I have eight processors. If I don't control them, the cooling fan noise is unacceptable since my PC is in our living space.

I control them with Tthrottle. It works, but I would rather not have Tthrottle running when I can control the fan noise by limiting the number of processors running Rosetta.

For the past five days I've been running with the preference set for five processors active. No difference. All eight processors continue active.

How do I activate this processor limit option?

Thanks, Tom

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Just speculation but your CPU actually only has 4 cores - acting as eight - via the magic of Hiper-threading.

It would appear that maybe when you allow BOINC to use five cores, he takes it as five real cores - thus you are still running on all four real cores.

Try dropping it down to three cores - if my guess is correct then you should see six tasks running.

Just a shot in the dark

What Chris said. If you have 8 processors, try setting it on 25-50%:

"On multiprocessors systems, use at most 25 (or 50) % of the processors."

And work from there.

My 2 cents.

Also, if you do have HT'ing, try disabling it. HT does increase the operating temperature specially under full load.


BTW, Chris, long time no see.

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Thanks Chris & Chilean for answering. I had no idea that an i7 only had four real cores!!

I played with preferences and they are currently set a "use at most 1 processor" and "use at most 0.01% of CPU time". All eight threads are churning away, oblivious of my settings!!

Now I'll see if I can turn off hyper-threading in the BIOS...

Tom

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I am curious - where are you specifying the number of CPUs to utilize - on the computing preferences web page on the Rosetta site or on the "preferences -> processor usage" frame which is a part of the BOINC manager running locally on your system?

If you are specifying it on the web page try going to the BOINC manager preferences panel and set it there - it is my understanding that the local preferences set on the BOINC manager itself override the global preferences set via the web site.

With my account I tried setting the number if processors to 1 on the web page and 100% on the BOINC manager, and it is using all cores.

This may be your issue.

I am curious - where are you specifying the number of CPUs to utilize - on the computing preferences web page on the Rosetta site or on the "preferences -> processor usage" frame which is a part of the BOINC manager running locally on your system?

Ah! Bingo!! I did not know about preferences in the local BOINC manager. I played there and it obeyed my settings. Thank you.

I also went looking for hyper-threading in the BIOS. No mention, but I found I could specify how many cores to use: All, 1 or 2. I tried 2. Sure enough, Rosetta came up using only four threads.

So - I have a choice: Run only 2 of the 4 cores, or restrict BOINC to 4 threads via preferences. I chose the 1st option only because the cooling fan noise was acceptable. With the 2nd option the fan noise was unacceptable without Tthrottling.

Many thanks for your help.

Tom

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I also went looking for hyper-threading in the BIOS. No mention, but I found I could specify how many cores to use: All, 1 or 2. I tried 2. Sure enough, Rosetta came up using only four threads.

Yeah, but that disables the cores for all programs and not only for BOINC, i.e. you make out of your 4 core i7 some low end dual core CPU.

So - I have a choice: Run only 2 of the 4 cores, or restrict BOINC to 4 threads via preferences. I chose the 1st option only because the cooling fan noise was acceptable. With the 2nd option the fan noise was unacceptable without Tthrottling.

You can restrict BOINC to 2 cores while still having all 8 virtual cores available for other programs, use at most 25% of the prosessors should do that, i.e. restrict BOINC to 2 threads. 38% would restrict it to 3 threads, if you want to try that.

Another thought would be to replace the CPU cooler with something more quiet, specially if you are using intel's stock cooler, and eventually improve the case cooling if it gets too hot in there.

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I am curious - where are you specifying the number of CPUs to utilize - on the computing preferences web page on the Rosetta site or on the "preferences -> processor usage" frame which is a part of the BOINC manager running locally on your system?

Ah! Bingo!! I did not know about preferences in the local BOINC manager. I played there and it obeyed my settings. Thank you.

I also went looking for hyper-threading in the BIOS. No mention, but I found I could specify how many cores to use: All, 1 or 2. I tried 2. Sure enough, Rosetta came up using only four threads.

So - I have a choice: Run only 2 of the 4 cores, or restrict BOINC to 4 threads via preferences. I chose the 1st option only because the cooling fan noise was acceptable. With the 2nd option the fan noise was unacceptable without Tthrottling.

Many thanks for your help.

Tom

The settings in the BOINC manager should be enough...



Set the number I highlighted to 50 or 25 %, this will leave 50 or 75 % of your cores alone, thus reducing heat. Disabling your cores in the BIOS is not something I'd do, you are literally crippling your CPU's global performance. You could also clean up your PC from the dust... just a little layer of dust hinders heat dissipation significantly (thus forces the fans to spin faster). AND/OR get an after market heatsink, they are relatively cheap and pretty effective at cooling whilst being quiet.

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The settings in the BOINC manager should be enough...

You're right. I'm now running with all cores active, and in BOINC I've set 75% of the processors and 70% of CPU time. So I have six Rosetta threads running and the fan noise is acceptable.

I also run GPUGRID, which seems to need pretty much constant access to a CPU thread. He now has two all to himself!

Many thanks everybody!

Tom

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