Why am I folding so slowly?

[shamrok3]

At the moment it's taking me 40-50 minutes per step on my desktop, running SMP client on 4 cores @ 3.0GHz, where it's taking only 20 Minutes or so on may laptop, runnign SMP on 2 Cores @ 2.26GHz. Is this massive difference merely because one is Intel and the other AMD, or have I screwed up?
Exact Data:
[04:25:27] Project: 2665 (Run 0, Clone 715, Gen 166)
[04:25:27]
[04:25:29] Entering M.D.
[04:25:39] Calling FAH init
[04:25:41] ater
[04:25:41] Writing local files
[04:25:41] rom checkpoint)
[04:25:41] Read checkpoint
[04:25:41] eps (16 percent)
[04:25:41] ter
[04:25:41] Writing local files
[04:25:41] Completed 41700 out of 250000 steps (16 percent)
[04:25:59] Extra SSE boost OK.
[04:40:47] Writing local files
[04:40:48] Completed 42500 out of 250000 steps (17 percent)
[05:29:40] Writing local files
[05:29:40] Completed 45000 out of 250000 steps (18 percent)
[06:17:38] Writing local files
[06:17:38] Completed 47500 out of 250000 steps (19 percent)
[07:31:12] Writing local files
[07:31:12] Completed 50000 out of 250000 steps (20 percent)
[08:12:00] Writing local files
[08:12:01] Completed 52500 out of 250000 steps (21 percent)
[09:03:06] Writing local files
[09:03:07] Completed 55000 out of 250000 steps (22 percent)
[09:53:43] Writing local files
[09:53:43] Completed 57500 out of 250000 steps (23 percent)

[DMB2000uk]

Partly Intel vs AMD, but also because they're probably different WU's so will take different amounts of time to finish.

Dan

[shamrok3]

Nope. I'm pretty sure it's the same WU. Project 2665: HGG in Water. I also don't see why it would have downloaded a WU that takes 50 Min per step.

[shamrok3]

Strange thing, it was running at approx 1 step in 30 min while I was running a virus scan, but promptly returned to 40-50min per step after the scan finished.

[Darkstar]

Might want to post that one in the Stanford forums see if they can tell you anything.

[geokilla]

Are you running the Windows SMP client? Switch to the Linux one. See http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=4464 to run the Linux client on VMware. It's much better than Notfred client. Also very easy to setup.

Either way, have you tried restarting your SMP client? Sometimes restarting it will fix whatever problem that's slowing your folding progress. Does Task Manager show that Folding@Home is using all your CPU usage?

[shamrok3]

Ok, It's showing as using all of my CPU, I have restarted several times, still taking about 50 Min/Step. Laptop is STILL running faster. I will have a look at running Linux through VMWare, but I don't think that my CPU on stock clocks will be able to complete -bigadv's within the time. And since my overclocking doesn't seem to be working, I will be running stock clocks.

[shamrok3]

I have tried to install the VMWare Linux client but it's not working. I'm running a Phenom II, so it doesn't have any Hyperthreading, which means I only have 4 Logical cores. Because of this, when I run the VMWare, it says that I only have 4 Processor cores, where it needs 7. When I try to install through VMWare/Create New Virtual Machine, it doesn't recognise the system, so I tried telling it that it was Ubuntu Linux (Which Linux is it based on anyway?) to which it said that the OS was not installed... Perhaps there is some way for me to manually reconfigure the settings so that it's only running 3 or 4 cores and possibly reducing RAM requirements as my base OS (Windows Vista HP) is 32 Bit and therefore only supports around 3.3GB of RAM, and this is my main computer.

[vbironchef]

I went through some very old posts and found this: http://code.google.com/p/fah-smp-affinity-changer/

[shamrok3]

Ok, never mind, I got the Linux VM running. Obviously running it had put it into the VMWare OS list, from which I could change the amount of cores and RAM allocation. One final question: The guide says that you will need 4600Mb (As opposed to 3600Mb) to run 8 core folding (As opposed to 7 core folding). If I am running it with 2GB of RAM should I be using 3 Cores? Or should I be using 3 Cores anyway to free one up for my GPU folding? (currently my only source of points, Laptop SMP folding is STILL only on about 40% from folding around a week/7 hours a day and desktop is only up at 50% from folding for a week at 8 hours a day.)

[shamrok3]

Yaay! Super-Success. Using Linux VM, it's now completing a step around about every 12 Minutes. Woot! Thanks Geo!

[shamrok3]

!UPDATE!
Finished a whole 35% and the day's only half done! Took me around 4 Days with the SMP client to achieve this. Hoping that the pts for this are decent!

[geokilla]

No problem. I hope you're not using the -bigadv flag. You can configure the client so it doesn't use -bigadv. You can run the normal 1920 point WU on it as well.

You can also set it to use just 4 cores and say 1024MB of RAM.

[shamrok3]

No,I'm not using -bigadv. I'm not that stupid, I know that you really need an i7/i5 to run -bigadv.