Acheive Perfection through Computing

[Nflight]

Everyone likes to crunch numbers and the more you do the higher your stats. Now lets look at possibly helping everyone achieve more numbers crunched by showing you little nuances you never knew existed.

This topic is under the Forum Index for Tips and Tricks: First Tip is turning most everything you don't need on .....off ! If by chance you look in your Windows XP user field under your name and your all users configuration find the start menu, then open the file and view what actually is being listed to turn on or is actually running in the back ground. Some people's system I have seen some 30 programs running and they wonder why there system is so slow. Hey if I had to juggle between 30 different work functions I would not be on top of the paying field either.

Second item to assist everyone would be to look at those pesky screensavers, you know the more you make the screensaver do the more instructions are sent to your processor for guidance to keep that gizmo moving around on your desktop. There is no reason to have the Boinc as a screensaver, in fact it is actually detremental if you want the high numbers in the stats department. Go into the Desktop/Screen saver and alter the selection of the Screensaver to Blank, I always hit the 1 minute delay as I sometimes pause a little long in those mental over load sessions. The less the screensaver is doing the more numbers crunching can happen. less nuisance computing and more ability for the CPU to work with out pauses for instructions. Depending on the size of the system I have seen the screensaver take upto 30% of the computing power, lately the source of power draw is close to 13%. Since I run blank I use less then 1%.

Third Item to speak of is the famous settings on the system set there by the Install of Boinc. Adjust at the ability of your system don't listen to me as I have rocketships churning the numbers out. You will need to work around the abilities of the machine, I set my systems to run all the time.

I have only BSOD'd my slower system once and never my 4200 with running all the time.

Good Luck.
Nflight

[Ototero]

Thanks Nflight,

That should get people talking about tweaking. :)

[NeoGen]

Some people's system I have seen some 30 programs running and they wonder why there system is so slow.

My task manager is showing 53 processes right now :P :lol:

[Nflight]

My current 4200+ system runs just 41 processes viewed in Task Manager. You have stuff running you don't know or understand, DON'T just click and turn it off from Task Manager, learn what it is, look it up on the net or Technet and resolve what it might be. Learn before you burn. Educate yourself about what the program your interested in does, what it is affiliated with and then after all that either turn it off or remove it completly. Never just remove from the Task Manager.
If your system has a lot of programs installed you may have more then 41 running in the back ground, but be careful with out a trailer to send the signal when you want to open up a media file there will be the hassle of having to do it all by hand. (True you get to know your system like an expert after while but the frustration of ease of convenience or work for it becomes the dilemna)

I am running Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed on both machines.

It is better to be safe then sorry! :roll:

[Nflight]

You know there is one item I forgot to mention in my earlier posts, that one item is how organized is your Hard Disk? What I am asking is how often do you defrag your hard drive? If you are like most and believe what the system says and don't defrag just because the machine says so, wait your listening to a machine, eee gads.

Machines can't know everything, they need to be coached into working quickly and efficiently. Defragging takes time yes it does so I keep mine tuned up by doing the defragging on Sundays. This keeps all the files in a contiguious form, for those that don't quite under stand this word contigious => it means if you had a file cabinet and you put files in the file cabinet under your own organized method doing it your way. Not always is it the best way and it confuses other programs as well.

So the tip is to return the file cabinet mess to an organized filing system that works the quickest for BOINC's sake.

Defrag the system three times, everytime no matter what if the machine says it does not need it. This way each and every file is pushed closer to the floating head at the starting point instead of being strewn across the entire disk making access times faster for the CPU and thus faster processing speeds.

Wha La => as soon as you are finished with the last of the three you will notice an increased speed on your machine for the first 3 or 4 days, Don't think you need to defrag so soon. This is normal and it is actually in tune with the system load it is required to run.

