Hello,
BOINC allows for scheduling of computer use per a set state of paramters, which includes the number of cores available and computing time, on a daily schedule with per-day override options.

This works for PCs whose computing power must be entirely available to the user at certain times.

BOINC can also work after n minutes of inactivity.

I'd like BOINC to work under different loads per a schedule (not just ON/OFF).
Why? Because when under load, the cores heat up, and the fans spin up, which generates noise. This won't matter to the user of that machine because, as soon as she uses the computer, computing can be made to switch off. However, it can matter, in a shared office setting, to that user's colleagues.

To circumvent this missing feature, I've tried TThrottle. The problem is that the PID (ie the regulating loop with proportional, integral and derivative coeffs. for deviations from set T) settings in hardware for the fans do not lead, in conjunction with TThrottle, to a stable solution, but instead to wild oscillations in core temperatures, and thus a lot of fan noise. I've tried a number of core T settings, and of min. T settings, to no avail.

Of course, I've tried to solve this with two Fan control apps (HWInfo and FanSpeed), but both crash my machine.

Any ideas? The feature would sure be handy! As it is, I'm forced to run 8-thread machines at 50% 24/7 to ensure that they're quiet during working hours...

Thanks for your input!

Liquid cooling?

I would rather have a software solution :)

If you edits the BOINC-preferences locally on a computer, it's saved in a file called global_prefs_override.xml located in the BOINC data-directory.
In addition BOINC includes boinccmd located in the BOINC application-directory, this is a command-line tool to give various commands to a running BOINC-client, including reading global_prefs_override.xml

So while BOINC doesn't directly support changing %cpu-usage due to time-of-day, one method that should work is to make two small batch-files, and these batch-files you can schedule to run at a particular time in Windows.

To make the batch-files, you'll first need to make the BOINC-preferences. This can example be to make the "full"-preferences, copy global_prefs_override.xml and calling it full.xml, re-edit BOINC-preferences choosing the "low"-preference and copy global_prefs_override.xml calling it low.xml

The full-batch-file can be something like:
copy "your-boinc-data-dir\full.xml" "your-boinc-data-dir\global_prefs_override.xml"
"your-boinc-app-dir\boinccmd" --read_global_prefs_override

And the half-batch-file can be something like:
copy "your-boinc-data-dir\low.xml" "your-boinc-data-dir\global_prefs_override.xml"
"your-boinc-app-dir\boinccmd" --read_global_prefs_override

You'll need access-rights for the copying to work.

While not relevant to me at present, this should also work with possible minor tweaks for nix and mac.

great idea! not that i could breezily implement it myself, but it makes full sense, thanks :)

Heat is a problem; I find that loading CPUs at low clock rates is really efficient; no fan spinup, and quite good battery life running unplugged under load.

I'm forced to run 8-thread machines at 50% 24/7 to ensure that they're quiet during working hours

You might try reducing the number of cores you're running on as well as the clockrate. Lower clockrates usually mean higher efficiency.

One thing I wish would be an option with BOINC to vary the # or cores depending on whether a machine has been idle for a while or is under use.

To manage heat and efficiency during non-heating season I'm using a rudimentary downclocking tool to automatically assign nice value 19 tasks to downclocked cores.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=10461


For windows user, I see that there is a much fancier application; I haven't tried it yet.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=3517