if you haven't tried BoincView, it's an incredibly useful program:
Yes, I've actually run the old version suited to BOINC 4.19 for a couple of days and seen how comprehensive it is. Apart from seeming to generate a lot of network activity, it seemed to handle a dozen or so machines on one LAN segment very nicely. I have boxes scattered over a few different LAN segments on quite different networks. Besides, my main interest is to soak up the idle cycles when nobody is logged in with the absolute minimum of external management. I really want to set and forget :). So, the "run only when idle" preference really suits me.
Once again, thanks for taking the trouble to respond in detail. I really appreciate the effort you made and all the sensible suggestions. Thanks also for testing out the mouse activity on your local boxes. It is very good to know that things are working "as advertised" in 4.25. I just wasn't sure.
The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local system and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard activity.
> The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local system
> and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard activity.
John, thanks for the comment. Under 4.19 on the boxes I was given access to, I was able to run it as "Network Service" with the appropriate privileges to read and write to the BOINC directory. It had no trouble running as a service as long as I didn't try to set the "run only when idle" preference. I'm sure that I saw several people mention that this was a problem with 4.19. Is that your impression as well?
I've just now retried running 4.19 as a service using the "Local System" account and ticking the "Allow interaction with desktop" checkbox and it still doesn't run with the "idle" preference set. Is it your understanding that this is all fixed completely in 4.25?
> > The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local
> system
> > and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard
> activity.
>
> John, thanks for the comment. Under 4.19 on the boxes I was given access to,
> I was able to run it as "Network Service" with the appropriate privileges to
> read and write to the BOINC directory. It had no trouble running as a service
> as long as I didn't try to set the "run only when idle" preference. I'm sure
> that I saw several people mention that this was a problem with 4.19. Is that
> your impression as well?
>
> I've just now retried running 4.19 as a service using the "Local System"
> account and ticking the "Allow interaction with desktop" checkbox and it still
> doesn't run with the "idle" preference set. Is it your understanding that
> this is all fixed completely in 4.25?
>
> Any further comment would be appreciated.
>
Yes the run when idle preference is fixed in 4.25 (if desktop interaction allowed, not sure about otherwise) the venue preferences also appear to be fixed.
> If 4.25 will honour the "only run when idle for x mins" preference,
> I'll be in Hog Heaven because anybody using task manager will always
> see the system idle process at 99% and wont have anything else to blame.
> They'd have to sit there for three minutes doing absolutely nothing in
> order to see the background process "kick in".
Exactly the way it works here. The only process that shows in Task Manager is boinc.exe, and that sits at 0% most of the time.
> Yes the run when idle preference is fixed in 4.25
> (if desktop interaction allowed, not sure about otherwise)
> the venue preferences also appear to be fixed.
Works the same here whether or not desktop interation is allowed.
Beyond wrote:- > Am
)
Beyond wrote:-
> Am running E@H / BOINC 4.25 on 11 machines, all installed as a service with no
> degradation in performance of other programs. E@H should show up as using 99%
> in the task manager when no other significant work is going on.
>
> As mentioned above you can also set it only to run when the computer is idle
> if you like.
I'm also running BOINC (4.19) as a service on multiple machines and it doesn't really affect user performance most of the time. Occasionally a user will notice a slowdown, eg when BOINC decides to redo the benchmarks or when E@H decides to download another large data file, which is happening quite regularly at the moment. A regular user becomes quite annoyed with this disruption to his surfing habits. :).
So I decided to use the preference for running the service only when the computer is idle. However, that doesn't work with 4.19. BOINC thinks the machine is never idle, even when nobody is logged in. E@H never gets to run with this preference set.
From searching the message boards, I note that various people have commented on this in the past. The behaviour seems to be associated with the difficulty of actually telling when a user is active.
As you are running a later version, I just thought I'd ask if this "problem" has been corrected. Have you actually successfully tried setting the "run only when idle" preference when installed as a service?
Does anyone know of a way to run as a service but to stop when a user is logged in. In the machines I have access to, each box may spend 50-70% of its time idle at the login screen. I'd love to be able to use that time. At the moment I've stopped the BOINC service because users do notice benchmark activity and large data downloads, which do take quite a long time with each box having a fairly restricted download rate.
Cheers,
Gary.
> So I decided to use the
)
> So I decided to use the preference for running the service only when the
> computer is idle. However, that doesn't work with 4.19. BOINC thinks the
> machine is never idle, even when nobody is logged in. E@H never gets to
> run with this preference set.
> As you are running a later version, I just thought I'd ask if this
> "problem" has been corrected. Have you actually successfully tried
> setting the "run only when idle" preference when installed as a service?
I have 3 machines at a remote location running under this option and they're all pumping out work. I also just set my local machines to run after 3 minutes of inactivity (as a test). All seem to work as expected, and the projects are paused instantly by touching the mouse or keyboard. All machines have BOINC v4.25 installed as a service.
That said, it's certainly possible that BOINC could interpret some background activities in such a way as to pause itself, but I haven't seen that behavior here.
> At the moment I've stopped the BOINC service because users do notice
> benchmark activity and large data downloads, which do take quite a
> long time with each box having a fairly restricted download rate.
