Follow-up to my previous post, just out of curiosity: Why would BOINC interrupt a work unit in progress to start another? I promise I'll hold off on questions now...
Eric

project weight can do that - also, that "switch projects every ____ minutes". Either can affect that - I've noticed the same thing with the same 2 projects.

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Follow-up to my previous post, just out of curiosity: Why would BOINC interrupt a work unit in progress to start another? I promise I'll hold off on questions now...
Eric]

Typical if it decided that it has given enough work to the project of the workunit in progress to catch up on balancing.

Also typical if the newly started workunit has come close enough to its deadline to put it into high priority mode.

This might be blocked if the main memory if not large enough to keep both workunits there at once.

Peter: you were in one of your moods again, weren't you... lol

Does it matter what it's set to if it's redundant?

In principle, there's no point constantly monitoring or polling for something you already know isn't there. There's often a wait for a response until a timeout, every moment of which is a waste.
And discussing the subject here made me rethink some of my own settings, some of which I've now removed following that logic.

Apart from laptops, I've never known a CPU overheat, even on stock fans.

You said you use TThrottle to slow your PCs to prevent that.
For me, any throttling from full turbo is a personal affront, so if I'm not on the verge of overheating at all times I'm disappointed!

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Why the WCG and not the Rosetta? I can only guess it has to do with the "switch between tasks" setting, which I currently have set to a little longer than a Rosetta work unit requires.

No, it's not to do with the Switch between Tasks setting- it is all about your Resource share settings

Yes. And I'd agree with Robert's list of the order of priorities that tasks run from the few occasions I've seen it come into operation over the years.
And moreso with the setting Eric is using. He's taking 'Switch between tasks" out of the equation altogether unless a task runs longer than 500 minutes.

NB- Use at most xx% of CPU time is best set at 100%. Reduce the number of cores in use (Use at most xx% of the CPUs) if heat is an issue (or improve the system cooling).
Suspend when non-BOINC CPU usage is above xx% is best not being selected at all. If BOINC processing does affect another programme, you can use the Exclusive Application option to stop BOINC when that particular programme is running.

As I suggested earlier, yes.
After making that change, and having already slightly increased the RAM allocated to Boinc, the only remaining change is to see if the 4th core can be run (CPUs 100%) to see if it'll now fit into RAM.
An extra 10% (800Mb) might make all the difference

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[quote] What's easiest is to set Rosetta at say 50%, WCG at 25% and some other project at 25% and let Boinc figure it out,which it will do over time.Just be sure to keep your cache sizes small so you don't run into deadline problems. [quote]

I was trying to get the six Rosetta tasks completed by their 2 July deadline, but that didn't work out. Today I had 13 download failures and one upload failure and they're all gone. Rosetta is trying to download 6 more, but they are taking very long and I they may fail as well.

OOopps. I paused my other projects and all six just now downloaded successfully. They are due on 4 July. I have to suspend most of them to let Asteroids and WCG catch up. But I will let them resume in a short while.

Is it possible that these things happen because this "low-spec" computer was trying to run two Rosetta tasks while two Asteroids and one WCG tasks were running or waiting to run?

Maybe I should add some more RAM? It only has 8 gigs.

Steven Gaber
Oldsmar, FL

Apart from laptops, I've never known a CPU overheat, even on stock fans.

Ha ha ha LOL.

I had to comment as I have in fact been plagued with a CPU Overtemp F1 error on my daily driver since I put it together. Baffling thing is that it was tripping at 80° C. when the cpu spec for thermal throttling is 95° and self-protection at 105°C.
But others with the same motherboard and cpu would state they had no issues running to 105° C. before they hit an overtemp error.

This is on a system with excellent custom cooling and runs with my normal BOINC load with temps around 70° C. Only when stress testing would I overtemp.

Also ignoring the time period when a certain BIOS revision turned off all motherboard fan headers sporadically and as expected the system would overtemp and shut down. Took the mobo OEM six months to fix that BIOS issue.

Thankfully I finally figured it out after several years with some OCN forum help. Just was a benign BIOS setting on my host that did not behave normally or as expected. A quirk for this system not replicated on others.

What's easiest is to set Rosetta at say 50%, WCG at 25% and some other project at 25% and let Boinc figure it out,which it will do over time.Just be sure to keep your cache sizes small so you don't run into deadline problems.

I was trying to get the six Rosetta tasks completed by their 2 July deadline, but that didn't work out. Today I had 13 download failures and one upload failure and they're all gone. Rosetta is trying to download 6 more, but they are taking very long and I they may fail as well.

