Vista Woes

[harlam357]

Ok, I know this isn't really the proper place to ask this... but it will be when I start Folding on this box...

I've got my first Vista box (x64) here and a particular svchost.exe process keeps pegging a cpu core (thread) out on my Q6600. It's very annoying... I'm trying to get an OC on this box and it's not helping my Prime95 runs. The svchost.exe process just pegs out @ 25% for a while, then it stops, then 5~10 minutes later it starts again.

Is this normal? :confused:

I can't believe that's the deal... if so, that really sucks!!! It's gonna kill my PPD on this box when I start Folding. :(

[Adak]

Can you find out what's initiating that instance of the svchost?

I don't have Vista, but is there any mention of that problem on MSN or Google, perhaps?

Very odd!

[Neuromancer]

You can right click the svchost that is running high and select services. It will show you what services are running under that.

[harlam357]

Very strange guys... it's the instance of svchost.exe that controls... oh, a lot of stuff. :beer: I even tried killing a bunch of the services under that svchost.exe process... no luck.

So I decided to go look for the latest version of Prime95... I was using v25.6 64-bit... found v25.7. Downloaded both 32-bit & 64-bit versions... the 64-bit version did the same thing... now I'm running the 32-bit version and the problem has gone away. :confused:

That really doesn't make sense to me... and I'm not sure if 32-bit Prime on a 64-bit OS is as effective, but it's still stressing the CPU and using the same amount of memory, only 2GB in this box... so hopefully it will be as effective.

I'm really surprised no one else has seen this effect... Google searches has yielded basically null. In XP when svchost.exe would peg itself, it is generally due to Windows Updates kicking in... I even tried unplugging the network from the box... still no help.

So... I'll stick with the 32-bit Prime unless someone has any better advice for me. Folding will be the true test regardless.

The only other thing I can think of is that this is a vLite custom install... I removed a bunch of packages I didn't want laid down with Vista, so I didn't otherwise alter the OS besides removing things I didn't need... like all the extra language packs.

Will report in the morning... ;)

[harlam357]

32-bit Prime ran strong all night... making another run now with tighter memory timings.

I've never had any problem running 64-bit Prime on my XP x64 boxes... very strange. I'll just stick with 32-bit Prime on this Vista box... what else can a Folder do? ;)

[deadlysyn]

As much as I hate to say it, I do think XP and Linux are pretty much the sweet spot for CPU folding. I was folding when I was running Vista, but it does appear this rig did take a bit of a performance hit. Just switched back to XP recently and haven't had any problems. Looks like I might have gotten back about 25 or so PPD back just by switching to XP.

Edit: Unless its just the different WU mix I have seen since going from the 5.04 to V6 folding client.

[grunjee]

I was going to say, in XP at least, I would usually see that problem with Automatic Updates pegging the cpu.

I'd run Process Explorer (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx)... it should be able to help figure out the culprit. Double-click on the suspect svchost.exe, then go to the 'threads' tab... that will also list items by cpu time.

Let us know what you find.

[harlam357]

Coming to the end of a 24hr Prime run now on the 32-bit version of Prime. The svchost.exe that was giving me fits has only used ~8 minutes of CPU time in the last 24hrs.

I really feel like the issue is tied to the 64-bit version of Prime. I'll try it again after this run is done and then check that process out using Process Explorer- now why did I think of that? :D

[Surferseth]

One good side of Vista, for GPU folding you dont use a CPU core. From what I have found it seems to offload everything to the GPU. Could be wrong, but that is what it appears to do.

What version of Vista are you running? 2GB is pretty low for Vista, might want to bump it up to 4GB just to make things run smoother and nicer.

[harlam357]

It uses a touch of cpu... ~33% of a cpu core per client. On a quad core cpu it registers 7~8% in task manager.

Running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I'm not going to run VMs on this box... and it will see little daily use since it's not my main machine, so 2GB isn't too bad. :)

I just went back to Folding on the sucker for the time being... maybe this weekend I'll have time to track down the service thread giving 64-bit Prime, and me, a headache.

Otherwise, 32-bit Prime seems to have done the job... ran 24hrs+, seems to be nice and stable. :)