For the last several days, Rosetta@home will not let me use my computer. A black screen is only shown. Not the screensaver. I have to repeatedly tap on my mouse or the space bar to get up my computer's abort program. It says that Rosetta@home is not responding. I then shut it down. Oddly, there's another Rosetta@home program running (white icon on my task bar) that is also not responding. When I click on it, it also calls up a black screen, I have to repeatedly tap on my mouse/spacebar to call up my abort program, and then use the abort program to shut it down.

This is happening several times a day. Not always though. Sometimes it operates as it should.

What you are describing sounds very much like a computer which is undergoing a high degree of memory contention. That is why it takes so long for your to control things, because it needs to push other active tasks out of memory before it can run the task which allows you to control things.

With 4 CPUs and 5GB of memory on your machine, it probably gets a little tight on memory if you are running in to large memory tasks on all 4 CPUs at the same time. Since some tasks do not require as much memory as others, this could very well explain why you say things work normally sometimes and not others. It would just be a factor of which work units you are processing at the time.

If this is a computer that you are using, in addition to running BOINC, then I'd suggest you review your BOINC preferences and reduce the percentage of memory that BOINC is allowed to use. This will potentially reduce the number of active BOINC tasks on the machine such that less than all 4 CPUs are busy. You might also configure BOINC to force it to use less than all of the CPUs. But since memory seems to be the problem, that would not be my suggested course.

If you would really like to keep all CPUs busy at all times, and still must use the machine for other things, I'd suggest that if you currently have R@h as your only project, that you add another project for at least a 25% resource share, which uses less memory. WCG has several projects that require very little memory to run, and you can specifically select subprojects which use less memory if that meets your other goals.

By adding WCG, and reducing the % of memory BOINC is allowed to use, you will essentially be giving the BOINC Manager enough information to figure out how to run things in a manner that keeps the CPUs busy, and if the memory used by WUs grows beyond your preference it will suspend it and pick up another which uses less memory. Be sure to also set your preference to keep suspended tasks in memory. This is really virtual memory, not physical memory. So it will avoid losing work done between the last checkpoint and the point where the memory preference was exceeded.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

What you are describing sounds very much like a computer which is undergoing a high degree of memory contention. That is why it takes so long for your to control things, because it needs to push other active tasks out of memory before it can run the task which allows you to control things.

With 4 CPUs and 5GB of memory on your machine, it probably gets a little tight on memory if you are running in to large memory tasks on all 4 CPUs at the same time. Since some tasks do not require as much memory as others, this could very well explain why you say things work normally sometimes and not others. It would just be a factor of which work units you are processing at the time.

If this is a computer that you are using, in addition to running BOINC, then I'd suggest you review your BOINC preferences and reduce the percentage of memory that BOINC is allowed to use. This will potentially reduce the number of active BOINC tasks on the machine such that less than all 4 CPUs are busy. You might also configure BOINC to force it to use less than all of the CPUs. But since memory seems to be the problem, that would not be my suggested course.

If you would really like to keep all CPUs busy at all times, and still must use the machine for other things, I'd suggest that if you currently have R@h as your only project, that you add another project for at least a 25% resource share, which uses less memory. WCG has several projects that require very little memory to run, and you can specifically select subprojects which use less memory if that meets your other goals.

By adding WCG, and reducing the % of memory BOINC is allowed to use, you will essentially be giving the BOINC Manager enough information to figure out how to run things in a manner that keeps the CPUs busy, and if the memory used by WUs grows beyond your preference it will suspend it and pick up another which uses less memory. Be sure to also set your preference to keep suspended tasks in memory. This is really virtual memory, not physical memory. So it will avoid losing work done between the last checkpoint and the point where the memory preference was exceeded.

My first thought was also memory, but that computer is reporting 5.5GB (I presume 6 minus graphics). Could it therefore be an issue with the graphics driver or some other part of the screensaver crashing?

Scott - if you turn the screensaver off (and just have the monitor switch off) do you still see the same problem when coming back to the computer?

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Scott - if you turn the screensaver off (and just have the monitor switch off) do you still see the same problem when coming back to the computer?

How do I turn off the screensaver?

Scott - if you turn the screensaver off (and just have the monitor switch off) do you still see the same problem when coming back to the computer?

How do I turn off the screensaver?

Right click on the desktop -> Personalize -> Screen Saver -> Choose preferred screen saver (I recommend 'Blank' @ 5 min) -> OK.

And you can reduce the amount of memory that BOINC is allowed to use by opening BOINC Manager (Advanced View) -> Tools -> Computing preferences -> Disk and memory usage and select 80% "idle" and 70% "in use" or something among those numbers should do it, beware though that if BOINC is not allowed enough memory, then it won't be able to use all your CPU's cores at the same time.

