Folding CPU configuration

[porina]

In short, after random chat on another forum I decided to try CPU folding for a change. I know the big credits are with GPU, but whatever. Anyway, system I decided to test it on is 4c4t Broadwell. The GPU slot kept crashing (280X) dunno if that's too old but I don't want to use it anyway and deleted it. It was only there as by default the installer enabled it. With CPU slot going and the performance set to full, it is hovering around 60% mark. Went into slot config, set CPU from -1 to 4, no change. I didn't restart client if that might be needed.

 

Is this low usage normal for CPU folding? This is a kinda double edge sword if it is, as I'm more likely to try it on systems I keep on but otherwise not good for heavy use.

[porina]

Checked in on the system this morning, it is running close to 100%. I guess setting 4 cored did it, unless it was just something funny about the 1st unit I got.

[xenel]

On 6/3/2019 at 9:15 AM, porina said:

In short, after random chat on another forum I decided to try CPU folding for a change. I know the big credits are with GPU, but whatever. Anyway, system I decided to test it on is 4c4t Broadwell. The GPU slot kept crashing (280X) dunno if that's too old but I don't want to use it anyway and deleted it. It was only there as by default the installer enabled it. With CPU slot going and the performance set to full, it is hovering around 60% mark. Went into slot config, set CPU from -1 to 4, no change. I didn't restart client if that might be needed.

 

Is this low usage normal for CPU folding? This is a kinda double edge sword if it is, as I'm more likely to try it on systems I keep on but otherwise not good for heavy use.

By default FAH defaults to lowest priority for CPU usage so if you're doing other stuff on the computer, FAH will probably free up cycles for those other applications. Windows itself won't help with that problem either.

[porina]

5 minutes ago, xenel said:

By default FAH defaults to lowest priority for CPU usage so if you're doing other stuff on the computer, FAH will probably free up cycles for those other applications. Windows itself won't help with that problem either.

I had it set to max, and it is a dedicated cruncher so I'm not doing anything else with it. Manually setting it to 4 cores seems to have done the trick, and it is using all cores now.

 

Edit: to clarify, my original problem wasn't that something else was taking away cycles from f@h, it was that f@h wasn't using all cycles in the first place.

[xenel]

Just now, porina said:

I had it set to max, and it is a dedicated cruncher so I'm not doing anything else with it. Manually setting it to 4 cores seems to have done the trick, and it is using all cores now.

Setting if to Full usage isn't the same as the changing the CPU priority. The basic option on the web control just change how many active threads work on the work units. You can set it to "Slightly higher" if you open up the Advanced Control by right clicking on the FAH system tray icon, clicking on Configure and changing to the Advance tab.

 

I don't know how much of a difference it'll make but the option is there if you want to give it a try. I tend to use my computers at least a bit so I just leave it at the default "lowest possible" so it doesn't interfere with other applications.

[porina]

22 minutes ago, xenel said:

Setting if to Full usage isn't the same as the changing the CPU priority.

Priority was not the problem at all. It was the client not using all available cores. I thought the slider for intensity was how much resource it took, not the priority where remaining at idle (lowest) is generally desirable for this type of work.

[xenel]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Priority was not the problem at all. It was the client not using all available cores. I thought the slider for intensity was how much resource it took, not the priority where remaining at idle (lowest) is generally desirable for this type of work.

It's a bit unusually for the default -1 setting for CPUs to not use all cores but I guess it isn't perfect. It's probably just a Windows things than. I've been assuming your using Windows anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's good to see it's working the way you expect it to in any case.

 

Curiously, moving away from the CPU folding for a moment, you said your 280x was crashing. Was it a graphics driver crash or was it failing because of bad work units. I was just wondering because I have a issue with my Vega 56 where it keeps having bad work units. I plan on trying the card on a different mobo at some point to see if that has something to do with it but haven't gotten around to it yet.

[porina]

16 minutes ago, xenel said:

It's a bit unusually for the default -1 setting for CPUs to not use all cores but I guess it isn't perfect. It's probably just a Windows things than. I've been assuming your using Windows anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's good to see it's working the way you expect it to in any case.

I did google around at the time, there were some suggestions 1st work unit might not use all cores but I didn't verify that as they were old reports and may not apply any more.

 

16 minutes ago, xenel said:

Curiously, moving away from the CPU folding for a moment, you said your 280x was crashing. Was it a graphics driver crash or was it failing because of bad work units.

Crashing shortly after start, something like fahcore21 error. I'm on the latest non-beta driver from AMD (19.4.1 I think?).

[xenel]

2 minutes ago, porina said:

Crashing shortly after start, something like fahcore21 error. I'm on the latest non-beta driver from AMD (19.4.1 I think?).

That's different. I've never experience FAH core crashes with GPUs.