# Want to run 100% CEP2 WUs? Here's how...



## brandonwh64 (Sep 6, 2013)

Standard setup of CEP2 Work Units.

Create a new school profile and set just as pictured below. Once complete add this profile to the device in under device manager. Once done, you can let the WU's you have already running complete or do what I did and do a full uninstall and delete of BIONC folders in program files/data then reinstall.







*WARNING! WARNING!*



[Ion] said:


> Brandon, thank you for this, but I'm going to add some warnings:
> CEP2 makes systems run hotter.  On a desktop this is probably OK, but if you're running a laptop or tablet, be very careful about temps--my laptop runs 5C hotter doing CEP2 vs SN2S while the tablet does about 7C hotter.
> 
> CEP2 is brutal on your bandwidth.  Each uploaded WU is about 30MB.  If you have a metered connection like I know that mjkmike does, this could get expensive very quickly.  Or it could interfere with other things going on at once.
> ...




If you want to use the NON disk thrashing method, look below for Justin1980's How-To!



> So you want to run the Clean Energy Project Phase 2 (aka CEP2) but find your disk thrashing too much? Here's how you can get around it. As shown here the Clean Energy Project needs our help. This is an idea I came up with on my own to try to help others that believe in the CEP2 project to donate more of their resources. With a little luck someone else can post a detailed screenshot guide or PDF of instructions on how to do this setup.
> 
> This guide assumes that you are fairly knowledgeable with BOINC and WCG. You also want to maximize your CEP2 WUs for your machine.
> The key is using block level caching with an extremely long time delay for writing data to the drive. The intent is that the WUs will thrash the heck out of the block level cache and thereby minimize the hard drive thrashing. Of course, data will still get written to the drive, but hopefully the writes will be more sequential.
> ...


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## Norton (Sep 6, 2013)

Sub'd

Thanks for the link Brandon 

iirc there are a couple of other methods to fill the rig with CEP2 work but I forgot them atm


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 6, 2013)

I did everything in the OP except that superspeed program. I currently have 8 WU of CEP2 but load is not at 100% as of yet but they all are running.

*edit*

its at 100% load now after all WU downloaded. Completion time is like 13 hours LOL


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## Chicken Patty (Sep 6, 2013)

Thanks for the info


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## adulaamin (Sep 6, 2013)

Thank you very much for this!


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## Arjai (Sep 6, 2013)

After reading the post on xtreme, the link above, I decided to try a RamDisk cache for CEP2.

I have the ramdisk set to save every twelve minutes, made it 3GB and set it to save image on shutdown.

In order to use the RamDisk, BOINC needs to be uninstalled and re-installed, in order to point the cache to the new drive, on my system-F:. So, I set BOINC to No New Tasks and will let it run through the next 3.5-4 days of stuff, force an update and then uninstall, etc.

I also set up a new Device profile for just CEP2, to be used when I reinstall.

I have no idea how fast four CEP2 WU's will fill up my 3GB ramDisk. I am simply guessing that 12 minutes will be enough to NOT fill it. I may adjust it if the drive saves are very small, based on the drive light and Task Manager graphs.

I will keep you all posted on how this works. However, as I mentioned, I will let the BOINC cache run through what it has, about 4 days. 

So, sometime on the tenth, or 11th, I will post how it is working. If anybody else is/ has doing/done this, I would appreciate your input!

Thanks


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## Arjai (Sep 7, 2013)

OK, while sleeping on it, after dinner nap, I have a few questions.

RamDisk is set to save to hdd, in it's own folder, every twelve minutes ( an estimate based on some loose math from the post in xtreme.com ).

How dynamic is that 'Image' gonna be? Do I even need it to be?

Here's the deal. Currently, I am allowing BOINC 3.5 GB and it is using exactly half, 1.75 GB.
The RamDisk will be, is, 3GB. 

So, the current two CEP2 Wu's running are writing to disk about twelve times a minute. I am assuming, it is writing and erasing, or replacing, or writing over, itself or the 1.75 GB would be constantly growing. No?