***Remember do it once a week, three times, no matter what the darn machine says to do.
:lol:

[NeoGen]

I can add a little something more...
Try not to let your hard drive fill up beyond 75% of it's capacity. Not just defrags but everything will work much faster. (In what comes to reading/writing stuff to disk)

I have my hard drive around 95% full and I'll tell you all... it's bad!! :P

[Nflight]

Yes NeoGen is correct the smaller displacement of infomration on HD's the better the system performance. If you can afford it do not go above 40% usuage. This will keep the speeds clearly higher by keeping the HD heads nearer the source and the time of access to info up close to the top all the time.

Just for some insight I have noticed that I am now in the top 20 of Predictor Scripps which is where I will stay since most of my friends have PHD's or MD's in clinical Research.

The intersting part is seeing your machine rated and displayed as:
Average CPU Efficiency = 0.997918 translated to 99.7918%

This can be found through this link: http://predictor.scripps.edu/hosts_user.php
Then click on your Computer ID at the left of the display, this will show you the Computer information in detail. As always keep up the crunching!
:)

[NeoGen]

Nflight, maybe you can answer me something...

In toying around with the Administrative Tools on the Control Panel, one can see the Services. And inside it shows a bundle of services of Windows and other programs we got installed, many of them running and even set to run at startup.
They all got descriptions and stuff, but the descriptions can be somewhat cryptic to one who isn't familiar with the inner workings of Windows.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall, I got Norton Internet Security. This could be a safe one to stop, no?

[Nflight]

Even though I am not as happy as I could be with Billy Bob Gates and all, I must say don't stop the firewall. This is protection you should have up and running 24/7.


Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall

I would prefer if you would go into your network connection and go into properies of the connection, look at the top of the GUI and you will see two listings one is General and the other is Advanced, click on advanced and alter your settings for Windows Firewall.

This may be ok to stop if you feel secure enough with just Norton, me personnaly I run both plus one more called Nvidia Firewall Protection. Then I have two gateways setup and running in router mode, also in something called a nested enviroment. Do I feel safe enough, I guess you can say that once I found out that nothing is secure I just know if I make it enough trouble for someone to break in they probably won't keep up the pursuit long enough to break in.

NO System is secure, in real life. If someone wants to break in there is a way, no matter what the situation, everything is just 1's and 0's.

[mitro]

Nflight, maybe you can answer me something...

In toying around with the Administrative Tools on the Control Panel, one can see the Services. And inside it shows a bundle of services of Windows and other programs we got installed, many of them running and even set to run at startup.
They all got descriptions and stuff, but the descriptions can be somewhat cryptic to one who isn't familiar with the inner workings of Windows.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall, I got Norton Internet Security. This could be a safe one to stop, no?

Unfortunately the original source is missing in action now, but here's whats safe and whats not:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041128084144/www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Of course when it comes to DC there's no substitute for MHz. AMD MHz that is. :)

[Nflight]

As with another post I have been reading, there is hope here to improve on the what seems endless supply of knowledge base with in our AMD portal. I have just installed the newer version of Boinc to run my current Predictor@home project. My old version was the 5.2.7, I am now running the 5.2.13 version. I installed it with no problems after hearing from others that they were having no difficulty with there OS's. At the end of today I will look over my now improved version and compare to my previous results to notice I hope an improvement. If there is an improvement I will report to you as soon as I get a free moment in my busy schedule. The other link I am referring to is located here: http://www.amdusers.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1785#23193

[NeoGen]

Nflight, are you using one of the optimized clients or the standard 5.2.13 client?

[Nflight]

Oops the standard Client, I should download and install one of the other already high tuned monsters huh? Lead me to one in predictor scripps=> :shock:

[Nflight]

Even the masters make mistakes, as I have lost my baby the 4200+. She is offline till at east tomorrow night. At which time I will attempt to re-ignite the fire I have been pushing with once again. I would say that the Dual Processors do not like the new 5.2.13 Boinc orignal Client. Soon after that I had difficulty in getting baby to work properly, with a mulititude of hangups. If others have experienced the same errors please advise me to your abilites to correct this. Thank You :cry:

[NeoGen]

That's strange... Haven't seen any report lately of problems with 5.2.13. What kind of hangups do you mean?