OOopps. I paused my other projects and all six just now downloaded successfully. They are due on 4 July. I have to suspend most of them to let Asteroids and WCG catch up. But I will let them resume in a short while.

Is it possible that these things happen because this "low-spec" computer was trying to run two Rosetta tasks while two Asteroids and one WCG tasks were running or waiting to run?

Maybe I should add some more RAM? It only has 8 gigs.

8Gb RAM ought to be plenty for a 2-core processor.
Have you looked at the previous advice in this thread and compared to your own settings (even though the advice was for a different machine)? There should be plenty for you to consider.
Boinc <ought> to be able to give your other projects enough time to complete before their deadlines without you having to suspend them. The longer you can run without interfering, the better Boinc will be able to decide for you.

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What's easiest is to set Rosetta at say 50%, WCG at 25% and some orther project at 25% andlet Boinc figure it out,which it will do over time.Just besure to keep your cache sizes small so you don't run into deadline problems. With Rosetta's 3 day deadline if you have 3 days of work NO other projects will crunch because their deadline will be further out than 3 days.

Where are these resource share settings hidden?
Eric

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system: up-to-date Windows 10, Intel quad-core 3.6 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM

Apart from laptops, I've never known a CPU overheat, even on stock fans.

Ha ha ha LOL.

I didn't like to say...
When I first began overclocking, but before I began to take cooling seriously, I took my PC to a repair shop only to be shown the sockets I had literally melted.
And over a few processors in this machine, I've blown two other motherboards.
But apart from that, never...

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I was trying to get the six Rosetta tasks completed by their 2 July deadline, but that didn't work out. Today I had 13 download failures and one upload failure and they're all gone. Rosetta is trying to download 6 more, but they are taking very long and I they may fail as well.

OOopps. I paused my other projects and all six just now downloaded successfully. They are due on 4 July. I have to suspend most of them to let Asteroids and WCG catch up. But I will let them resume in a short while.

Is it possible that these things happen because this "low-spec" computer was trying to run two Rosetta tasks while two Asteroids and one WCG tasks were running or waiting to run?

No, the problem (apart from the download issues) is that you keep fiddling with things.
As long as you set things, then let BOINC do it's job then they will settle down. But if you keep suspending, unsuspending, changing when BOINC can & can't run, then there is no chance of things ever settling down.

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Grant
Darwin NT

What's easiest is to set Rosetta at say 50%, WCG at 25% and some orther project at 25% andlet Boinc figure it out,which it will do over time.Just besure to keep your cache sizes small so you don't run into deadline problems. With Rosetta's 3 day deadline if you have 3 days of work NO other projects will crunch because their deadline will be further out than 3 days.

Where are these resource share settings hidden?

In your account, Rosetta@ home preferences, Resource share.
The number there isn't a percentage. It makes up the ratio for the work to be done with the values from you other projects.

And changing that, will delay even further your Resource share settings being met.

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Grant
Darwin NT

What's easiest is to set Rosetta at say 50%, WCG at 25% and some orther project at 25% and let Boinc figure it out,which it will do over time. Just be sure to keep your cache sizes small so you don't run into deadline problems. With Rosetta's 3 day deadline if you have 3 days of work NO other projects will crunch because their deadline will be further out than 3 days.

Where are these resource share settings hidden?

In your account, Rosetta@ home preferences, Resource share.
The number there isn't a percentage. It makes up the ratio for the work to be done with the values from you other projects.
And changing that, will delay even further your Resource share settings being met.

Thanks, Grant. I've always just used the local preferences in BOINC. I now see what I presume is the default setting of 100 in my Rosetta prefs. But no corresponding setting in WCG (my one other project). No matter as I'm planning to continue sitting back per your suggestion and watch how BOINC balances the two projects. It piques my curiosity when, as it has a couple times over the past couple days, BOINC pauses a nearly complete Rosetta unit due in less than 2 days to download and start processing a shorter-duration OpenPandemic unit that is due in five days. All shall be revealed in the fullness of time.
Eric

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system: up-to-date Windows 10, Intel quad-core 3.6 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM

[snip]

Thanks, Grant. I've always just used the local preferences in BOINC. I now see what I presume is the default setting of 100 in my Rosetta prefs. But no corresponding setting in WCG (my one other project). No matter as I'm planning to continue sitting back per your suggestion and watch how BOINC balances the two projects. It piques my curiosity when, as it has a couple times over the past couple days, BOINC pauses a nearly complete Rosetta unit due in less than 2 days to download and start processing a shorter-duration OpenPandemic unit that is due in five days. All shall be revealed in the fullness of time.
Eric

WCG places that setting under Device Profiles. Once you select which profile to edit, you may need to select Custom Profile, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see where you can set it, labelled Project weight.

