Burning in dual Opteron 244 system with SETI - don't see Set Processor Affinity in SetiDriver

[Ben98SentraSE]

EDIT: Thread originally titled "SetiQueue" - changed accurately to "SetiDriver"

I have another dual PIII box I've run SetiDriver on before and it has that Set Processor Affinity box to check, but my new dual Opteron server that I'm "burning in" (fancy way to say "running SETI on until it is used in production ) doesn't have that option. Both servers are running 2003 Server. The one big different I noticed is the dual PIII machine is recognized by Device Manager as "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" and the Opteron system is a "MPS Multiprocessor PC." Also the Opteron system doesn't have the "One Graph, All CPUs" option, only the "One Graph Per CPU" option. Is my OS recognizing both CPUs? If so, I guess 2003 handles Opteron dual systems differently than PIII dual systems?

 

[Ronin]

You don't want to check the set processor affinity in SetiDriver. Every time I did that, if I was only running a single process and set the affinity manually, it wouldn't use both CPUs to process. Instead, I unchecked that box and never had a problem with both CPUs pcoessing one WU. If you process 2 WU, there's no need for it either. Just leave it and let it do it's thing. The OS should do the rest.

 

[skrjones]

According to the designer of Driver Dual processers are meant to run two processes as well as using the affinity setting. HT CPU's should just run two processes without affinity.

I'm not sure what you mean by SetiQ having affinity setting as I always use Driver myself but if you look at Task Manager does that not give the CPU usage for both CPU's, whether in two graphs. You could use SCS to check that both WU's you are trying to process are runnng along ok.

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

skrjones - what is SCS?

 

[Baldy18]

There is no processor affinity setting in SETIQueue. I think what you mean is processor affinity in SETIDriver. IMHO the info given by RoninCS will NOT yield the best possible results. In a dual processor system I would set the number of processes in SETIDriver to 2 and check the processor affinity box.

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: Baldy18
There is no processor affinity setting in SETIQueue. I think what you mean is processor affinity in SETIDriver. IMHO the info given by RoninCS will NOT yield the best possible results. In a dual processor system I would set the number of processes in SETIDriver to 2 and check the processor affinity box.

I agree that in "real" duallies, one should set processess to 2 and check processor affinity. This gives the best result!
(At least in my dual Athlon MP). With HT P4, I cannot tell the difference between affinity on or not...

 

[Smoke]

Is there a Dual CPU P4 w/HT motherboard?

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: Smoke
Is there a Dual CPU P4 w/HT motherboard?

Not that Im know of... I meant with "real" duallies systems with 2 physical procs. And HT P4 being obviously a "fake" duallie!

 

[Crazee]

Originally posted by: Smoke
Is there a Dual CPU P4 w/HT motherboard?

Yeah they are called Xeon Servers

 

[Smoke]

DaFinn, I understood what you meant ... it was just something that crossed my mind while reading your thread.

Please excuse ... not trying to pull a hi-jack.



Crazee,

 

[Baldy18]

Originally posted by: DaFinn

Originally posted by: Baldy18
There is no processor affinity setting in SETIQueue. I think what you mean is processor affinity in SETIDriver. IMHO the info given by RoninCS will NOT yield the best possible results. In a dual processor system I would set the number of processes in SETIDriver to 2 and check the processor affinity box.

I agree that in "real" duallies, one should set processess to 2 and check processor affinity. This gives the best result!
(At least in my dual Athlon MP). With HT P4, I cannot tell the difference between affinity on or not...

Having not tried it myself I would guess (based on the respect I have for you) that you are right about HT P4's. My information pertained to the question by Ben98SentraSE and his specific problem with dual Opterons.

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

Crap - I meant SetiDriver, not SetiQueue. On my dual PIII the Set Processor Affinity checkbox exists, but on the dual Opteron it does not, as well as the ability to view 2 CPU graphs in task manager being absent. Yet Windows reports the system as an "MPS Multiprocessor PC." Anyone know the difference between an ACPI Multiprocessor PC and an MPS Multiprocessor PC?

 

[Spacehead]

Originally posted by: DaFinn

I agree that in "real" duallies, one should set processess to 2 and check processor affinity. This gives the best result!
(At least in my dual Athlon MP). With HT P4, I cannot tell the difference between affinity on or not...

Really? I was under the impression that it didn't matter.
And could someone clarify affinity for me? Does it mean that when checked, each CPU works on it's own WU & when it's not checked the 2 WU's being processed are moved back & forth between the 2 processors?

 

[NeoGeek]

Originally posted by: Ben98SentraSE
Crap - I meant SetiDriver, not SetiQueue. On my dual PIII the Set Processor Affinity checkbox exists, but on the dual Opteron it does not, as well as the ability to view 2 CPU graphs in task manager being absent. Yet Windows reports the system as an "MPS Multiprocessor PC." Anyone know the difference between an ACPI Multiprocessor PC and an MPS Multiprocessor PC?

Check in the BIOS to be sure that both processors are enabled. I have a feeling that only 1 is enabled right now.