[Nflight]

The system would lock up, quite frequently too. Just after I installed the 5.2.13 version the system made a screaching noise known best as HDD failure. So a little more time maybe needed as last night snow fell and we are shoveling 9 inches of powder here! All schools are closed and most businesses are not really doing anything either. May have to wait till Sunday or Monday to get repaired up and running. :cry:

[Nflight]

Back on line, the screaching noise was a wire touching the fan blades. The system would not recognize the HDD because I bumped the table and one of the wires did not make enough contact to see the SATA drives.

Problem solved and it is all becasue my damn chiar slides under the table the 4 computers sit on. When I get up the chair hits the table and knocks them around a bit I have corrected this now that I found the problem. Sometimes it is not the normal things that cause us pain but the un-normal things that causes us the most discomfort.

I learned my lesson. :)

[NeoGen]

And thus, after finding the real culprit, Boinc 5.2.13 will be exonerated of its accusations. :P

[Nflight]

Ditto ! :D

[NeoGen]

Nflight, are you still with the "stock" Boinc client or with an optimized one?

[Nflight]

Right now Stock client, Which shall I try on my system there NeoGen, you pick it I will try it!

[NeoGen]

After the chat with mitro and gamer007 last week I picked up Crunch3r's clients, and it's been working like a charm here.
This is the place to get them.
http://www.guntec.de/Crunch3r/boincx86.html

Don't know if it's the best on that list by gamer007, but it sure does the work.
Here's the boinc optimized clients thread, with a couple of additions that I saw now.
http://www.amdusers.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1785#23193

[Nflight]

I just upped the anty with making the swtich to crunch3r, WOW what an improvement in these CPU benchmarks. The new numbers are almost 2.5 times what they were before. I am really surprised at the numbers!

Old Computer Benchmarks reported these numbers:
1. 2107 double precision MIPS (Wheatstone) per CPU
2. 3898 integer MIPS (Drystone) per CPU

New Computer Benchmarks reprted these numbers:
1. 3032 double precision MIPS (Wheatstone) per CPU
2. 9324 integer MIPS (Drystone) per CPU

[gamer007]

Nflight, maybe you can answer me something...

In toying around with the Administrative Tools on the Control Panel, one can see the Services. And inside it shows a bundle of services of Windows and other programs we got installed, many of them running and even set to run at startup.
They all got descriptions and stuff, but the descriptions can be somewhat cryptic to one who isn't familiar with the inner workings of Windows.

Do you know names for a few services that would be safe to stop? I'm seeing there the Windows Firewall service running, but I don't use Windows Firewall, I got Norton Internet Security. This could be a safe one to stop, no?

Unfortunately the original source is missing in action now, but here's whats safe and whats not:

http://web.archive.org/web/20041128084144/www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Of course when it comes to DC there's no substitute for MHz. AMD MHz that is. :)

Thanks for the link! :) When I found out blackviper was gone. I was, what am I gonna do w/o his info on services.

[drezha]

Found another way of making it quicker.

For those that can be bothered that is. Try disconnecting from the network and then turning the firewall off.

I've had my laptop go from 89% ish effcient upto 94% :D

Trying it on my current PC :cool:

[Lagu]

Hi

My HD´s space is 73.3 GB
Free space is 66.8 BG
Used space is 6.5 GB

Why so low usage? Yes I have very few photons, no music-files or only a few small films.
There are most Windows-files, program-files and files from all projects I run. Especially D20L have a lot of maps and files, more than other projects. I have downloaded 2000 files months ago crunched all and uploaded them. I got a lot of maps (right word?) or catalogues as is empty and takes little space.

I think is as good as it can be. I have also defragged the HD 3 times. The first time it takes such and such long time. The second time it takes a lot lesser time and the third time it works a short time. All three times takes therefore not as long time as anyone think. What happen is all files will be more and more defragged. However Windows own defrag aren’t the worlds best.

