I just joined yesterday and am still trying to configure..
My pc is a little old lady with Asus P5ad2-del, 925x, intel P4 540 @ 3.64Ghz oc\'d, 2x1024ram, Nvid6600GT, 2x WDraptor 36Gig, etc.. stable and efficient enough to share a little bit cpu-time,ram&mem with the family, witch I\'m trying to do.
I now have boinc running at 90perc Cpu and 90perc Ram when my pc turns to screensaver-mode after 3 min, altough this is working fine I also would like to maximize boinc\'s runtime by allocating, lets say, perhaps 40perc cpu-time when not idle but in use.. However it seems to me that boinc pref\'s only give the choice between one or the other.. Is there something I\'ve overlooked or does someone know how to resolve this?

Greetz & thx 4 answering

BOINC runs at the lowest possible priority, and will stop using resources when they are needed by anything else that you run.

The best way to allocate more to the program, is to NOT use the BOINC screensaver. It can use up to 50% of the processors time just creating the graphics, the older the computer hardware, the more time used. In cpdn, you can use the \"Show graphics\" button to look at the globe, for those times when you want to see what is happening.

If you must use a screensaver, then use a simpler one from Windows, otherwise, set it to \'None\', or \'Blank\'.

Overclocking can cause problems with this science app, and make the models crash.

Make regular backups of the entire BOINC folder, after Suspending and then Exiting the program.

Thank\'s for the advice.. And to show my gratitude and respect I did the following;
The screensaver is turned off, downclocked a bit to 3.53ghz, I\'ve allocated 80percent cpu and 80 ram, also yessed the \'leave app in mem\' option and gave the whole shasam 6gigs to use with a min of 1 to leave free (?why?).. Don\'t know if that\'s enough, a little or much but as boinc only uses 1.19Gb untill now I guessed that amount would be sufficiant for now..
Also changed the Threadmaster param to 40 for each of both cp app\'s and rebooted..
So as I\'m a complete noob I guess I simply didn\'t understand earlier that the option \'Do work while the computer is in use\' does in fact also allocate cpu-time when it is idle and not in use.. Please forgive my ignorance but what do you mean with \'make backups of the boinc-folder\' exactly? Copy the entire boinc-file I have in my program files folder in another location, maybe on another drive? For what use? Boinc loads at start-up and I only exit it when I shutdown my pc or it crashes so the prog is in my ram and system restore anyway.. If the system disk would get scrambled or breakdown, well then having lost the boinc app would be the least of my worries anyway.
Nevertheless for the moment boinc indicates \'activities suspended\' and doesn\'t do anything anymore.. Did I forget something or do something wrong maybe? Don\'t tell me that\'s because I didn\'t back-up, I feel a big enough idiot already..

Mucho gracias

Donkey I am, like an ass I feel and the shame I deserve is upon me...

It\'s working again
(had to switch the activity parameters to netw always avail instead of user prefered and enterred 0.09 in \'days to connect to network\')

I promise I\'ll read somemore other posts in the forum before (or avoiding to..) posting another dumm reply.

The CPU % is not currently working in the public released versions of BOINC, so it will still run approximately 100% until the next version of BOINC comes out. They are testing this with the Beta test applications, currently.

---

The CPU % is not currently working in the public released versions of BOINC, so it will still run approximately 100% until the next version of BOINC comes out. They are testing this with the Beta test applications, currently.

Eurh Yep.. but as I mentioned earlier I use Threadmaster and enterred the hadcmyadaya515.. app\'s in the Treadmasters parameters with regedit so each app can not use more than the 50% I gave it (changed setting to 100% cpu time now)
But another question if I may, is it feaseble to change the process priority for each or a single cp app from \'low\' to \'below normal\'? Would that grant a bit more cpu-priority to boinc without hogging the entire system or doesn\'t that make a difference?

Grtz

But another question if I may, is it feaseble to change the process priority for each or a single cp app from \'low\' to \'below normal\'? Would that grant a bit more cpu-priority to boinc without hogging the entire system or doesn\'t that make a difference?

Grtz

If I understood what other have tried, is giving more CPU punch to the applications does not really help. If you system is idle, it will work the hardest it can, giving it more priority doesn\'t change the amount of work it does per CPU cycle, so it would just not give up it\'s grab on the CPU as easily as it does now.

