[QUOTE=Prime95;118745]What more can I do than set the worker threads to run at the lowest possible priority?[/QUOTE]I wonder if perhaps Windows is giving too much CPU time to Prime95 because the main thread is running at higher-than-idle priority, and even though its child threads are idle-priority they get a boost by association... I'm just guessing blindly here, I'm no expert on threaded Windows programming :whistle:

The only other workaround might be some kind of auto-throttling based on how much CPU time other threads are taking (not counting the System Idle Process, of course). The problem here would be the lag between measuring CPU usage, throttling Prime95 work and seeing the result. I'm not sure how (or even if) it's possible to measure how much CPU time everything-but-Prime95 would use if Prime95 wasn't running, and yet have Prime95 running to use that available CPU capacity.

Another (less desirable) option might be a [i]PauseWhileRunning[/i]-style configuration where Prime95 would suspend (at least part of) itself while said applications are running [i]and using more than <10>% CPUtime[/i] -- that way if you have Windows Media Encoder open, but not encoding, Prime95 runs full-throttle, but when encoding is actually going on, Prime95 suspends a worker thread.

I don't know how workable any of these are, I'm just throwing out some ideas. Also, I don't know if any of these problem are Vista-specific, my only dual-core machine is only running Vista.

Prime95 (64-bit) on AMD Barcelona Processors
 

I am experiencing strange problems with prime95-64 25.5 on an AMD quad core (Barcelona) machine. Prime95 runs for about 10 to 30 minutes and then silently quits. No error like GP fault is reported and the Microsoft Debug Manager does not pop up.

It also seems to have problems reading save files, probably, because they are malformed.

A dual core K8 does not have that problem.

I am using two of the first production chips of the Barcelona processor. Maybe these processors do have a bug?!

Any comments or ideas?

Regards,

Christoph

Other worker threads are using lots of memory now
 

I don't know if this is a program issue or a user issue . . . I got through phase 1 successfully in 25.5, but now I can't run phase 2 -- both worker threads keep saying "Other worker threads are using lots of memory now" and then try to restart with new memory settings. If I limit myself to 1 thread, then it works just fine, but as soon as I go back to 2, everything stops again. I'm running an E6600 Core2 Duo (2.4GHz) with 2GB of RAM; what would be realistic daytime and nighttime memory settings?
Thanks!
Joe

[QUOTE=christoh;118750]Christoph[/QUOTE]
Sorry, people, but another off-topic comment. Christoph seems to have misspelled his username. Perhaps a mod could make it correct and send him an email about the adjustment?

[QUOTE=hoopmanjh;118752]I don't know if this is a program issue or a user issue . . . I got through phase 1 successfully in 25.5, but now I can't run phase 2 -- both worker threads keep saying "Other worker threads are using lots of memory now" and then try to restart with new memory settings.[/QUOTE]

Please email the prime.txt, local.txt, and worktodo.txt files to me so that I can debug the problem.

@James,

this is because Windows prefers foreground applications in its scheduling. Open "Control Panel" - "System" - "Advanced" and set scheduling to prefer "Backgroung Processes".

This actually treats all processes equally and schedules them only according their priority (like Unix does).

On Windows Vista, Prime95 is normally started as a foreground process from Windows Explorer and not as a background service, because there is no easy way to allow a background service to interact with the desktop.

When you type "WMIC OS GET QUANTUMTYPE" from the command prompt, it should report 2. If it reports 1 or 3, prime95 always gets too much CPU time, when other processes are running.

@jasong, my username christoh is correct. I'm always using Old-School usernames with a maximum of 8 chars.

-Christoph

Okay, when I install the 64-bit version, I get a libcurl.[something].4 error. Seems pretty normal.

When I install the 32-bit and enter './mprime -m', it says the file isn't there, but it's listed in the directory.

I'm not saying the download is bad, but if that isn't the answer, what the heck is going on? Are other people getting this error with 32-bit Linux?

I'm going to 24.14 for the time being(P-1), but if anybody has any idea how to fix this, please say so. Although, if it isn't 25.5 that's the problem, please start a new thread, and only stick a link to it in this thread. :) (No thread-hijacking, okay? And ,yes I know that's hypocritical of me.)

[QUOTE=christoh;118764]Windows prefers foreground applications in its scheduling. Open "Control Panel" - "System" - "Advanced" and set scheduling to prefer "Backgroung Processes". This actually treats all processes equally and schedules them only according their priority (like Unix does).[/QUOTE]:bow: :grin:
Now it behaves as expected. Prime95 isn't [i]entirely[/i] without effect on the system, but much much closer. I tried encoding a test video using VirtualDub+DivX6 and it encoded in 85 seconds with Prime95 stopped, and in 97 seconds with Prime95 running 2 threads. Still off by ~13%, but I can live with that.

[QUOTE=christoh;118764]On Windows Vista, Prime95 is normally started as a foreground process from Windows Explorer and not as a background service, because there is no easy way to allow a background service to interact with the desktop.[/QUOTE]Would it possible to allow Prime95 to actually run as a service and allow interaction via some kind of front-end program? The front-end could read the current status/configuration from the disk files, and pass on any change notification to the Prime95 if needed (modify .txt files or something, if nothing else; again I know very little about Windows services programming).

[QUOTE=christoh;118764]When you type "WMIC OS GET QUANTUMTYPE" from the command prompt, it should report 2. If it reports 1 or 3, prime95 always gets too much CPU time, when other processes are running.[/QUOTE]Originally it said "1". After changing priority to background processes, it now says "2".

Thanks for that tip, Christoph! :cool:

[QUOTE=christoh;118750]I am using two of the first production chips of the Barcelona processor. Maybe these processors do have a bug?![/QUOTE]

Sounds to me like it's the TLB bug. Maybe a BIOS update will fix it.

I started TF to low limits on dual core laptop using only 1 cpu, but it can only run 6-12 hours then it stops with the same wierd error, happened 4-5 times now: [URL="http://www.hoegge.dk/mersenne/error1.jpg"]error1.jpg[/URL]

And when I restarted it says: [URL="http://www.hoegge.dk/mersenne/error2.jpg"]error2.jpg[/URL] but it continued to run.

I have maxexponents=500 and debug=2 in prime.txt. Prime.log didn't have any error at the bottom but had error almost 3 hours before prime95 stopped:
"PnErrorResult value missing. Full response was:
PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 019968DE[Mon Nov 19 04:03:49 2007 - ver 25.5]"
(this was 4:03am but it stopped 6:55am. that was the last fileaccess in the folder)

Results.txt had last line: "Error creating worktodo.txt file"

Local.txt suddenly had [Worker #1] and [Worker #2]: [URL="http://www.hoegge.dk/mersenne/local.txt"]local.txt[/URL]

Hi George and Scott,
For the beta-testing, do you want us to continue load-testing as before or is there something new you want us to try? I'm also checking out the website interface and remote work commands as Scott suggested. Anything else?