Forum::BOINC::Constant Write to Disk

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-03-17 17:53:08

Sorry if this in in the wrong forum.
Currently running 4 projects. SETI, Climate Prediction, LHC@home and Rosetta. These run on a 4Gb quad core with nVidia GPU support and a 500Gb HDD. The Paging File has been set as various options from Auto all the way up to 9Gb to no avail. The system writes to disk constantly. I tried shutting down the GPU first - no difference. Then one by one each project has been shut down until now I am left with only Rosetta running. I even tried shutting down various CPU cores - problem remains even down to one core. The system still constantly writes to disk. In fact it actuallt took out a HDD it was working so hard for so long. After restore I am back to where I started with BOINC always writing to HDD. I tried changing the write to disk options from 60 seconds to 3 minutes - same result - continuous writing to disk. If I shut down all BOINC activity the system returns to normal. I am running BOINC 6.10.58 on a Win XP Pro system. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

STE\/E: Tester; BAM!ID: 57534; Joined: 2008-08-27; Posts: 2078; Credits: 1,915,791,062,362; World-rank: 2

2011-03-17 19:01:10

If the System returns to normal after shutting BOINC Down then it has to be 1 of the Projects causing it, try running without Rosetta running and see if it still happens. If it doesn't then go to the Start Menu & click on Run ... Then type in services.msc & hit enter

Once in the Services go to Indexing Service, Right Click on it and select Properties. Stop & then Disable the Service & see if that stops the constant writing when running BOINC. If it does great, if it doesn't it must be some other Program causing the Writing but I don't know what since I don't know what you have installed on your particular Computer...

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-03-18 17:50:42

Steve* wrote:

If the System returns to normal after shutting BOINC Down then it has to be 1 of the Projects causing it, try running without Rosetta running and see if it still happens. If it doesn't then go to the Start Menu & click on Run ... Then type in services.msc & hit enter. Once in the Services go to Indexing Service, Right Click on it and select Properties. Stop & then Disable the Service & see if that stops the constant writing when running BOINC. If it does great, if it doesn't it must be some other Program causing the Writing but I don't know what since I don't know what you have installed on your particular Computer...

I'll give that a try as soon as the current Rosetta WU are done (4 hrs from now). I checked the Indexing Service and it is completely disabled already.

Thanks for the help!

noderaser: BAM!ID: 13859; Joined: 2006-12-03; Posts: 842; Credits: 585,444,059; World-rank: 3,520

2011-03-19 04:26:27

BarryM wrote:

The Paging File has been set as various options from Auto all the way up to 9Gb to no avail.

The paging file is on your hard disk; increasing its size won't help to reduce the thrashing you're encountering. I would also make sure of the general health of your PC; anti-virus/anti-malware, defrag, etc..

Have you taken a look at the task manager to see which process is eating up all the memory? I know Vista and 7 will give you more details about page file usage (including process information); there might be a third-party utility for XP that will give you that info to help with your troubleshooting.

As a general note, 4GB on a quad-core isn't much; that's only 1GB per core for your crunching, on top of system and user requirements. You might try reducing the number of cores that BOINC uses to see if that helps any.

Click here to see My Detailed BOINC Stats

magyarficko: BAM!ID: 76666; Joined: 2009-10-30; Posts: 619; Credits: 287,367,952; World-rank: 5,878

2011-03-19 17:35:51

noderaser wrote:

You might try reducing the number of cores that BOINC uses to see if that helps any.

From his original post ...

I even tried shutting down various CPU cores - problem remains even down to one core.

STE\/E: Tester; BAM!ID: 57534; Joined: 2008-08-27; Posts: 2078; Credits: 1,915,791,062,362; World-rank: 2

2011-03-19 18:33:41

Best thing to do is what noderaser said about looking at the Task Manager & see if something stands out as using the CPU beside BOINC Wu's, could be the BOINC Manager or Client them selves. I've had that happen to several Box's before but it always was 1 Project causing it, once I stopped running that Project the Dick Thrashing stopped ...

magyarficko: BAM!ID: 76666; Joined: 2009-10-30; Posts: 619; Credits: 287,367,952; World-rank: 5,878

2011-03-19 20:03:55
last modified: 2011-03-19 20:06:52

Steve* wrote:

... once I stopped running that Project the Dick Thrashing stopped ...

Dick Thrashing ????

Anyways, agree with use of Task Manager, but monitoring I/O activity would probably give more insight to disk acivity than checking cpu use.

STE\/E: Tester; BAM!ID: 57534; Joined: 2008-08-27; Posts: 2078; Credits: 1,915,791,062,362; World-rank: 2

2011-03-19 20:29:36

lol ... so much for my Proof Reading ...