A reasonable amount of RAM allowance for Rosetta@Home is around 500 MB per core. You should set your so that BOINC is allowed about 2-2.5GB of RAM. That way you'll have 2.5-3 GB of RAM for the rest of the system and won't have any hiccups.

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I appreciate the suggestions, BUT why is this just now happening? I've been running Rosetta@home for months now and only now (in the last several days) is this problem occurring. Same computer and same operating system for all those months. Why is it now occurring?

I would like to have my computer help Rosetta@home as much as it can. And it has been doing that. It is, again, just recently that I have been experiencing this problem.

I appreciate the suggestions, BUT why is this just now happening? I've been running Rosetta@home for months now and only now (in the last several days) is this problem occurring. Same computer and same operating system for all those months. Why is it now occurring?

I would like to have my computer help Rosetta@home as much as it can. And it has been doing that. It is, again, just recently that I have been experiencing this problem.

After reading your OP again, it appears that this is more of a screensaver problem rather than RAM. The screensaver tends to act weird when running certain kinds of WUs (specially the RAM-hungry ones). For instance, I sometimes can't even open up the graphics for WUs that are really big (the screensaver becomes a huge task to deal with under these workunits). So your best fix is to just turn the automatic screensaver off and look at the graphics whenever you feel like looking at them. This way Rosetta will have a lower impact on performance AND you'll contribute even more to science (and your RAC will go up!).

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So your best fix is to just turn the automatic screensaver off and look at the graphics whenever you feel like looking at them. This way Rosetta will have a lower impact on performance AND you'll contribute even more to science (and your RAC will go up!).

If that will enable me to help the project more, I'll do that. However, how do I turn it off? I followed your directions above for making it go blank after five minutes but I don't see an "off" option. Would that be the "(none)" option or would that also turn off BIONC?

So your best fix is to just turn the automatic screensaver off and look at the graphics whenever you feel like looking at them. This way Rosetta will have a lower impact on performance AND you'll contribute even more to science (and your RAC will go up!).

If that will enable me to help the project more, I'll do that. However, how do I turn it off? I followed your directions above for making it go blank after five minutes but I don't see an "off" option. Would that be the "(none)" option or would that also turn off BIONC?

You just need to set your screensaver to something other than BOINC which it sounds like you have now done, so 'blank screen' would be fine. That just makes sure the Rosetta screensaver isn't launched when Windows launches the screensaver.

There might be some confusion caused if you believe that BOINC projects only run when the screensaver is active. Most people allow BOINC projects to run all of the time that their computer is on, and personally I never have the screensaver run. To make sure BOINC is allowed to run all of the time, open BOINC Manager, go to Tools > Computing Preferences > make sure 'Computing allowed when computer is in use' is ticked. BOINC projects run at low priority, so any other tasks that you do take priority so you shouldn't ever notice Rosetta running in the background.

HTH
Danny

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So your best fix is to just turn the automatic screensaver off and look at the graphics whenever you feel like looking at them. This way Rosetta will have a lower impact on performance AND you'll contribute even more to science (and your RAC will go up!).

If that will enable me to help the project more, I'll do that. However, how do I turn it off? I followed your directions above for making it go blank after five minutes but I don't see an "off" option. Would that be the "(none)" option or would that also turn off BIONC?

You just need to set your screensaver to something other than BOINC which it sounds like you have now done, so 'blank screen' would be fine. That just makes sure the Rosetta screensaver isn't launched when Windows launches the screensaver.

Done. I set it to "blank" after five minutes.

There might be some confusion caused if you believe that BOINC projects only run when the screensaver is active.

I was one of those that thought it only ran when the screensaver ran.

Most people allow BOINC projects to run all of the time that their computer is on, and personally I never have the screensaver run. To make sure BOINC is allowed to run all of the time, open BOINC Manager, go to Tools > Computing Preferences > make sure 'Computing allowed when computer is in use' is ticked. BOINC projects run at low priority, so any other tasks that you do take priority so you shouldn't ever notice Rosetta running in the background.

When I checked what the setting was, it was already set at "Computing allowed when computer is in use." It is left at that now.

Hopefully the above will help solve the problem I've been experiencing.

Well, you will see what happens without the screen saver... but if that doesn't make any difference, and we're back to the screen savers was acting funny because it's a high memory WU, then the reason it was not previously a problem is just that more recently here the project has been sending more tasks that require more memory than previously.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Just dropping a note. Turning off the screensaver appears to have done the trick. No problems since doing so.

Just dropping a note. Turning off the screensaver appears to have done the trick. No problems since doing so.

Your RAC has been going up as well (I believe you were below 1K when you started the thread).

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RAC???

RAC???

Recent Average Credit. It's how fast you're gaining credits over time.

If total credit is your "traveled distance" so far, then your RAC would your current "speed".

It's the last thing listed below your name in the forums.

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