Benchmark results very low on 4770k

[Rob_B]

The estimated time remaining for all FAAH tasks on my 4770k are very high. At the moment they show as 03:27:01 and that is about 3 times as long as it actually takes to crunch the wu.
On my other rigs the estimated time is about right.

As soon as I increase the work buffer above 1.5 day I start getting wu's running in high priority.

I have been searching for a fix but can't find it.
The only thing I found so far is the difference in Benchmark results on my rigs. The results for the 4770k look all wrong.
Is there a way to fix this?


i7-3770 @ stock

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
3710 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
14239 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU


i7-2600k @ 4500 MHz

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
4230 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
16122 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU


i7-4770k @ 4300 MHz

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
1573 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
10614 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

[jeanguy2]

Rob_B,

Double check your CPU settings in BIOS, make sure that all cores are active. Also re-confirm your CPU ratio selection and RAM speed while your there.

Good luck,

[Rob_B]

Thanks.

I will go over the settings to make sure all is fine.

But It looks like it is good. The FAAH vina wu's finish in a little less than one hour and I have no errors. And there are 8 wu's being crunched at a time.

But I will check the settings. Had to anyway as I set it 4.3 GHz and set the voltage quickly to get the rig up asap.

[OldChap]

OS? I used mint 15 for a day or two and it reported similar benchmarks to yours.... Went back to mint 14

If a new rig give it time to settle maybe

[Rob_B]

Thanks OC. I was just thinking about the OS.
The 4770k is on Mint 15, the other two are on Ubuntu 12.04 lts.

Do I need to reinstall or is there an easier way to go to Mint 14?

[anubis]

Have you tried new kernel? Seems to be quite a kick in the b*lls (in a good, inspirational way) for a cruncher by my observations

[Rob_B]

New kernel?

I'm a complete Linux newbie, so I don't think I will mess with that.

[D_A]

Thanks OC. I was just thinking about the OS.
The 4770k is on Mint 15, the other two are on Ubuntu 12.04 lts.

Do I need to reinstall or is there an easier way to go to Mint 14?

To go from Mint 15 to 14 you need to reinstall. Just backup any personal data and go for it.

[OldChap]

Just out of curiosity....

Have you done a sudo apt-get update and sudo aptitude dist-upgrade on that 15?

I won't hold my breath but the continual upgrading of features might have fixed this among all the other things.

[Rob_B]

For some reason Mint 14 (and 13 too) won't boot after installation. Tried Ubuntu 12.04 lts, but couldn't get Boinc running. No idea why that didn't work as it worked fine on two other rigs.

Back to Mint 15 now so I can have it crunching. Tried sudo apt-get update and sudo aptitude dist-upgrade. It did install some thing, but no change to the Benchmark results.

I should have a little more time tomorrow to find a fix.

[D_A]

Tried sudo apt-get update and sudo aptitude dist-upgrade. It did install some thing, but no change to the Benchmark results.

Without a lot more information I have no idea why MInt 13 and 14 wouldn't play nice.

For your updates in Mint 15 use

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade

The dist-upgrade command only upgrades you to the next OS version, it doesn't handle security and stability (ie regular) updates so doing it in the latest version of Mint won't actually achieve anything.

[Rob_B]

Without a lot more information I have no idea why MInt 13 and 14 wouldn't play nice.

For your updates in Mint 15 use

sudo apt-get update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade

The dist-upgrade command only upgrades you to the next OS version, it doesn't handle security and stability (ie regular) updates so doing it in the latest version of Mint won't actually achieve anything.

I think it has some thing to do with UEFI. Linux installs, but when booting for the first time it hangs on a black screen or an empty Mint desktop.

Started over again an installed Mint 13 (for it's long term support, no idea if I needed that ) and got it working.
Benchmark is a little better and so are the estimated wu times. But the benchmark should be higher than this:

i7-4770k_Linuxmint

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
3588 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
10873 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Estimated wu competion time is now 1:31. And the wu's complete in 35-45 minutes.

