Serious PPD Reduction

[tgxiii]

I have an AMD Athlon X2 BE-2400 that recently experienced a massive reduction in production. It's folding away on a P2669. According to FahMon benchmarks, it used to get at least 1200 PPD. Now, it's been reduced to less than 300 PPD. It's so slow, in fact, that it fails to meet the deadline of the WUs.

I checked and it's running at stock frequency (2.3 GHz), and task manager shows the VM process getting between 95 to 97 percent CPU usage.

Attached is the log file. If anyone can provide some insight, please do.




--- Opening Log file [May 8 16:48:29]


# SMP Client ################################################## ################
################################################## #############################

Folding@Home Client Version 6.02

http://folding.stanford.edu

################################################## #############################
################################################## #############################

Launch directory: /etc/folding/1
Executable: ./fah6
Arguments: -local -forceasm -smp 4

Warning:
By using the -forceasm flag, you are overriding
safeguards in the program. If you did not intend to
do this, please restart the program without -forceasm.
If work units are not completing fully (and particularly
if your machine is overclocked), then please discontinue
use of the flag.

[16:48:29] - Ask before connecting: No
[16:48:29] - User name: T32monkeys (Team 32)
[16:48:29] - User ID: 7D37265E10228917
[16:48:29] - Machine ID: 1
[16:48:29]
[16:48:29] Loaded queue successfully.
[16:48:29]
[16:48:29] + Processing work unit
[16:48:29] At least 4 processors must be requested.Core required: FahCore_a2.exe
[16:48:29] Core not found.
[16:48:29] - Core is not present or corrupted.
[16:48:29] - Attempting to download new core...
[16:48:29] + Downloading new core: FahCore_a2.exe
[16:48:36] + 10240 bytes downloaded
[16:48:37] + 20480 bytes downloaded
[16:48:37] + 30720 bytes downloaded
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[16:50:29] Verifying core Core_a2.fah...
[16:50:29] Signature is VALID
[16:50:29]
[16:50:29] Trying to unzip core FahCore_a2.exe
[16:50:30] Decompressed FahCore_a2.exe (4341288 bytes) successfully
[16:50:30] + Core successfully engaged
[16:50:36]
[16:50:36] + Processing work unit
[16:50:36] At least 4 processors must be requested.Core required: FahCore_a2.exe
[16:50:36] Core found.
[16:50:36] Working on Unit 09 [May 8 16:50:36]
[16:50:36] + Working ...
[16:50:36]
[16:50:36] *------------------------------*
[16:50:37] Folding@Home Gromacs SMP Core
[16:50:37] Version 2.07 (Sun Apr 19 14:51:09 PDT 2009)
[16:50:37]
[16:50:37] Preparing to commence simulation
[16:50:37] - Ensuring status. Please wait.
[16:50:49] - Assembly optimizations manually forced on.
[16:50:49] - Not checking prior termination.
[16:50:56] - Expanded 4834380 -> 23977801 (decompressed 495.9 percent)
[16:50:58] Called DecompressByteArray: compressed_data_size=4834380 data_size=23977801, decompressed_data_size=23977801 diff=0
[16:50:59] - Digital signature verified
[16:50:59]
[16:50:59] Project: 2669 (Run 7, Clone 73, Gen 83)
[16:50:59]
[16:50:59] Assembly optimizations on if available.
[16:50:59] Entering M.D.
[16:51:06] Using Gromacs checkpoints
[16:51:16] Multi-core optimizations on
[16:51:27] Resuming from checkpoint
[16:51:28] Verified work/wudata_09.log
[16:51:28] Verified work/wudata_09.trr
[16:51:28] Verified work/wudata_09.xtc
[16:51:28] Verified work/wudata_09.edr
[16:51:36] Completed 58420 out of 250000 steps (23%)
[17:51:04] Completed 60000 out of 250000 steps (24%)
[19:30:33] Completed 62500 out of 250000 steps (25%)
[20:59:18] Completed 65000 out of 250000 steps (26%)
[22:18:16] Completed 67500 out of 250000 steps (27%)
[23:41:31] Completed 70000 out of 250000 steps (28%)
[01:06:30] Completed 72500 out of 250000 steps (29%)
[02:24:37] Completed 75000 out of 250000 steps (30%)
[03:48:26] Completed 77500 out of 250000 steps (31%)
[05:10:30] Completed 80000 out of 250000 steps (32%)
[06:32:21] Completed 82500 out of 250000 steps (33%)
[07:49:31] Completed 85000 out of 250000 steps (34%)
[09:02:08] Completed 87500 out of 250000 steps (35%)
[10:19:33] Completed 90000 out of 250000 steps (36%)
[11:41:21] Completed 92500 out of 250000 steps (37%)
[12:55:48] Completed 95000 out of 250000 steps (38%)
[14:20:48] Completed 97500 out of 250000 steps (39%)
[15:42:28] Completed 100000 out of 250000 steps (40%)
[17:09:52] Completed 102500 out of 250000 steps (41%)
[18:35:14] Completed 105000 out of 250000 steps (42%)
[20:03:29] Completed 107500 out of 250000 steps (43%)
[21:29:13] Completed 110000 out of 250000 steps (44%)
