CPU Usage question

No, it's not false. While it's come to light that the behavior seems to differ for some people, that doesn't change what others, including myself, have observed. Even if it's only normal for a certain percentage of the user base, it's still normal.



So let me get this straight? When I say something is worth exploring, that means I'm ignoring it? Wow, I had no idea that's what I really meant. Thanks for setting me straight. You see, all this time I thought what I meant was WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID.



No one derailed anything. The question was answered (although evidently not completely answered yet), and then the discussion took a turn in another direction. That's called conversation. It happens all the time.

Also, not that it really matters, but I was not the one who initiated the turn. Please keep your facts straight.

After reading my direct answer to the direct question, it was the OP who then raised the secondary question of whether the behavior might lead to problems. Several people, including myself, then engaged in discussion about whether or not it would. There's nothing wrong with that. You'd do well not to pretend you think there is, just because you feel it might somehow help you find fault with someone you're looking to find fault with anyway.



I never once claimed otherwise. Again, please keep your fact straight. OF COURSE a CPU will generate heat as it's used. That was never in dispute.

What I said was that no amount of CPU usage will cause the processor to overheat, as long as the cooling system in use is adequate. I never said that overheating a CPU wouldn't cause problems.

Regarding longevity, what I said was I don't believe runing a CPU at 100%, AS LONG AS IT'S ADEQUATELY COOLED, will shorten its lifespan enough for it to die before its host machine becomes obsolete.



I've said over and over and over again, that much of what I've said is a matter of opinion. For the third time, please keep your facts straight, and don't try to twist my words. It's all there in black and white, for all to see. (Well, dark blue and light blue, anyway, with this forum template.) Trying to pretend I wrote things I didn't write just makes you look silly.



Yes, too much heat will kill a processor. I never claimed otherwise.



No, I don't necessarily agree on that point. I beleive that as long as a processor is kept within its design threshold, and barring any defects, it will run for a very, very, very long time.



You're trying to combine two separate points of mine into one. Either you're truly unable to follow my writing or you're deliberately trying to change its meaning. Either way, let me state for the record what the two separate points are:

1. As long as the temperature is kept in check, I don't believe running a CPU at 100% will cause any more damage than running it at 1%.

2. Even if excessive use were to shorten the lifespan of a CPU, I don't believe it will shorten it enough to be statistically significant before the processor's host machine becomes obsolete.

These two points are related to one another, but they are very separate ideas. If you truly can't see that, there's not much point in continuing to discuss this, since you won't understand what I'm trying to say. I don't know any other way to explain it.

I suspect you do understand it, though, and for whatever reason, you feel it suits you better to pretend otherwise.



Great, so you're another user who is not experience the 100% usage. As I said, it's worth exploring what's causing different machines to behave so differently.



Sure. That's to be expected.



Sounds like that fifth computer didn't have adequate cooling. Either that, or it was defective. I've got a 6-year old machine with a Pentium 4 in it, that's had its CPU usage at 100% or very close to it for almost every day of its life, and it still works as well as it did when it was brand new. Add yours and mine together, and there's no statistical significance one way or the other.

Also, as Argent pointed out, older CPU's are physically larger, and thus less susceptible to the damaging effects of electromigration. That makes it less likely that usage alone is what killed your Pentium D.



I think we've well established by now that it's normal for some users and not others. What we haven't yet established is why.




Peggy, I'm hardly an expert on everything Second Life, and I've never claimed to be. Please limit your comments to the facts of the thread topic. You've made no secret of the fact that you don't like me. We all get that, really. You don't need to keep finding ways to repeat it over and over again. The message was received and understood long ago.

For what it's worth, out of the 50+ forums on this board, I only ever post in four of them. Technical Issues happens to be one because I happen to know some of the answers to some of the questions people ask here. The same is true for Building Tips, Texturing Tips, and to a lesser degree, Resident Answers. That's it, and that's all. I never comment on topics I don't know anything about, unless it's to ask questions. I'm sorry that my presence bothers you so much as it seems to, but it's your problem, not mine. Remember, Yellow Pages, P.



I've said probably a thousand times now that temperatures should be monitored, and adequate cooling should be used. How exactly do you believe that will cause people to ignore potential problems?



