Request for app-selection: SSE/SSE2 or none.
9 Jul 2011 1:04:47 UTC
Topic 195853
(moderation:
Hi all, those of you who know me know I am not a speed demon, I don't care if I get credits today or in a week's time, nor how many of them there are.
I do care about my hardware though, and then especially about the amount of heat it throws out into the room. And that's a significant amount, especially in the summer.
Earlier this year, after the latest scare of the yearly electricity bill, I decided to let my computer only run during the night time, between 9pm and 7am, when electricity rates are slightly lower (yes, I have a double meter which does switch between two rates) when compared to the rates during the rest of the day. Thus far it seems my scheme works out, as even while we're in July now it looks like I won't have to pay extra at the end of the year.
Now, of course, also during the night I try to run as cool as possible. I have a good HSF plus 4 case fans pumping hot air out and cooler air in.
yet even with that, I will need to clean this system every 3 to 4 weeks, as temperatures will easily sky-rocket with the slightest amounts of dust, cat-, rabbit-, and guinea pig hair collecting in there.
So I have looked at the temperatures and I noticed that when Einstein runs with 2 tasks at the same time, that the CPU temperatures are easily 5 to 10 degrees Centigrade higher than when only one Einstein runs. Bog standard S6Bucket here, but also seen with the S5 searches. Way earlier, I was running Seti & Einstein together on this system, in equal resource shares. That would give me 70C CPU temps. Now I run Enigma, Malaria, Einstein and Primegrid together, all 1 task per CPU core (i3-530 with HT). Temperatures now are a reasonable 45-50C. When I allow two Einstein's, it'll be 60C, easily. And that on a cleaned system (cleaned out all dust bunnies this evening).
I allocate this problem to the use of SSE and SSE2 (and for one SSE4.1) in project science apps. Now, it may speed up the calculations, but with that speed comes a lot of increased heat. The problem here is that Einstein does not allow me to choose whether I want to run with the normal non-optimized but cool running app, or an optimized SSE/SSE2 app that runs way hotter. Neither Malaria nor Enigma or Primegrid use optimizations like that, and thus I can run those aside Einstein to keep my CPU cool.
That is, until those projects run out of work, then I run 2 or 3 Einstein's and see the heat increase. Probably see the electricity usage increase as well.
So with that whole thing laid out, I humbly request if it's possible that we get a selection in the Project preferences, which application we want to use and then get that app sent and used only. So that the wealthy speed demons who want to rake in their credits quickly can use the SSE/SSE2 apps, while cheapo's like me can run the work at a more leisurely pace, and burn less electrons in the process.
What do you think?
Request for app-selection: SSE/SSE2 or none.
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afaik ALL of Primegrids current apps do use SSE2.
if you want to reduce temps, the easyest way is to reduce clock-speed. you are currently probably running a multiplier of 22 - try 20 and see what happens..
RE: if you want to reduce
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Hmm, please indulge me. How is that the easiest way? Do you know what my motherboard is, that you can determine that it's that easy to do?
No? Then why is that the easiest way? Why isn't it the easiest way that I can determine for myself which of the 3 already available applications I want to use?
Since Einstein already has the option to run either the non-SSE app, or the SSE or SSE2 app (depending on which main apps you run, of course), and they have their own selection system determining what the capabilities of my CPU are before sending me app X doing whatever, I am only asking to give me that choice myself through the Project preferences. It's not that difficult, there's no need for me to reboot and tinker inside a BIOS, with everything that may go wrong with that. It may also help other people, in a similar situation. Unless you propose that everyone out there should start tinkering away at their multiplier, since that's the easiest way (!)?
Yes, I have tested if it's the Einstein or Seti apps that give the most heat out.
Yes, running two Primegrid tasks will also give the surface of my CPU the temperature of molten lava, so I run them as little as possible (low RS).
The best balance I saw is 1 Einstein or Seti, 1 Malaria, 1 Enigma and 1 CPDN Beta.
Or 1 Einstein or Seti, 1 Primegrid, 1 Enigma, 1 Malaria.
Or 1 Seti or Einstein, 2 Enigma, 1 Malaria.
Or 1 Seti or Einstein, 1 Enigma, 2 Malaria.
Problem with the above is that Malaria at times runs out of work, Enigma ditto, so then I run 2 or 3 Einstein tasks at the same time. All of course the S6Bucket SSE2 apps, since the project deemed that to be the best setting to use on my CPU, without regard of whether I want to be able to choose whether to run the slightly less hot SSE or non-optimized apps at any time. Over- or under-clocking of the CPU is not going to happen.
