Never starts at idle

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kaper
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:17 am

Never starts at idle

Post by kaper »

Hi guys! I'm new to folding and I have a problem that someone may be able to help me with:

My pc should start folding at idle. It never detects idle though. I have windows powersettings at high performance because I had some issues with responsiveness when it was set it to balanced. Could this be causing the client to never think it is idle? What definition of idle is used by the client? Setting the affinity to "a little higher than lowest" didn't change the behaviour ofcourse.

I don't want to manually start and and pause the client because it must only run when I step away from my pc for a while. I am logging power usage and running a script to estimate the electricity cost of all poweruse above idle power. (I want to donate but I don't want to be poor) To do this acurately folding must only run at idle. Turning it on and off every time I go make a cup of coffee is just not the way to go.

If folding at idle only works with balanced powersetting or sleep or something turned on, is there an other way to turn folding on or off? Does an interface for start/stop from an external source exist in the client? Starting and stopping the entire client from a script seems a bit rough and also doesn't give the client time to save any progress which is a waste.

Any thoughts would be really apreciated! Thanks!
Jorgeminator
Posts: 49
Joined: Tue Mar 24, 2020 11:24 am
Location: Finland

Re: Never starts at idle

Post by Jorgeminator »

Depends how tech-savvy you are. Yes, the client can be controlled remotely via telnet through an Android app for example.
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wezh
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:34 am
Hardware configuration: Chinese fanless Mini PC Hystou P03B-i5-8250U in full-aluminium case.
Folding on Intel Core i5-8250U CPU only.
CPU TDP-normal is 15W, but using TDP-down 10W (to prevent overheating).
Maximum CPU temperature is +37C addition above a room's air temp and it is max I ever saw in TDP-down mode.
Hyper-threading feature is off (cause need high single-thread performance in several apps).
According to server stats (i.e. de facto) I have PPD of +14800 in average day during 41 days including May, 2020.
Folding using 3 CPU cores of 4.
Folding 24/7.
And I work on that fanless mini PC in parallel.
Manjaro Linux OS.
---
The CPU Efficiency: 14.8K / 10W of electricity consumption of CPU = 1.5 kPPD/W (in the mentioned config and work mode above).
Whole Mini PC and it's power adaptor consumes 18-25W from power outlet (230V@50Hz) depending on user load presence and it's type.
---
https://stats.foldingathome.org/donor/90790185

Re: Never starts at idle

Post by wezh »

Hi!
Thanks for help for mankind!
I am ordinary user like you and also using idle state of PC for FAH Client. I run it on Manjaro Linux OS. I am using FAH client from Arch User Repository (it is for Arch Linux based distros, which Manjaro is) v7.5.1. I think it is official client.
What definition of idle is used by the client?
I execute FAHClient from command line with

Code: Select all

FAHClient -v --idle
I see that my default idle is 300 seconds.

For me it's works like this: if to do not touch keyboard or mice within idle delay, it's starts to fold - no matter you watch youtube video or local video in VLC media player. If to touch keyboard btn or mice than in a few seconds folding pauses.
I fold in idle for several days and always it goes well for me.

Try to investigate what is your idle delay and try to change it. Try to setup delay to 20 seconds and pull off keyboard and mice connectors from PC to test if them sends idle interrupt signals continuously.
bruce
Posts: 20910
Joined: Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:13 pm
Location: So. Cal.

Re: Never starts at idle

Post by bruce »

Your OS has a couple of settings you might check. The one that must be set is whatever establihes the time before a screensaver would kick in if you had one. The one that must NOT be set is the one that says the machine should hibernate/sleep when it's idle.
kaper
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:17 am

Re: Never starts at idle

Post by kaper »

Thanks for your help guys! It is fixed.
It was indeed the screensaver that activates the idle folding. I had mine turned off. Sorry for bothering you with such a simple question.

My script is now running nicely and I am very happy :)
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