Feature Requests & Need Info

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Vas

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Joined: 8 Feb 15
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Message 60174 - Posted: 8 Feb 2015, 17:06:56 UTC

First, I'll ask my question.
I recently overclocked my laptop's GPU 17.5%, and stress tested to find out if it's stable. It has virtually no heat increase or anything so I'd like to keep it like this. Is this likely to cause my calculations in any project to be more likely incorrect? I don't want to upload a bunch of invalid work after all.

And now for the feature requests. I haven't found any options in the UI for what I need & want, so I'll go ahead and suggest them. If there are advanced options that I don't know about, it would be nice to add them to the UI somewhere.
1. I would like Boinc to monitor the temp of my hardware and reduce work on any core that is going above a certain heat threshold that I specify. And by reduce, I mean limit that item by 30% for 5 minutes, and if it goes over 10 times in a row, it should set that thread/core to 70% work in the settings and put an icon or some sort of notice for the user so the user can check and see why that core was limited. If it goes above that heat threshold again when already limited, should further limit it another 30%, and if again, stop work on that core. These would be options of course to enable or disable so people wouldn't be forced to use the option. I recently overclocked my GPU, and while I haven't seen any real increase in heat, I just wanted to be on the safe side.

2. I would like to be able to assign an amount of threads / cores / GPUs per project. So I can put 3 threads on Seti, 3 threads on LHC, and 2 threads on Asteroids, and then set my GPU to alternate between each thing. (If it finishes one project on Seti, it should find one for LHC, then Asteroids, and loop back.) I just don't like the current method the system uses for switching projects. I don't want it changing projects every 30 minutes to an hour, I want it to finish one thing, then move on to the next in line or I'd like it to work on multiple things at a time.

3. I would like the ability to tell boinc to force start a project in the list. Even if it is set to run as preferences or suspended, I'd like to right click a task in my list, like say one is 98% done and I just want to finish it, I would like being able to right click it and click "force start" to make my system start working on that one or any others that are also forcefully started. Should add an icon to it that shows "force started" so a user knows he forced one to start and would need to right click it again to stop it if he wants. At one point, I actually had one project stuck going even though I suspended boinc, luckily it was barely using 60% of two of my eight threads so it didn't really disrupt anything. :P

4. I set my boinc to keep a certain amount of work available to me at all times. 2 days of total work. So I woke up one day, and saw two days of Seti@Home, but nothing for LHC or Asteroids. I want the ability to set it to give me at least 20 of each project or even let it split up the time frame of the projects so it will give me 16 hours of Seti, 16 hours of LHC, 16 hours of Asteroids.
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SekeRob2

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Message 60189 - Posted: 9 Feb 2015, 12:30:12 UTC - in response to Message 60174.  

Use the "switch between applications every nn minutes" setting to extend it to something greater than the longest runtime you see. Mine is set to 2400 minutes :D). There will still be switching once time-share is up and still as many in waiting to run as before, but many will complete in a single run.
Coelum Non Animum Mutant, Qui Trans Mare Currunt
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Vas

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Message 60314 - Posted: 15 Feb 2015, 0:21:08 UTC

I didn't like the switch every nn minutes though. That's why I suggested this.

Also, my CPU fan died, so Boinc was causing my laptop to hit nearly 210F for 15 minutes straight, I got home and moved the mouse to stop it before I noticed my CPU fan had died. This is another good reason Bionc should pay attention to the CPU temperature and the temperature of the machine.
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flakinho

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Message 60882 - Posted: 12 Mar 2015, 16:21:10 UTC - in response to Message 60314.  

Two comments:

1. I have also a feature request:
Add a feature "update all projects" in the BOINC Manager, projects label, "Commands" buttons.
It is quite easy to make an script with boinccmd, but it would be easier with an extra button.

2. I am not an expert in computer hardware but I think a regular laptop goes to more than 95 celsius (203 fahrenheit) and above when working at 85% of CPU capacity.
That seems to be fine (I have checked it in several ones) and the computer does not die because of that.
Most of them have a hardware limitation that will automatically turn off the computer above certain temperature limit (above 100-105C/212-221F as I have seen).
Besides, there are several programs to control the temperature that run in the background.
I use CoreTemp (only windows) http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/. Very nice program.
It has an Option called "Overheat Protection" that will execute an script beyond certain temperature or will sleep, hibernate or power down the computer.
You can also use TThrottle, http://efmer.com/b/, specifically for BOINC. I didn't check that option yet.
Of course, maybe you know these options, you just see more useful to incorporate that to BOINC.

