Performance tip

I installed FAH on an old 650MHz Laptop that had been laying about the office. Since it's not going to fold 24/7, I elected to use client type 2 (Genome@Home) and run timeless tinkers. I noticed that a 450 MHz machine on the network was folding circles around the faster laptop and went looking for the cause. It turned out to be the screensaver. It was set to run a 3D clock screensaver which added 1 HOUR to the time per frame. Lesson, never run a screensaver on a folding machine. Set the monitor to turn off instead.

Hehe, i never do screensavers even on fast machines, i just have em turn the screen black.

Or, Turn the monitor off when your not around. Saves more electricity.

T

TidyBowl said:

Or, Turn the monitor off when your not around. Saves more electricity.

T

Click to expand...

Thing is my monitor is a 12 y/o 21" Hitachi that takes about half a minute to warm up and get the screen clear visible

Yeah I just have my screen turn off. Saves power and helps make up for the cost of FAH sinceim using a crt.

yup, i leave my comp on for FAH after i leave for school, so during the daytime when im at school the monitor is off

ChasR you just realize this now? LOL! Wedo and I use the winexit.scr screensaver on all our corp. machines, this screensaver logs the user off when activated, kills everything, hehe. Must have this for the line of work these computers perform.

nikhsub1 said:

ChasR you just realize this now? LOL! Wedo and I use the winexit.scr screensaver on all our corp. machines, this screensaver logs the user off when activated, kills everything, hehe. Must have this for the line of work these computers perform.

Click to expand...

Actually, I uninstall screensavers on every computer I encounter. This particular one had been sitting on a shelf for over a year and actually had the monitor turning off at almost the same instant the screen saver turned on. I admit that I had no idea it could affect folding to such a degree on old slow rig. I'd bet there are still quite a few on the OC folding team using them.

Could a screensaver explain why one of my p4's @ 3.06 takes between 19:30~21:30 a frame on a 1912 QMD? It's only running one core not two. Should it be faster that that?

Try it and see.

You'll be suprised what a good check of stuff can do for your frametimes.

7

Ok I will try without the screen saver tomorrow.

Also not to hi-jack the thread..."Kind of performance related"...

Does anyone know why my other p4 @ 3.06 512 mb ram, with identical configs has not ever had a QMD WU? Both machines are using WEDO's one click with bigpacks and -advmethods. The one machine gets them all the time.

Could the fact that the machine that does not get them is running more apps using up the avail memory. Does that skew the benchmark to the point where Stanford will not give me a QMD?

I have tried killing everything that is possible in the task manager and running it like that over the weekend and still no QMD. Maybee it is a cursed machine

TIA

Eh, you need a few things to get a QMD

First, you need enough ram, an SSE2 compatible CPU, and -bigpackets and -advmethods enabled in your config file. Also, make sure your rating is high enough. Stanford is probably more likely to hand out a QMD to you when your rating is above 9 (you consistently turn WUs in on time and do them quickily)

7

Seven said:

... an SSE2 compatible CPU ...

Click to expand...

P4 SSE2 only at the moment.

How do you know what your rating is? Just if you are getting big packets or not?

If you look at your log file, just before a finished work unit is submitted, it will update your performance rating. You may need the "verbosity 9" flag set for this to appear in your log, i don't know cause all my machine are running that flag.

[10:10:20] Folding@home Core Shutdown: FINISHED_UNIT
[10:10:24] CoreStatus = 64 (100)
[10:10:24] Unit 0 finished with 98 percent of time to deadline remaining.
[10:10:24] Updated performance fraction: 0.978990
[10:10:24] Sending work to server

Click to expand...

Ah HA!!! I found the problem. Performance Tip Below

Ok, so this was my problem. I have two identical machines [email protected] 512 MB ram. One would get QWU's all day long. The other never had a QMD WU. Both running Wedo's one click with bigpackets and -advmethods.

Seven said above it may be the performance fraction. But that could not be the case, see below.

The computer getting QMD's PF: (performance fraction)
[03:11:52] Updated performance fraction: 0.968311

The computer not getting QMD's PF:
[20:09:03] Updated performance fraction: 0.971290

This was the problem (The Performance Tip)

The computer getting QMD's log says this:
[16:46:15] - Will indicate memory of 509 MB.

The computer not getting QMD's log says this:
[20:10:33] - Will indicate memory of 502 MB.


These Dell systems are running integrated video cards. The bios was setup to use more integrated video memory on the one not getting QMD's. It now has been fixed and is crunching on its first QMD WU.

So to summarize if you have read this far. If your folding systems have integrated memory and don't do any thing graphical then set the shared memory in the bios as small as possible.

Sjaak said:

Thing is my monitor is a 12 y/o 21" Hitachi that takes about half a minute to warm up and get the screen clear visible

Click to expand...

maybe try the blank screen screensaver? I don't know if just a black screen would have affects on a CRT, but it won't use much or any cpu cycles.

veryhumid said:

maybe try the blank screen screensaver? I don't know if just a black screen would have affects on a CRT, but it won't use much or any cpu cycles.

Click to expand...

currently doing that

I just turned off all screensavers on all my rigs at work. I'll just have to see my vacation pictures some other way.