It's possible other programs are contributing, but I'd be more inclined to believe it's got to do with hardware configuration. That's just a guess, though. The subject is definitely worth exploring, as I've said several times now.

But again, it's NOT a problem unless there's excessive heat buildup.



I think we'd all appreciate it if you'd remove me from that favorite status. It's almost frightening how obsessive you seem to be towards me.

In any case, I've never once tried to convince you you're stupid. Quite the opposite, I've consistently maintained the theory that you're far more intelligent than you often pretend to be. You have, on more than one occasion, called yourself stupid. My consistent response to it has been, and will likely always be, "I don't think you're stupid, but if you insist on using that label to describe yourself, then I won't argue. Fine, you're stupid. You said it, not me."

Peggy, questions of disagreement and questions of intelligence levels are two very different things. Once again, I'm sorry if you can't bring yourself to acknowledge the difference.

In any case, thanks at least for the pretense of sticking on topic, even though you did manage to distort almost every one of the points of mine that you were responding to. That's at least SOME progress.

The PC I've been watching this on has an 8800GT, so I figure most users are graphics bound long before I am.

I watched CPU useage on my second PC (P4, 7600GS) briefly, and it ran around 67% consistantly.

I'm curious to find out what causes 100% CPU use. Like I said, I do see it occasionally, but I can't figure out what causes it.

You are missing one very important point with your argument. All you have been focusing on is the laptop's heat handling for the CPU and possibly the GPU. But even the best heatsinks and heat pipe solutions radiate heat to their surroundings - and, last time I checked, the majority of a laptop's motherboard is passively cooled.

While your supercooled CPU is running at full-tilt, it is producing far more heat than it would at idle. Granted, most of this heat is exhausted out the back of your laptop, but some still radiates outward to the rest of your laptop. Now, add in the extra heat all these non-cooled components like resistors, voltage regulators, and so on are producing with respect to the extra current your CPU running at full-tilt is drawing. Then throw in the radiative heat produced by your memory, your hard drive, and so on...

If the CPU in your laptop burns out from excess heat, it's not a big deal - just pull out the bad chip, drop in a new one, put some Arctic Silver on it, and away you go; the hardest part is getting the laptop apart and back together again. At most, you're out a couple hundred bucks. However, if your laptop's mainboard dies from excess heat buildup caused by you overworking your CPU, then you're generally out a laptop. So, the fact that your laptop has a CPU cooling system that could blow-start a jet engine is a bit of a moot point.

/me clears her throat and points to Post #29.

im glad i havent posted anything about this

your both right in certain points, and both verrücktes on others

I don't use voice and have encountered it on installations of the viewer with the voice support files removed.

It may be responsible in some instances, but not all.

It may also depend on which viewer you are using. Some of the recent viewers had a nasty habit of aggressively dumping texture cache, pretty much forcing the reloading of textures every time you move. If your CPU has to get involved in that process (constantly having to reload textures off the Internet, the disk thrashing, and so on), then it could likely drive up usage. I think sculpties and Linden trees still have this problem.

Peggy, thank you for articulating in detail what I have been saying in small bits...no one really answered the question, and programs running in the background could be causing the problem....

I guess when your too busy in a pissing contest, everything else doesn't matter....

btw peggy...where do you get that nice tool you have on that screenshot?

lol...so that means viewer crashes are normal...

Haha. Sadly, yes, they are.

Normal doesn't imply good or bad. It just means typical behavior.




Sure, but even with all that, it's unlikely a motherboard will overheat in any decently designed system. If you want to talk about crappy designs, we could go on all day listing the various things that could cause this or that to fail. But if it makes you feel any better, feel free to expand what I said in all my previous posts to include the entire computer, not just the CPU.

All I'm (repeatedly) trying to get across here is that if one's machine can't handle what one is doing with it, one should get a better suited machine. It's such a simple concept, I really don't know why that's so hard for some here to swallow. And again, I have no illusions that that's what everyone WILL do. I'm just saying it's what everyone SHOULD do. That's all.


