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Strange Behaviour from Dual core Athlon 64

 
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:59 am    Post subject: Strange Behaviour from Dual core Athlon 64 Reply with quote

I've just obtained a new shrubber running an AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ under winodws XP, which runs two seti programs at once, which should by my reckoning run at 50% cpu allocation under task manager each, which they do most of the time. Very Happy

But I've noticed that every now and then one of the seti programs starts consuming maybe 80% for 10 seconds or so leaving the other with only 20%. The wierd thing is that the CPU time recorded in Boinc stays as if the seti process was using 50%. so that in effect the task manager says the process has consumed say 80 minutes but Boinc says 60 minutes and so the creit claimed is 60 minutes. but the second process has been slowed down in real time as the cpu cycles has been stolen and lost by the other process Mad Mad

I'm currently losing about 25% of the CPU cycles Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad Crying or Very sad

I'm using Crunchers Athlon 64 optimsed client

Wierd hey!

any ideas.
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Fart in your gen direxion
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try changing the username to Sir Fart. That ought to fix it Cool .

#ni-2
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Dagger
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice shrubber! Cool I have the same rig, but i don't have the optimised client. I've never seen anything like that occuring when i was BOINC'ing though. (Wasn't looking too hard).

Athlon64 X2 4200+
1GB ram
WinXP pro.
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 11:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hmmm....

Might try the unoptimised client for an evening, & see what happens......

Funny thing is that I was running Einstein earlier this week with no problems at all.

Oh, and the PC tech supoprt guy said that changing the userid to Sir Fart would only help if was powering the PC with a methane power generator, which I'm not so they said don't bother! Very Happy
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:36 am    Post subject: Dammit! - corrupted Shrub's Reply with quote

well last night was eventfull, but not very productive!

I was trying to revert back to the unoptimised seti program, so I just reversed the optimised upgrade process, (removed the three crunch3r files and copied back the orginal seti programs).

Do not do this, I REPEAT do not do this!!!!!

before I knew it Seti had corrupted every shrub I had ready for processing. see page 3 onwards Shocked ckick here Shocked


reverting back to the optimised client seemed to stabilise things.

So to revert back to the unoptimised client I suppose it's better to stop getting new work, process all the shrubs and the detach and reattach the project.....


well a lesson learned!

#ni-2 #ni-2 #ni-2
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try setting the affinity of each instace (client) to use only one CPU each.

(Affinity- alt-tab-delete to Task manager. Select relevant process, right click the proces and select affinity and set to CPU 0 or 1 etc.)


After any reboot, affinitys must be reset.

Regds Grizz
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Fart in your gen direxion
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Or use this Cool :

http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml

I use it, so it's dummy-proof Cool .

#ni-2
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fart in your gen direxion wrote:
Or use this Cool :

http://www.mlin.net/SMPSeesaw.shtml

#ni-2



OOOHHH that looks good Cool , I have another shrubber of the intel core duo variety arriving on friday... Cool Cool ... cost justified the amd and dell inspiron as both combined were cheaper than the macbook that I wsa going to get

I'll see if the dingle-dell behaves the same way.........


gto some serious shrubbing to doo, gota squash the rabbit!
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Fart in your gen direxion
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ja, it works good. Been using it for years Cool .

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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

so so close...

OK Tried bouth ways to set cpu afinity wich did work, initially. but they only persist for the lifetime of the process ie the shrub in question, oncec that shrub's complete the next one gets shared over the cores again.


buit did some diggin on the ol' interweb and found this option in truXoft's optimised client

I'll set one core to eistein and the other to seti& einstien

I'll back up & switch of the netoork this time, try to prevent another sea of pink in my results pages....

Code:

#
Compatibility: release v5.3.2.tx05 and higher
Scope: global, project, schedule
Example: <cpu_affinity/> (global scope)
  <cpu_affinity>2</cpu_affinity> (project scope)
set_cpu_affinity can be used instead too (backwards compatibility)

In the version v5.3.2, I introduced a new change - assigning processor affinity to individual project tasks (WU's). On multiprocessor machines, if enabled in the global preferences, BOINC core client launches as many project processes (WU's), as many processors are available (or allowed to use). Unfortunately, the official client currently does not assign each process to a specific processor, and hence Windows spreads individual threads of the process among all available CPU's. In some cases, when a task intensively uses the L1/L2 cache, it can lead to loss of performance due to the CPU change and cache misses.

By adding the parameter cpu_affinity you can turn on the CPU affinity assignment of individual BOINC processes - each will be processed exclusively with a single CPU only.

Since the revision 5.3.12.tx40, you can assign the CPU affinity in individual project scopes, assigning so the respective project to the specified CPU. Workunits of the respective project will be started only on the given processor(s). Using <cpu_affinity/> in the global scope will result in using CPU affinity for every launched WU, but WU of any project may be assigned to any available CPU. When <cpu_affinity>1</cpu_affinity> is used at a project, its WU's will be launched on CPU1 only if it does not process any WU of any other project. CPU's are numbered from 1 to N (number of CPU's in the system). Value <cpu_affinity>0</cpu_affinity> is reserved for overriding the global affinity - use it when you turn on the global affinity, but desire that a specific project ignores it, and launches porcesses without CPU affinity set. You can assign multiple CPU's to a project by repeating the directive tags in separate lines, with another value in each of them.

Note: currently functional in Windows versions only!


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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK......

can't seem to find the version tx40 that let's me allocate CPUs to projects, can only fin tx36. but this does let me control cpu affinity at a global level for all WU's so once a WU is started it sticks to that core unless its unloaded by the boinc manager, I'll just let it run for the rest of the evening to ensure no corruption etc but its lookiing good so far

Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

Fart and Grizz Thanks very much for your help. I wouldn't have thought this kind of control was possible in a dual processor.

#ni-2 #ni-2 #ni-2
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:00 pm    Post subject: OK getting angry now Reply with quote

after letting seti run for a while I noticed that the clients gradually slowed down to a halt as far boinc was concerned but were each consuming 50% CPU this didn't make a difference what method of seeting cpu affinity (manually, SMPSeesaw or through the truXosft boinc client)

so took the plunge and finnally worked out how to roll back to the unoptimised clients, and bingo now cpu cycle loss whatsoever, so looks like if I want faster processing I have to put up with about 10% cpu cycle loss per WU. but I'm still better off than using unoptimised clients


Dammit
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've just let this one loose in the SETI Message Board,

it'll be interesting to see what responses I get

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=29716
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Dagger
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looks like to me that you found your solution. Now I know what to grab in case i need some BOINC tuning.
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KWSN - Sir Brian C.......
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 6:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yep, got the saolution

Quote:
Got it!

tried 2.09s which is the "older version" from Crunch3rs website and everythings working smoothly, no need for cpu affinity or anything....

anyone know how I get hold of crunch3r to let him/her know that AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor based systems should use the old version of the Athlon 64 SSE3 optimised client?



I've emailed crunch3r, and offered to help testing any fixes, but got no response, I guess the guy gets swamped with emails.....
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