Folding Workload

[Domadea]

On light mode folding only seems to use my CPU and used about 40- 50 percent but does not seem to use GPU at all but on medium it maxes my CPU and used my GPU, is they're a way to get both GPU and CPU to run on light at about 50 percent? Or on light mode can you only use the CPU? As i feel that if i could use GPU and CPU on light mode i could justify constantly using Folding. But with it putting 100 percent strain on my PC CPU I find it hard to trust that something bad won't happen if I leave my CPU running light that overnight. Just a quick btw my PC specs are a ryzen 2700X, AIO water cooler, GTX 1080, 32 GB ram so on and so forth, so why is it that medium maxes out my CPU? Is it really that intensive of a workload? or is there something wrong on my end?

[alxbelu]

I would say that there's no general issue with loading the CPU to 100% 24/7, most modern CPUs, including your 2700X has thermal throttling and will downclock to ensure that it stays within its thermal limits, and in worst case fully shut down in the case of overheating.

That said, I would personally try to avoid running at the maximum spec temperature for 24/7, which seems to be 85C for your CPU.

If you cannot get your temperature below this at full load (or don't want to due to noise), I would suggest trying either limiting the number of CPU threads in FAH Advanced Control to somewhere around 6, 8 or 10 (experiment), or by limiting the CPU frequency. I don't know what tools there are available for AMD, but a "universal" Windows solution would be to limit the "Maximum processor state" in the power plan settings, see for e.g. https://www.geeks3d.com/20170213/how-to ... -notebook/ (some options may be Intel only, but Windows power plan should be universal)

[JimboPalmer]

Welcome to Folding@Home!

Your CPU has 16 threads, F@H calls them CPUs. Here are generic instructions to choose how many you want to use. start at 8.

In the taskbar to the lower right of the screen, you should see a F@H molecule icon, click it (you may need to click an Up Arrow to see it ^)

The second item in this menu is Advanced Control, click it

On this screen to the left is a Configure button, click it

Now you get a screen with a Slots tab, click it

On this white field should be a cpu item, click it and then click edit

By default F@H set the number of CPUs to -1 meaning let the software decide.
You can enter any number from 1 to the number of threads your CPU supports.
If you have GPUs, F@H reserves one CPU per GPU to feed it data across the PCIE bus.

F@H has difficulty with large primes and their multiples number of CPUs.
7 is always large, 5 is sometimes large, and 3 is never large. Try to choose a number that is a multiple of 2 and/or 3.
2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, etc. are good numbers of CPUs to choose.
5. 10. 15, etc may work most of the time. Other numbers will bite you

Type the number you want, and click save.

[JimboPalmer]

why is it that medium maxes out my CPU? Is it really that intensive of a workload? or is there something wrong on my end?

Your CPU is just newer than F@H expected. Imagine you had 4 threads then light would use 1/2 =2, medium would use 4-1 = 3, and full would use all 4

With 16 threads, light is 1/2 - 8, medium is 16-1 = 15 and full is 16. You just can't tell 15 out of 16 from full blast, no one can.

[Domadea]

Welcome to Folding@Home!

Your CPU has 16 threads, F@H calls them CPUs. Here are generic instructions to choose how many you want to use. start at 8.

In the taskbar to the lower right of the screen, you should see a F@H molecule icon, click it (you may need to click an Up Arrow to see it ^)

The second item in this menu is Advanced Control, click it

On this screen to the left is a Configure button, click it

Now you get a screen with a Slots tab, click it

On this white field should be a cpu item, click it and then click edit

By default F@H set the number of CPUs to -1 meaning let the software decide.
You can enter any number from 1 to the number of threads your CPU supports.
If you have GPUs, F@H reserves one CPU per GPU to feed it data across the PCIE bus.

F@H has difficulty with large primes and their multiples number of CPUs.
7 is always large, 5 is sometimes large, and 3 is never large. Try to choose a number that is a multiple of 2 and/or 3.
2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, etc. are good numbers of CPUs to choose.
5. 10. 15, etc may work most of the time. Other numbers will bite you

Type the number you want, and click save.

So I did this and now it seems that the CPU is still hitting 100 percent witch is weird as not in the actual program my CPU seems to be doing nothing. so my cpu utilization is jumping up and down from 10-100 percent yet the program shows my CPU doing noting as of now. So now its acting even stranger than before.

[uyaem]

FAHClient is just the process that communicates with FAH's servers.
It actually starts further processes (currently named FahCore_22 for GPU and FahCore_a7 for CPU) which are doing the calculations. You'll find that they are the ones using your CPU.