In any case, I don't know about anyone else, but one of the first things I look at when considering any computer, especially a laptop, is the cooling system. That includes passive elements, such as the amount, size, and placement of vents in the chassis. Anyone who's not doing the same is asking for trouble.




I seriously doubt that those two large fans are aimed only at the CPU. I haven't opened the thing up to verify, and I don't plan to, but it seems fairly obvious that they're blowing a considerable amount of air through the entire system.

On every component I'm able to monitor, temperatures consistently range from about 50-75 degrees, and only fluctuate by maybe 10 degrees per component, depending on usage. That's well within tolerance for just about anything. If I really, really crank it, I can get one or both GPU's up to about 77. That's as hot as anything ever gets in this machine. I'm sure you'd agree it's pretty unlikely anything would fry at those temps.



For what it's worth, on this laptop, nVidia Monitor reports CPU 1 steadily at or near 100% usage when SL is in active use, while CPU 0 stays in the 50's to 70's. So I guess the question of whether SL is using 100% CPU on this machine is both yes and no. It depends which CPU you're looking at.

Also, just to be thorough, if I activate Firefox, and push SL to the background, CPU usage drops to 20-25% on CPU 0 and to 25-30% on CPU 1. So if I wanted to, I could certainly produce a screenshot appearing to show that SL uses far less CPU power than it actually does, without even having to Photoshop it. It would be trick photography, though. I'm not throwing out any accusations about anyone else's screenshots. I'm just saying it's worth keeping in mind.

That said, I'd certainly rather we trust each other than not. All we can do is take each other at our word, after all.

The GIMP. A very powerful imaging prgram that is on par with Photoshop in it's capabilities. A GNU program completely free to download and use in any form you wish from the internet. Search "The GIMP" and download from the official GIMP.org website. I'm using version 2.6 which is the latest since I last checked.

Beware though..........the documentation is difficult for the inexperienced to read and follow. I would suggest a book from Amazon.com titled "Beginning GIMP from Novice to Professional" by Akkana Peck if you want to learn how to use the program to it's fullest. The book is written in such a way that learning is quite easy and very fast. I recommend GIMP to anyone.

Why am I not surprised you found a way to toss that in?

Actually, the first screenshot I did was when I launched Task Manager to show CPU usage....changed my mind for the very reason you just pointed out. Much to easy to cut the task manager box from a blank desktop and paste to any image I want. So I decided to use my monitoring program that superimposes the monitored devices on top of all windows.......making sure Sine Wave Island's most active area was in sight of my avatar. Sure, I could "Photoshop" the image (but I use GIMP so maybe that's GIMPshop it ) but to what use would that be? Unlike you, my ego is not so huge that I have resort to offhanded, sideway points of doubt to get my argument across. The only altering I did to the screen shot was enlarge it by double to make the readings large enough to read and desaturated the colors by about 20% to lessen the fuzziness of the JPEG lossy compression when I saved the screenshot. Other than that the image was not altered in any way.

And, just to get this off my chest, Mr Few. My main problem with you is your "little man with a big ego" thing. You insist you are absolutely correct on almost everything. Even when people with much more expertise than you differ.......you will not back down. You absolutely must have the last word. Often you make a complete fool of yourself doing so. Yet, you think it's perfectly okay to suggest I have some compulsive disorder.......of which you are absolutely out of line in your not so vaguely disquised contempt for me. You also are so wrong in your assessment it would be funny.........except it pisses me off. Your screen name does reveal a huge amount of information about you personally.........and you don't even know that.

Then to toss out a not so vague accusation of photo manipulation (remember I'm the only one who posted a link to a screenshot so far.........I know, and so does everyone else, who that little poke was directed at. Just like in a court of law...............a lawyer throws out some off the wall comment knowing it is wrong and immediately retracts it. The "damage" was done at the very uttering of the accusation. You know it. You did knowing it. You did it on purpose. And your retraction immediately following shows just how contemptuous you are of the readers of anything you say.

Thank you for finally showing your ass to the world.

Amazing post, Peggy. Simply amazing.

actually was interested in the tool that showed your core usage and temps.

Oh, sorry.

That's PC Wizard 2008.
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

It's free, Does more than monitor temps and performance. Probably not the most feature rich monitoring program out there but it's very simple to use and takes almost no resources from your system. It's a Windows only program.