If this is the case, I could actually just leave the RamDisk running and simply back it up when the Laptop sleeps, or is shut off.

But, I don't think that is it. Because dude over at xtreme says his cache, of 5GB would fill up and auto dump to disk. Obviously it was filling up. 

So, from what I can gather, His 'SmartCache' saved to the BOINC allocation space on his HDD/SSD. RamDisk saves an 'Image' to my C:/ drive and then reloads it when I re-start. 

Problem is...This 'Image' file will be writing over itself every twelve minutes. So, are each of those updates, including the shutdown 'Image', gonna be what BOINC needs, when the job reports or, will the job even be able to keep running without an error?

So, yea. I don't EVEN know who to ask THAT question! Considering how specific it is to this one type of WU on BOINC running WCG using a RamDisk.

Either one of you fine people have been there, or I jump in feet first and see what happens!!


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## [Ion] (Sep 8, 2013)

Brandon, thank you for this, but I'm going to add some warnings:
CEP2 makes systems run hotter.  On a desktop this is probably OK, but if you're running a laptop or tablet, be very careful about temps--my laptop runs 5C hotter doing CEP2 vs SN2S while the tablet does about 7C hotter.

CEP2 is brutal on your bandwidth.  Each uploaded WU is about 30MB.  If you have a metered connection like I know that mjkmike does, this could get expensive very quickly.  Or it could interfere with other things going on at once.

Unless you set up the RAMdisk, CEP2 thrashes your disk immensely.  This is very painful with 8 WUs on a 5400RPM disk 

The checkpointing system in the CEP2 WUs is the worst on WCG--ie, when the WUs are removed from memory (BOINC is closed, computer is suspended and "leave applications in memory while suspended" isn't checked) you lose comparatively a lot of work.

Now, none of these are showstopping issues, but new users in particular, please be aware of the challenges presented by a solely-CEP2 diet


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## Chicken Patty (Sep 8, 2013)

[Ion] said:


> Brandon, thank you for this, but I'm going to add some warnings:
> CEP2 makes systems run hotter.  On a desktop this is probably OK, but if you're running a laptop or tablet, be very careful about temps--my laptop runs 5C hotter doing CEP2 vs SN2S while the tablet does about 7C hotter.
> 
> CEP2 is brutal on your bandwidth.  Each uploaded WU is about 30MB.  If you have a metered connection like I know that mjkmike does, this could get expensive very quickly.  Or it could interfere with other things going on at once.
> ...



If you guys want I can place this in the OP or Brandon can.  Up to you guys but it's definitely good info and I think everybody should view.  I PERSONALLY did not know this.


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 8, 2013)

Chicken Patty said:


> If you guys want I can place this in the OP or Brandon can.  Up to you guys but it's definitely good info and I think everybody should view.  I PERSONALLY did not know this.



I added it to the OP. I have noticed a 3 degree increase but I thought it was cause of my crappy H50


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## Chicken Patty (Sep 8, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> I added it to the OP. I have noticed a 3 degree increase but I thought it was cause of my crappy H50



Well now we know why   Good info for sure!

Thanks ION!


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## Arjai (Sep 12, 2013)

*RamDisk experiment...*

So, it begins.

I have formatted a 4GB partition, G:, in 4k allocations. I have pointed RamDisk to save it's 3GB cache every 12 minutes to G:.

I uninstalled BOINC, Reinstalled updated WCG to my new, CEP2, School profile. Set it all up, just now, and when it finishes downloading and starts running...

Well, in less than a half an hour, I should know if this is working.

Wish me luck! 

Update1.

