I just installed BOINC and started running the task 'Weather At Home 2 (wah2)' and have a remaining time of 2 days 2 hours.

My cpu usage is at 15% - can I up this to run the model faster?

This project isn't compatible with NVIDIA GPU's correct?

I have a very high end gaming computer so I'd like to max it out if possible.

Thanks,

Cole

It looks like your computer has eight CPUs, which means that a model occupying all of one CPU would show at 100/8 = 12.5%. So your report of 15% looks about right. You can't run each model faster but you can download more models and run them in parallel.

You're right: the current generation of models run only on CPUs not GPUs.

Welcome to the project and to the message boards!

Cole -

If you are running one model, then the 15% seems correct. 12% for CPDN and 3% for Windows.

However, you can use all 8 cores by running 8 models at once (100% CPU). Go to Tools -> Computing Preferences, and then go through all the tabs and make sure you have everything set the way you want. Especially check the Computing tab.

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If you install and run the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility you can see which cores are being used and what temperatures they are gettin up to. You can then set the BOINC preferences to make sure they don't get too hot.

Thanks everyone for the tips, it looks like I just didn't give it enough time to ramp up. When I initially checked usage I assume only 1 process had started which used about 12% of the total processing power. Now I can see that 8 processes are running using around 12% each, CPU usage is now at 100%.

The CPU is a i7-6700k (4 cores, 8 threads), it has a base clock of 4.0 GHz but I'm running a slight overclock at 4.1 GHz. The only other time that I've maxed out the CPU was when I stress tested the overclocking settings using a special software that creates an artificial load.

My processor is liquid cooled and I have monitoring software so temps are well within reasonable limits at 50 C, although it's a bit hotter than normal which is to be expected at that workload level. When I'm gaming I'm only using around 30% of the CPU since most of the work is handled by the GPU card.

Thanks!

Cole

Haven't overclocked any recent processors myself but know from these boards that it increases the chances of model failure. - Probably not significantly in your case but quite dramatically with more extreme overclocking. If you do decide to go faster it is worth keeping a close eye on things so you can roll back if tasks keep crashing.

For sure, that's why I only do a slight overclock. These processors can be clocked up 4.8 and still remain stable. Having a game crash due to an OC'd processor isn't fun either.

Cole -

I notice that two of your models have failed.

Since you are a new user, you may not be aware that these models do not like to be interrupted. There are a couple of settings that you might want to look at. Make sure you have "Leave model in memory when interrupted" checked. Also, make sure BOINC can use the computer when you are using it for other activities (Boinc will not be suspended).

Do not shutdown BOINC, turn your computer off, re-boot, etc. unless absolutely necessary.

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I also run CPDN on an I7 machine. I've never been able to explain it, but if I try to run at 100% (using all 8 CPU's for CPDN) the jobs consistently fail at some random point. I've concluded that there is something slightly "off" with my hardware since no one else seems to have this problem...however if you keep getting job failures I strongly suggest you set your BOINC preferences to use no more than 75% of the CPUs. That will use 6 CPU's at most for CPDN jobs. After I changed that setting on my I7 machine all was well.

Good luck and welcome to BOINC