Although it is a short read, you can read about this bug (and how we confirmed it a bug and what we've tried for a workaround) here: http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=3872


In summary:

I downloaded and installed Boinc 5.10.30 last Friday on a Windows XP Pro machine that *never* had Boinc...after installing it, the "Use at most ____ % CPU Time" option is missing. Totally bizarre. It should be located at Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present.

So, I downloaded and installed the same version last night onto my home machine (which has been running boinc 5.10.20 for months) upgraded it to .30, and the option is there as it should be.


This problem has been confirmed by others...if installing on a clean machine, the problem exists. If upgrading 5.10.20, the problem is NOT present.

Again, please see the hyperlink above for a very short read.

As more and more people download Boinc 5.10.30 and discover no way to throttle Boinc, they will likely quit the project(s).

-Eric

? No panic. Have you tried applying the 'Clear' button in local prefs? updating the website profile might create the entry in the global_prefs.xml and else it can be manually edited into the global_prefs_override.xml until the bug is fixed.

WCG has a default of 60% on the website profile, which if not present in the local prefs overrides the 'missing' setting. The 60% translates to 3 seconds at 100% CPU idle cycle use and 0% for 2 seconds. For 6.x BOINC seems to do it at 1/10 of a second precision meaning 0.6 second at 100% and 0.4 seconds pause.

The BOINC throttle is in its present incarnation a hmmmm and for some projects / platforms been in fact a source of task crashes. On laptops the 60% can lead to the fan going off and on due temp fluctuations, thus 50% is recommended.

(are there any other projects that have a 'throttled' default setting?)

I can try the Clear button tomorrow...but I doubt that will fix it.

No, the only project I run is Rosetta@Home...I have a few computers running all on XP 32 bit and 1 Mac client.

The main reason I throttle (only some computers I have are throttled, some run at 100% 24x7) is because of the bug (that's been around for like 2 years now) that running at 100% fails to allow DDE to run properly...for example, running at 100% and then trying to double-click on a Word or Excel file...it takes 40-90 seconds for the file to open. During that time, the system seems frozen. Ditto if I try pressing the Windows button and E to open Windows Explorer. I have to set the throttle at 70% which allows the double-click to open the document in under 8 seconds. If (at 100% cpu utilization) I open Word, Word opens immediately...then I do File>Open and the document opens normally. So it's just double-clicking files which launch the application. A pain.

Not to hijack my own thread but I've never seen an official "we'll fix that DDE bug" statement from the Boinc dev team. The bug did not always exist...I forget what version it reared it's head but again, sometime in 2006 I believe.

Thanks.


-Eric

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The main reason I throttle (only some computers I have are throttled, some run at 100% 24x7) is because of the bug (that's been around for like 2 years now) that running at 100% fails to allow DDE to run properly...for example, running at 100% and then trying to double-click on a Word or Excel file...it takes 40-90 seconds for the file to open. During that time, the system seems frozen. Ditto if I try pressing the Windows button and E to open Windows Explorer. I have to set the throttle at 70% which allows the double-click to open the document in under 8 seconds.

I have been lately having related problems: opening context menus on Windows Explorer and double-clicking files take like 5 seconds. But it happens even with BOINC snoozed or closed.

Win+E has always been instant.

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Eric, if clearing the local setting AND updating the website profile (make a change and save and hit the Update button in the BOINCmgr Projects tab after selecting CPDN) does not work, edit into global_prefs_override.xml the next line:

<cpu_usage_limit>60.0</cpu_usage_limit>

Alternate try setting <max_cpus>2</max_cpus> to 1 while changing the above line to 100.0 . That will run 1 core and overall 50%. Maybe that allows enough to get your office apps working. There is a 'advanced' menu option to "Read Local Prefs File", to effectuate these manual changes without stopping/starting BOINC.

Never experienced these delays with either MSOffice or File Explorer on any of the machines. OpenOfficeCalc sometimes shows extreme loading delays. For Vista its said that the file handling will be substantially improved with SP1. Sourly needed.

Wow. Now this is bizarre. I looked at the machine today and magically the option is there! WTF?!

I had noticed this morning that the machine had reported its first WU...I wonder if "phoning home" somehow solved it.

But, as others have stated, the problem is reproduceable on a machine that has never had Boinc installed.

This problem really should be researched...it's not hard to reproduce...and I would think that the dev team would have a few pcs around for testing...some Ghost images would make this a very quick and repeatable test.

-Eric

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....
The main reason I throttle (only some computers I have are throttled, some run at 100% 24x7) is because of the bug (that's been around for like 2 years now) that running at 100% fails to allow DDE to run properly...for example, running at 100% and then trying to double-click on a Word or Excel file...it takes 40-90 seconds for the file to open. During that time, the system seems frozen. Ditto if I try pressing the Windows button and E to open Windows Explorer. I have to set the throttle at 70% which allows the double-click to open the document in under 8 seconds. If (at 100% cpu utilization) I open Word, Word opens immediately...then I do File>Open and the document opens normally. So it's just double-clicking files which launch the application. A pain.

Not to hijack my own thread but I've never seen an official "we'll fix that DDE bug" statement from the Boinc dev team. The bug did not always exist...I forget what version it reared it's head but again, sometime in 2006 I believe.

Thanks.

-Eric

What sort of machine are you running? There's a similar report of DDE failure in this thread at SETI. Turned out not to be BOINC at all, but a specific piece of OEM preinstall software on an IBM Thinkpad. Details in the thread.

On the Mac client, the preferences window appears shorter than it should be every time BM is installed from scratch, which results on hiding of some options, such as this one. To be able to access all options, I have to stretch the preferences window downwards. Could this be the case as well on Win XP?