You're a doll Peggy, no matter what Chosen says about you

She wrote four posts for the sole purpose of expressing her personal disdain for me (something she's done dozens of times over the years, I might add), but somehow I'm the one who said things about her? Yeah, man. Whatever you say.

Life just isn't that serious Chosen...we all go through life with people that "misunderstand" us, and the world doesn't quit spinning. If you can't take a little constructive criticism, or even outright insults, than possibly the yellow pages are in order.

I'll say two things in response to this, and then I'll ask that we all either get back on topic, or just let this thread die.

First in regard to what I can or can't "take", Buster, come on. Let's be real here. It's not like I'm crying over my desk or anything because someone dared insult me. Peggy insults me all the time. It's an ongoing nuisance, nothing more.

Her tirade cycle is practically a force of nature, constant as the wind. In case you're curious, the ever repeating pattern is basically as follows: I get involved in a debate with someone that lasts more than a few volleys, add water, shake, stir, Peggy shows up to say what an awful person I am for a few days, and then she disappears again for a few weeks. It's like clockwork.

So, you see, the simple fact of the matter is I've BEEN taking it, as politely as I know how, for years, and will likely continue to have to continue to do so for years to come. I don't know what I said or did to wander into her crosshairs, and trigger such clearly obsessive behavior. All I can say is that if you had any idea of the real history here, you'd probably be kicking yourself for what you just said.

If you're further curious, I'll add that every time, her tantrums are based on variants of the same theme. Sometimes it's that my posts are too long, so somehow I must be trying to intimidate everyone who might be more succinct in their own posts (as if there's some sort of contest for the most number of words or something). Other times its that my writing style is too grammatically formal, so somehow I must be trying to show off. (Is it even possible to show off simply by not using improper grammar?) On still other occasions, it's been that I'm too intelligent, so somehow I'm being unfair to "those of us who are stupid" (her words, not mine) because I talk over her head. This time it's that my ego is too big, my stature is too small (even though I'm over 6 feet tall), and that I have to have the last word (even though I'd already offered three or four times simply to agree to disagree with the person I was then debating). One can only wonder what variant will come next time. Perhaps my nose will be too long or my ears will be too big or something, which will of course mean I'm unjustly trying to outsmell and outhear those with short noses and small ears. We'll just have to wait and see.

I'll leave it to you to examine the real history here, or not, at your leisure, and draw your own conclusions. I don't know you from a hole in the wall, so I have no reason to care what you do or don't think of me. But truth itself is bigger than either of us, and I do believe that if one is going to make judgments based on his or her perception of the truth of any situation, one does bear somewhat of a responsibility to examine the entire history of that situation, in order to make the most accurate judgment possible. So I encourage you to do a little digging through the fourms. Based on what you've said so far, I think you'll be more than a little surprised at what you find.


Second, let me address my own reactive behavior here. I'll admit my "yellow pages" comment was perhaps less than dignified. If taken only in the context of this one thread, it probably would seem way out of line. Even in full context, it's not something I should have put in print. I slipped off the high road, temporarily, and for that, let me offer my apologies to all readers, and especially to relatively infrequent forum users such as yourself, who deserve better than to have this kind of distraction present in one of the very few threads that are of interest to you. I'll try to a better job of maintaining my full composure in the face of these never ending attacks from now on. Thanks for calling the matter to question.



Now, I'll ask you the same question I asked Peggy. Do you have anything further on topic to add to this thread or are you simply here to join her on her quest to throw insults at me?

/me wonders where the insult was...i do have to say one thing though...you are the last word kind of person...don't know if that is an insult, but it is definitely an observation

you should see it when chosen and i get into it

BTW i love you guys and i am so glad ive kept out of this one

Chicken

Yea, and I'm the infrequent forum user here!

hahahahaha!

You're not wrong to wonder that, now that I look back on it in retrospect. If you don't know the history, then Peggy's first two posts would seem benign. The most responsible thing for me to have done would have been to ignore the first one altogether. While I knew what she was trying to say, others like yourself, did not, and did not need to. With that in mind, I'll take full responsibility for the somewhat ugly direction this thread took after she showed up, and once again, I'll apologize for it. I should have left well enough alone.

