BOINC appears to have a problem with filling the cached memory in a way
that prevents Windows from using that cached memory for any 32-bit programs
until the next restart or reboot. Problem seen under 64-bit Windows Vista
and 64-bit Windows 7; 64-bit Windows 10 appears to have a similar problem
even if it does not call anything cached memory; I do not have any running
other versions of Windows to check.
64-bit workunits appear to be able to get cached memory freed if they need
it. I do not run 64-bit programs from the console often enough to tell if
such 64-bit console programs can also free cached memory or not.
One of my computers with 8 GB of memory and 64-bit Windows Vista is now
often unable to start its email program unless I have shut down BOINC.
Another computer, with 16 GB memory and Windows 10, does not have as obvious
a problem yet, but the email program is often slow to start or run there.
Suspending BOINC to free CPU use does not help.
My Windows Vista computer currently has 5319 of its 8190 blocks of physical
memory labelled as cached, and is slow to respond when I start a 32-bit
program
with significant use of memory.
Still, the help files do not appear to explain what cached memory is,
whether
it is useful to reduce the amount of cached memory, and if so, how to do
this.
So many files on the hard drives that defragmentation, full virus scans, and
other operations on all the files take 3 to 5 days, even with nothing else
running. These are mostly message files from using Windows Mail and Windows
Live Mail to read newsgroups, and save most of the messages read or even
downloaded but not yet read. This is so long that I seldom run any
operations
that require reading all the files. Quick virus scans find nothing of
interest,
though.
The motherboard appears to be at the maximum amount of physical memory
it can handle.
Could several of you join me in asking Microsoft to add an explanation of
whether it is useful to reduce the amount of memory cached, and if so,
how to
reduce the cached memory? I'd like for them to provide a program to
show more
about what is being cached, including any file names, so that users can look
harder at the files cached most often. For example, I'd like to check
if files
that a program used months ago but but not more recently are getting
stored in
the cache every time that program runs.
I've found information on what memory caches are supposed to be used for
(faster access to items likely to be used again), but it looks like
BOINC does not allow
enough of the cached memory to be freed when 32-bit programs need more
memory.
One idea of how to change BOINC to reduce the number of BOINC-related
files in
cached memory: BOINC already has a feature for allowing frequently
used files
to be stored in project directories so they can be saved for any future
workunits that need them. A new feature could be added to allow BOINC
servers
to tell BOINC clients that some of the files in the project directories are
not expected to be used again, and therefore should be deleted from the
project
directories so that they cannot be loaded into cached memory in the future.
This may need some thought about what to do if a project mistakenly lists a
file as no longer needed, but some later workunit tries to use it anyway.
Note that both the server and the client will need to have sufficiently
recent software for this new feature will work, so it should be designed in
a way that will allow older BOINC software to ignore it if only one end of
the connection supports the feature.
I have not found a definite way to duplicate this problem, but the following
method seems likely: Start with a computer with 8 GB of memory or less, and
running 64-bit Windows. Install a recent version of BOINC, if it isn't
already
installed. Connect it to each of the following BOINC projects, and run
each of
their applications at least once:
World Community Grid
rosetta@home
ralph@home
PrimeGrid
Milkyway@Home
GPUGRID
FiND@Home
Einstein@Home
Albert@Home
These projects were the ones that use the most disk space on my
computers, and
therefore probably have the most space used in their project directories.
My computers are connected to enough other projects to have about 20
projects
in all connected.
Now, with all but one of the CPU cores running 32-bit CPU workunits, and
a GPU
workunit also running, start trying to start some 32-bit program that
uses a lot
of memory.
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