Hello

Soldato
Joined
23 Jan 2004
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On my Boat, Drinking
OK guys it would seem I now have F@H installed (at least there is something called fahcore_79 eating ~52% of my CPU on my main rig :)

I presume that it will stop itself if I need the power its using and then pop back up when I've finished? This machine is used as a download box and for watching movies but it left on all day so should produce something worth having I hope.

MB
 
Yes, it should give up each and every CPU cycle that any other process wants to use. FahCore_xx.exe is the part of FAH that does the actual calculations, the client merely manages *** cores.

What is your CPU and how much memory have you installed, by chance?
 
It won't so much stop, in that the process will always be there (though it will change name as you get different WUs). However the priority of it is set to idle, which means it gives way to any other programs that need CPU power, and if none do then it takes it. Hopefully that makes sense :)

Also, is your pc dual core/HT? Unless you've got something else using 50% cpu then FAH is only using half the power; if you've got two cores/HT, it's worth setting up another client to use the power to the full (as described here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&postid=6492126#post6492126)

Is this your first venture into DC? If so, welcome to the madhouse as they say :D

HTH, null :)

edit - Beaten :mad: :p
 
I'd recommend setting the memory limits on the client if you want it to get out the way easily (as you would with movie watching). Don't want it eating too much of that precious RAM.

However, there is a penalty for doing this. Sometimes bonus points are given out for workunits that need a lot of RAM, so you might miss out on those.
 
Hello MB, welcome to the team :)

Before I managed to kill my 3GHz Prescott, I tried running 2 clients on it and found that I actually had a higher ppd running 1 client than 2 (i.e. 1 client running on it's own took less than half the time 2 did running together :confused: ).
This was certainly the case with QMDs but I'm not sure how other WUs fared in this respect as, at the time, all I was getting were QMDs (RIP).

I have never had any problems with F@H causing any of my other activities any problems with slowing down etc. but as Berserker says, you could limit the memory usage to be on the safe side. Most WUs don't use huge amounts of RAM anyway - this laptop for instance is working on a GBGromacs at the moment and is using less memory than my anti virus.
 
Oh dear I really need to reapply some thermal paste :D

CPU temp is at 68 and this is a Northwood lol

Took the Zalman heatsink off and hoovered a doormats worth of fluff off the fins which got it down from 72 :eek:

Really must think about going over to water cooling or I may burn my house down :o

Until I can improve the cooling I think I'll stick with the one version running :)

MB
 
Matblack said:
Oh dear I really need to reapply some thermal paste :D

CPU temp is at 68 and this is a Northwood lol

Took the Zalman heatsink off and hoovered a doormats worth of fluff off the fins which got it down from 72 :eek:

Really must think about going over to water cooling or I may burn my house down :o

Until I can improve the cooling I think I'll stick with the one version running :)

MB

Flpping heck Tucker - that is somewhat toasty isn't it? :eek:

Watercooling would be good. There are some pretty good air coolers around too. The overclocking and cooling forum are raving about the Arctic pro 64 at the moment. Personally I prefer the Thermalright Si120. Both are good coolers though.

A re-application of AS5 never hurts either.
 
well in a normal say my prescott runs at about 70 C but in this searing heat its been getting to 80!!! checked the warranty and its fine up to 110 so not the end of the world but not too happy about it, think i will be investing in conroe and some decent cooling when it arrives then that will be cool literally!
 
I'm running a P4 Prescott 3.0 in my main rig + 512mB ram. Always have run two FAH instances and never noticed a problem, so with 1gB it should be fine too, though I have batch scripts for start/stop in Quicklaunch for when I'm gaming :) Temperature rise it runs at 60c, though that was after adjustment of the reported temperatures (apparently my mobo is out - unadjusted it says 70c which is the specified thermal limit of my cpu). I don't see myself buying any new hardware soon either :(

Also... my 1337th post :D :o
 
welcome MB :)

although the CPU usage only shows about 50% that's just how windows handles HT - by adding a second client you will get at most an extra 30% points output and possibly a lot less than that if you got two demanding WUs at the same time

if it's being used as a download/movie box then the actual benefit of having 2 instances is probably quite small - i'm not saying it's completely pointless but i wouldn't worry too much about it :p


/tries to avoid the lynch mob ;)
 
I have PCs running less than 100% CPU too (actually, I just turned HT off on my Xeon box as well), so I'll join you in putting down the mob. :)

In fact, one PC is in a bag, locked in a cupboard, at work (don't leave it out now after the office got burgled twice), and another is under a desk waiting to be re-connected. :o
 
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