Installing on Windows XP SP2 - keeps suspending

I have my account preferences set not to do work whilst the computer is in use. I installed BOINC Manager on two machines (standard single user installation) with "Run based on preferences" checked. I don't have separate preferences set up for the two machines.

Now, the Windows 2000 machine works exactly as expected.

The XP SP2 machine doesn't. If I have BOINC Manager open I can see that after 1 minute (my preferences setting) of no activity, it starts processing the current work unit, suspending activity, as expected, when I move the mouse or enter a keystroke.

However, once the screensaver kicks in, it suspends activity again as it if it regards the screensaver as user input. This persists for as long as the screensaver is active.

Is this a known problem?

Here's an extract from the messages file.

25/09/2005 13:29:32||Resuming computation and network activity
25/09/2005 13:29:32||request_reschedule_cpus: Resuming activities
25/09/2005 13:29:32|SETI@home|Restarting result 02se03aa.29452.15121.254826.215_3 using setiathome version 4.18
25/09/2005 13:33:34||Suspending computation and network activity - user is active
25/09/2005 13:33:34|SETI@home|Pausing result 02se03aa.29452.15121.254826.215_3 (removed from memory)
25/09/2005 13:33:36||request_reschedule_cpus: process exited
25/09/2005 13:34:35||Resuming computation and network activity
25/09/2005 13:34:35||request_reschedule_cpus: Resuming activities
25/09/2005 13:34:35|SETI@home|Restarting result 02se03aa.29452.15121.254826.215_3 using setiathome version 4.18
25/09/2005 13:34:36||Suspending computation and network activity - user is active
25/09/2005 13:34:36|SETI@home|Pausing result 02se03aa.29452.15121.254826.215_3 (removed from memory)
25/09/2005 13:34:38||request_reschedule_cpus: process exited

Here's what actually happened:

13:29:32 - A minute had elapsed since any user input so the BOINC started processing units. All went well until:

13:33:34 - The screensaver kicked in and BOINC interpreted this as user active.

13:34:35 - Genuine user activity as I moved the mouse,



Regards

Nick

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Hey Nick,

Yes, this is a little bit of a known problem. What happens is BOINC thinks your screen saver is something like a movie that you're playing on your computer, and so suspends itself. I think this means that your screensaver is more graphics intensive (like the 3-D pipes in Windows), but I'm not exactly sure.

If you don't mind giving up the screensaver, you can set your screensaver to "blank", which simply gives a black screen, and added to this, under energy saver options you can have the computer turn off your screen. This will work for sure.

The other thing that I can think of is that if you want to keep your screensaver, you might consider setting BOINC to run all the time. Most people have their BOINC run all the time with little or no lag, because BOINC takes the lowest priority, except for the system idle process (which, as you may know, takes all the left over cycles under non-BOINC circumstances).

I would suggest that you try (for an hour or a day or whatever seems an appropriate test period) running BOINC as always on ("File|Always On" in the BOINC manager). If there are no lags (and there really shouldn't be), then you could switch to running BOINC all the time, and you could keep your screensaver.

I hope you find a solution that works for you, and welcome to BOINC!
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I think this means that your screensaver is more graphics intensive (like the 3-D pipes in Windows), but I'm not exactly sure.

Nick,

I have this exact same problem. The screensaver I am using is Boinc itself. I played around with some other screen savers and found that if I set my screensaver to "Windows XP" (the really boring one that just shows the logo and moves it around every so often), then Boinc does _not_ see that as user activity and keeps running.

Of course this ruins the whole point behind having the cool seti@home screen saver, but it is a work around until the good folks who maintain this software can fix the problem.

I assume they are looking to fixing this problem. For the Boinc screensaver itself to be seen as user activity that suspends Boinc is a big problem.

- Rich
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I had this exact same problem, and now this problem has been solved, on my computer. Dell released a video driver update for the 82865G graphics controller. I installed it, and just for grins I tried the screen saver again. The problem went away.

Good luck,
Rich

Nick,

I have this exact same problem. The screensaver I am using is Boinc itself. I played around with some other screen savers and found that if I set my screensaver to "Windows XP" (the really boring one that just shows the logo and moves it around every so often), then Boinc does _not_ see that as user activity and keeps running.

Of course this ruins the whole point behind having the cool seti@home screen saver, but it is a work around until the good folks who maintain this software can fix the problem.

I assume they are looking to fixing this problem. For the Boinc screensaver itself to be seen as user activity that suspends Boinc is a big problem.

- Rich

Which BOINC version?

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Jord

- BOINC FAQ Service
- BOINC User Wiki

Real is just a matter of perception.

I have the exact same problem, with the mention that i have set Boinc to run all the time and using all resources. Yet it behaves as if it was set to "run when idle" and when it's own graphics are displayed it slows down to almost nothing.
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