Perhaps this thread applies for you in case you're running a screensaver. That might also explain the longer crunching times as screensavers take a lot of CPU
That thread is a little out of date - especially with regard to the advice about the Beta application. This one is a little more current. You may also want to check your graphics card driver.
The benchmarks are indeed very close to those of my laptop, which is able to finish a WU thrice as fast. That can't be right, and I doubt that even with a slow graphics card the screensaver could have that much effect. My laptop has an outdated "onboard-shared RAM-50% of everything emulated" Intel card and that's about as crappy as it gets... I can't even run 5-year-old games or apps without lagging as soon as graphics are needed... and when i occasionally let the screensaver on it was noticeable but never had that much of an impact. So I would guess there is more behind your problems. But I don't think that "processes running in the background" are the solution because afaik whenever the computer is doing sth else and the CPU doesn't have resources left for BOINC it doesn't count as "CPU sec". My WUs always take the same amount of CPU secs whether I let the PC crunch overnight without touching it or play Guild Wars in 1600*1200 pixels, full details and 4* anti-aliasing (this is my new desktop, mind you ;-) ) so I would guess the CPU secs are the time that is really spent on crunching a WU, not real time...
I'm going to take my computer in to see the Dr. since I don't know "squat" and get a little more memory and get it cleaned. Maybe they can figure out what happened. I do notice that the wu that started out at 35 hour says it will now finish around 18 hours which is what it was doing a couple of weeks ago, but this still sounds like a long time.
The benchmarks are indeed very close to those of my laptop, which is able to finish a WU thrice as fast. That can't be right, and I doubt that even with a slow graphics card the screensaver could have that much effect. My laptop has an outdated "onboard-shared RAM-50% of everything emulated" Intel card and that's about as crappy as it gets... I can't even run 5-year-old games or apps without lagging as soon as graphics are needed... and when i occasionally let the screensaver on it was noticeable but never had that much of an impact. So I would guess there is more behind your problems. But I don't think that "processes running in the background" are the solution because afaik whenever the computer is doing sth else and the CPU doesn't have resources left for BOINC it doesn't count as "CPU sec". My WUs always take the same amount of CPU secs whether I let the PC crunch overnight without touching it or play Guild Wars in 1600*1200 pixels, full details and 4* anti-aliasing (this is my new desktop, mind you ;-) ) so I would guess the CPU secs are the time that is really spent on crunching a WU, not real time...
You are right on counting CPU seconds. On the other hand, I've notice longer CPU times when using the computer more extensively. I'm not sure I had the suspend to RAM on at that point of time. That might be a difference, but I'm not sure.
I never run screensaver (I'm running Linux). But I could imagine that if the screensaver could crash your WU, it might also reset your WU to a previous checkpoint when the error is recoverable. But that's just guessing.
Marvin, I think you are right to bring your computer in. I hope things sort out. Just let us know if things are solved!
Yep, if it crashes, it might have that effect. But then there would also be something wrong... because on my new PC I never bothered to switch the screensaver off (I admit I actually like looking at it occasionally) because I figured the effect would be minimal with a modern graphics card. Worst I ever had was my computer freezing up, and that might have had another reason since I was having some driver issues at that time. When I rebooted everything was fine. The screensaver never crashed a single WU on my system. So I would guess there is a driver or software issue involved if the screensaver regularly resets or crashed workunits...
pardon me, i dont think it has been mentiond but, perhaps the system is getting to hot and thermal throttleing is kicking in? i imagen that would cause a rather dramatic slow down.. its just an idea.
seeing without seeing is something the blind learn to do, and seeing beyond vision can be a gift.
You're right, we hadn't mentioned that. And indeed, temperature problems can have rather dramatic effects. But then... I think Marvin said he only came across this problem recently. It's not very likely that a computer is running fine for months than suddenly getting too hot (in October, after a really hot summer) except a fan maybe got broken or too dirty and ceased working. That is possible I think- but in that case, having an expert look at the box is certainly the right way to go.
RE: Perhaps this thread
)
That thread is a little out of date - especially with regard to the advice about the Beta application. This one is a little more current. You may also want to check your graphics card driver.
Thanks, I don't run a screen
)
Thanks, I don't run a screen saver but I checked and Bonic seems to want to set one up so I took it off.
The benchmarks are indeed
)
The benchmarks are indeed very close to those of my laptop, which is able to finish a WU thrice as fast. That can't be right, and I doubt that even with a slow graphics card the screensaver could have that much effect. My laptop has an outdated "onboard-shared RAM-50% of everything emulated" Intel card and that's about as crappy as it gets... I can't even run 5-year-old games or apps without lagging as soon as graphics are needed... and when i occasionally let the screensaver on it was noticeable but never had that much of an impact. So I would guess there is more behind your problems. But I don't think that "processes running in the background" are the solution because afaik whenever the computer is doing sth else and the CPU doesn't have resources left for BOINC it doesn't count as "CPU sec". My WUs always take the same amount of CPU secs whether I let the PC crunch overnight without touching it or play Guild Wars in 1600*1200 pixels, full details and 4* anti-aliasing (this is my new desktop, mind you ;-) ) so I would guess the CPU secs are the time that is really spent on crunching a WU, not real time...
I'm going to take my computer
)
I'm going to take my computer in to see the Dr. since I don't know "squat" and get a little more memory and get it cleaned. Maybe they can figure out what happened. I do notice that the wu that started out at 35 hour says it will now finish around 18 hours which is what it was doing a couple of weeks ago, but this still sounds like a long time.
It does. Anything more than
)
It does. Anything more than 12 hours seems too much to me on your machine. So, good luck with trying to get it fixed ;-)
Thanks:^)
)
Thanks:^)
RE: The benchmarks are
)
You are right on counting CPU seconds. On the other hand, I've notice longer CPU times when using the computer more extensively. I'm not sure I had the suspend to RAM on at that point of time. That might be a difference, but I'm not sure.
I never run screensaver (I'm running Linux). But I could imagine that if the screensaver could crash your WU, it might also reset your WU to a previous checkpoint when the error is recoverable. But that's just guessing.
Marvin, I think you are right to bring your computer in. I hope things sort out. Just let us know if things are solved!
Regards,
Bert
Somnio ergo sum
Yep, if it crashes, it might
)
Yep, if it crashes, it might have that effect. But then there would also be something wrong... because on my new PC I never bothered to switch the screensaver off (I admit I actually like looking at it occasionally) because I figured the effect would be minimal with a modern graphics card. Worst I ever had was my computer freezing up, and that might have had another reason since I was having some driver issues at that time. When I rebooted everything was fine. The screensaver never crashed a single WU on my system. So I would guess there is a driver or software issue involved if the screensaver regularly resets or crashed workunits...
pardon me, i dont think it
)
pardon me, i dont think it has been mentiond but, perhaps the system is getting to hot and thermal throttleing is kicking in? i imagen that would cause a rather dramatic slow down.. its just an idea.
seeing without seeing is something the blind learn to do, and seeing beyond vision can be a gift.
You're right, we hadn't
)
You're right, we hadn't mentioned that. And indeed, temperature problems can have rather dramatic effects. But then... I think Marvin said he only came across this problem recently. It's not very likely that a computer is running fine for months than suddenly getting too hot (in October, after a really hot summer) except a fan maybe got broken or too dirty and ceased working. That is possible I think- but in that case, having an expert look at the box is certainly the right way to go.