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 HiVolt 30 Premium join:2000-12-28 Toronto, ON clubs:
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| [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity
 Usage when first started | |  Usage after 5 seconds running | |  How long it takes per WU |  CPU Benchmark |  Machine Specs |
I've got a new 8 Core 2.8 Xeon Mac Pro here at work for a week or so now. Of course I loaded BOINC on it, and I expected it to crunch like a horse... However, something's not right...
Whenever I start Boinc, the CPU usage spikes to full on all 8 cores, but 5 seconds later it drops and settles to 84-85%. I've deleted, reinstalled BOINC, and it continues to do this. The work units take a very long time per core. There is no other process eating up any CPU time. I have another Mac Pro except it'a 4-core, and it purrs along fine at full cpu load.
Attached are some screenshots.
Any help would be appreciated. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity The Mac has no configurable options like PC boards do... I have done a video encoding test and all 8 cores are fully utilized, so it's not something related to the machine.
I have checked BOINC throttling in the options, and it's set to use 100% cpu and all the processor cores. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
|  |  |   HiVolt 30 Premium join:2000-12-28 Toronto, ON clubs: | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity I've PM'd ajeb , hopefully he has a couple of minutes to take a look.
Thanks! -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Hey, I've had my MAC PRO for about a month.
I'm running near 100% on all eight cores.
Check your energy saving panel. WCG runs at a very low priority. Just running BOINC in not enough to keep the computer from going to sleep, so make sure the computer is in "never" going to sleep and uncheck "Put hard drives to sleep.."
The hard drive thing was slowing me down when I started up.
I'm also running a different version of BOINC than you. I'm still on 5.10.45, I always wait a bit to upgrade to make sure the bugs are worked out.
Hope that helps. FYI..Getting about a 4300 RAC on the machine and that spec is still climbing. | |
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1 edit | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Thanks... I already had the sleep settings disabled, and it doesn't seem to make a difference if they are on or off here.
Anyway, I just ran Activity Monitor and it seems that at the exact time the CPU load drops to from 100 to 85, the System percentage goes up. I dont know what that means though.
Attached is the graph. Green is User %, Red is System %. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  ajeb Premium join:2002-04-18 Norristown, PA clubs:  | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Skeedatl is right...that 15% is going somewhere into the system. You should be able to find in all processes. There was a huge system update just released..is it downloading in background? Though I can't see that taking up that much cpu. | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity This happened before the 10.5.5 also. I have looked under All Processes, and I don't see it. Here's a screenshot. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Next time run "top -o cpu" to sort highest CPU processes first.
Might want to check the 'nice' level of BOINC client and renice if possible. I've never understood the Mac OS X process scheduler, and there is a website with some good info (believe it is Amit Singh of Google). | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity said by bbarrera :Might want to check the 'nice' level of BOINC client and renice if possible. I've never understood the Mac OS X process scheduler, and there is a website with some good info (believe it is Amit Singh of Google). Can you explain how do I go about doing that? -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  ajeb Premium join:2002-04-18 Norristown, PA clubs:  | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity This can't be this hard...lol.
I'm running 99.3% to 100% on all eight cores. My process list looks the same as yours. The only thing seems to be that I'm using an older version of BOINC. | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity said by ajeb :This can't be this hard...lol. I'm running 99.3% to 100% on all eight cores. My process list looks the same as yours. The only thing seems to be that I'm using an older version of BOINC. I was running the same version of BOINC before, it was doing the same thing, so I downloaded the latest...
Now, I've been thinking a bit... When I got this new 8-Core Mac Pro, I was upgrading my main workstation from a 4-Core Mac Pro that was moved to another part of the office... Now, All I did was move the hard drive over, it booted right up and I didn't think anything of it. Everything else has been working fine.
Could the Kernel or something else not be handling the 8-cores properly because of this, and not letting a low priority process like BOINC access 100% of the cores when the system is idle?
Could an archive & install from the DVD's that came with the 8-Core (10.5.4) do the trick perhaps? -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |   Dogfather Premium join:2007-12-26 Laguna Hills, CA | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Try downloading the combo update for 10.5.5 which just came out yesterday. Perhaps there will be some magic in there for ya. | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |   HiVolt 30 Premium join:2000-12-28 Toronto, ON clubs: | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity What i'll do when I have some free time is to install a fresh OS copy on a spare hard drive... I have a feeling it's got something to do with me just transferring the hard drive from the old Mac Pro. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity said by Dersgniw :said by HiVolt :I have checked BOINC throttling in the options, and it's set to use 100% cpu and all the processor cores. Checked it on the client options (not the website), right? Yep! I'm somehow thinking the BOINC version for Mac is not that 8-core friendly... on the 4-core Mac running the exact same OS it works perfectly. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity said by glennaxl :Have you checked this? System Prefs ->Energy Saver ->Options ->Processor Performance It should be set to "Highest". Pretty sure I did, but I don't think there is such an option on a Mac Pro, only on the laptops or imacs/minis.
I'll double check tomorrow though. -- ,,!,,('-'),,!,, | |
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| Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity said by Dersgniw :Like glennaxl suggested, all a search turns up for me is: System Prefs ->Energy Saver ->Options ->Processor Performance What happens when you set BOINC to only use 85%? What about 50%? What happens when you tell it to only use 4 cores? There is no processor performance settings on the Mac Pro in the Energy Saver preferences.
When I set only 4 cores to crunch, they operate at 96%. When I set the cores to operate at 50%, they operate at 43%.
I tried both the 5.10.45 client from WCG site as well as the latest 6.2.18 from Boinc site directly. Both behave identical. -- GO LEAFS GO! | |
|  |  |   Dersgniw Disco Crunchin Premium,MVM join:2001-08-10 behind you clubs: | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity Have you tried HPF2 or any other project just to see if it's specifically the HCC project? | |
|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |   Dersgniw Disco Crunchin Premium,MVM join:2001-08-10 behind you clubs: | Re: [WCG] 8 Core Xeon not crunching at full capacity You'd have to abort or suspend your WU's then get an update. | |
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