Need a little help with folding@home

[SemperFi]

I had been running FaH seems like forever until that lightning strike in September. I just got my overhaul finished on my new box. Dual core opteron 165. I have a few questions that I hope someone can help me with so I can start adding more time for team 198.

First is what the he!!. I go to folding@home site to download proggie and lookup my user stats. It said my last unit submitted was in February last year. What the heck I had it running on both of my boxes til september. I am wondering if I didn't set I forget what is called, a unit number for each box. I don't think I had it running on the second box all year. I hate to think I had them crunching numbers for 6 months and I returned nothing.

Second is about dual core. Should I run 2 copies of the program? If so can you give me some pointers for the setup and use. I plan on running the console as a service. Also
when I run as a service will it start when log on screen comes up or do I have to log on as user. I am asking is occasionally I will power on and walk away for a while which could be spent folding.

Any other suggestions or tips would be appreciated. My first time running the console version and seems that info is quite scattered on the website.

Thanks

 

[RustyNale]

SemperFi, what name are you folding under, as I did a search for "SemperFi" and you didn't show up.

As for your dual setup, you need to create 2 separate folders ( such as FAH1 and FAH2 ). Download the 5.04 client into each folder. Then from the run box browse to where you downloaded the client. Add " -configonly" and run the setup. When you get to advanced options, and you get to the place where it asks for machine id, make the first one "1" and the when you run it again for the second cpu make that one "2". Check out this LINK for more info.

Hope this helps.:thumbsup:

RustyNale

 

[SemperFi]

Thanks rusty. My name is jtmiller on FaH.

I got to tell you I have to get something fixed or I won't be running FaH in the future. Last night I opened a console and configured it and installed as a service. I left it run in the window along with speed fan just to keep an eye out for a few hours. I come out to the computer this morning and it is powered down. I power it up and log on and like a dummy I use the run dialog to start the FAH as the one that I set up as a service. Computer locks mouse moves but no response. I do this a couple of times not start the FaH program but when I get to windows absolutely unresponsive. I booted to safe mode and disabled the start of the FaH service. I rebooted and still seems sluggish.

When I opened IE things still seemed sluggish then the website didn't appear. Finally the firewall came up and I allowed the connections everything seems back to normal. I forgot to click the box to always allow this connection. I am wondering if the FaH was trying to send a unit and the firewall was my whole problem stated above. This is my first use of a firewall and I have a lot to learn about it I guess.

Still I am puzzled as to why my system would have shut down.

 

[Wolfsraider]

SemperFi,

I am wondering if the FaH was trying to send a unit and the firewall was my whole problem stated above

Could be but, as its a new build, make sure your ram is seated good, and run memtest on it ( if it shows no problems, you can rule that part out ). F@H as well as most dc apps stress the hardware a bit and problems can show up after installing them, dc projects don't cause hardware problems, but if there is a problem, they are good at pointing them out.

Are all your drivers up to date?

I have java installed on mine and after it updated itself the other day, I had similar issues. a reboot fixed them.

When I install a dc app the first thing I do anymore is reboot right after the first work unit is downloaded or the install finishes and asks me too. It seems to stop a lot of issues.

Hope this helps

Mike

Edit> I should add that unless you are still getting stutters, or your system is still unresponsive, you are most likely right about the f@h client causing the stutter due to the firewall.

 

[SemperFi]

I don't think the memory is the problem. I just built the system and overclocking it. I spent several cycles of memtest then I booted windows and ran prime 95 for 12 hours or so. My temps aren't as high as they were when I ran prime 95.

I haven't had any lag since I disabled the service. As I said before when I came back from safe mode after disableing the folding service it still had a heavy lag. Just then my firewall presented me with several programs trying to access the net. As soon as I finished allowing them up everything became normal. I opened a console window after that and it has been running for a couple of hours now without problem.

A couple of things I can think of is when I fired up FaH the first time I didn't use the -local switch. I really didn't think that should be an issue since I am only running one instance of FaH at the moment. The other is when it said use internet explorer settings I selected yes instead of the defalt no. I found another thread that said to use the defalt setting. When I get some time later I am going to change this and try running as a service again.

 

[GLeeM]

Welcome back SemperFi

"I am wondering if I didn't set I forget what is called, a unit number for each box."
If you are referring to MachineID here, that would not have caused any problem, MachineID is only for multiple clients on one computer.
Perhaps the client was reconfigured or the config file was bad and could not be used so the WU points went to the default team - "0".
If you have access to the old FAHlog.txt file you could look there for evidence of what was happening. (Or post some of it here and we could figure it out.)

"My temps aren't as high as they were when I ran prime 95."
Hmmm... no help from me here
Except, a stable OC with Prime95 is not necessarily stable for F@H. I had to lower my OC a little for F@H.

