HPET performance increase?

[PoppaGeek]

As per this thread (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=226198) I built 2 opteron 1354 systems on 2 different motherboards. One has averaged 22 WUs and 10k ppd. The other was like 15 WUs and 7.5k ppd. I swaped CPUs, memory, PSUs, Hard drives, used USB memory stick as boot drive and used WinXP 32 and Linux 64 and nothing made any difference.

So I went thru the BIOS on both boards and did some googling. HPET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer) was enabled on the Gigabyte MB, the one doing the 10k ppd and disabled on the MSI, one doing 8k ppd. Also c1e was enabled on MSI but could find no option for it on Gigabyte. A search for c1e turned up threads people saying to disable it for OCing as it interfered with power levels to CPU.

So I enabled HPET and disabled c1e. That is all I have done and in the 4 days since the MSI has done 20+ WUs a day. 4 days are not much but it looks promising. Some projects may well use HPET, The High Precision Event Timer. It was designed for Muti-media but seems some projects do some timing checkpoints. :shrug:

I had spotty success OCing on the MSI and now no problems. Anyway I wanted to post this so if anyone has a machine that does not produce as much as you thought it would it is worth a check of the BIOS. I will update my thread on the Opteron 1354 after another 4 days or so as to it's output.

:toast:

[jcool]

Interesting...
Most boards have an option to use 32 or 64 bit HPET mode.. would be exciting to see if there are any differences :)

[karl_eller]

Is this an AMD setting, or do Intel boards have something similar?

As for C1E restricting overclocks, that only really applies if you're pushing the chip. I have C1E and SpeedStep enabled on my desktop, and it didn't change the vCore needed for 3.6 GHz.

Eller

[jcool]

Intels have that too.

[PoppaGeek]

HPET was developed by both Intel and Microsoft.

[karl_eller]

Hmm interesting, I'll have to poke around my desktop and server boards and see what shows up. I don't remember seeing HPET options in there, but I might have just ignored them not knowing what they do :p:

Eller

[GameFrame]

HPET is a high presision event timer which is used to provide a more stable system clock for multicore operating system.

As in Linux Kernel documentation, it says there is little bit overheat after enabling this timer since it´s off chip.

Considering this, it´s hard to believe enabling it will cause performance increase, instead you should see more stable system clock.

I have reason to believe this is true because for very long time i have been using "PM Timer" and after switching to HPET all clocks on my over ten Linux based server remained more stable ie. clock was not behind actual time.

[PoppaGeek]

The problem with this situation is the work from the projects vary greatly as I take all but HPF. So I may get mostly HCC one week and alot of FAA and NRW the next. If I did all one project on a system I would have more reliable numbers to gauge this. All I know is 2 very similar systems, one doing an average 22 WUs a day the other 16. I change HPET and now since then both average 21.86 WUs a day.

Unless someone wants to email the developers and ask how HPET does or does not effect their programs all I can say is if a machine does not produce as you think it should check if HPET is on.

:toast:

[Gamekiller]

I'll look into this on my rigs. Thanks for the heads-up. Every little bit counts.

[karl_eller]

I was poking through the BIOS of crunch1 a few days ago and saw an option for HPET, which reminded me of this thread.

My initial tinkering with HPET looks promising. My E7200 (3.8 GHz, Linux x64) Went from doing about 8.5k per day to around about 9.5-10k PPD, although I also upgraded BOINC from 6.2.xx (whatever is currently in the deb repositories) to 6.4.5, so I'm not sure what is from HPET and what is from the newer BOINC version.

I've just enabled it on the Server which I have some pretty consistent numbers for, so I should know within about a week how well it works.

All rigs run a fairly general mix of projects, as I'm only opted out of Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2.

Eller

[PoppaGeek]

There is no doubt in my mind it worked for me. I tried so many things including 3 different OSes and nothing made a differeence until I enabled HPET. Has been 6-7 weeks and number have held.

Hope it works as well for you! :up:

[slim142]

Somebody told me is better to have that disabled in XP, is it true?
Does it make a difference if 32 or 64 bit?

[karl_eller]

On second thought, I won't be enabling HPET on the server, since I can't find the option in the P5K Deluxe's BIOS...

Eller

[PoppaGeek]

Somebody told me is better to have that disabled in XP, is it true?
Does it make a difference if 32 or 64 bit?

I had XP 32 bit, Win 7 64 Bit and Linux 64 bit on it and an almost identical machine was putting out more PPD every day no matter what I did. Started going thru BIOS on both machines and noticed HPET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Precision_Event_Timer) disabled on slow one, enabled on fast one. Enabled it and now they match ppd. After reading the link above I could see it. Has to do with timers and HPET has higher accuracy.

Just try it can't hurt anything.

[PoppaGeek]

On second thought, I won't be enabling HPET on the server, since I can't find the option in the P5K Deluxe's BIOS...

Eller

May be enabled. I have a machine that does not have it in the BIOS but PPD is what would be predicted. It is a joint standard developed by Intel and Microsoft.

[mreuter80]

On second thought, I won't be enabling HPET on the server, since I can't find the option in the P5K Deluxe's BIOS...

