Reining In Problem Application?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I've got an IP camera server running on my 24-7 machine.

The way it is set up (frame buffering...) it want's to eat up most of
the processing power.

I've got an app called "Process Lasso" that allows me to prioritize
running apps and control their CPU affinity.

I set the problem app to Priority=BelowNormal and that helped
noticeably.

Then I got the bright idea of restricting it to only CPU0 (4 CPUs
available on this machine). Beeeeg mistake. It brought the machine to
it's knees - as in 2-3 minute waits for menus to drop...

Ok... so I won't go there again.

But can anybody recommend anything else to help keep this application
from decreasing response time of other apps?

Just for edification's sake, can somebody explain why cutting it back to
a single CPU hosed all the other apps (that are running on all 4 CPUs)?
I'm thinking maybe that all the other apps were cut back to CPUs 1-3 and
the problem app was restricted to CPU 4 it might help... but that would
beg the question of how to cut XP itself back to CPUs 1-3...

 

[Paul]

I've got an IP camera server running on my 24-7 machine.

The way it is set up (frame buffering...) it want's to eat up most of
the processing power.

I've got an app called "Process Lasso" that allows me to prioritize
running apps and control their CPU affinity.

I set the problem app to Priority=BelowNormal and that helped
noticeably.

Then I got the bright idea of restricting it to only CPU0 (4 CPUs
available on this machine). Beeeeg mistake. It brought the machine to
it's knees - as in 2-3 minute waits for menus to drop...

Ok... so I won't go there again.

But can anybody recommend anything else to help keep this application
from decreasing response time of other apps?

Just for edification's sake, can somebody explain why cutting it back to
a single CPU hosed all the other apps (that are running on all 4 CPUs)?
I'm thinking maybe that all the other apps were cut back to CPUs 1-3 and
the problem app was restricted to CPU 4 it might help... but that would
beg the question of how to cut XP itself back to CPUs 1-3...

It sounds like your system is not able to migrate everything it
needs to migrate, to the other cores.

Things I would check would include:

1) BIOS APIC versus PIC setting. You want APIC.
Verifiable from Device Manager, View:Resource By Type,
Interrupt Request (IRQ). Check to see if interrupts go up to at least 23.
If limited to 15, that's PIC in the BIOS doing it.
2) BIOS MPS specification. This is not available in newer motherboards,
because it's always turned on. On an older motherboard, you can have
MPS (MultiProcessor Specification) 1.1 or 1.4, and you'd select 1.4.
Probably verifiable, as in (3), whether it's working.
3) In the OS, Device Manager, Computer entry, Properties, you want
to check that a good HAL is in place.

ACPI Multiprocessor PC

That should enable usage of IOAPIC, so that hardware interrupts can run
on any core they want. If you don't have IOAPIC, for any reason, then
I think Core0 handles interrupts. That kind of sounds like what has
happened to you.

What's the make and model number of the motherboard ? So I can
go check the manual...

This all sounds rather unlikely, but I hope that gives you a
starting point. Maybe it was the priority setting you did or
something, but that would be an unexpected result.

Paul

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I've got an IP camera server running on my 24-7 machine.

The way it is set up (frame buffering...) it want's to eat up most of
the processing power.

I've got an app called "Process Lasso" that allows me to prioritize
running apps and control their CPU affinity.

I set the problem app to Priority=BelowNormal and that helped
noticeably.

Then I got the bright idea of restricting it to only CPU0 (4 CPUs
available on this machine). Beeeeg mistake. It brought the machine to
it's knees - as in 2-3 minute waits for menus to drop...

Ok... so I won't go there again.

But can anybody recommend anything else to help keep this application
from decreasing response time of other apps?

Just for edification's sake, can somebody explain why cutting it back to
a single CPU hosed all the other apps (that are running on all 4 CPUs)?
I'm thinking maybe that all the other apps were cut back to CPUs 1-3 and
the problem app was restricted to CPU 4 it might help... but that would
beg the question of how to cut XP itself back to CPUs 1-3...

I seem to recall that Windows' UI is single-threaded and runs under
CPU0 so I think you just stomped on Windows' ability to draw the UI,
react to mouse / keyboard, etc. Try setting the problem app to CPU1
and see how that works out.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Paul:

What's the make and model number of the motherboard ? So I can
go check the manual...

Thanks for all the time. It's starting to dawn on me about the use of
CPU0.

GigiByte EP45-UD3L, Socket 775 LGA Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 @2.66GHz

 

[Paul]

Per Paul:

Thanks for all the time. It's starting to dawn on me about the use of
CPU0.

GigiByte EP45-UD3L, Socket 775 LGA Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q8400 @2.66GHz

Well, I'm not really seeing anything promising
in the manual. No PIC or APIC.

There is a setting to reduce your quad to run on a single core,
but if you'd used that, there would be no affinity options to
speak of, in Task Manager. Since you were able to see and select
CPU0 for the program, that implies the four core registered.

So the next step, is to look at Device Manager.

Paul

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Zaphod Beeblebrox:

I seem to recall that Windows' UI is single-threaded and runs under
CPU0 so I think you just stomped on Windows' ability to draw the UI,
react to mouse / keyboard, etc. Try setting the problem app to CPU1
and see how that works out.

I took it off of CPU0, left it on 1,2,3.

The app in question's UI runs noticeably slowly, but everything else
under Windows seems have it's UI running normally - so I quit while I
was ahead..

I a few days, we'll know if it's real or some sort of placebo effect.

Keeping in mind that my car definitely runs better after it's been
washed and waxed... -)