My user insightS or my failings ... but..

[Not_IT_Tech]

I have folded off and on for a long time. Recently I was explaining what it is all about to a friend and in the process noticed there was a new client. I was using Folding@home-Win32-x86-systray-623.msi, it was simple and low impact on system resources. I could run it all day long and unless playing something like BF3 all was good. Today I installed V 7.1.52, SMP & GPU, and it immediately sucked the life out of my computer. When I had wrestled it to pause and tried to set the "Percent CPU Usage" to 50% from the 100% it had started out with I found there was absolutely no difference in the 85+% CPU usage. Displeased I uninstalled and reinstalled the old version, but it now wanted to update to the new version but with a little problem. So I reinstalled the latest version but only the Uniprocessor client. It defaults to using 24 - 27% CPU and the "Percent CPU Usage" slider is still useless. I"ll live with this... i guess, but I won't be running it as often as I once did. I'm sure that I am not alone and perhaps may be the norm computer setup. It seems to me that having power users fold is awesome, it is also awesome to have a a LOT of normal (computers) users contributing a little all day long. I have an AMD quad core running at 3.4Ghz. I hope this is useful to someone as some level. I Love Love Love the idea of the world working together on ANYthing. Much respect to all who are involved with this at all levels! Thanks for you time and effort.



*Note the "Percent CPU Usage" is set at Zero, there is absolutely No difference if set at 100%

[P5-133XL]

Try pausing the GPU slot rather than SMP. It is well known that GPU folding impacts the user experience. The GPU historically has had only one task which was to display whatever the video card told it to. With the Advent of GPGPU (i.e. folding) there are now more than one task to do and there is no mechanism(s) built in to the GPU, drivers, or OS to deal with resource conflicts.

There are several things that can help though. The easiest is to use an Aero theme if you were running Win7/Vista (which you are not). The second is the right choice of driver version. 260.99 seems to work well at minimizing the impact of folding on the user experience.

Put the CPU slider back to 100%. It is designed for the uniprocessor client and has little effect on the SMP or GPU clients.

If you can't minimize it enough, just delete the GPU slot and just SMP fold and you'll be back to where you were.

[codysluder]

The new client assumes that you want to donate as much of your machine as is possible. Apparently that isn't your preference and you're trying to contribute a similar level of participation, right?

There's nothing wrong with staying on the 6.23 systray version if you're happy with it. Also, it's possible to match what you were doing with 6.23 using 7.1.52 but we would need to understand how you were using 6.23. Posting the first part of the log from 6.23 would be helpful. Were you using a -smp flag?

Most likely you were running a single uniprocessor client. That's the least intrusive. I would certainly try reinstalling 7.1.52 specifying Uniprocessor (no GPU and no SMP).

It's also possible that you'll be happy with a SMP installation, but you do need to disable GPU folding. In fact on your X4 there are four obvious settings using differing amounts of CPU resources. The default is -1 for SMP which is actually smp:4 on your system. Also available are smp:3, smp:2, and uniprocessor. Those choices can be made later once you turn off GPU.

[codysluder]

To know what your 7.1.52 client is doing, click on the Log tab and then Refresh. Scroll to the top and then down about a page to the part between <config> and </config>. Copy/Paste that part here.

[Not_IT_Tech]

Thank you all for your help and time. I have decided to use the Uniprocessor version and that is more than fine for 99% of my usage.
Cody, I have the feeling your right in the ball park but time is against me atm, I will explore further when things slow down a bit.
Meanwhile this is what is there with the Uniprocessor install, I doubt this the install you were referring to.

17:47:59:<config>
17:47:59: <!-- Folding Slot Configuration -->
17:47:59: <smp v='false'/>
17:47:59:
17:47:59: <!-- Network -->
17:47:59: <proxy v=':8080'/>
17:47:59:
17:47:59: <!-- User Information -->
17:47:59: <user v='my name'/>
17:47:59:
17:47:59: <!-- Folding Slots -->
17:47:59: <slot id='0' type='UNIPROCESSOR'/>
17:47:59:</config>

[codysluder]

Yes, that's what I was referring to. When you're ready to consider smp:2 we can work from that. It's as simple as clicking Finish, and coming back as near as feasible to the time the current WU is predicted to finish. At that time, add the parameter pause-on-start true (so it doesn't download a new uniprocessor Wu if you restart the client). to the uniprocessor slot. Also add a slot for smp but as you do, change the value -1 to 2.

I'm quite confident you won't notice the difference, but if you do, you can use the same sort of procedure to transition back to the uniprocessor.