In fact, as I write this, Einstein, SETI, and Predictor are all using CPU. According to BOINC, only SETI and Predictor are "running". Predictor is using 50% CPU, SETI and Einstein are splitting the other 50%.
OK, I understand the use of the term now, the "technically correct" term is "preempting"; this is very common on Windows9x, but very rare (now) on WinXP. (Which is why you couldn't find it, it's been months since it was a common problem.) It is _more_ common for Predictor, as their app has not been updated in quite some time and I believe it still uses some older libraries that don't "listen" to stop commands as well as they should, but it can happen to any project's application.
If you are _not_ running CPDN or Rosetta, the best suggestion I can give you is to set the preference "Leave applications in memory when preempted" to "no". This will cost you a small amount of crunching time whenever an application is switched out, but if the "3 at a time" situation is very common, it will probably be better for you in the long run.
If you _are_ running CPDN and/or Rosetta, I hope someone else has some ideas, because I don't know how else to stop this, and setting that value to "no" can cause errors on those two projects. I thought this problem had been solved back around BOINC V4.45...
I do have Rosetta running. I quit doing CPDN recently after I had a graphics driver hiccup that killed any of the apps that had graphics (all the ones I run except Predictor). CPDN just takes too long to do one full result that it's just too "risky" for me.
What's interesting is that Einstein is the app that I'm seeing with this behavior more than any other (if any other). I'm not sure if Predictor ever did it on this computer.
Well, I'm going out of town for over a week, so for the time being I'm going to prevent Einstein from getting new work. I'll see if any of the remaining apps with work cause this issue.
I took a little bit of time to further investigate the issue on my end. For starters, I changed my general preferences so that only one processor would be used on my dual-core. So, in "Task Manager", each BOINC process should have taken at most 50%. I did this to give some headroom for the "non-preemting" processes so they wouldn't eat up all the cycles on both CPUs. Most of the time, the processes behaved correctly, and usually only 50% was in use.
I think I discovered what the "non-preempting" issue may have been due to... the nVidia graphics driver version I was running! I used SysInternals' "Process Explorer" to view the threads on a running LHC (sixtrack) that was using almost 100% CPU. It turns out that sixtrack itself was only using at most 50%, but nvoglnt.dll was also using about 50%!
I was running Forceware 81.95 before. Since upgrading to 81.98, I have yet to see the problem! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I can only guess that the screensaver played a role.
I've found that BOINC leaves processes running when I start to use the computer, even though I have my preferences set to suspend activity when the computeris in use.
I am running XP with multiple users. With XP, you can switch accounts without logging off. The processes left running belong to another user. It seems that sometimes when another user leaves the computer for a while, then I come along and "switch users" to my account, BOINC doesn't suspend the process that belongs to the other user. If I switch back to the other user's account the processes stop.
Could your problem be related to this. Is there any way to remedy this without loggin out and back in every time someone uses the computer?
RE: RE: In fact, as I
)
I do have Rosetta running. I quit doing CPDN recently after I had a graphics driver hiccup that killed any of the apps that had graphics (all the ones I run except Predictor). CPDN just takes too long to do one full result that it's just too "risky" for me.
What's interesting is that Einstein is the app that I'm seeing with this behavior more than any other (if any other). I'm not sure if Predictor ever did it on this computer.
Well, I'm going out of town for over a week, so for the time being I'm going to prevent Einstein from getting new work. I'll see if any of the remaining apps with work cause this issue.
A bump... Here's something
)
A bump... Here's something interesting.
I took a little bit of time to further investigate the issue on my end. For starters, I changed my general preferences so that only one processor would be used on my dual-core. So, in "Task Manager", each BOINC process should have taken at most 50%. I did this to give some headroom for the "non-preemting" processes so they wouldn't eat up all the cycles on both CPUs. Most of the time, the processes behaved correctly, and usually only 50% was in use.
I think I discovered what the "non-preempting" issue may have been due to... the nVidia graphics driver version I was running! I used SysInternals' "Process Explorer" to view the threads on a running LHC (sixtrack) that was using almost 100% CPU. It turns out that sixtrack itself was only using at most 50%, but nvoglnt.dll was also using about 50%!
I was running Forceware 81.95 before. Since upgrading to 81.98, I have yet to see the problem! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
I can only guess that the screensaver played a role.
I've found that BOINC leaves
)
I've found that BOINC leaves processes running when I start to use the computer, even though I have my preferences set to suspend activity when the computeris in use.
I am running XP with multiple users. With XP, you can switch accounts without logging off. The processes left running belong to another user. It seems that sometimes when another user leaves the computer for a while, then I come along and "switch users" to my account, BOINC doesn't suspend the process that belongs to the other user. If I switch back to the other user's account the processes stop.
Could your problem be related to this. Is there any way to remedy this without loggin out and back in every time someone uses the computer?