Well. I allocated 6 more GB to the BOINC partition. However, I think I may have a problem. The jobs, all two, were running and the RamDisk was saving to the new partition. Then, my memory use shot up, the HDD went full on and BOINC sent me a message about needing more space. So, herein lies what may be the killer of this RamDisk experiment, I can only allocate 3GB of my 8GB and still function as computer, not just a cruncher. I need both right now. That 3GB is the size of the image file it saves on the new BOINC partition. It cannot grow any larger, like I need it to do. So, even though that 3GB file is working dynamically to new info being inserted, as CEP2 is needing to do, the 3GB limitation of the reused saved image seems to be the killer.

I gonna give it another run, right now. If I get the same BOINC message, as I suspect, It is a dead experiment, due to physical RAM limitations. Because I don't know how to have RAMDisk use more of the 10GB than it's own 3GB physical size, as a save.

Update 2.
Well, I think that it is not gonna work, I actually am now SURE, since BOINC won't download any WU's now.
So, I am going to go and change BOINC, uninstall and reinstall, so it just writes to the new partition. Dump the RAMDisk. Then, in a couple days try the SuperSpeed cache using the 14 day trial. If I can make that work, I expect it to be better, I will probably download it next paycheck. Since it will be UBER useful later when I upgrade to a SSD, also.

So, there it is. A failure due to lack of Physical RAM available to me on this Laptop. Oh well, a learning experience, as well. Hopefully, a this can be useful for someone else, also. RamDisk from DataRam can work if you can set up a RamDisk that is large enough, say 6 to 10 GB, for a CEP2 cache of around 4 to 6 WU's at a time. 3GB would work, I think, if you just ran one WU at a time. That is not what I am aiming to do so, I am not going to test that, since I want to keep crunching and limit the time of experimenting. In theory though, based on this test, 1 WU would run and complete.

Anyways, like I mentioned earlier, I will try the superspeed cache, later, and update then how it works for me.

Arjai, out!


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## sabre23 (Sep 13, 2013)

[Ion] said:


> Brandon, thank you for this, but I'm going to add some warnings:
> CEP2 makes systems run hotter.  On a desktop this is probably OK, but if you're running a laptop or tablet, be very careful about temps--my laptop runs 5C hotter doing CEP2 vs SN2S while the tablet does about 7C hotter.
> 
> CEP2 is brutal on your bandwidth.  Each uploaded WU is about 30MB.  If you have a metered connection like I know that mjkmike does, this could get expensive very quickly.  Or it could interfere with other things going on at once.
> ...




Will my WD Green will survive disk thrashing as it is only got 2 yrs warranty? i dont want to destroy it. I am thinking of running only 2-3 CEP at a time.
Will WD Black or intel SSD 520 will survive thrashing better?


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## [Ion] (Sep 13, 2013)

sabre23 said:


> Will my WD Green will survive disk thrashing as it is only got 2 yrs warranty? i dont want to destroy it. I am thinking of running only 2-3 CEP at a time.
> Will WD Black or intel SSD 520 will survive thrashing better?



A standard hard drive will be totally fine.  The "thrashing" impacts day-to-day performance on slow drives more than reliability of the drive itself.  The SSD should be fine, too--it's a modern drive and I'm confident that Intel has put work into making the flash chips better stand up to repeated writes.


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## manofthem (Sep 13, 2013)

I still haven't changed over yet but I need to do this soon. All this talk about CEP2 being much harder to run has made my enthusiasm wane a bit; I'm expecting issues tbh.  But thanks brandonwh64 and [Ion]


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## Norton (Sep 13, 2013)

manofthem said:


> I still haven't changed over yet but I need to do this soon. All this talk about CEP2 being much harder to run has out made my enthusiasm wane a bit; I'm expected issues tbh.  But thanks brandonwh64 and [Ion]



I wouldn't worry about it too much- they run fine on nearly all of my rigs 

The file size of the upload (over 45MB) is a bit of an issue in one location due to having a small internet connection.

Try just increasing the # of work units you can run to 8 with no other changes and see how you do


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## torgoth (Sep 13, 2013)

So I've created the profile, how do I set it in the BOINC Manager?
edit: nevermind I figured it out, hope it works!


