Unloading BOINC completely, but temporarily
2 Aug 2009 1:05:42 UTC
Topic 194471
(moderation:
Occasionally, I run some apps overnight, apps that take 10-24 hours to complete. On those occassions, I would like to unload BOINC completely, such that it is taking no (or VERY little) RAM and consuming no CPU cycles, whatsoever, while my app runs. I'd like every byte and CPU cycle, on every CPU core, given to the app.
Then, when the app has completed, I'd like to put BOINC back into normal mode, such that it kicks in after xx minutes of keyboard/mouse inactivity.
If I exit BOINC (right click icon > Exit), it comes back upon screen saver activation. If I disable the screen saver, BOINC remains present in memory.
I don't want to uninstall and reinstall BOINC on these occasions, but I'm not sure how best to unload BOINC completely for a while, and then to flip the switch back to "normal."
Thanks for any thoughts on how best to do this.
p.s. Running Windows XP 32-bit, BOINC 6.6.28
Unloading BOINC completely, but temporarily
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If you set in your Computing preferences:
then it would be sufficient to suspend BOINC from the Activity menu (don't use "Snooze", that only lasts one hour). That would leave boinc.exe and boincmgr.exe in memory, but they take less than 10 MB together and use very little CPU time.
If that is still not acceptable for you, turn off the BOINC screensaver (set it to "None" or "Blank screen").
If you are running BOINC in "service" mode (Protected Application Execution), you have to select "Shut down connected client..." from the Advanced menu in BOINC manager (followed by OK and then Cancel) then "Exit" from the File menu.
If you are running BOINC in "normal" mode (the project applications only run when the BOINC manager is running), then File>Exit should be enough to completely halt execution of BOINC.
There seems to be a popup window in BOINC manager version 6 when you exit, where you can choose if the applications should continue to run without manager. Since I'm still using version 5, I'm not quite sure about that, but you'll have to choose the appropriate options.
To restart BOINC, simply restart the manager from the windows start menu or wherever you have placed a shortcut.
Gruß,
Gundolf
Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)
With your v6.6 BOINC, you
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With your v6.6 BOINC, you could also experiment with the option from Client configuration. Provided your overnight jobs all use the same application (or one of a small list of known applications), you could set BOINC to suspend operations while those jobs run, and restart automatically when they've finished.
Coupled with setting 'Leave applications in memory while suspended' to no, you would recover all the bytes and cycles from the science applications, but just leave boinc.exe itself running to keep an eye on things.
If you want to recover even that minimal resource usage, you could use a batch file to start your overnight jobs, and use command line scripts to close down boinc.exe when it runs (NET STOP BOINC or boinccmd --quit, resume with NET START BOINC or boinc.exe --detach, depending on your installation type).
Thank you for the excellent
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Thank you for the excellent suggestions, Gundolf and Richard. This is exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks.
FWIW, the app I run overnight is a 3-D drawing renderer. The other morning, I saw that eight separate BOINC projects (I have 8 virtual cores) had concluded with "computation error." Most were at fractional completion, but a couple were at 100%.
But, I hadn't done a rendering that night. Instead, I figured what caused BOINC to burp was an automatically running antivirus scan. Two different apps, BOINC and AV, apparently had assumed that they could each have all the CPU and memory they needed.
So, in addition to setting up BOINC so as not to kick in at times, I have to set up other apps so as not to kick in when BOINC is to have its day.
A bit complicated, but manageable.
Thanks again.
Ken
RE: But, I hadn't done a
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The general consensus is that it isn't the CPU/memory usage of an AV scan that causes a problem, but the temporary locking of files while it checks them.
Depending how paranoid you are, and how much you trust the administrators of the projects you are attached to, a workround is to exclude the BOINC data folder (and subfolders) from AV scanning.