Yacob
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Profile Jord
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Message 60883 - Posted: 12 Mar 2015, 16:24:53 UTC - in response to Message 60882.  

1. I have also a feature request:
Add a feature "update all projects" in the BOINC Manager, projects label, "Commands" buttons.
It is quite easy to make an script with boinccmd, but it would be easier with an extra button.

Left-click to select first project in the list, press and hold Shift on the keyboard, left-click to select the last project in the list, click Update.
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flakinho

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Message 60884 - Posted: 12 Mar 2015, 17:12:42 UTC - in response to Message 60883.  
Last modified: 12 Mar 2015, 17:13:22 UTC

Left-click to select first project in the list, press and hold Shift on the keyboard, left-click to select the last project in the list, click Update.

I know I know, but doing it like that 10 times a day is painful.
And honestly, what I would like is to be able to do it automatically on schedule by the manager.
But I guess that is too much to ask.
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Aurora Borealis
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Message 60906 - Posted: 13 Mar 2015, 0:11:07 UTC - in response to Message 60884.  

Left-click to select first project in the list, press and hold Shift on the keyboard, left-click to select the last project in the list, click Update.

I know I know, but doing it like that 10 times a day is painful.
And honestly, what I would like is to be able to do it automatically on schedule by the manager.
But I guess that is too much to ask.

And there is no reason to do it 10 times a day... Boinc automaticaly will time delay and sequence through the projects that are due for work.

Is there any other reason to do updates of projects? Stats of work done and RAC only happen when work is validated.
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flakinho

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Message 60924 - Posted: 13 Mar 2015, 15:21:10 UTC - in response to Message 60906.  

Is there any other reason to do updates of projects?

Update the stats every day.
The stats for some projects could be outdated for more than a week if BOINC don't consider them prioritary and don't communicate with them while others have work to send.

And there is no reason to do it 10 times a day... Boinc automaticaly will time delay and sequence through the projects that are due for work.

"Clean" the task list once I have reviewed that everything is all right and finished tasks are sucessfully completed, or not.
Maybe you leave BOINC to work and manage everything by itself and you don't worry at all about it.
It is not how I do it.
In my experience many projects have failed tasks once in a while, some others can hang your computer if they work with the GPU, so I keep a close eye on BOINC and as a consequence I end up monitoring everything.
Of couse I don't update 10 times a day, but I do it often enough to like the idea of an "Update all" button.
Maybe I am 1 in a million. I don't know. I just request what I would like and what I think would be useful for the program now or in the future.
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Profile Crashguard303

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Message 61450 - Posted: 7 Apr 2015, 17:53:22 UTC - in response to Message 60174.  
Last modified: 7 Apr 2015, 18:21:36 UTC

[...] 1. I would like Boinc to monitor the temp of my hardware and reduce work on any core that is going above a certain heat threshold that I specify. [...]

I can understand the idea and wish this, too, but I guess it is hard to implement, because BOINC would have to "know" all existing motherboards, some kind of "translation".

Example: I tested SpeedFan to monitor fan speed an temperatures.
It shows serveral readouts, but some positions are nonsense (-17°F or something like this).
CoreTemp also supports only certain AMD- or Intel-CPUs.

Well... to avoid this, BOINC could read everything out from the mainboard it can get and let the user select a position which makes sense.

2. I would like to be able to assign an amount of threads / cores / GPUs per project. So I can put 3 threads on Seti, 3 threads on LHC, and 2 threads on Asteroids, and then set my GPU to alternate between each thing. [...]

The GPU alternating thingy is something different, but AFAIK, you can set the workload for each project in a config file.
I also want this feature, too, because if BOINC runs 2 instances of vLHC@home simultaneously, my PC freezes after some minutes.

CPU & GPU each may have their own "switch between applications each x minutes" option.

3. I would like the ability to tell boinc to force start a project in the list. Even if it is set to run as preferences or suspended[...]

Yes, this would be nice.
Selecting & stopping all other projects (then directly releasing them again) does work, but isn't the real McCoy TMHO.
Isn't funny if there are many tasks in the list.
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Profile Crashguard303

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Message 61505 - Posted: 9 Apr 2015, 17:15:42 UTC

@Vas:
How about using TThrottle?
It keeps an eye on CPU and GPU temperature and specifically lowers core use of BOINC tasks, if a given temperature threshold is exceeded.
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Message boards : BOINC Manager : Feature Requests & Need Info

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