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## Mindweaver (Sep 13, 2013)

Nice thread brandon! Good job!


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## TRWOV (Sep 14, 2013)

For the record, CEP2 can use as much as 400MB of RAM per WU. They usually hover below the 300MB mark but from time to time I get WUs that take >380MB. I have disabled CEP2 on the X4 620 for this reason (it runs W7 Starter).


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## Peter1986C (Sep 14, 2013)

Thanks for the note TRWOV.


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## manofthem (Sep 17, 2013)

So I change my main rig over to CEP2 now.  After downloading the WUs and after they started running, the CPU stayed around 10-30% for a bit, and it just finally shot up to 99%, where is seems to be staying now.  

Does that sound alright?


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 17, 2013)

manofthem said:


> So I change my main rig over to CEP2 now.  After downloading the WUs and after they started running, the CPU stayed around 10-30% for a bit, and it just finally shot up to 99%, where is seems to be staying now.
> 
> Does that sound alright?



Yep sounds just like mine


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## manofthem (Sep 17, 2013)

brandonwh64 said:


> Yep sounds just like mine



Thanks, good to know.  And thanks for the OP guide, followed it as closely as possible, other than the one program 
I hope it continues to play nicely


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## [Ion] (Sep 18, 2013)

manofthem said:


> So I change my main rig over to CEP2 now.  After downloading the WUs and after they started running, the CPU stayed around 10-30% for a bit, and it just finally shot up to 99%, where is seems to be staying now.
> 
> Does that sound alright?



Yup, one of the quirks is that it has to load a bunch of stuff from disk and spool up to speed--I suspect that if you had looked at the HDD light, the drive would have been very busy


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## manofthem (Sep 18, 2013)

[Ion] said:


> Yup, one of the quirks is that it has to load a bunch of stuff from disk and spool up to speed--I suspect that if you had looked at the HDD light, the drive would have been very busy



Yeah figured as such. Since it all smoothed out and went to 100%, I'm thinking it should be fine. 

Also, since I read about a lot of disk trashing of whatevs, I installed to the HDD, the programfiles and programdata folders, so hopefully it'll do less on the ssd, as I'd hate to loose performance on my 830, as it is getting older now. Maybe I'll give it a test after the CEP2 Challenges


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## sabre23 (Sep 21, 2013)

I cannot put up decent points via CEP2 WU's.
Because of power outage I have to shut down my pc 4-5 times in a day which costing  hours of CPU cycles going in wastage. (Damn checkpoint system of CEP2)
Guess i have to shift back to SN2S and FA@home after challenge period.


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## Peter1986C (Sep 21, 2013)

The current challenge is an "all projects" one, actually. BTW, you could maybe choose to hibernate the computer instead of shutting it down? I do not know whether the computer does a hard or proper shutdown though since I do not know wheter you have a backup battery system in between the power grid and computer. 

Anyway, nobody forces you to run CEP2 units. Many just run the other stuff. We will understand. 

BTW, maybe [Ion] or T_ski are willing to crunch in your name during the upcoming CEP challenge with a part of their resources. Just send them a PM to ask about it. I know they did this before.


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## sabre23 (Sep 21, 2013)

Chevalr1c said:


> The current challenge is an "all projects" one, actually. BTW, you could maybe choose to hibernate the computer instead of shutting it down? I do not know whether the computer does a hard or proper shutdown though since I do not know wheter you have a backup battery system in between the power grid and computer.
> 
> Anyway, nobody forces you to run CEP2 units. Many just run the other stuff. We will understand.
> 
> BTW, maybe [Ion] or T_ski are willing to crunch in your name during the upcoming CEP challenge with a part of their resources. Just send them a PM to ask about it. I know they did this before.



I thought that it was CEP2 challenge only. 

but beforehand i was trying to run multiproject only but it is throwing a unique problem which i stated few days ago in the forum {i.e. When i set my Profile to run FA@Home, SC2S and CEP2 together then I do not get any WUs of CEP2 stating that i do not meet the minimum bandwith requirement of this project ;64KB/s; But when i created new profile with only CEP2 i got WUs without any problem}

This is why i was saying that i will shift to previous setup from 23rd.


