Folding Forum

My machine is an off-the-shelf, and the cpu cooling system is just coping.
Depending on the WU temperatures can run relatively high, and just for safety's sake I would like temperatures to stay at max 60°C while I check, as in my experience during some parts of a WU this can jump to still a few degrees higher.
Fot that reason I have to run the "heavier" WU's at medium "Folding power".

But for the last few months or so I regularly get WU's that don't seem to accept that setting: I set for medium folding power but speedfan reports al four cores 100% busy, and temps sometimes jumping tot 65°C, although I just dusted the cooling system, and no other significant programs are running. See screenshot.



Changing the setting to "light" this drops to 75% and (for me) acceptabele temperatures around 55°C . But then comes around another, much slower WU, activity drops to 50% and production gets very low.

Can it be that in some WU's those folding-power settings don't work as they should?

Yes, relating to CPU features, FahCore xa7 can be more challenging than xa4, AVX vs SSE2.

See
Is there any way to force 0xa4 WUs only ?

Depending on your CPU you maybe can downclock the CPU in BIOS to use a lower multiplicator for AVX usage only. Or you can use Windows power management and reduce the max CPU usage from 100% to e.g. 90%.

But in general even 75°C is safe for a CPU 24/7 usage and the core temps may be even higher. The max core temp for intel CPU is 98°C when it starts to throttle and reduces core clock.

The Medium power setting uses one less CPU core than the total available. In the case of your i5 processor that means it uses 3 of the 4 cores. The Light setting will use half the cores. Otherwise, unless other system settings or usage prevent it, the folding core will use close to 100% of the CPU cores processing capability..

Options to reduce CPU usage have been mentioned. You can also manually set the number of cores used by using the Configure - Slot of FAHControl.

foldy wrote: But in general even 75°C is safe for a CPU 24/7 usage and the core temps may be even higher. The max core temp for intel CPU is 98°C when it starts to throttle and reduces core clock.

hmm, don't know about that:
https://ark.intel.com/products/80817/In ... o-3_40-GHz

And I'm a person who likes to keep a good margin.

X1900AIW wrote:Yes, relating to CPU features, FahCore xa7 can be more challenging than xa4, AVX vs SSE2.

See
Is there any way to force 0xa4 WUs only ?

does that mean that the medium setting looks for 75% of a 7-core chip, and thus takes 100 % of a 4-core chip?

Joe_H wrote:The Medium power setting uses one less CPU core than the total available. In the case of your i5 processor that means it uses 3 of the 4 cores. The Light setting will use half the cores.

As I'm trying to explain, this does not seem the case for some WU's.
The one I posted the screenshot of in my topicstart uses all four cores at medium, and three of four cores at light setting.

Joe_H wrote: You can also manually set the number of cores used by using the Configure - Slot of FAHControl.

hmm, I really do not consider myself an expert:

I'm the guy who leaves well alone when he reads that

There are 2 temperatures that matter for intel cpu's, Tcase and TJmax and they are not the same, TJmax is the temp used by the cpu and is usually around 100c - this is the max temp that the cpu will allow before it starts to throttle itself.. Not sure what Tcase is.

I personally use HWinfo64 to monitor my temps as it will show both. Not sure which speedfan shows.

Jan van de Velde wrote: does that mean that the medium setting looks for 75% of a 7-core chip, and thus takes 100 % of a 4-core chip?

No. See my answer above. The Full setting uses all available CPU cores. "Available" for CPU folding in the client is the total number of cores, real and virtual, minus one core for each detected and configured GPU in the system.

Medium is that number of available cores minus one. Light is half the available cores, with a minimum of "1", and if I recall correctly will be 2 in some client setups with a GPU.

If you came across a mention of 75% in connection with the Medium setting, that was posted at one time to the installation and configuration web pages during an update to the web site. The person who did that was thinking in terms of a 4-core i5 chip where 3 of 4 cores at the Medium setting is 75%. A request to correct that was put in, and should have been put in place. An older version of the site had the actual formula, but persons complained that was not clear to those not familiar with that kind of math.

TCASE = Case Temperature is the maximum temperature allowed at the processor Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS).

A temperature of 65°C is absolutely uncritical...there is no problem, so there is no solution.

Even >70°C (max) is not a problem.

TCASE = Case Temperature is the maximum temperature recommended at the processor Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS) for permanent usage.

Intel recommends Tcase<=72.72C for the i5 - 4460. Also, it has an on-die Digital Thermal Sensor which detects the core's temperature so that's another option. It doesn't use HyperThreading so it's fairly easy to set FAH to use 1, 2, 3, or 4 cores, allowing 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% utilization. Obviously the heat generated by fewer cores is proportionally less than for higher settings, whether that value is set by the performance slider or separately in the screen you posted above.

The performance slider provides a rather gross setting, but I don't think it takes an expert to understand the statements above. I recommend that you set the slider to Full Power and then, in the screen you posted, try setting your choice of those 4 settings. If a setting of 3 CPUs exceeds your sense of what's right, lower it to 2 or 1.

If you plan on Folding for the long term, you may want to get an aftermarket CPU cooler, so you can run cooler at full load. Look at the total air flow picture in your case, too, including PSU and GPU fans, if applicable. General flow should be from front/low to rear/top, and intake capacity should slightly exceed exhaust capacity ("positive pressure") to help reduce dust buildup. Dust filters on all intake fans are important.

If you have room for more/bigger intake and/or exhaust fans, try adding 1 or 2. Replacing case fans with higher-flow aftermarket fans (e.g., Noctua) can help.

You can use tthrottle software control temperature.
https://efmer.com/download-tthrottle/

Because it was design for boinc, so you need 1.add 'FahCore_' into 'Programs(Processes)' 2.set Core temperature to 60. 3.select 'auto active'.
the software can handles temperature automaticly.

Software throttle is an aberration ... to improve cooling is always the solution (unless you have a laptop which is definitely not designed for intensive tasks).

vmzy wrote:You can use tthrottle software control temperature.
https://efmer.com/download-tthrottle/

Because it was design for boinc, so you need 1.add 'FahCore_' into 'Programs(Processes)' 2.set Core temperature to 60. 3.select 'auto active'.
the software can handles temperature automaticly.

According to the website for TThrottle, support for FAH cannot be accepted on their wish-list. Where is the discussion that supports your recommendation about regulating FAH?

There's no good way to throtle a GPU. One approach is built into FAHCore_21. A GPU can only run at 100% or 0% which causes wide variations in temperature. Slicing up processing with full-on/full-off regulation isn't really an acceptable way of regulation, whether it's done by FAHCore_21, or by some 3rd party program. Large variations in temperature tend to damage GPU hardware rather than protect it.

Throttling CPU threads can generally be regulated, however since the time-slices can be tiny enough to be useful.

This is a support site for FoldingAtHome, not for BOINC.