Been a member since 2009 but I didn't do much then but now I am back with a computer that's dedicated for 24/7 crunching. Can anyone provide any tips for tweaking my settings so I can squeeze anymore RAC out of my Dell? This machine is dedicated to BOINC as I have another computer that's my daily machine.

Specs:
Dell T7400 Server running Windows 10 Professional
2, Quad core Xeon E5450's @ 3.0Ghz and 8 cores/8 threads (100% of the CPU's + 100% of CPU time)
32Gb DDR2 ECC RAM
Asus Expedition GTX 1060 6gb (currently running 1 task (0.367 CPUs + 1 NVIDIA GPU)
WD Blue SSD 250Gb as the boot drive
WD Blue 1Tb where BOINC and SETI@home are installed
1000w 80+ Silver PSU

System temps with 5 fans set on 60% keep the cpus around 58c-62c per ambient room temps and the gpu stays around 61c at 32% fan (automatic fan control per card temps). So far from what I can tell my machine is doing a pretty good job and has me in the mid 30's rank for active RAC in Team USA and in the top 5% from what my badge says lol!

Thanks everyone! I look forward to getting to know all of you and make some friends... I also plan on visiting the Green Bank Observatory since I live 3 hours away in Tazewell, Virginia.

You should examine your bios. Under the power settings you may be able to get it to run a higher level of turbo-boost. I have discovered that if I leave speed step/turboboost enabled, and disable/reduce all the Cx states that I can get my e5-2670/e5-2690's to do the turbo boost that Intel reports. So the 2670 will boost to 2.9+ Ghz from the 2.6 Ghz base and teh 2690 will boost to 3.3Ghz from the 3Ghz base.

This "should" speed up your cpu processing some. It will also make the cpus run hotter.

HTH,
Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

I'm looking to do a 1950x Threadripper build later this year once prices on the X399 platform come down once X499 and the new Threadripper comes out.

If Threadrippers are too expensive may I recommend this AM4 MB with 6 gpu slots for that build? Its not real expensive either, Biostar TB350-BTC. Yes, I am running it here. https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8684146

Mine is new enough the RAC is still building up. I am guessing it should top 200,000 though.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Been a member since 2009 but I didn't do much then but now I am back with a computer that's dedicated for 24/7 crunching. Can anyone provide any tips for tweaking my settings so I can squeeze anymore RAC out of my Dell? This machine is dedicated to BOINC as I have another computer that's my daily machine.

Specs:
Dell T7400 Server running Windows 10 Professional
2, Quad core Xeon E5450's @ 3.0Ghz and 8 cores/8 threads (100% of the CPU's + 100% of CPU time)
32Gb DDR2 ECC RAM
Asus Expedition GTX 1060 6gb (currently running 1 task (0.367 CPUs + 1 NVIDIA GPU)
WD Blue SSD 250Gb as the boot drive
WD Blue 1Tb where BOINC and SETI@home are installed
1000w 80+ Silver PSU

System temps with 5 fans set on 60% keep the cpus around 58c-62c per ambient room temps and the gpu stays around 61c at 32% fan (automatic fan control per card temps). So far from what I can tell my machine is doing a pretty good job and has me in the mid 30's rank for active RAC in Team USA and in the top 5% from what my badge says lol!

Thanks everyone! I look forward to getting to know all of you and make some friends... I also plan on visiting the Green Bank Observatory since I live 3 hours away in Tazewell, Virginia.

You should examine your bios. Under the power settings you may be able to get it to run a higher level of turbo-boost. I have discovered that if I leave speed step/turboboost enabled, and disable/reduce all the Cx states that I can get my e5-2670/e5-2690's to do the turbo boost that Intel reports. So the 2670 will boost to 2.9+ Ghz from the 2.6 Ghz base and teh 2690 will boost to 3.3Ghz from the 3Ghz base.

This "should" speed up your cpu processing some. It will also make the cpus run hotter.

HTH,
Tom

Unfortunately there are no options in my Dell T7400's BIOS for any performance options and my Xeons don't have boost capabilities.

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

I'm looking to do a 1950x Threadripper build later this year once prices on the X399 platform come down once X499 and the new Threadripper comes out.

If Threadrippers are too expensive may I recommend this AM4 MB with 6 gpu slots for that build? Its not real expensive either, Biostar TB350-BTC. Yes, I am running it here. https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8684146

Mine is new enough the RAC is still building up. I am guessing it should top 200,000 though.

Tom

It's funny you say that because the new computer I built as my daily is a 2700X on an Asrock X470 Taichi with G.Skill Trident Z 3200Mhz CL14 and a Vega 64. I dont want to run BOINC on it because I have yet to see the power bill with the Dell running 24/7 plus these computers are in my bedroom so the heat from 2 machines would be a lot lol!

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

Time to install the solar farm in the backyard ;)

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Unfortunately, there are no options in my Dell T7400's BIOS for any performance options and my Xeons don't have boost capabilities.

Look under either the "power settings" or just the whole bios. I have a Dell desktop that has "some" settings that modify performance so I am hoping a server would have at least those.

I have discovered that if I engage both the Speedstep and Turbo boost, Windows reports higher cpu#'s under Windows. Generally, you don't want speedstep running because it causes CPU throttling of the processing. But for some reason, I can't get the Intel turbo boost to actually work unless Speedstep is also engaged.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

2, Quad core Xeon E5450's @ 3.0Ghz and 8 cores/8 threads

Opps, wasn't reading closely enough. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/33083/intel-xeon-processor-e5450-12m-cache-3-00-ghz-1333-mhz-fsb.html

Those are nice robust processors but they have no-turbo boost at all as well as no hyperthreading.