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## Norton (Sep 21, 2013)

sabre23 said:


> I thought that it was CEP2 challenge only.
> 
> but beforehand i was trying to run multiproject only but it is throwing a unique problem which i stated few days ago in the forum {i.e. When i set my Profile to run FA@Home, SC2S and CEP2 together then I do not get any WUs of CEP2 stating that i do not meet the minimum bandwith requirement of this project ;64KB/s; But when i created new profile with only CEP2 i got WUs without any problem}
> 
> This is why i was saying that i will shift to previous setup from 23rd.



   The current challenge is All projects (CEP2 will be in October). However, you are free to use the challenge time to try to see how your rig(s) will handle CEP2 or just run your rig as you normally would.

   There may be some adjustments regarding how CEP2 saves it's progress to improve the checkpoint issue but I don't know what they are atm. I do you how you feel... lost progress on about a dozen CEP2 jobs yesterday when I tripped over the extension cord for my power strip and it pulled out of the outlet


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## Arjai (Oct 3, 2013)

I just set up the SuperCache, with a 14 day trail, like mentioned in OP.

I am still burning through FAH WU's right now. I am running ver 5.2.1251.0, and the UI is very simple.

First, set up a Boinc partition. I have an i5, 4 logical cores with a 10GB partition used only for BOINC. You will need to uninstall BOINC, and Re-Install, to point it to the new partition. Mine is Drive G:.

Once you have installed SuperCache, and rebooted. Run it. Select your partition from the list. Select 'Action', from the menu at the top. Select Cache from the drop down. Pick 'Start.

The new window will give you some options. Leave the top slider alone. Second one, slide down to 4K. Check the 'Deferred Write' box. Slide the slider up to 'Infinite'.

My cache was set up to 3.51GB, out of 8 total. It is using 3.41 of that cache due to the 4k blocks. I may up the first slider, for a larger memory allotment, later.

Right now the cache is writing a bit to the HDD every 2 1/2 minutes, roughly.

I will update this post after the FAH's are done, and I am spooled up on CEP2's. Probably tomorrow morning; Possibly in the evening, after work.

**Now, an hour later, the writes to HDD are just over 3 minutes. As though it is learning on the go. Nice 

*Update 10/5*  Ok, after a couple days of learning this thing, SuperCache, it is working nicely. I changed the color of the 'Write%' line to a bright yellow. Now I can tell when it writes to the HDD. Currently I am running 2 FA@H and 2CEP2's. There are times it goes 13 minutes between dumps to the HDD but, I think, because of the 2 FA@H WU's there are random short writes mixed in, every so often. Once those finish, I should get a more accurate assessment. Then I will have 4 CEP2's running and I will be able to time the dumps to disc without FA@H's interfering. I still have 2 of them in the mix that should run overnight and then I will be 100% CEP2. And will have 8 days of data to play with. Overall, quite pleased with this software. Also, I have upped the cache to 4.93GB. All seems well there, as I bounce around 7.2 to 7.4 GB usage, out of 8 total. Time there will tell if it works or slows me down. Oh, it also does not have a problem with sleep mode. I can close it up, travel around, wake it up and it handles it without a hiccup! Nice!


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## Arjai (Oct 7, 2013)

Well, last night I had a bit of a bunch up. Running 4 CEP2's, SuperCache of 4.93 GB and uploading about 6 finished jobs.

Turns out that was just enough to freeze things up. It unlocked itself a few moments freeze, repeat. So, I suspended all the WU's, Let all the uploads happen, then adjusted the SuperCache down to 3.99GB.

All seems fine now. 6.7 to 6.9 GB out of eight runs smoothly, so far. I have not timed the dumps to disc at this setting, however it is still doing a fine job of saving the writes for minutes at a time then dumping for between 1 and 8 seconds. I have a slow 5400 rpm drive so, those times are accentuated.