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-03-22 14:17:51

Steve* wrote:

lol ... so much for my Proof Reading ...

It was humorous . . .

Anyway - I am going to do a major bit of housekeeping on the system including Virus, Malware and defrag etc. Then I'll take a look at the I/O to see what the heck is keeping this system running flat out.

I'll get back with the result. Thanks for all the input. It is appreciated.

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-03-25 20:59:23

Anyway - I am going to do a major bit of housekeeping on the system including Virus, Malware and defrag etc. Then I'll take a look at the I/O to see what the heck is keeping this system running flat out.
I'll get back with the result. Thanks for all the input. It is appreciated.

Well this system is so clean it should squeak!. Didn't find a thing out of the ordinary. Task Manager shows all CPU cores running flat out but all 4 cores are enabled in BOINC. As soon as I stop BOINC all writing to disk stop within a minute or so. BOINC is using the most CPU and memory - but only 1.7Gb of the paging file - nothing else comes close. I am now going to let all WU's finish from all projects and then restart 1 at a time to see where things end up. If I get this resolved or not, I will let everyone know.

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-04-07 14:27:22

BarryM wrote:

[quote]Anyway - I am going to do a major bit of housekeeping on the system including Virus, Malware and defrag etc. Then I'll take a look at the I/O to see what the heck is keeping this system running flat out.
I'll get back with the result. Thanks for all the input. It is appreciated.

I have run up against a wall. Everything I tried failed to stop the disk thrashing (I proofed that . . )
1. Task Manager shows only BOINC as the heaviest user of resources.
2. Running BOINC 6.10.58 for XP Pro with 4GB RAM - can't address anymore as far as I know.
3. MSconfig cleared of everything I could find that might use resources (after looking each up on the web for effect of a shut down)
4. System Services cleared on all indexing.
5. Virus scan (3 times with diff programs).
6. CCleaner ran.
7. Malwar4 Bytes ran.
8. Adaware and Spybot ran and removed (in case of a conflict )
Nothing out of the ordinary shows up.

There is one thing I haven't looked up; the machine is running over clocked - not very much but 2.6 to 3.6. Is anyone aware that running a machine overclocked causes a problem for BOINC 6.10XX? If over clocking is not the issues I have one option left.
I am going to install a new 1TB SATA drive (64Mb cache) and install Windows 7 x64. I will then install BOINC all by itself and monitor the result.

STE\/E: Tester; BAM!ID: 57534; Joined: 2008-08-27; Posts: 2078; Credits: 1,915,791,062,362; World-rank: 2

2011-04-07 22:09:23

There is one thing I haven't looked up; the machine is running over clocked - not very much but 2.6 to 3.6. Is anyone aware that running a machine overclocked causes a problem for BOINC 6.10XX?

Overclocking can possibly cause problems with any BOINC Client but I highly doubt it's causing your Disk Thrashing ... IMO

BarryM: BAM!ID: 6961; Joined: 2006-09-24; Posts: 8; Credits: 69,173,854; World-rank: 15,191

2011-06-14 15:17:19

I said I would get back with an update. This will be my final post on this issue. After a complete redo of the O/S to Win 7 x64, an update to 64 bit BOINC, memory testing etc. all my disk thrashing remains. While it is nice to contribute to the good work done it simply is no longer worth the expense of replacing my HDD - now on my second 1TB drive. I will be removing this one quad core for all BOINC tasks until the problem goes away or all projects are stopped and the computer returned to normal non-BOINC use.

Thanks to all who chimed in with help / comments.

BarryM wrote:

[quote=BarryM]

Anyway - I am going to do a major bit of housekeeping on the system including Virus, Malware and defrag etc. Then I'll take a look at the I/O to see what the heck is keeping this system running flat out.
I'll get back with the result. Thanks for all the input. It is appreciated.

I have run up against a wall. Everything I tried failed to stop the disk thrashing (I proofed that . . )
1. Task Manager shows only BOINC as the heaviest user of resources.
2. Running BOINC 6.10.58 for XP Pro with 4GB RAM - can't address anymore as far as I know.
3. MSconfig cleared of everything I could find that might use resources (after looking each up on the web for effect of a shut down)
4. System Services cleared on all indexing.
5. Virus scan (3 times with diff programs).
6. CCleaner ran.
7. Malwar4 Bytes ran.
8. Adaware and Spybot ran and removed (in case of a conflict )
Nothing out of the ordinary shows up.

There is one thing I haven't looked up; the machine is running over clocked - not very much but 2.6 to 3.6. Is anyone aware that running a machine overclocked causes a problem for BOINC 6.10XX? If over clocking is not the issues I have one option left.
I am going to install a new 1TB SATA drive (64Mb cache) and install Windows 7 x64. I will then install BOINC all by itself and monitor the result.

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