CPU Speed Incorrect

[AZMango]

I moved my Prime95 folder to a new Core i7 920 PC and when I checked the 'Options', 'CPU' it shows the right processor, but has the speed as 450 MHz. I had this same problem once before when I upgraded. As a result, Prime95 thinks it's going to take months to finish one LL test. At one time I did have a 450 MHz CPU, but that was long ago, obviously.

I did a test and installed Prime95 into a new directory instead of over the old one. In this case the CPU speed shows as 2659.63, which is correct. However, Prime95 won't run since it has two errors: Unable to open spool file, and Unable to open log file.

Is there a way to correct this situation?

[Mini-Geek]

Are you using a recent version? (newest on the site is 25.9) If you have an older version, try upgrading it.
Have you set this option to tell it that the CPU is only 450 MHz?

The program automatically computes the number of CPUs, hyperthreading, and speed.
This information is used to calculate how much work to get.
If the program did not correctly figure out your CPU information,
you can override the info in local.txt:
    NumCPUs=n
    CpuNumHyperthreads=1 or 2
    CpuSpeed=s
Where n is the number of physical CPUs or cores, not logical CPUs created by
hyperthreading. Choose 1 for non-hyperthreaded and 2 for hyperthreaded. Finally,
s is the speed in MHz.

You might want to use that to set it to the right speed.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by AZMango

I did a test and installed Prime95 into a new directory instead of over the old one. In this case the CPU speed shows as 2659.63, which is correct. However, Prime95 won't run since it has two errors: Unable to open spool file, and Unable to open log file.

Is there a way to correct this situation?

Yes.

Make a backup of your old Prime95 folder. Then move your new folder over the old one.

Under Windows Vista or Windows 7, programs that are installed under your Program Files directory cannot write a file into their own folder. Hence, the "Unable to open" errors. Apparently your previous prime95 folder was somewhere other than under your Program Files directory, and that was fine. Move your new prime95 there, too.

- - -

There is another way to solve the problem, without moving your new prime95 out from under Program Files.

Read the undoc.txt file in your prime95 folder. It explains how to specify a working directory that is different from the directory where prime95 resides:

In prime.txt <snip>
You can also change the working directory (identical to the -W command line
argument).

< snip >

WorkingDir=your_directory_name

[AZMango]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

Are you using a recent version? (newest on the site is 25.9) If you have an older version, try upgrading it.
Have you set this option to tell it that the CPU is only 450 MHz?

The program automatically computes the number of CPUs, hyperthreading, and speed.
This information is used to calculate how much work to get.
If the program did not correctly figure out your CPU information,
you can override the info in local.txt:
    NumCPUs=n
    CpuNumHyperthreads=1 or 2
    CpuSpeed=s
Where n is the number of physical CPUs or cores, not logical CPUs created by
hyperthreading. Choose 1 for non-hyperthreaded and 2 for hyperthreaded. Finally,
s is the speed in MHz.

You might want to use that to set it to the right speed.

I had already managed to get it working correctly somehow, but I also had the same incorrect CPU speed on another PC. I checked the local.txt and there was a line in there saying the PC was 1400 instead of the 3400 it actually is. I replaced that and now it is correct.

For future reference, is it safe to just delete the local.txt file before starting? Or, can I go in there and delete those incorrect lines before migrating to a new PC? In any case, at least I now know where the problem is.

Thanks for the help.

[AZMango]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Yes.

Make a backup of your old Prime95 folder. Then move your new folder over the old one.

Under Windows Vista or Windows 7, programs that are installed under your Program Files directory cannot write a file into their own folder. Hence, the "Unable to open" errors. Apparently your previous prime95 folder was somewhere other than under your Program Files directory, and that was fine. Move your new prime95 there, too.

- - -

There is another way to solve the problem, without moving your new prime95 out from under Program Files.

Read the undoc.txt file in your prime95 folder. It explains how to specify a working directory that is different from the directory where prime95 resides:

With some trial and error I did finally get it to run correctly with the correct CPU speed. I also checked my local.txt on another PC with the same problem and I'm sure the CPU speed was marked incorrectly in this one as well. Thanks for the help.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by AZMango

For future reference, is it safe to just delete the local.txt file before starting? Or, can I go in there and delete those incorrect lines before migrating to a new PC? In any case, at least I now know where the problem is.

When copying Prime95 to a new PC, you should delete local.txt before starting.
When you won't be resuming old work (e.g. you're adding a new machine), also delete worktodo.txt and any checkpoint files (usually start with p and have no file extension or are marked .bu).

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by AZMango

With some trial and error I did finally get it to run correctly with the correct CPU speed. I also checked my local.txt on another PC with the same problem and I'm sure the CPU speed was marked incorrectly in this one as well. Thanks for the help.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear that my post #3 was about your unable-to-open errors, not about your CPU speed.

[AZMango]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Perhaps I didn't make it clear that my post #3 was about your unable-to-open errors, not about your CPU speed.

Sorry. Guess I meant that I ended up fixing that problem as well since I figured the problem with those errors might be where the directory was, so I made a new Prime95 temp directory and once things were working correctly there I deleted the old directory. The CPU Speed and errors went away at the same time.

[AZMango]

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

When copying Prime95 to a new PC, you should delete local.txt before starting.
When you won't be resuming old work (e.g. you're adding a new machine), also delete worktodo.txt and any checkpoint files (usually start with p and have no file extension or are marked .bu).

I'll have to remember that for future reference. I think what happened before was that I had upgraded my system with a new motherboard and CPU. I assume it can't hurt to delete the local.txt in that case, either.