---

In order to clarify and for those who do want to run Boinc at a lower speed then 100%..
You can download the free process-managing app \'Threadmaster\' here.. Unfortunatly it only has a registryfile for SETI@home process but you can enter the active .exe process names of the CP app\'s boinc is running (wich you can find in \'processes\' of Taskmanager)--- (ctrl-alt-del if you are a noob like me).. Then you give this registrykey the dwordvalue wich equals the process amount you wich it to have at max. This system worked for me (after reboor ofcourse) but I\'ve now allocated the full 100% to boinc as I now understand the implication of the \'low\'priority settings CP \'s app\'s have (I read this in another thread and it makes perfectly good sence to me now \'cause it\'s true that processes with a higher priority setting will always \'subdue\' those with a low-priority when needed) except when your system is loading up, that\'s when Threadmaster still comes in handy for me as it still delay\'s processes when starting-up according to their process-priority, in order to avoid a system crash.. I maybe wrong but before I ran Threadmaster my system crashed at every boot unless I configured my Codestuff Starter app to only start-up boinc.. If I tried to also start-up Bitdefender, Bitcomet, ISP-controller and other app\'s I like to start-up at boot, the system crashed.. This clearly indicated to me that boinc does hogg all the processpriority when booting even if it has a \'low\'priority setting.. Maybe Taskmanager doesn\'t recognise processpriority settings till after full load.. Anyhow with Threadmaster enabled the problem has vanished and I can now boot with all my prog\'s loading at startup and boinc at 100%

Grtz

Another thing Pooh Bear 27,

I\'ve just read a thread you started about trickles.. There where a lot of a tat agressive and disgrunted reactions of some people posted about missing trickles on Cp.net and also some very bad criticism about it\'s disfunctionning in general.. As I\'m new here and am dedicating my full boinc cpu time for 100% to cp.net only, I wonder if that was a good choice? Maybe those people where being just a bit to impatient, I don\'t know. CP seems a nice project to me and I find it more usefull then for example Seti (which I always disliked as it only anylises an infinate small portion of the univers which, in my view, makes it useless) so I would hate to drop it now because some \'bad press\' tells me its crap..
What are your experiences with CP thusfar if I may ask?


friendly greetings

Any project is going to have disgruntled people. This project is a tight budget, and only a few people behind the scenes. They are dedicated, but do sometimes take holiday, travel for business, etc., and drive space needs to be watched pretty close, so sometimes the trickles get behind. They never get lost, and I think the longest I saw that no credits were given, because of issues, was about a week. I just like to let them know it\'s happening, especially if they are off someplace, and not seeing the issues locally, themselves. Then hopefully they can remote in and repair it.

I believe the project developers are very dedicated to this project, and try their hardest. I think the project is worth the time. I have 3 computers running 4 models. I plan on sticking around for as long as I can, be it project end, or my end, or some other major issue that keeps me from it.

I would hope you would like to stick around at least for a while, and see how it goes. Those that make the noise do not bother me, as I keep a light phylosphy on life. Things happen, some I can change, others I can not. People are people, some need to be ignored, some become awesome friends and allies.

Crunch on, and let\'s hope we can help our futures.

---

Hi, Jorg,

You can see by the numbers on the left that my machines have had a bit of success with the project -- and I\'m a long way down the list. It can be done and is being done successfully by many people. We tend to hear about the problems from the tens of thousands of participants, not the successes.

As to backups, best to consider them crucial. I do them weekly, if not more often, these days; during the \'Spinup\' project (200-year Coupled Models) it was every three days maximum. Here\'s how:
Les\' How to backup/restore:
http://bbc.cpdn.org/forum_thread.php?id=1952#8299
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=43422#43422

---

"We have met the enemy and he is us." -- Pogo
Greetings from coastal Washington state, the scenic US Pacific Northwest.

If I may input my two cents, I have found that the heavy to medium complainers, do not know much about their computers. They continually state that Boinc has caused their box to go crazy, but I have found that most problems are caused by the user or mainly their computers not being up to the task.

I have 8 computers and they all have worked fine right out of the box, all you need to do is keep them updated........

---

BOINC Wiki

Thanks AstroWX and JimK. Good to see that others have some great opinios to give to the newer user. Working as a team is partially what Distributed Computing is about. We are all working toward a common goal. If we give good input, stay informed, and ask questions when we are lost, or in need, we can be a powerful force.

Keep up the great crunching, and let\'s hope we can see many clear, clean days ahead.

---

OK thanks for the advice, I really appreciate the replies and the links to other threads about back-up did persuade me to give this a try (Les Bayliss\'s tutorial really is great, thanks M8).. The more threads I read the more obvious it becomes to me CP is more of a \'professional\' science prog then, let\'s say seti (thanks for not kicking me out for my comments on seti by-the-way..looks some people here spend a lot of cpu-time on it..but I still think it\'s useless) and therefore is a bit more difficult to use wich apparently is to much for some.. But no problem for me, count me in to stick around for quit some time anyway..

Friendly greetings to all