I have Norton System Works but I have uninstalled it long ago. There was a defrag engine as I think is better than Windows own. Norton System Works is a heavy program containing Norton Disk Doctor as can run in the background but I believe it affect the performance. Running Disk Doctor this tool always find a lot of files whish isn’t associated with any files, missing files and so on. If I remove any files Disk Doctor discover that and ask for repair. It isn’t easy to know if this and this file should be repaired because I can’t remember if the system or the programs need it. Of source I can close Disk Doctor but the question is if Norton System Work steals any recourse yet.

Another thing is XP´s own dashboard (choose from Themes) steal recourses? I can set it to blank and get a blue screen. Play it any role or have no isn’t is so importance?

Lagu

[AMD-USR_JL]

I found a SwEEt little On-the-Fly defrager. It is free forever if you download from CNET (http://www.download.com/Buzzsaw-On-The-Fly-Defragmenter/3000-2094_4-10198524.html?tag=lst-0-2).
Run the .exe file that is called BuzzSaw. A little icon should appear in ur taskbar. Open it and move the drive(s) that you want to defrag to the "watching drives" side. It will then start defraging those.

[Nflight]

Try disconnecting from the network and then turning the firewall off.

:cool:

I also checked the Boinc Personal Preferences to contact the server every 48 hours instead of all the time, which means if you don't mind having scores of no reporting WU's for two days this is one way to do it. Keeping your efficiency high is the main key. Means more WU's output and high scores.

[drezha]

Well ATM this PC is working overnight with out the net connection then will upload a batch in the morning each day.

But effciency cant be that high because I use it for everything atm. :?

[Steve Lux]

Edited because I was impatient and impulsively responded too quickly.

Basically the initial WU after installing a Boinc optimizer resulted in a 25% or so increase in crunch time and a significant decrease in Dhrystone score per core.

It seems that now the WU's are coming back in line and may actually result in an improvement from a historic 37 min 34 seconds per Predictor WU to 36 min 15 seconds per Predictor WU - a 10% improvement (averaged after 3 WU's). Still monitoring for the long-term effects.

[Empty_5oul]

check you have the right optimisation. Different versions for different processors.

See my PM.

[Steve Lux]

The WU time is dropping now from the origional increase. I'm watching to see if it continues to drop to previous levels, or hopefully better as was initially expected. I was greatly suprized at the 30% reduction in the Dhrystone scores.

[Nflight]

What did you do to change the circumstances to make it go down?

[Steve Lux]

Basically nothing different. I'm just shopping the web for 'puter components. It's never had a significant effect on my WU times before.

I'm running 2 WU's at a time, one for each core and the WU's just after the optimization were 47 minutes and 49 minutes run time where previously I have been averaging 37 minutes 34 seconds per WU on average. Coupled with a significant reduction in my benchmark Dhrystone score and I was a bit incensed for a few minutes.

After those long WU's the next WU was at 37 minutes 26 seconds. The last three have continued to trend downwards: 36:14, 36:22 and 36:02.

I'm still monitoring the situation for longer-term results.

[Nflight]

I have had some issues with WU times lately and mentioned this to others I know off this web site. My RAC has dinimished to something like 90 below normal average crunching WU times. I thought I did something wrong but it has been improving in the last couple days/hours. I have been reading on the technical part of the world not just here at AMD and other Crunchers are experiencing the same effect. Slower times for all not just us.

What was explained to me by one of the System Admins is that they added a new batch of WU's which were categorized as a harder bunch too crunch, they wanted to see how we would hold up and what would happen. So far the new batch has made them fine tune there WU's so the complexity of the WU's is not that hard that the crunching cause failures as I had a BSOD while crunching those little buggers.

Never fear it is not something we can control at this time and the Server crews says there will be more WU's with the same complexity so times will vary and we will just have to keep our wits and stick with the effort.

BSOD = stands for Blue Screen of Death, I had to reboot my system, thats all