[D_A]

It might be a background process, such as file indexing etc, running while it's benchmarking. Hard to say and it could well change after a day or two.

[anubis]

wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.12.tar.xz

Lets download this brand new stable mainline kernel - https://www.kernel.org/ (for all options)

sudo tar -xvf linux-3.12.tar.xz -C /usr/src/

..and extract it to /usr/src

cd /usr/src/linux-3.12/

..and go there

sudo make localmodconfig

lets remove EVERYTHING that is not in Your computer, or rather, build the kernel for this specific HW configuration - guess this is most reasonable for cruncher

sudo make -j13 deb-pkg

..since my opty has 12c I can put them all working - its available cores/threads +1

cd /usr/src/

up one level

sudo dpkg -i linux-image-3.12.0[TAB]

lets deploy that freshly baked niceness, [TAB] press the button here

sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-3.12.0[TAB]

that too

sudo shutdown -r now

time for restart!

Now, on boot options screen - select the new kernel from "advanced options".

Profit - if its not fast or has some issues then you can always revert to previous, again on "advanced options" on boot.

[the above is in no way 100% correct way, as im also a fresh convert to linux - but i think/hope any errors will be pointed out]

The above has been tested by me on my cruncher, which is still alive and has gained (with personalized kernel/frequent updates) ~15% (6,5K to 7,5K avg ppd)

If all is good with the new kernel - then lets remove the old one(s)

dpkg --list | grep linux-image

Gives the list of currently in the system

sudo apt-get purge linux-image-[insert old kernel number here]

Remove old ones not needed

sudo update-grub2

Update bootmenu

Profit!

[PoppaGeek]

nice

[D_A]

If you want to go up one level from wherever you currently are, just type

cd ..

It's a little thing that can save you a lot of typing when you're deep into nested directories.

[PoppaGeek]

A few more I like:

cd -

Takes you back to last directory in you were in.

cd

back to home directory.

Saturday I was jumping back and forth between $HOME and /var/lib/boinc-client/projects and all I needed to do was cd and cd -

[Rob_B]

I should write this down.


I was running Mint 13 with the 3.11.6 kernel and that didn't show the benchmarks I would expect when I compare it to the 2600k and 3770. But the estiamted wu time are correct now.
Just install the 3.12 kernel and will see how that works.

[OldChap]

I changed to 3.12 rc5 on the 21st October on just the one Asus rig

Historically the Asus has been producing less than the SM for me. For the first 10 days this swapped to the Asus producing more.... the margin is quit small though ...at 1K-1,5K Boinc ppd average

Making the change as I did caused me one problem. I have been unable to use fglrx

[Evantaur]

I changed to 3.12 rc5 on the 21st October on just the one Asus rig

Historically the Asus has been producing less than the SM for me. For the first 10 days this swapped to the Asus producing more.... the margin is quit small though ...at 1K-1,5K Boinc ppd average

Making the change as I did caused me one problem. I have been unable to use fglrx

script from amd's site not working?

[OldChap]

Que?

Back when GPU was running I used fglrx for crunching, have not tried anything else and only need to put gpu to sleep to save power.

After SCW I will do a new install with all the files in their normal places instead of in Boinc folder which will allow auto start and then I can run these headless, quiet and cheap

What will this "script" do?

[anubis]

Updated http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=1#post5214760 , included cleanup of old kernel versions.

[Rob_B]

Thanks.

But the thing that fixed it for me on this rig was using the latest version of Boinc. (7.2.28)
I posted this in an other thread too, but better keep at the info together here too.

The benchmark went from:

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
3583 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
10817 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

to:

Benchmark results:
Number of CPUs: 8
4429 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
16861 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

On a next install I will try Mint 15 again and see if the works better with the new Boinc.
May have to do a new build soon. After a lightning strike close by last week I have two rigs that are acting strange.