All I was asking for was a feature request, mostly since the options are already there.
In the mean time, I have made myself an anonymous platform file that runs plain S6Bucket and the graphics app only.
BOINC is now running 2 Malaria's and 2 Einsteins at the same time at only 40-45C. The only problem there is that I'll have to update it myself and that I will not run the Fermi LAT tasks for now. Not until we know the app's name(s) and I can add them to the app_info.xml.
For you wondering how to do that, here it is in small case:
Stop BOINC completely.
Download:
http://einstein.aei.mpg.de/download/einstein_S5R6_3.01_graphics_windows_intelx86.exe
http://einstein.aei.mpg.de/download/einstein_S6Bucket_1.01_windows_intelx86.exe
Save them into your BOINC Data directory\projects\einstein.phys.uwm.edu\ directory, overwrite old versions if necessary.
Add these lines into an app_info.xml file and save it in your BOINC Data directory\projects\einstein.phys.uwm.edu\ directory:
[pre]
einstein_S6Bucket
einstein_S6Bucket_1.01_windows_intelx86.exe
einstein_S5R6_3.01_graphics_windows_intelx86.exe
einstein_S6Bucket
101
6.7.0
einstein_S6Bucket_1.01_windows_intelx86.exe
einstein_S5R6_3.01_graphics_windows_intelx86.exe
graphics_app
[/pre]
Restart BOINC.
It is possible your tasks be lost and will be resent! But it's also possible that only happened to me as my first version had a typo. ;-)
RE: Hmm, please indulge me.
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well - of course i do not know what you got there. i can throttle my AMD's multipler in steps of 0,5 via bios. the Intels quads are pretty similar. if you were running linux, you could use the clock-applet without rebooting. if i remember correctly, i got a range of 2.53 down to 1.2 GHz in a lot of possible steps on my I5m-540.
the one and only case where i only got the choice of either 1.86 or 1.6 GHz is my old dual-socket XEON.
anything might happen on either project anyway everytime, so i think it's better to find a local solution which works no matter what you are crunching.
moved to "wish list"
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moved to "wish list" forum
HBE
RE: ... I will not run the
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This should get you started:
hsgamma_FGRP1
Gamma-ray pulsar search #1
hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
9044188.000000
http://einstein.aei.mpg.de/download/hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
http://einstein-mirror.aei.uni-hannover.de/EatH/download/hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
http://einstein-dl2.phys.uwm.edu/download/hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
http://einstein-dl4.phys.uwm.edu/download/hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
http://einstein.ligo.caltech.edu/download/hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
hsgamma_FGRP1
16
windows_intelx86
1.000000
1.000000
951859099.804305
6.13.0
hsgamma_FGRP1_0.16_windows_intelx86.exe
einstein_S5R6_3.01_graphics_windows_intelx86.exe
graphics_app
First results in. Ran two
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First results in.
Ran two tasks side-by-side for the whole duration. During the evening and night, CPU temperature went from 40-45C to between 35 and 41C.
SSE2 app would run tasks in around 22,000 seconds.
Plain app runs tasks in around 39,000 seconds. I don't mind the extra time it takes, when CPU temperatures can go down with 15-20C this easily. That's 15-20C less that this rather small room that the PCs are in needs to try to get rid off.
I don't know what it does for electricity usage, will check that at the end of the week, when I (always) write down the meter readings.
The Binary Radio Pulsar
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The Binary Radio Pulsar Search (ABP/BRP) as well as the new Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray search (FGRP) have only applications that use SSE. These don't benefit from SSE2, and will actually crash on machines not capable of SSE. If you don't want to use SSE, you should opt out of these applications.
For the latest GW search S6Bucket, there is only a SSE2 and a 'compatibility' application. We don't maintain a SSE app there anymore, because we found it not worth the effort.
* I do honor your experiments with application versions and CPU temperature, but I don't (yet) know of more participants requesting this feature
* Currently you can run a specific application version by using an app_info.xml file. If you don't want to run SSE applications anyway, not running other applications than the GW search won't hurt you.
* Some time ago I read that BOINC developers are working on a feature in the Client to select a specific application version. I don't know, however, when it will actually be implemented, or whether has been dropped completely.
Given the above I don't think it's worth to put any work into implementing such a feature from the project side.
BM
BM
First off, thanks Bernd for
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First off, thanks Bernd for looking in on the situation. I'm probably the first to ask for non-optimized applications. ;-)
I'll check with the developers on the selection of application version, see where they're at with that. Thanks. :-)
(For the moment I won't run Einstein anyway, since the new client thinks Malaria needs to be run exclusively...)