CPU usage by FAH won't go down enough

AussieAnnette

YO!

I've got an old clunker 256 RAM and 800 or so MHz CPU (yeah I know) and have been folding for about a week now.
Lately if I leave the puter for a few hours, the CPU usage by the FAH goes right up to 98%.

That's to be expected...Only thing is that once I take command of the mouse to do my normal activities on the puter, the FAH won't go down to the background CPU rate.

I'm freezing up.. takes over a minute for task manager to come up once I've clicked on it to reveal the cpu hogging culprit.

Any solutions?

I wonder if I can govern the amount of cpu it uses when I'm not using the puter..

Leonardo

The problem in your case is memory (the computer's not yours...). The F@H will take up to 100% of the CPU performance, but will cede whatever is necessary for competing programs. What is causing the slowdown/lockup for you is most likely system memory being saturated by Folding@Home. Two and three years ago, this was a not a problem, but as the molecular models have become more complex, their demands on physical memory have dramatically increased. The solution would be to either increase system memory or set to F@H to a lower CPU usage threshold, which would probably decrease the memory demands at the same time.

the_technocrat

I've found that XP by itself doesn't behave responsibly until you go over at least 192MB of RAM. I think it's been established that FAH can take up to 300MB of memory, so that would mean that you'd need at least 492 (512) of RAM for a folding machine, minimum, IMHO.

AussieAnnette

Well thanks for that info.

I hope to upgrade majorly in the future. Mean time I'll change my settings LOL

Leonardo

If you need any how to's on the settings, just post.