 

[Silverthorne]

Originally posted by: Ben98SentraSE
Crap - I meant SetiDriver, not SetiQueue. On my dual PIII the Set Processor Affinity checkbox exists, but on the dual Opteron it does not, as well as the ability to view 2 CPU graphs in task manager being absent. Yet Windows reports the system as an "MPS Multiprocessor PC." Anyone know the difference between an ACPI Multiprocessor PC and an MPS Multiprocessor PC?

ACPI Multiprocessor PC: multiple-processor ACPI computer

MPS Multiprocessor PC: Non-ACPI computers with a dual processor running

Got this info off intels page, but I was led here from this one. This leads me to believe that my dual processor P3 setup is actually using the hal.dll for a standard pc setup although I have no problems with this computer.

Device manager tells me it's using hal.dll when it should actually be using Halmacpi.dll.

Don't know if this is of any help but check and see what HAL DLL file it's using.

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by: Baldy18
There is no processor affinity setting in SETIQueue. I think what you mean is processor affinity in SETIDriver. IMHO the info given by RoninCS will NOT yield the best possible results. In a dual processor system I would set the number of processes in SETIDriver to 2 and check the processor affinity box.

Odd, cuz it certainly did better my way *shrugs* Goes for both my dual CPU boxes and my...hrmm...10 HT boxes. Just my personal experience, however.

 

[Baldy18]

Originally posted by: Spacehead

Originally posted by: DaFinn

I agree that in "real" duallies, one should set processess to 2 and check processor affinity. This gives the best result!
(At least in my dual Athlon MP). With HT P4, I cannot tell the difference between affinity on or not...

Really? I was under the impression that it didn't matter.
And could someone clarify affinity for me? Does it mean that when checked, each CPU works on it's own WU & when it's not checked the 2 WU's being processed are moved back & forth between the 2 processors?

In my experience I've found what you said to be correct. There is a slight loss of efficency loss due to the shift back and forth. It may be processor/chipset/OS dependant.

 

[Silverthorne]

Originally posted by: Spacehead

Originally posted by: DaFinn

I agree that in "real" duallies, one should set processess to 2 and check processor affinity. This gives the best result!
(At least in my dual Athlon MP). With HT P4, I cannot tell the difference between affinity on or not...

Really? I was under the impression that it didn't matter.
And could someone clarify affinity for me? Does it mean that when checked, each CPU works on it's own WU & when it's not checked the 2 WU's being processed are moved back & forth between the 2 processors?

On my dual P3 system I can go ctrl alt del in XP into task manager and tell each seti client which processor I want it to run on. I suppose if I didn't check to set affinity it would most likely try to run each client on both processors instead of one client on each.

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

I now have 3 dual Opteron 244 systems, two are identical with SCSI drives and one has SATA drives in it. The SCSI systems report as MPS Multiprocessor PCs with only 1 CPU graph in task manager (Windows 2003 Server) but the SATA system is reported as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC with 2 graphs in task manager. Looking at my SetiQueue history the SATA server is doing twice as many WUs a day as the SCSI systems.

I need a utility that can see how many processors are present in the system. Maybe the two SCSI servers really only have 1 CPU installed? I'd pop the case but they are rackmount and it would be easier for me to check via a software utility.

Thanks!

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

I found WCPUID and it does not detect 2 CPUs on my SCSI machines. I popped the cover on one of the servers and there is indeed 2 CPUs in it, so now I need to figure out how to get the OS to see both CPUs. I'll try manually changing the driver to ACPI Multiprocessor PC and see what happens. It's odd because all 3 servers have the same motherboard (Tyan K8S I think) and the only difference in the SATA RAID card and drives in the one versus the SCSI RAID in the other.

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

I figured out my problem! Adaptec has two drivers for the 2120S, one is the Microsoft WHQL certified driver, and then there is a newer driver. I learned today reading the driver description closely that the newer driver is for cards with the version 6011 BIOS firmware. My cards are the 6008 version and I used the newer driver, thus causing the problems. When I installed 2003 using the older WHQL driver, everything now looks like the SATA RAID server - both CPUs show and everything.

So lesson learned - don't use your gamer habits of getting the latest and greatest drivers with you into the server world with storage adapters.

Now watch my daily WU's skyrocket...

 

[Assimilator1]

*me waves to Ben*

Glad to see you've got it sorted, & another case of SETI helping to discover/diagnose a fault
Awesome rigs you've got to 'road test' btw

Got a Q running we can look at to see that stats?

 

[Ben98SentraSE]

Good point about using SETI to find problems

The queue server is running at work and I don't feel that comfortable doing a port forward to my machine at work just for anonymous people to look at stats. The server that has been working properly has been doing about 19 WUs a day. SetiDriver is set for 2 processes and Set Processor Affinity is checked.

 

[skrjones]

Originally posted by: Ben98SentraSE
skrjones - what is SCS?

My bad, never noticed the question. :Q

SCS is seti cache spy, gives info on the cache you download as well as average times.

its a starfire prog but a brill one SCS