Thanks, Grant. I've always just used the local preferences in BOINC. I now see what I presume is the default setting of 100 in my Rosetta prefs. But no corresponding setting in WCG (my one other project). No matter as I'm planning to continue sitting back per your suggestion and watch how BOINC balances the two projects. It piques my curiosity when, as it has a couple times over the past couple days, BOINC pauses a nearly complete Rosetta unit due in less than 2 days to download and start processing a shorter-duration OpenPandemic unit that is due in five days. All shall be revealed in the fullness of time.
Eric

WCG places that setting under Device Profiles. Once you select which profile to edit, you may need to select Custom Profile, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see where you can set it, labelled Project weight.

Thanks, Robert. I feel a bit silly having missed Device Manager. Now I see under the custom option that it's set to 60% max. Tempted to adjust that now, but restraining myself for the time being.
Eric

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system: up-to-date Windows 10, Intel quad-core 3.6 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM

Thanks, Grant. I've always just used the local preferences in BOINC. I now see what I presume is the default setting of 100 in my Rosetta prefs. But no corresponding setting in WCG (my one other project). No matter as I'm planning to continue sitting back per your suggestion and watch how BOINC balances the two projects. It piques my curiosity when, as it has a couple times over the past couple days, BOINC pauses a nearly complete Rosetta unit due in less than 2 days to download and start processing a shorter-duration OpenPandemic unit that is due in five days. All shall be revealed in the fullness of time.
Eric

WCG places that setting under Device Profiles. Once you select which profile to edit, you may need to select Custom Profile, then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see where you can set it, labelled Project weight.

Thanks, Robert. I feel a bit silly having missed Device Manager. Now I see under the custom option that it's set to 60% max. Tempted to adjust that now, but restraining myself for the time being.
Eric

You can see what the setting is set to right now in the Boinc Manager under the Projects tab, it's one of the colums.

Another knob to twist is a setting in the cc_config.xml file. It shortens the averaging period of your projects credit accumulation in BOINC's attempt to balance credit weighting.

<rec_half_life_days>1.000000</rec_half_life_days>

is the value I use. REC stands for Recent Estimated Credit. The client default is ten days and that means it takes a solid two weeks of constant production before the credit scales balance between all your projects.

And what that means is that it takes that long before the resource share ratio between all your projects takes at least two weeks to stabilize. You still have to deal with the differences in project work deadlines if there is a great disparity from one to the others.

By shortening the balance averaging period to a single day, projects play nicely with each other . . . . mostly.

Recently, I've been stepping down my target time from 22 hours to 8 hours. Now that it's at 8 hours, I'm getting more tasks that have COVID in their names. This COULD mean that the project scientists want their COVID-19 work returned fast, even if less time is spent on it. Could those who have been experimenting with target times below 8 hours mention how those times affect how often you get COVID-19 tasks?

Also, I've noticed that the initial value of time remaining seems now seems to be about 8 hours, regardless of what target time you have set.

Recently, I've been stepping down my target time from 22 hours to 8 hours. Now that it's at 8 hours, I'm getting more tasks that have COVID in their names. This COULD mean that the project scientists want their COVID-19 work returned fast, even if less time is spent on it.

Or just the fact you are doing more Tasks, so there is a a greater chance of getting a particular type of Task if it is available at the time as you are requesting work more often.

Also, I've noticed that the initial value of time remaining seems now seems to be about 8 hours, regardless of what target time you have set.

If that is the case, then there is a problem with the Projects revised Estimated deadline mechanism.
It should be based on the users Target CPU time setting, not the project's default Target CPU time setting.

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Grant
Darwin NT

I've noticed the same: Tasks are arriving with an 8 hour estimated completion time.
Setting is at 12 hours.

Recently, I've been stepping down my target time from 22 hours to 8 hours. Now that it's at 8 hours, I'm getting more tasks that have COVID in their names. This COULD mean that the project scientists want their COVID-19 work returned fast, even if less time is spent on it.

Or just the fact you are doing more Tasks, so there is a a greater chance of getting a particular type of Task if it is available at the time as you are requesting work more often.

I'm seeing a higher percentage of the tasks on my computer at any one time having COVID in their names.

That will indirectly mean more total tasks with COVID in their names, but that's not the point.