Exiting Prime95?

[edorajh]

Is there any prefered method of exiting from Prime95 client? I just click on exit. Will client continue where I exit, or will it go from start?

[heretic]

On Windows use Stop and exit from either the Test menu or the Tray Icon. On Linux use Ctrl C and select Exit (Option 6 - I believe). The client should stop and exit properly on normal shutdown.

If you have set the client up to use two backup files then you should also avoid one of the few remaining problems with the client, and that is a corrupted save-file. It has happened to me once in all the time I've been running Prime95, so it is fairly rare.

The client will (or should) continue from the latest save-file.

heretic

[edorajh]

Thanks. I ask that because it seems to me that after restarting client it didn't report finnishing 10000 iterations (I set it up to report and save every 10000 iterations). Before restarting, it takes about 10-15 minutes to finish 10000 iterations. After restarting, it didn't report finishing 10000 iterations after 30-40 minutes. Hope it will be OK. I will know that tomorow, as it is my work machine.

[rshepard]

Are you expexcting to see it report to the website every 10,000 iterations? If so, that isn't what that setting is for-- it sets how many iterations must pass before reporting to your screen-- reports to the server are set in the same menu, but are measured in days between reports, not iterations; default is 28 days, but you can set it to 1.

[edorajh]

No, I wasn't thinking on reporting to the website every 10,000 iterations, I think on reporting to screen and writing in result file. I set up 1 day to report to server.

[Beyond]

Originally posted by edorajh
No, I wasn't thinking on reporting to the website every 10,000 iterations, I think on reporting to screen and writing in result file. I set up 1 day to report to server.

Default setting is "write to disk" every 30 mins, so it may write to the screen every 10,000 iterations, it may not neccessarily write/save to disk at that point. This may be the difference you are seeeing when starting and stopping the client.

[edorajh]

Everything is OK! My Prime95 client start from previously saved position.

Thanks for help and advices! Great team indeed!

[edorajh]

Is it possible that speed of Prime95 isn't constant? It work for 3 hours and it takes about 15 minutes for finishing 10000 iterations. After 3 hours of work it passed 45 minutes and it still didn't finish 10000 iterations. Everything else is the same. I didn't start any other application. What could cause that difference?

[rshepard]

The speeds of P-1 phase 1, P-1 phase 2, and the LL-testing will all be different. That's the only thing I can think of that might make that difference in timing.

[edorajh]

It's all P-1 phase 1 processing. Now it passed 1 hour without finishing 10000 iterations.

[rshepard]

Is it actually processing? Try setting the report to every 1000, or even every 100 iterations and see if it is moving ahead. No way it should take an hour for 10000 iteratrions. Your client may be hung up for some reason--- a restart may be in order

[edorajh]

Just restart client and set screen output to 100 iterations. Will see how it will behave now. Thanks for input.

/edit/ - it works now. it takes about 3 minutes for 100 iterations. It seems something slow down my client.

/edit #2/ - after I close Word document speed of my Prime95 client return to normal! now it takes about 8 seconds for 100 iterations. How is that possible?

[rshepard]

Sounds like you are running out of memory and/or CPU cycles--- I can triple my iteration times at the house by getting Prime95, Chessbrain, and a browser all fighting for resources at once (OK, its a small box )

I would look in TaskManager and see if something is running that you're not aware of; also look at that Word document and see if there's something in it that is trashing your resources

[edorajh]

Thanks! Will do that when I get back to work tomorow.

[ECL]

MS Word uses a lot of CPU because it's watching you type and trying to figure out spelling, grammar and some other stuff. If you turn off automatic spelling and grammar checking, you should find you get a lot of your CPU back. There are also other settings sprinkled around in the "Options" dialog that can affect your performance.

[edorajh]

Yes, it could be the reason. And my word document is a rather big, with lots of pics, formulas, tables. Will keep an eye on it.

[garo]

Word usually does not take up a lot of CPU. Instead it is more likely that your problem was due to memory usage. Check how much memory you have allocated to Prime95. The P-1 factoring is very memory instensive and will take up as much memory as you give it. So if your box had 256 and you have given 220 to Prime95, during P-1 it will take all of the 220 leaving only 36 for your OS and other applications. This can cause thrashing and slow down Prime95 by an order of magnitude or more. Check your memory usage in the task manager to verify. Once P-1 testing is over, the memory usage will go down to under 32MB during the LL test.

[edorajh]

I set up memory usage to 64 Mb. My machine is 256 Mb. Do you think I should set up smaller amount of memory?

Thanks.

[magnav0x]

It realy depends on how much memory all your other programs use. My P4 only has 256mb of ram and I have Prime95 set to use 96. I only do so, because when use the system I usualy only use about 100 mb of it. But as mentioned the client will only use like 30mb or so when doing the LL's, etc. The only time it will use the full amount that you give it is when it's doing the P1 tests I think.

[outlnderFDC]

Two things need mentioning,

1) Do not stop Prime95 when it is doing any phase of P-1. It will always start over. P-1 MUST be completed to continue.

2) Prime95 runs at a very low priority. It conflicts with Outlook, Outlook Express and Word. When these programs are running, Prime95 gets very little CPU. Also, disable "Find Fast". It takes a lot of CPU.

If you don't want to do much P-1, leave your memory usage at 8MB.