[22:49:14] Completed 112500 out of 250000 steps (45%)
[00:14:39] Completed 115000 out of 250000 steps (46%)
[01:32:22] Completed 117500 out of 250000 steps (47%)
[03:00:32] Completed 120000 out of 250000 steps (48%)
[04:21:26] Completed 122500 out of 250000 steps (49%)
[05:41:26] Completed 125000 out of 250000 steps (50%)
[07:02:30] Completed 127500 out of 250000 steps (51%)
[08:19:36] Completed 130000 out of 250000 steps (52%)
[09:39:58] Completed 132500 out of 250000 steps (53%)
[11:00:39] Completed 135000 out of 250000 steps (54%)
[12:23:39] Completed 137500 out of 250000 steps (55%)
[13:48:59] Completed 140000 out of 250000 steps (56%)
[15:11:08] Completed 142500 out of 250000 steps (57%)
[16:24:01] Completed 145000 out of 250000 steps (58%)
[17:45:49] Completed 147500 out of 250000 steps (59%)
[19:10:07] Completed 150000 out of 250000 steps (60%)
[20:29:23] Completed 152500 out of 250000 steps (61%)
[21:51:42] Completed 155000 out of 250000 steps (62%)
[21:51:42] Unit 9's deadline (May 10 21:15) has passed.
[21:51:42] Going to interrupt core and move on to next unit...
[21:51:42] CoreStatus = 0 (0)
[21:51:42] Client-core communications error: ERROR 0x0
[21:51:42] Deleting current work unit & continuing...
[21:52:04] - Preparing to get new work unit...
[21:52:04] + Attempting to get work packet
[21:52:04] - Connecting to assignment server
[21:52:12] - Successful: assigned to (171.64.65.56).
[21:52:12] + News From Folding@Home: Welcome to Folding@Home
[21:52:12] Loaded queue successfully.
[21:52:19] + Could not connect to Work Server
[21:52:19] - Attempt #1 to get work failed, and no other work to do.
Waiting before retry.
[21:52:36] + Attempting to get work packet
[21:52:36] - Connecting to assignment server
[21:52:39] - Successful: assigned to (171.64.65.56).
[21:52:39] + News From Folding@Home: Welcome to Folding@Home
[21:52:39] Loaded queue successfully.
[21:53:15] + Closed connections
[21:53:20]
[21:53:20] + Processing work unit
[21:53:20] At least 4 processors must be requested.Core required: FahCore_a2.exe
[21:53:20] Core found.
[21:53:20] Working on Unit 00 [May 10 21:53:20]
[21:53:20] + Working ...
[21:53:20]
[21:53:20] *------------------------------*
[21:53:20] Folding@Home Gromacs SMP Core
[21:53:20] Version 2.07 (Sun Apr 19 14:51:09 PDT 2009)
[21:53:20]
[21:53:20] Preparing to commence simulation
[21:53:20] - Ensuring status. Please wait.
[21:53:29] - Assembly optimizations manually forced on.
[21:53:29] - Not checking prior termination.
[21:54:02] - Expanded 4834453 -> 23977801 (decompressed 495.9 percent)
[21:54:16] Called DecompressByteArray: compressed_data_size=4834453 data_size=23977801, decompressed_data_size=23977801 diff=0
[21:54:17] - Digital signature verified
[21:54:17]
[21:54:17] Project: 2669 (Run 7, Clone 63, Gen 126)
[21:54:17]
[21:54:17] Assembly optimizations on if available.
[21:54:17] Entering M.D.
[21:54:45] Multi-core optimizations on
[21:56:42] Completed 0 out of 250000 steps (0%)
[00:00:51] Completed 2500 out of 250000 steps (1%)
[02:05:33] Completed 5000 out of 250000 steps (2%)
[04:00:12] Completed 7500 out of 250000 steps (3%)
[05:48:10] Completed 10000 out of 250000 steps (4%)

[harlam357]

Did this happen when you rebooted? i.e. was Folding fine then upon reboot and restart this started happening?

...or did this start in the middle of or between work units?

I suspect something must be interfering with the vmware process and stealing cycles. Either that or maybe the AMD-V technology got turned off somehow.

[ozzlo]

also make sure no other programs are excessively or abnormally stealing CPU cycles.

[tgxiii]

No reboots. I restarted the VM when I switched to T32monkeys at the beginning of the race, but that's it.

As far as other cycles, I'm not sure what it could be. The machine is a Windows Home Server box, and nothing on that box has changed aside from adding/modifying/deleting files on the shared folders. I've eyed the task manager for anything that could be stealing cycles, but whenever I take a look there's nothing. The PPD used to be normal, but suddenly it's like this.

[ChasR]

AMD Cool & Quiet kicking in? That could happen if you lowered the VM priority. You'd see varying frame time and they'd return to normal when you used the machine. Your frame times are highly variable. On my T7200 laptop, minimum and average frame times are within 19 seconds (2%) of each other,

[tgxiii]

I had CPU-Z running while I was eyeing task manager; CPU frequency remained the same the entire time while I was checking up on it. I also have another AMD processor (4850e) with a VM running on it, and I don't have this problem.