Thread 'OSX and very limited CPU usage'

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matthoadrobson

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Message 43903 - Posted: 30 Apr 2012, 16:56:18 UTC

Very excited to join the BOINC community, but very saddened to see that despite setting cpu usage to 100% it's currently using 5.6% of one core.

I have the latest OSX version of BOINC, and have tried fiddling with settings etc but no luck.

Is there anything out there that will help me get my mac which has 8 actual and 16 hyperthreaded cores to do something with all the power currently twiddling its thumbs?

Would love to help more and it's a real shame to waste all that CPU power. Have looked everywhere to no avail...

Many thanks!

Matthew
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matthoadrobson

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Message 43915 - Posted: 2 May 2012, 10:09:18 UTC - in response to Message 43903.  

Tried installing an earlier version and so Boinc now using less CPU than iCal Helper... :(

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ProfileJord
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Message 43916 - Posted: 2 May 2012, 10:16:14 UTC - in response to Message 43915.  
Last modified: 2 May 2012, 10:18:01 UTC

BOINC shouldn't use a core or more of CPU cycles as it doesn't do any work (*). BOINC is a managing program for projects that ask you to do science for them. It's these projects their science applications that do the work. So after you installed BOINC, you should add a project (In Simple view: BOINC Manager->Add project->Add project; or in Advanced view BOINC Manager->Tools->Add project or account manager->Add project), download its science application(s) and some of its tasks and that should take up CPU cycles.

However, by default BOINC does only allow this work to be done when the computer is idle, so as long as you wiggle your mouse about or tap on the keyboard, the science applications will not kick in. So you can either set top to show the processes and then sit back on your laurels for 3 minutes until the work starts, or you can setup your preferences for BOINC to always use the CPU, or you can (temporarily) set Activity to Run Always.

(*) Bar when the benchmarks run, then the BOINC process will show full load on one core.
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matthoadrobson

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Message 43918 - Posted: 2 May 2012, 12:42:58 UTC - in response to Message 43916.  

Hey there, these results were obtained with Rosetta@home running, and the computer set up to 'suspend work while computer in use' set to 'no', max CPU 80% (was 100%) maximum processors set to 16.

Any other ideas what could be going on?

M
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ProfileJord
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Message 43919 - Posted: 2 May 2012, 13:38:36 UTC - in response to Message 43918.  

No, as I am not sure what you think that the problem is.

If you feel that BOINC itself should use more CPU, then you're wrong. As I tried to explain above, the project application uses the CPU. So in this case, probably Rosetta's Mini_Rosetta application.

If you want to use all the CPU cores, make sure that you set:
- On multiprocessors, use at most X processors, to the minimum value of cores BOINC should use. Values are integers.
- On multiprocessors, use at most X% of the processors, to the value of cores you want BOINC to use, with a minimum of X and a maximum of how many there are in the system. Values are in percentages (0 - 100%).

Make sure that you use your local advanced preferences (Advanced view->Tools->Preferences) as well if you only run Rosetta, as I see their back-end is pretty much out of date. They only have the "use at most X processors" value, not the percentages that newer BOINC versions (BOINC 6 and above) use.
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matthoadrobson

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Message 43924 - Posted: 2 May 2012, 14:25:48 UTC - in response to Message 43919.  

Right thanks for that!

The confusion was caused because in the standard view of the activity monitor, BOINC shows almost no CPU activity, but on the extended view you see the processes that BOINC is controlling that are as you say minirosetta, which are hidden in the normal activity viewer list.

Thanks for clearing this up!

M
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Message boards : Questions and problems : OSX and very limited CPU usage

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