Eller

I read somewhere that ASUS calls it "APCI 2" in their BIOS.
Check if you can find that.

[karl_eller]

I read somewhere that ASUS calls it "APCI 2" in their BIOS.
Check if you can find that.
Ding, that's the one. And and it was enabled by default.

Hmm I could test the effects of HPET by turning it OFF on the server, but I'm not sure I like the idea of decreasing my PPD output, even for this... :p:

Eller

[KaptainBlaZzed]

Ding, that's the one. And and it was enabled by default.

Hmm I could test the effects of HPET by turning it OFF on the server, but I'm not sure I like the idea of decreasing my PPD output, even for this... :p:

Eller

It was off by default on my P5K Premium, just enabled it.:shrug:

Lets see what it does.

[PoppaGeek]

From Intel forums: (http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/watercooler-catchall/topic/52108/)


Alex, in answer to your question, our engineering contacts confirmed that currently Microsoft Windows* XP’s timer APIs do not support the HPET. However, HPET is supported and accessible in Windows Vista*. We currently do not have any sample APIs for testing HPET with Windows*. If you are simply looking at testing the HPET, Linux* timer APIs support it today.

However, for the most accurate and up-to-date information, we recommend verifying HPET support with the OS vendor directly.

Further down it mentioned 2003 server also does not support it.

Linux and FreeBSD does as well as 32 bit and 64 Vista.

[[XC] riptide]

It was off by default on my P5K Premium, just enabled it.:shrug:

Lets see what it does.

Any difference, Troy?

[PoppaGeek]

2 days not going to tell ya anything. Need at least 7 days. WUs vary too much, unless you only get one project.

[KaptainBlaZzed]

riptide;3981441']Any difference, Troy?

Need more time, but here is what i got so far.


8/27/09 0:002:03:44:44 9,468 17 (1/2 day)
8/26/09 0:004:06:35:58 18,782 34

HPET Enabled

8/25/09 0:004:02:33:36 17,550 32
8/24/09 0:004:22:20:03 19,997 38
8/23/09 0:003:14:24:55 14,966 28
8/22/09 0:003:16:27:28 14,932 29
8/21/09 0:003:19:34:32 15,876 30
8/20/09 0:004:10:56:03 19,652 35
8/19/09 0:004:11:59:09 18,791 35
8/18/09 0:004:09:49:01 18,900 34
8/17/09 0:003:18:20:34 15,674 29
8/16/09 0:004:04:26:51 17,169 31
8/15/09 0:002:15:17:10 9,910 19
8/14/09 0:002:19:40:48 10,044 18

[STEvil]

huh.. should try enabling it on my X7DAL-E maybe.. I think its just called "Alternate System Timer" or something the BIOS for this thing.

[KaptainBlaZzed]

huh.. should try enabling it on my X7DAL-E maybe.. I think its just called "Alternate System Timer" or something the BIOS for this thing.

Stevil,

did you find it, i would be interested as i have 2 X7DAL-E's.

[STEvil]

yeah i found it. Turned it on.

[fallwind]

I've been playing with this setting on my i7/Vista rig and it doesn't seem to make a difference....on, off, 32 bit, 64 bit, all give the same PPD. Maybe only certain types of systems benefit from it?

[Tom128]

I was looking in my two ASUS boards and don't see an option for ACPI 2 anywhere. I did see something called ACPI SRAT Table that could be enabled/disabled. Perhaps that is it?

The boards I looked on were M3A79-T Deluxe and M3A78-T. Neither had it, their bios's are basically identical (and should have any option on earth, especially the deluxe).

[Tom128]

Nevermind I see it now, it was right in front of me. Under the POWER bios menu. Guess I was skimming that menu thinking it was not really related or likely lol.

[PoppaGeek]

I've been playing with this setting on my i7/Vista rig and it doesn't seem to make a difference....on, off, 32 bit, 64 bit, all give the same PPD. Maybe only certain types of systems benefit from it?

Possibly but I also suspect only some projects may use it. Unless you get 7 days of numbers to compare though I doubt you can really say one way or the other unless it is all the project. There are too many different projects and some projects have very different WUs.

I have no doubts it made a difference on my opteron. Having 2 almost identical systems and swapping parts around and using 2 different OSes I eliminated pretty much all other variables.

[STEvil]

I havent checked my stats forever lol.. where do I go to check? Might not change anything for me though since i'm on XP64.

[PoppaGeek]

At the MyGrid page at WCG I would go to Device Installations and get 7, 14 and 30 day averages for each machine. :up:

I read somewhere XP did not support HPET.


Operating systems designed before HPET existed cannot use HPET, so work only on hardware that has other timer facilities. Newer operating systems tend to be able to use either. Some hardware has both.

The following operating systems are known not to be able to use HPET: Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and earlier Windows versions, older Linux versions.

Microsoft Windows XP, SP2 does support the HPET timer. When enabled on an Intel DQ45CB motherboard, a Microsoft provided WHQL driver called "High Precision Event Timer" can be seen in START / SETTINGS / CONTROL_PANEL / SYSTEM / DEVICE_MANAGER / SYSTEM_DEVICES.