BOINC v4.25 runs benchmarks once every 5 days. This takes about 30 seconds on my machines. If using BoincView, you could manually give the command to run benchmarks on all your machines before or after working hours, or during lunchtime, and thus reset the 5 day clock every so often. As far as download time, you might have to run another project such as S@H, which has smaller data files, at least until this period is over:
> April 7, 2005
> During the next few days we will finish the first round of S3 analysis
> and begin a second round. As we finish up the first round of S3 analysis,
> users may find that they are getting a new data file with each workunit;
> users with modem connections may want to suspend Einstein@Home for a few
> days to avoid multiple long downloads.
I'm running both E@H & S@H anyway, so if one project goes down, BOINC just switches to the other automatically.
BTW, if you haven't tried BoincView, it's an incredibly useful program:
http://boincview.amanheis.de/
> I have 3 machines at a
)
> I have 3 machines at a remote location running under this option and they're
> all pumping out work. I also just set my local machines to run after 3
> minutes of inactivity (as a test). All seem to work as expected, and the
> projects are paused instantly by touching the mouse or keyboard. All machines
> have BOINC v4.25 installed as a service.
Thanks very much for that. Obviously it's been fixed in 4.25. I'm still running 4.19 so now I've got a very good reason to upgrade :).
> That said, it's certainly possible that BOINC could interpret some background
> activities in such a way as to pause itself, but I haven't seen that behavior
> here.
Don't think that's the problem. There's no E@H progress even while sitting at a login screen with nobody logged in.
> BOINC v4.25 runs benchmarks once every 5 days.
With 100 boxes, that's 20 boxes per day. Users do notice.
> If using BoincView, you could manually give the command to run
> benchmarks on all your machines before or after working hours, or during
> lunchtime, and thus reset the 5 day clock every so often.
Yes, that's certainly an option. However I'm trying to avoid manual intervention if possible.
> As far as download
> time, you might have to run another project such as S@H, which has smaller
> data files, at least until this period is over:
Yes, I'd considered that too but I keep coming back to the same old problem. No matter how low the priority of E@H or S@H, if a user "thinks" his machine is a "bit slow" today, whatever the reason, he will look in the task manager to see what is cooking. And of course, he will immediately see a 99% process which he will not understand and which will enrage him greatly. If 4.25 will honour the "only run when idle for x mins" preference, I'll be in Hog Heaven because anybody using task manager will always see the system idle process at 99% and wont have anything else to blame. They'd have to sit there for three minutes doing absolutely nothing in order to see the background process "kick in".
> BTW, if you haven't tried BoincView, it's an incredibly useful program:
Yes, I've actually run the old version suited to BOINC 4.19 for a couple of days and seen how comprehensive it is. Apart from seeming to generate a lot of network activity, it seemed to handle a dozen or so machines on one LAN segment very nicely. I have boxes scattered over a few different LAN segments on quite different networks. Besides, my main interest is to soak up the idle cycles when nobody is logged in with the absolute minimum of external management. I really want to set and forget :). So, the "run only when idle" preference really suits me.
Once again, thanks for taking the trouble to respond in detail. I really appreciate the effort you made and all the sensible suggestions. Thanks also for testing out the mouse activity on your local boxes. It is very good to know that things are working "as advertised" in 4.25. I just wasn't sure.
Cheers,
Gary.
The 4.25 service will most
)
The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local system and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard activity.
BOINC WIKI
BOINCing since 2002/12/8
> The 4.25 service will most
)
> The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local system
> and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard activity.
John, thanks for the comment. Under 4.19 on the boxes I was given access to, I was able to run it as "Network Service" with the appropriate privileges to read and write to the BOINC directory. It had no trouble running as a service as long as I didn't try to set the "run only when idle" preference. I'm sure that I saw several people mention that this was a problem with 4.19. Is that your impression as well?
I've just now retried running 4.19 as a service using the "Local System" account and ticking the "Allow interaction with desktop" checkbox and it still doesn't run with the "idle" preference set. Is it your understanding that this is all fixed completely in 4.25?
Any further comment would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Gary.
> > The 4.25 service will
)
> > The 4.25 service will most likely need the creditials changed to local
> system
> > and allow interaction with desktop before it can read the keyboard
> activity.
>
> John, thanks for the comment. Under 4.19 on the boxes I was given access to,
> I was able to run it as "Network Service" with the appropriate privileges to
> read and write to the BOINC directory. It had no trouble running as a service
> as long as I didn't try to set the "run only when idle" preference. I'm sure
> that I saw several people mention that this was a problem with 4.19. Is that
> your impression as well?
>
> I've just now retried running 4.19 as a service using the "Local System"
> account and ticking the "Allow interaction with desktop" checkbox and it still
> doesn't run with the "idle" preference set. Is it your understanding that
> this is all fixed completely in 4.25?
>
> Any further comment would be appreciated.
>
Yes the run when idle preference is fixed in 4.25 (if desktop interaction allowed, not sure about otherwise) the venue preferences also appear to be fixed.
BOINC WIKI
BOINCing since 2002/12/8
> If 4.25 will honour the
)
> If 4.25 will honour the "only run when idle for x mins" preference,
> I'll be in Hog Heaven because anybody using task manager will always
> see the system idle process at 99% and wont have anything else to blame.
> They'd have to sit there for three minutes doing absolutely nothing in
> order to see the background process "kick in".
Exactly the way it works here. The only process that shows in Task Manager is boinc.exe, and that sits at 0% most of the time.
> Yes the run when idle preference is fixed in 4.25
> (if desktop interaction allowed, not sure about otherwise)
> the venue preferences also appear to be fixed.
Works the same here whether or not desktop interation is allowed.