Which projects' software allows you to limit CPU usage?

[Hurricane Andrew]

My existing fleet running Seti Classic has no trouble working at 100%, however there are several other PC's that I "could" bring on line for other DC projects if I could limit the CPU usage to say 50% or so. The reason is that these PC's are Compaq's, with very poor cooling, and when running under full load for any period of time, they tend to heat up very quickly (some HOT P4's). If I were able to limit the CPU usage, I could most likely keep these thermal issues under control.

 

[Rattledagger]

Well, the best would be to get adequate cooling.

AFAIK Folding@home is the only project with built-in cpu-limiter, but Threadmaster or whatever it's called should possibly work with other projects also...

 

[MDE]

Folding@Home does allow CPU usage to be limited.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Originally posted by: Rattledagger
Well, the best would be to get adequate cooling.

Ahhh... If it were only that simple The problem is, the PC's are work PC's, and even though I am the IT department (among other things), I doubt I could sneak some Zalman's, Thermaltake's or Arctic Cooling heatsinks through. Heck, given how proprietary the Compaq boxes are I'd bet most wouldn't even fit. We had to replace a PSU in one, and were forced to shell out $120 for a propriatary one since standard ATX PSU's wouldn't fit! I hate Compaq :|

 

[imported_Kensai]

F@H does!

 

[BlackMountainCow]

Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't BOINC in general allow to set how much CPU power is used? Or is that only for sharing between projects?

 

[Rattledagger]

Originally posted by: BlackMountainCow
Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't BOINC in general allow to set how much CPU power is used? Or is that only for sharing between projects?

You can limit how many cpu's is used on multi/HT-cpu, and limit to time-of-day or if idle for n minutes, but BOINC can't limit to only using 50% cpu or something... Adding a configurable limit is in the plans, but none of the developers have currently time for this, but of course since BOINC is open-source it's just for someone to make an implementation and if works as it should get it added.
There have been some comments about threadmaster or something that you can limit cpu-usage of specific processes, and going this route still run BOINC.

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

Thanks for the info! I think I'll switch 1 or 2 over to Folding and see how that goes. Down the road I'll probably switch most of the others over to a Bonic-based DC project.

 

[GLeeM]

Hurricane Andrew, welcome to the F@H TeAm

The console version can be set to run as a service.

And not only can you limit CPU usage, you can set it to any percent you want. So if you find that say 50% is not overheating the computer, you could change the usage to anything - say 57 or 64%.

Even if they are hyperthreading CPUs I would recommend you only run one instance with your overheating problem.

If you have any questions on setup or need any help, just ask here or in the F@H update/stats thread

 

[Hurricane Andrew]

I signed two boxes up for F@H today. One has the overheating issue, one is a new IBM xServer that's only supporting 6 workstations, but I wanted to take it easy on her, since she's new to my org. I've limited the CPU usage to 60% and 40%, respectively, so we'll see how it goes. Won't affect my Seti output yet

 

[GLeeM]

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TeAm number is 198