When you get time let us know what you find.

 

[SemperFi]

The log is long gone. Drive was wiped and FaH wasn't on my backup list.

As for the temp I was just comparing that Fah wasn't stressing my cpu like prime 95. It doesn't act like a stability problem either. Especially since most people are reporting stable OC on the same chip up around 2.6 Ghz and I am at 2.25Ghz. I know there are variances in everything so I am not proclaiming that my oc is not the problem. I am just trying to say I think that it is unlikely at the moment.

Anyhow I think I figured it out because it just happened again. It is the firewall. I haven't used a firewall before so I don't really know what to think of it in general. But having problems really makes it bad. Finally a little bit ago I got an error window came up that said Firewall waiting for true vector internet to initialize. I don't know what's causing that but seems to be a problem. I got a free copy of computer associates virus scanner and firewall for free from road runner. It looks like I got my money's worth. I guess if I really need one of these I will go download zone alarm.

I am going to try it again. Wish me luck

 

[Freewolf]

Anything from computer associates suck these days. Kerio is a pretty good firewall and they also have a free personal edition. and AVG antivirus Free edition from Grisoft is better .

 

[SemperFi]

Well no wonder it is free then.

Well I have had 2 Fah running for about the last 2 hours and all was well. All of a sudden my wife says that my computer just shut down. Grrrreeaat. It fired right back up and nothing in the event viewer. I think I am going to uninstall the CA software. I have had this thing going since Friday night and it has spent most of those nights running prime 95 and never had any problems like this. weird.

I wonder how much of the crunching I just lost?

 

[GLeeM]

Lots of folders here like a monitoring program called FAH LogStats which can be found here.

 

[petrusbroder]

Hmmm, sounds interesting and is very frustrating ...

About the firewall - antivirus: I have been running Zonealarm (the pro-version on some computers, the free version on others) without any problems during December (when two mini-teams had a race @ Folding@Home). The comps crunched over 34 000 points and not one reboot due to the firewall, Antivirus software or oc'ing...
The antivirus I use is Avast Antivirus (which is free for home users). It is - IMHO - very stable, unobtrusive and has not caused any reboots or other problems. It is very good good at catching the virii in tests and in reality (catches about 1 per week on all my comps combined ...)
The mix of comps includes Celerons, PIIIs and P4 (w and w/o HT) and AMD (from Athlon Thunderbird to A64 3200+); 6 of them are oc'ed (from 10 - 40%). I ran the F@H-console program as a servise - and as command line program - without any problem for a total of 10 computer months (i.e. 9 computes running for 4 - 5 weeks each), so the testing period may seem somewhat short ... OTOH: Zonealarm and Avast AV I have had for more than 3 years (in different flavors) without any problems.
Neither a firewall nor a AV-program should be able to cause a spontaneous reboot. It could be some driver problem ... thinking of video-drivers or scanner drivers (one of those caused me a lot of problems a year ago! )

 

[SemperFi]

Thanks Gleem I was just thinking about that.

As for the firewall problem I uninstalled it last night and I have been running 2 projects on this puppy and it has been cranking along fine for the past 15 or so hours with out a hiccup. I had forgotten that when I downloaded the software then installed it the firewall didn't get installed. I ran the setup again and it worked so I didn't think anythihg of it after that. I probobly had a corrupt file in the download. I don't know but problems seem to be gone.

Petrusbroder actually it didn't reboot the machine actually shut down. I don't know if that makes any difference but I found it highly irregular. It was the first time that has ever happened to me. It usually reboots. Also the event viewer shows nothing. Device drivers in my experience leaves something in the event log and ususlly wants to send an error report to MS upon reboot. Again neither happened.

Edit
Ok nevermind on the speed fan question. I just found out you can download info from their website to known user config.

I know about driver problems My ATI 8500dv gave me problems for a couple of years. The thing would run great for 6 months then I would get random crashes and the latest driver would fix it for a while.

Anhow running great so far thats what matters.

Does anyone run speed fan? I have in the temp section temp 1,2,3 then the hdd, and another temp 1 under the hdd. I figured temp 1 was the chip cpu but I was wondering what the rest were.

Also I just installed the console on my other computer which is an 2500xp. Got her over clocked to 2GHz. I should be adding some points to the team before too long. With my machine shutting down yesterday I don't know if it actually lost anything from that happening or not.

 

[SemperFi]

Ok finally getting some numbers up again. Both cpu's have been cranking maxed out. Every time I check speedfan shows both core's at 100%. The great thing about it is my temp has been hovering at 36.

