Strange BOINC activity on one computer

[Fardringle]

Most of my computers are office machines that are allowed to run BOINC while the computers are not in use (mostly outside business hours). BOINC is installed as a service so can be basically hidden where the users won't mess with it and the BOINC Manager does not run automatically so it's not sitting in the system tray (again so people won't mess with it).Generally, they work well as the BOINC client is set to only run when the computer is not in use. However, I have noticed that BOINC is not going idle on one computer when that PC is in use. The project tasks keep running at full CPU and RAM usage until I manually open the BOINC manager and then the tasks immediately stop running, as if the BOINC service is not applying the system preferences unless the manager is actually active on the system. None of my other computers do this so I don't know why this one is different. The only thing that has changed recently on this machine is that I added a new user account for a new employee to replace the one who was using this computer but no longer works at the office. I have tried reinstalling BOINC to fix anything that might have been missing for this new user, but it didn't have any effect.

This is my slowest machine (it's an i3 and the rest are i5) so it wouldn't be a major loss if I have to stop running BOINC on it, but it's still annoying and I'd prefer to fix the problem instead of shutting it off. Any ideas why it's doing this or what I can try?

 

[GLeeM]

I don't have any help with the strangeness on the one computer.

But if you can't find the solution to the strangeness, you don't have to stop running BOINC completely on that machine. If your office hours are 9 to 5 you can set BOINC to run "Every day between the hours of 17:00 and 09:00"

Or

You can use Task Scheduler.

 

[Fardringle]

I forgot to mention that I tried the time restrictions already for testing purposes. Just as with the suspending when the computer is in use, the BOINC client ignores those settings unless the BOINC Manager is running. It's very strange.

 

[Rudy Toody]

I seem to recall a check-box in the BOINC as a Windows Service that needs setting/unsetting. Compare these settings with one working pc and change the settings accordingly.

 

[Fardringle]

As far as I can tell the settings are correct. I even reinstalled BOINC under the new user account to be sure. BOINC is installed to be run as a service, just as it was before it stopped behaving, and the same way all of the other computers are set up.

I should clarify that this computer worked fine before I created the new user account so it has something to do with the new user, but I can't figure out what...

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you created a new user, did you add it to the BOINC Users group? I thought BOINC used to create a BOINC users group that users had to be part of to control BOINC or something, when it installed.

 

[biodoc]

Once you set your preferences in boinc manager, it might be worth going to the advanced menu and choose "read local prefs file" to make sure those settings take effect immediately.

More info here.

 

[Fardringle]

That should happen automatically, but I'll give it a try to see if it works. Thanks.

 

[Fardringle]

Manually reading the local preferences didn't change anything. I just have it running as a regular installation with the BOINC Manager always running on that one system for now, but told Windows to hide the system tray icon for BOINC so it won't show up for "curious hands" to mess with it...