More to come... 

**update 10/8** Ok, this morning. Put it to sleep to pack up for the coffee shop. 3.99GB cache, 2 done 4 running. Get to the coffee shop and the SuperCache is writing for ten minutes straight as the for running jobs go through re-starting, numerous times only to error out. Meanwhile, while the HDD is running at 100%, SuperCache is non responsive. I finally gained control and decided to change up some stuff, in the hopes of being a bit more stable.

Currently I have set BOINC to 75% CPU, meaning I am running three WU's with a new setting of 3.33GB cache. Since I use this computer for everyday use in addition to crunching, I need some space in memory for it to smoothly do what I want it to. CEP2 needs at least 1 GB in the cache to function well. 4BG has proven to slow things down and freeze for long-ish periods. It seems that in order to save the thrashing of my HDD, 12 to 20+ writes per minute, I need to compromise. If I could up the RAM any more I could definitely run four CEP2's with SuperCache w/out trouble. Or if this was only used for crunching I could also run all four, no problems. But, as it stands I need this for more than that.

In the couple hours since the change, I have downloaded twenty songs from NPR and now am listening to them, writing this, no hitches. Ram has 1.8GB of free space, fourth core is open for me and my stuff, and 3 CEP2's are crunching along. Oh, AND, my drive light is getting a nice rest!  Once this runs for a bit, in this configuration, I may try to run four again, for my overnight crunching. Since, I am then not using it. Then in the morning, change it back to the current 75%. We'll see how the next 24 goes!


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## Arjai (Oct 12, 2013)

The change to three, while surfing and such, has been great. It also has run overnight with four WU's with no problems.

If I haven't already stated this, I think this Super Cache thingy is great. I would recommend it to anyone that is concerned about the writes to HDD or SSD. I find that, on average, I can go over ten minutes between flushes, sometimes WAY over.

Don't know what else to say. I have found my happy medium, I wish I had more room for RAM but, I am making do with what I have, well.


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## agent00skid (Oct 12, 2013)

On my A6 I went ahead and just plopped WCG data folder into a RAM drive.

4GB RAM drive seems to only be just enough for 3 active CEP2 units though.

Also 4GB for RAM drive and then the 3 WU's in memory is a bit much for my 8GB kit.


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## Arjai (Oct 12, 2013)

agent00skid said:


> On my A6 I went ahead and just plopped WCG data folder into a RAM drive.
> 
> 4GB RAM drive seems to only be just enough for 3 active CEP2 units though.
> 
> Also 4GB for RAM drive and then the 3 WU's in memory is a bit much for my 8GB kit.



Mine too. I had trouble with a Ram Drive, Data Ram's, not having a dynamic image save. It would write over the last image instead of inserting the data into a growing file. It took a couple of hours but, eventually the jobs would fail.

That is why I tried this SuperCache, free 14 day trail, to run during the CEP2 challenge. See the link a few posts up.


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## agent00skid (Oct 12, 2013)

Since I only have 3 threads and immediate upload, I have enough room in the 4GB RAM drive for all the data, so I don't have to use the HDD as secondary storage. Lucky me!


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## Arjai (Oct 14, 2013)

agent00skid said:


> Since I only have 3 threads and immediate upload, I have enough room in the 4GB RAM drive for all the data, so I don't have to use the HDD as secondary storage. Lucky me!



I'm on a laptop, and have to pack it up and move around. I would lose everything unless it saved to HDD. Unfortunately, that didn't work. But this SuperCache? It seems as though it was built FOR me!!


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## agent00skid (Oct 14, 2013)

It did seem to work with the save to drive on shutdown. Though it does take it a wee bit of time to dump the 4GB.


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## Arjai (Oct 18, 2013)

agent00skid said:


> It did seem to work with the save to drive on shutdown. Though it does take it a wee bit of time to dump the 4GB.



LOL, "Wee Bit".


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