Edstrung

Hey folks, this isn't the first time I have had this problem, and it didn't get solved last time and i ended up taking 2 months off folding due to it.

My CPU will not run the VMWare Suse/Ubuntu so I am limited to the 3 Windows clients - GUI, Console, WinSMP. I used to use GUI but then I realised how amazingly slow it is ^^

I changed over to WinSMP and noticed an amazing difference. The WU takes just as long, except it is probably doing 10-20x as much work. My only problem is, I cannot run my PC 24/7 except maybe on weekends so I therefore need to shutdown the Client before I shutdown the PC, and this is where the problem lies...

I had just left my PC on for 36 hours and completed a lovely WU for 1500 points (1k ppd, sweeeet) and let it run on to the next WU, and it had completed ~25%. From the F@H forum I noted that 'Ctrl + C' was the best way to close the client before a reboot/shutdown so I did just that.

When I started the core up this morning, 'Improper shutdown' was the first txt seen, and then optimisations were off, then the core failed and restarted. Ive just lost work, and will continue to lose work until I can find a decent way of shutting down the client. Any solutions please???

Also, I tried to run a 3dmark05 last night, and ended up with scores about 2k less than what I should be getting at stock. This imo was due to the msiexec process still running after the core was shutdown, I even terminated the process and it started back up. I am sure this is a main part of the SMP folding process, but it shouldn't be running. Again, any idea?

Thanks in advance

Edstrung

Just to say I returned to my home PC and I had done 3% of the same WU in 9 hours. Have uninstalled WinSMP F@H untill I get a solution. Absolutely no point having the rig running at 100% all day if it's doing squat....

Shame, all this needs is a way to close down the core and start it up correctly and I would be folding more. This way I'll be doing a WU each weekend and that's it

Knitelife

Few things.

When I shut down a SMP client I use the Cntrl+C in the console window. I have not had a corrupted WU yet on windows SMP, might just be lucky, but it has worked for me.

The mpiexec service may always be running on your computer. It should not use much processor time at all, even when you are folding, but for sure it should remain inactive when you are not folding. To be sure on your systems, check your cpu usage for the process in the task manager.

If you kill the mpiexec process from taskmanager, Windows may just try to restart it. That is how windows services work. If you truely want to shut down a windows service, you need to go into control panel->administrative tools->services, and actually stop the service from there.


Also, I notice you referenced msiexec, this is a different program than mpiexec. Msiexec is part of windows installer program. Mpiexec is part of the folding program.

If you are having an issue with msiexec slowing down your system, you may have a problem with some application you recently installled.

Last of all, that is great that you are able to run SMP on your system, be carefull to monitor your estimated completion times if you have to shut the computer down a lot during the week. SMP WUs have a deadline between 3 and 4 days. If your system requires 1.5 days to finish the WU running 24/7, is would be frustrating to loose a WU because you had to shut down your system and did not get back to it for 2 days.

Hope this helps and you dont loose any more WUs.

Edstrung

On the mpiexec/msiexec that might just be me screwing up in recollection, but I was idling at 31% cpu usage, then got rid of it and back to 1 or 2% idle.

The only thing I have installed recently is the WinSMP client, so it can only be the client that is messing anything up.

All I want to be able to do is to shutdown the core for 8 hours each night. On that note, I will complete a 3 WUs every 5 days 'if' I can get it to start up again....

Thanks for the reply Knitelife

Knitelife

One last thing to try. Beside using Ctrl-C to end the console, I always run the install.bat file before restarting the client, even after a reboot. The name of the file install.bat may be a bit missleading. It should be called restartservices.bat. It kills and restart smpd and mpiexec. I do this to be sure that a previous copy is not running for some reason that may cause corruption when a start the client.

Edstrung

Nice, I'll give it a go

Edstrung

Bah it looked promising, but got to 13% yesterday on a fresh core, shut it down for the night, ran the install.bat file and all appeared fine.

When the core started up this morning after install.bat, the message 'Previous termination of core was improper' still appeared and the speed again is slow as sh**.

I know WinSMP is beta, but that shouldn't mean I have to run it for 24/7 to get anything out of it?

The Pook

WinSMP is buggy. I had the same problem. Jumped to Linux to SMP fold in that.

__________________
|| CPUs: A64 3000+ @ 2.81Ghz .:. C2D E6300 @ 3.608Ghz (RIP) .:. C2D E2140 @ 3.2Ghz .:. 4th Best Intel OC @ OCN
|| GPUs: Fastest 7600GT @ OCN (w/E6300) .:. 126,230 AM3 (7600GT)
|| Mah tidbit: Doing a complete new build (everything!) at the end of Summer 2009.

Edstrung

Shame I cant run the virtualisation to LinuxSMP fold

Knitelife

Edstrung,

Try using the -forceasm flag when staring the console. It tells the system to ingore if the previous shutdown was bad. Otherwise, if the system thinks there was a problem, the system uses standard loops instead of advanced loops, which will be much slower.

I just create a shortcut for the folding client and include it.