Warning for Notebooks running Boinc 24x7

tito
tito
Joined: 10 Jun 06
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It's very good idea to reduce

It's very good idea to reduce voltage of CPU via RMClock Utility 2.25 On my C2D i've reduced voltage from 1,2 V to 1,0 V (Computer is still stable and all WU are valid). On my second one, mobile AMD 64, i've reduced from 1,35 to 1,2. Temperatures have droped even 10deg. And additional to this less power is consumed (tests will be done later).

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
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Can't say much about my new

Can't say much about my new laptop since it's only a few months old, but my old Acer (a cheap Celeron-based Travelmate, too) ran BOINC (mainly SETI and Einstein) for... hmm let me think... since we got broadband, so, that would have been November 2005... until this spring when I got the new one, which makes about one and a half years. It wasn't always on 24/7, but that happened rather frequently, and I had it run full speed even on hot summer days more often than not (and this is Europe ^^ so, no air condition... my room easily gets 35° Celsius or more) and not only BOINC but also games, Internet radio, MP 3 encoding and similar stuff. A real workhorse ;-) I couldn't be too careful since it was the only box I had for much of the time.
And I have to say that apart from a totally unrelated problem with my soundcard, which was luckily fixed within warranty, and a few scratches, the thing is as good as new. When I see other laptops of the same age (and of non-BOINC-users) I can only wonder what has been done to the poor things... The fan is still completely okay, the CPU and memory haven't suffered any damage and the HD has never shown any signs of problems and gets through every test allright.
That box is almost 3 years old now (33 months if someone wants to be picky). I would say if there were problems apart from what could also happen through normal usage they would have shown up by now.
The only complaint I have is that battery lifetime has gone down to virtually none-existent by now. But since it was only a crappy 2200 mAh in the beginning and Li-Ions are given a lifetime of about three years that probably isn't too surprising. Maybe a bit less heat would have helped, but probably not that much. My cell phone battery, also a Li-Ion, died on me after only two years and I didn't run BOINC on that ;-) (the old thing didn't even have Java or anything ^^ so, definitely not worth the bother...) so that seems to be pretty normal. And compared to many other parts that might suffer a new battery every two or three years is probably affordable.
So of course I keep BOINCing on my new laptop and don't give it much of a second thought. The new Samsung even stays very nice and cool, so it should really be able to handle the stress- and if it doesn't I certainly won't buy that brand again! As an IT-Specialist-to-be I expect the stuff I buy to be able to handle some serious usage. So I quite agree with what Bikeman said about a burn-in test. Well I don't think I'll get a HP any time soon now ;-) even if by some miracle I came into the position to get a third computer, which is rather unlikely.

Greetz, Annika

PS: Back from vacation and crunching with a vengeance...

Pilgrim
Pilgrim
Joined: 8 Nov 04
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As a previous respondent

As a previous respondent said.....

ALL LABTOP USERS SHOULD BE USING THE RMCLOCK UTILITY.

As he said, I have a dell 9300 running everything possible
including prime95 for years....no problems, no cleaning, and
runs 10 degrees cooler than without the utility.

If it will work on a dell labtop, it should work on any labtop.

Cheers.

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
Bikeman (Heinz-...
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RE: As a previous

Message 70867 in response to message 70866

Quote:

As a previous respondent said.....

ALL LABTOP USERS SHOULD BE USING THE RMCLOCK UTILITY.

As he said, I have a dell 9300 running everything possible
including prime95 for years....no problems, no cleaning, and
runs 10 degrees cooler than without the utility.

If it will work on a dell labtop, it should work on any labtop.

Cheers.

"Notebook Hardware Control" is also worth considering : http://www.pbus-167.com/

CU

H-BE

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
Posts: 720
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Yep, NHC is what I'm using

Yep, NHC is what I'm using aswell... but more to keep an eye on things, I don't do very much tweaking.

testr2
testr2
Joined: 18 Jan 05
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RE: Same here too. I put a

Message 70869 in response to message 70860

Quote:
Same here too. I put a laptop cooler under mine about a year ago, and I'm convinced that is the difference between a longer lasting laptop and a shorter duration unit. But the point is well taken from the original poster: laptops run pretty hot, and this is certainly not good in the long run. :-/

I have also bought a laptop cooler and like the results so far. Does anyone have any negative experiences with coolers. I feel much better about running mt laptop 16 hours a day now.

Alinator
Alinator
Joined: 8 May 05
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LOL... Well, it would be

LOL...

Well, it would be hard to find a downside to anything which helps to get the heat out of modern high performance notebooks, other than it's something else you have to lug around with you. ;-)

They add a little noise to your normal work environment, but that's a small price to pay to drop those in case temperatures, IMHO.

Alinator

Lloyd M.
Lloyd M.
Joined: 24 Apr 07
Posts: 24
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RE: RE: That two similar

Message 70871 in response to message 70856

Quote:
Quote:
That two similar notebooks had the same problem almost at the same time made me do a few tests, and using a software to monitor the fan use, discovered that a normal user would use an equivalent of 5 minutes of full speed fan per hour (the fan has multiple speeds)... while Boinc uses 60 out of 60... Applied to a 45 hour working week, means that a regular user uses the fan less than 4 hours a week, while that a Boinc running one uses 168 hours, 42 times more!!!.

Wow, two identical cases would be almost enough for a lawsuit in the US, one might think :-). Seriously, this is a quality problem. The expected lifetime of quality fans is many, many years of continuous operation, I think 75,000 hours is nothing unusual. I'm running BOINC on a notebook and a Mac mini (basically a notebook in a different case) with variable fan control, the fans are running 24/7 and I expect them to last until the end of the economical lifetime of the computers.

To phrase the whole affair more positively, I think BOINC is an excellent burn-in test for notebooks to detect low quality parts before warranty expires :-)

CU

BRM

LOL

Where I work they bought a batch of Dell Inspiron notebooks. Most of them had hard drive failures, and nearly all of them developed squeaky cooling fans. The fans had to fail a hardware diagnostic before Dell would ship new ones under warranty, and of course they never failed the test while the warranty was still in force.

As tempted as I am, I would get into about 5 kinds of trouble for installing BOINC on work computers, so try not to even think about it ;^)

Lloyd M.
Lloyd M.
Joined: 24 Apr 07
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RE: Same here. I have two

Message 70872 in response to message 70858

Quote:
Same here. I have two laptops running 24/7 - one AMD 64 3700+, other one Core2Duo 1,66. No problems for more than year (ofcourse dust cleaning every month - or so). It's always possible to buy laptop cooling pad, but it generates more noise than laptop's original cooling. Also You can lubricate fan bearing (i personally use silicone grease for 2 years on many different fans) every hmmm 6 months. Sorry for my poor english.
Greetings from Poland

Your english is terrific! I never would have noticed had you not apologized. I could tell you weren't American because we would use "1.66" instead of "1,66"

Anyway, I see a lot of what I presume to be native english speakers posting on bulletin boards, and not doing nearly as well as you. So give yourself a break ;^)

Annika
Annika
Joined: 8 Aug 06
Posts: 720
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Yeah, that also had me

Yeah, that also had me confused for a while... in Germany, what you write as a "decimal point" would be written as a comma, whereas a point is simply used to make larger numbers more readable (e.g. "1,66" and "1.000.000.000") whereas in the English-speaking world, as I learned now, it is the other way round. Strange no one bothered to tell us at school or even university. Well, I've gotten used to the difference now. But I remember a case when I had read and posted too much on the Einstein board then had to do exams- and of course used the English spelling there. Luckily, my Maths professor is a very nice man and let it pass...

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