I don't want to make excuses, but the fact that I've been sick and in pain with a tonsil infection for the past few days probably didn't help to keep my judgment sound. Sorry about that.




Since we are where we are in this thread, I can see how you would have gotten that impression of me. Let me try to clear a few things up.

First, I can assure you I don't give a damn about having the last word. There are plenty of good reasons to continue engagement a discussion or not, but simply wanting to the B in an AB sequence is not one of them. Why I, or anyone else, might ever care in the slightest about such a thing, I can't fathom. It's simply not something that would occur to me.

Seriously, it does seem an awfully silly thing for anyone to be concerned with, don't you think? If I'm mistaken, and there actually is a reason to care about speaking last, all I can say is it's lost on me. I have no idea what it might be.

When a simple difference of opinion seems irreconcilable, I'll often ask the other party to agree to disagree, just as I did here with Argent. If the other party agrees, that's the end of it, and then it is THEY, not I, who has the last word. But when the other party refuses, and wants to keep going, sometimes I'll continue, and sometimes I won't. Either way, the question of who's second in the sequence is not anything that ever crosses my mind. That's simply not how my mind works.

The reason I continued in this particular instance with Argent is that it happened to be an enjoyable debate. That's all. Argent is intelligent, well spoken, and formulates ideas well. Not that every discussion should be a debate, but if a debate is in progress, Argent is a fine opponent to have, not one I believe should just be dismissed. So, contrary to accusation, my own ego had little, if anything to do with it. It was all about having a good time with the debate. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

Also, for what it's worth, just to deal with the other accusation that's been thrown out (not by you, Buster), I don't have any desire to be right all the time. Just the opposite, I'm extremely glad I'm not. It would be one hell of a boring existence if I were. Whenever someone proves me wrong on ANYTHING, I always thank them for the correction. I just have a high standard of proof is all. I don't simply take someone's word for it when they say "I've been doing this 20 years, so I know I'm right, just because I said so."

If someone's factually correct, they should be prepared to prove it. If they're opining, they should admit that that's what they're doing. Some people, unfortunately, seem to be unwilling to do either, for reasons that escape me.

The bottom line is that things like verifiability, documentation, repeatable demonstration, etc., should never be a problem for anyone who is presenting an actual fact, rather than an opinion disguised as a fact. When such things are absent, I'll often call the presenter to task, and ask for them. If they can produce them, great. I'll happily thank them for it, especially if their information proves any of mine to be incorrect.

The whole point here is for us all to learn from each other.. In that respect I love being proven wrong. It's often the best way to learn. But as I said, my standard for what constitutes proof is high. "You're wrong because you're wrong" doesn't fly. Now, you can call that "needing the last word" if you really want to so grossly misinterpret it, but that's not at all what it's about.

That same philosophy applies to what happens when someone tries to twist my words. When somebody attempts to pretend I said something I didn't actually say, or tries to accuse me of being something I'm not, I don't sit idly by. I call them on it in no uncertain terms. As I see it, that's the only right thing to do. Again, if one is hell-bent on misinterpreting my intentions, one could pretend all one likes that I have some inexplicable need always to speak second. But that won't make it true.

Hopefully what I've said here makes some sense. It's not easy to self-analyze, let alone express such analyzation accurately with the written word. But I gave it my best shot. Either you'll get it or you won't.


Now, I'll ask one more time. Are we going to get back on topic here or not? If the answer is no, then I promise you'll have the last word, because there will be no point in my continued presence here.

your both right

altho I can not find anything substantial about silicon switching degradation over cycles, I did find a lovely paper describing the effects of strain on a single transistor gate IC (just multiply it by a billion)



which could be due to physical (heat sink too tight and warped?) or thermal

running the cpu at less than 100% saves on thermal, and modern systems also cut back on power

Also, it really is not necessary for SL to recalc the entire geometry and re-render the textures every frame in a mostly static scene, but SL does not operate that way atm

on the same token if the cpu is cooled properly then the only harm is to the planet... You can get OLD computers on ebay like the apple ][ e, fully operational decades after their life expectancy, and the technology has only gotten better since then