Yes: boinctray.exe, boincmgr.exe, boinc.exe are all running.

Running in memory as in they are listed in the process list and are consuming the aforementioned amount of RAM. I have WCG tasks running too but when suspended they are not currently loaded in memory, just the rosetta process (at this time ofcourse).

I think you make a good point: the basics covered in previous posts do not match my scenario, hence my post.

drekidd,
Suspending applications (for whatever reasons) allows the operating system (OS) to recover resources used by them for what you are doing.
In all cases the application is immediately stopped and will not use any more processor cycles.

Regarding RAM usage it depends on the LAIM (Leave Applications In Memory...) setting.

If LAIM is OFF the OS will completely kill the application, RAM will be immediately recovered as well as the associated space in the swap file, and therefore when you resume the application will restart fresh from the latest checkpoint, which may be long before where it was when it was suspended (it depends on which application was running).

If LAIM is ON (checked) the application is only stopped and the corresponding RAM is eligible for being reused by the OS if needed. In all cases it will still be visible in the list of processes and when the application is resumed it will go on at the next instruction without losing any work. Whether the RAM is really re-used or not depends on if the OS needs it or not. If you have more RAM than needed it will stay there ready for an immediate resume. If the machine is short in RAM the OS will probably re-use it and the OS will have to reload it from the swap file before executing the next instruction of the application.
Personally I would advise to uncheck the LAIM box only if the machine is short on swap file and to make sure that your suspend settings don't cause the status to change frequently. Otherwise you will waste application runtime for no real benefit in the first case, and in the latter one you will cause more OS overhead than you will save. Not mentioning that the application will not progress at all if you have LAIM OFF.

Thanks, much Ingleside.

That's a revelation and a half!
Seem's strange to me that we set an option for the task to write to disc every x seconds, and yet it's still held in memory.
by your description, one would think that it wouldn't happen often, but as I write this, I can see my Rosetta task is the current task, and yet again it's running, consuming 70MB of memory (but seemingly 0% CPU as you infer).

I think one of the main reason people set options as I have (and why they were created?) is so that when they use their system, they're resources aren't being consumed by process's that should be suspended.

I'm thinking a change is needed as Rosetta seems to be running in memory more than it's not, whilst suspended..
But I'll leave that for others to worry about..

Thank you all for your contributions, once again.

DHD

"Tasks checkpoint to disk at most every N seconds" shows the minimum allowed time between checkpoints, but it doesn't mean an application can checkpoint at the point it is.

The possibility of checkpoint can be looked as various methods of transport:
1: Taxi: A taxi can more or less stop immediately.
2: Bus: A bus will only stop on a bus-stop, so it will take some time between each possible stop-point.
3: Local train: Will only stop on train-stations, will take some time between each possible stop-point, generally longer time than for bus between possible stops.
4: Express-train: Only stops at large train-stations, ocassionally doesn't stop at all between start and end-stations.

A couple BOINC-projects applications can be looked at as "Taxi" as far as checkpointing goes, these can basically checkpoint each second, even it's not recommended to checkpoint so frequently.

Many projects, WCG-projects is among these, is either a "Bus" or "local train", so can checkpoint every 1 - 10 minutes.

And, a couple projects can be looked as "Express-train", there it's 10 min or longer, possibly 1 hour or longer, between checkpoints. Rosetta@home is in this group.

Just like you can't jump-off the express-train between stations, the applications can't checkpoint every minute, even the preference-setting is set to 1 minute.

The preference still has it's meaning, since if you're sitting on a bus and there's no other passengers on the bus, the bus doesn't need to stop on every bus-stop, but can continue driving until your bus-stop. This "not stopping on every bus-stop" equals changing the preference from checkpointing every minute to every 10 minutes or something. If you're sitting on the "express-train" on the other hand, changing between 1 and 10 minutes doesn't have any effects.