Now my question is windows has been slow. I don't remember this happening before. I just got this unit going and am trying to transfer files and such. Windows explorer stops responding and there is a long wait when I click on something in windows explorer. Like I said it says not responding after a while and I have to force it to shut. I click the start button and it takes 20 seconds or so to open. I then clicked excel and it opened right up. Internet explorer. I didn't switch users to see if it does the same when my wife logs on. I am thinking that it is slow since she checked her email a little while ago on the kids computer.

Anyhow finally with the question. How do I shut one of my consoles down so I can do some trouble shooting with out losing data. I was going to shut one of them down in the task manager but it gave me a warning that it wold terminate and not save any info. I decided not to do it now since I am about to go to bed.

 

[Spacehead]

Originally posted by: SemperFi
Anyhow finally with the question. How do I shut one of my consoles down so I can do some trouble shooting with out losing data. I was going to shut one of them down in the task manager but it gave me a warning that it wold terminate and not save any info. I decided not to do it now since I am about to go to bed.

If running as a service, go to Control Panel-->Admin Tools-->Services. Scroll down to the FAH service & hi-lite it. Then there wil be options to Stop, Pause or Restart the service. You can start a stopped FAH service there too or reboot your computer.

 

[SemperFi]

Thanks spacehead. I feel like your handle now that I read your solution. I can't believe I didn't think of that last night.

I think I figured out my slowdown problem. A stroll thourgh the event viewer gave me like 50 errors on my cdrom. I don't know if it is a drive or cable. I didn't mess with it at all today. I am pretty sure that was my major slowdown though.

 

[GLeeM]

Originally posted by: SemperFi
Thanks spacehead. I feel like your handle now that I read your solution. I can't believe I didn't think of that last night.

I think I figured out my slowdown problem. A stroll thourgh the event viewer gave me like 50 errors on my cdrom. I don't know if it is a drive or cable. I didn't mess with it at all today. I am pretty sure that was my major slowdown though.

I've had similar thing with USB thumb drives. It's like the computer freezes for 30 seconds after plugging it in. If I clicked several things trying to see whats up, when the computer finally comes back everything I clicked happens in rapid fire sequence.

I've also noticed that if I try to do anything through the Task Bar nothing will happen, but if I use the desktop icons things work. For instance, if I open Windows Explorer from the desktop it will open, but if I use the keyboard shortcut (windows key + E) or try Start button it freezes

 

[SemperFi]

You are right mine does that same thing. It was just like that. Actually I just went back further in event viewer and there is probobly a couple of hundred errors for the cd drive. I guess I need to find what it is for sure. I may have to rma this dvd burner along with the floppy drive that doesn't work. Well I guess the bright side is that it was just a drive and not my board or cpu.

 

[Gravity]

Pretty longish thread devil dog!! I've been folding for a few years now (just past 2,500,000 points) and have experienced a bit of what you are going through. Seems like all the appropo advice has been given but you may find yourself in some uncharted waters since no two builds are always identical. There are many factors that go into each box and effect folding that you have to keep working at it.

Your unwanted shutdowns trouble me the most and it seems like a heat issue but it's tough to pinpoint. Make sure your box is in a well ventilated area and that your fans are pulling all the air that they can.

I personally decided not to run 2 instances of FAH on my dual core boxes. I figured for the hassle of configuring and the heat buildup, I would be better off running single instances. So far, so good.

That's all the advice I have for now Jarhead,

Keep folding,

Gravity

 

[SemperFi]

Well there is a certain gravity to the sutuation here. My new DVD player doesn't want to read a dvd that I burnt all my backup info to. I ended up putting it in my other computer which was the drive I burnt the disk on. Low and behold it read and I just copied files over the network. I am going to have to try some more media just to make sure it isn't the drive.

As for the shutdown that hasn't happened since I uninstalled the CA software. Not heat related as far as I can tell. I have been running 2 instances of folding all weekend and the highest the temp has been is 37. It has been a rock at 36. My old 2500 Barton is in my kids computer cranking around 46c. I am begining to think about getting a better HS/F for it.

Everything seems to be cranking along fine on this end. Thanks to all for your input.

 

[biodoc]

Originally posted by: SemperFi

I think I figured out my slowdown problem. A stroll thourgh the event viewer gave me like 50 errors on my cdrom. I don't know if it is a drive or cable. I didn't mess with it at all today. I am pretty sure that was my major slowdown though.

I had off/on read problems recently with one of my DVD drives. I checked the event/system viewer and the system was logging an error every second! I "double clicked" on one of the errors to get a description of the problem which was as follows:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\CdRom2.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. "

I clicked on the link to the support center and they said the problem is typically caused by a bad cable. I had a lot of these cables lying around so I replaced it and voila, problem solved!

FYI, I'm running WindowsXP/SP2.

Happy crunching!!