I just started 3 clients on my laptop, just like I used to do. This laptop has no problems, not with capacity nor with heat. So maybe it is the kind of cpu that has this problem.
So my question to all:
What cpu are you using and do you have heat problems?
Mine on this laptop: AMD A8 3500M, temperature 71%, ventilator at 89% according to the build in toshiba health monitor. Running 3 clients, 1 is design.
BTW, if you dont want your info to be public, you can sent me a PM with the info.
i'm just adding this info for people to compare. my pc is managing for now.
intel core i7-3770 3.4ghz
amd radeon hd6570 3gb
ram 10gb
desktop.
while running two clients:
core temps 179%(mode) 176-182%(range)
fan one at 2350rpm (2200-2400)
fan two at 1350rpm (not sure the size of fans)
not running any other programs.
not sure this helps without a baseline for this pc when running programs like this. i can only say that no variables were added since 01/13 when i started using this pc (ie, no cat with pounds of fur built up inside the case).
i am well within capacity, but a third client would have my fans roaring. this time last year i would run four clients and you wouldn't even hear the fans because they barely moved.
proteins are running about the same speed as they did in the past with two clients, but adding clients shows a definite slow down compared to last year.
Running more than 2 clients on computers 1-3 results in one client freezing up.
Computer 1 has given heat warnings with 2 clients running.
Computer 2 has given heat warnings with 4 clients running.
Computer 4 is slow, no point in trying to run more than 2 clients.
Is that a new computer, what OS is it running, 32 or 64 bit, how much RAM is it pushing and what type? What type of storage? Foldit seems to do a fair bit of disk I/O which may be the kiss of death for an SSD. Plus the remote server calls, which are frequent. Perhaps why so many people ask to play offline. What is the bus speed? which bus? Is anything being pushed to the GPU? With or without sockets, its an endless tale once we get to the chippery.
And in my very, very humble opinion, I am seeing people come in with new computers, particularly laptops, doing very well and then slowly fading, not that they have dropped in skills as such.
If the hardware is providing any game advantage beyond speed of execution, by that I mean you get to the same place faster, and number of clients etc then we need a spec.
Computer specs:
Mac 10.7 - 3.1 GHz Intel Core i5 - Memory 8 gb 1333 MHz DDRS - four cores
Almost 2 years old
Please see this feedback for proof of overheating compared to a year ago: http://fold.it/portal/node/997299
Computer specs:
i7-3820 clocked at 4.1ghz - 32gb ram
6 clients running rebuilds the machine at 60°C with CPU fan running between 2700 and 2850 rpm.
Intel i5-2500 quad-core CPU running @ 3.4 GHz
8GB RAM
GeForce 9800 GTX+
No heat issues -> custom extra cooling.
860 + 861 + 863 = 65~85% CPU load.
any 4th client will bring CPU load to 90~100% consistently.
I was able to run 8 clients last year; 6-7 if it included large symmetry.
Timo as you collect the CPU model numbers, you might look for a pattern in CPU cache size. Larger cache will run faster but hotter, as the CPU will not be waiting for the bus to fetch instructions from RAM. It looks to me like your laptop has 4MB cache; I have 3MB, and we are not having new heat problems. Auntdeen with i5-2400 has 6MB, gitwut's machine #1 has 8MB (2 clients = hot) and #2 and #3 have 6MB (4 clients = hot on #2). Karsten has 8MB.
This part is pure speculation: Possibly before Oct 2013 or so (this is when auntdeen thinks the heat problems started) the ratio of calculations to I/O in foldit was low enough that everyone's CPUs were waiting on I/O enough to stay cool. After that point perhaps the proportion of calculations grew so that I/O is no longer a significant limiting factor, and instead it is only waiting for RAM access that keeps the CPU from running at the max % the operating system will allow. Since that time, systems with smaller cache (like mine) would run slower as the calculations get more intense but not hotter, and systems with larger cache (like auntdeen's and karsten's) would run hotter.
There are other changes besides calculations:I/O ratio that could cause the app to run hotter. Ratio of loops short enough to fit in cache vs loops too long to fit in cache could have gone up. Ratio of floating point calculations to other types of instructions could have gone up (though this would affect all machines). Again, pure speculation.
It would help me if I knew what specific parameters you want me to report other that chip set, ram and heat at various numbers of clients running.