My comments about speedstep/turbo boost probably only apply to a CPU with that facility. Sorry.

You might take a look at the cost of upgrading your cpus :)

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

New here... any tips for machine performance?

Here is my not completely tongue in cheek reply.

Faster cpus mostly crunch cpu tasks faster.
More CPU cores/threads crunch more CPU tasks in the same amount of time.
And a mid-range gpu can usually crunch more tasks a day than any common sized motherboard.

So if you want to drive your RAC up significantly you need to see if you can scrounge up some more gtx 1060 3GB's (Maybe $130 used on eBay). Most systems, if the PSU is big enough, will run 4 gpus without too much argument. Some sulk if you try more than 2 :( So don't go out and buy 4 more. Add one at a time.... :)

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

New here... any tips for machine performance?

Here is my not completely tongue in cheek reply.

Faster cpus mostly crunch cpu tasks faster.
More CPU cores/threads crunch more CPU tasks in the same amount of time.
And a mid-range gpu can usually crunch more tasks a day than any common sized motherboard.

So if you want to drive your RAC up significantly you need to see if you can scrounge up some more gtx 1060 3GB's (Maybe $130 used on eBay). Most systems, if the PSU is big enough, will run 4 gpus without too much argument. Some sulk if you try more than 2 :( So don't go out and buy 4 more. Add one at a time.... :)

Tom

Thanks Tom! Right now my Dell T7400 is maxed out cpu wise with the Xeon 5450's @ 3.0GHZ... I could go to the 3.2Ghz cpu's but its not worth the money for an extra 400Mhz since matching cpu's are around $130 on ebay and my 5450's were $35 for a matching set.

Speaking of more cores I have been patiently waiting for Threadripper 3 to come out to drive down the prices of the 1950x and X399 boards. Once that happens I will be doing a dedicated Threadripper SETI rig... I could use my new Ryzen 2700X machine but the new hasn't worn off and I don't want to run it full throttle right now lol! My Dell has just 8 cores and 8 threads but she seems to be performing exceptionally well for a 9 year old server.

I got the Asus Expedition GTX 1060 6gb and I will probably buy another one soon as I have an extra 16x slot and an extra 6 pin vga power connector from the oem 1000w 80+ silver psu.

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

Speaking of more cores I have been patiently waiting for Threadripper 3 to come out to drive down the prices of the 1950x and X399 boards. Once that happens I will be doing a dedicated Threadripper SETI rig... I could use my new Ryzen 2700X machine but the new hasn't worn off and I don't want to run it full throttle right now lol! My Dell has just 8 cores and 8 threads but she seems to be performing exceptionally well for a 9 year old server.

You can run the 2700x with up to 6 gpus by changing to a $64 mining motherboard. See the "how many gpus can you run on an AM4 socket" or something near that thread. Yes, I am running a 2700 with 6 gpus.

If you are also doing gaming on the 2700x I have no clue how this MB will work except when you use riser cards (and you have to, to get 6 slots clear) it cuts down on the gpu bandwidth.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

For some reason without changing any settings my gpu tasks have increased 1 minute. I was down to nearly 7 mins for each one to complete. What would have caused this to happen?

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

The type of workunit being processed, not all workunits are the same. ;-)

Cheers.

That makes sense! Now if I could only get my custom background image to work for the screen saver... it worked one time today and stopped lol!

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

For some reason without changing any settings my gpu tasks have increased 1 minute. I was down to nearly 7 mins for each one to complete. What would have caused this to happen?

As long as your RAC graph is going up, I wouldn't worry about it. I think we have at least 4-6 different types of data that each has its own "average processing speed" but I suspect that the code that tracks the cpu estimated average time is not sensitive to the different data mixes for the SOG gpu app.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Hey guys I noticed some people were running command lines for Astropulse. Can I do that with my 1060?

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

Hey guys I noticed some people were running command lines for Astropulse. Can I do that with my 1060?

Sure, just put it in the provided file named MB_cmdline_win_x86_SSE3_OpenCL_NV_SoG.txt. Put this into it.

-sbs 1024 -period_iterations_num 10 -spike_fft_thresh 4096 -tune 1 64 1 4 -tune 2 64 1 4 -tune 3 64 1 4 -tune 4 64 1 4 -tune 5 64 1 4 -tune 6 64 1 4 -oclfft_tune_gr 256 -oclfft_tune_lr 16 -oclfft_tune_wg 256 -oclfft_tune_ls 512 -oclfft_tune_bn 64 -oclfft_tune_cw 64 

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I already have that done that you helped me with but I noticed some people were running command lines in the ap_cmdline text files. Is that something I can do or should I just leave it alone with the command line you helped me with a while back?

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

Mike supplied me with this for AP's on my 1060's.

 -unroll 10 -oclFFT_plan 256 16 512 -ffa_block 12288 -ffa_block_fetch 6144

Cheers.

Thanks!!! Where do I need to put that command line?

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All of this has happened before and will happen again -Battlestar Galactica

There should be a file in the setiathome.berkeley.edu projects directory that has a name similar to this. ap_cmdline_7.08_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu__opencl_nvidia_100.txt but it will have a Windows name or a SSE3 name? I can't remember.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)