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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Is there a way to reduce the number of tasks that run? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 22
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Alex_Ross83
Cruncher Joined: Jul 28, 2013 Post Count: 11 Status: Offline |
I've searched around for this but not found it asked before so apologies if its a very common/tedious question.
I don't use my laptop with the frequency I used to, so it would enable me to complete more tasks on time if I could reduce the number of tasks that run simultaneously and use the additional power to get through one or two tasks rather than four. When I've stopped tasks previously (or paused them) it just downloads more so it runs four at once. Is there no way to reduce to the number of tasks it can do at once or even if you could would it not increase the speed at which you processed outstanding tasks? Thanks in advance. |
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jonnieb-uk
Ace Cruncher England Joined: Nov 30, 2011 Post Count: 6105 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Hi Alex,
----------------------------------------Welcome to the forum.  If you're having problems meeting the deadline for WU return this suggests that your cache settings are too high. In BOINC Manager>>Tools>>Computing preferences you should reduce the Max additional work buffer. The number of tasks running at the same time is governed by the number of cores on the machine - 1 task per core. It is possible to limit the total number of tasks running but this would not significantly affect the time taken to complete the remaining tasks. [edit]And as cjslman says below check your settings for processor usage. There are other specific steps you can take if you're running CEP2? It's also worthwhile checking what bloatware may be running on the laptop to reduce the gap between CPU time and elapsed time. ---------------------------------------- [Edit 2 times, last edit by jonnieb-uk at Apr 17, 2014 7:21:51 PM] |
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cjslman
Master Cruncher Mexico Joined: Nov 23, 2004 Post Count: 2082 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Sure... you can specify the number of CPUs (processor usage) that you want to use in the BOINC Manager (in the Tools or Advanced options depending on the BOINC Manager being used). Also, you can specify to how big a task queue you want to have by indicating te size of the work buffer you want to have (network usage). Both of these options can be found in the Computing Preferences in the BOINC Manager.
----------------------------------------CJSL Gotta keep crunching... there's a world to save !!! |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Reducing the number of cores from 4 to 2 will NOT cause the remaining 2 to run twice as fast and finish tasks in half the time
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genhos
Veteran Cruncher UK Joined: Apr 26, 2009 Post Count: 1103 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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On my laptop I have the additional work buffer set to 0.1 days which usually gives one unit being crunched and one or often no extra unit waiting in the queue to be crunched, especially if the work units are several hours to crunch.
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Alex_Ross83
Cruncher Joined: Jul 28, 2013 Post Count: 11 Status: Offline |
Thanks all for the replies.
Basically then you can reduce tasks but because each task is assigned to a single core it won't make any difference? I suppose the obvious question of 'Why can't you just assign a single task to all your cores and do that much quicker' has a logical answer...! Checked me bloatware but don't seem to be too bad, thankfully. Just disabled Amazon Music Helper but everything else seemed pretty essentially. My max advance work buffer was only 0.5 days but I reduced it to 0.1 anyway and it matches the minimum buffer too. Thanks again! |
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genhos
Veteran Cruncher UK Joined: Apr 26, 2009 Post Count: 1103 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Yep, that's pretty much it, 1 task 1 core. As for why you can't get all cores to crunch 1 task, I don't know but hopefully someone can explain.
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jonnieb-uk
Ace Cruncher England Joined: Nov 30, 2011 Post Count: 6105 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Out of curiosity what sort of figures are you geeting for completed WUs CPU Time / Elapsed Time (hours)
---------------------------------------- [OT]Good to see that there are still Bandits in Yorkshire ---------------------------------------- [Edit 1 times, last edit by jonnieb-uk at Apr 19, 2014 12:14:26 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Yep, that's pretty much it, 1 task 1 core. As for why you can't get all cores to crunch 1 task, I don't know but hopefully someone can explain. Basically 'cos BOINC is not designed that way, so you have no choice. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
genhos, here they only have single threaded applications. There are a few projects that do smp, symmetric multiprocessing. These will use as many threads as you allow the agent to use, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8-n. Not the most efficient way in terms of maximum utilization going by the accounts of users, as one thread could be waiting on the input from another thread. One report claimed 90% of the time all but one thread waiting i.e. only one thread constantly running and the rest idling. BOINC can be fooled in those instances to run single threaded tasks alongside, to use the idle time, but it depends for instance on the smp project allowing to set the number of threads. That's hands on under the hood work, not for amateurs, like me
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