solved: very slow PC performance affecting BoincTasks

[Joseph Stateson]

I came here looking for why over the last several months my system has really slowed especially noticeable in BoincTasks "updates" but also affecting other programs.  Using windows 10 resource manager I observed disk drive C generally %100 most of the time with a very rare drop to under %5

BT is handling 7 systems and 82 apps.  It was getting difficult to even scroll BT and I had to wait 20-30 seconds to see a response. Sometimes the response was "Not Responding".  Disk usage was always showing  %100 during these times.


I used the following for ideas that worked so well I had to come here to post about it.
https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/100-disk-usage-windows-10-fixed/

What I did and how it worked

1.  Saw that iCloud photos was a big user, I disallowed iCloud from any access to my files.  This brought the disk usage down and a slight improvement.


2.  Went to startup services and changed sysmain from automatic to manual.  This made a huge difference in startup.  No long %100 for the first 3-4 minutes after rebooting or starting windows.  I suspect that this app informs M$OFT what programs you run most of the time in addition to pre-loading them in memory.  I don't need to have gridcoin research, BOINC or BT preloaded especially gridcoin as it is huge.

3. Change system performance from "best looking" to "adjust for best performance".  This made a huge difference in boinctasks.  Some time ago after a feature update I was asked if Windows could change my display settings to improve them.  I think this caused the shift from best performance to best looking.

4. Set virtual memory to custom:  minimum 4096 max 32768 for C drive only,  Nothing for D drive.  I have 32gb ram and the recommended was 1.5 * 32 but I went with 32 instead of 48.

It is as if I have a new computer again!!!!


hope this helps someone.

[fred]

Thanks,

Here is another link:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/tips-to-improve-pc-performance-in-windows-10-b3b3ef5b-5953-fb6a-2528-4bbed82fba96
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/optimize-windows-for-better-performance-6c70719b-d7b7-2ab3-d744-c88113c7e83a

[Joseph Stateson]

Thanks for the additional link.  I noticed that all of them suggested letting windows decide the size of the page or swap file.  That might be true for some users and systems.  I know that the last time I let windows manage my printers I had a large word document printing on my small label printer.

Another problem that I failed to mention.  I wrote that BT is handling 7 systems and 82 apps but actually there were over 600 tasks waiting to run that BT handles.  That is a lot of traffic with updates every few seconds.   World community grid does not feed the BOINC app like most other projects.  I just went and set the number of tasks from unlimited to 20 to cut down the queue size.  I assume a smaller list of tasks will mean faster updates from BT.  If 20 does not work then possibly setting resource to 0 will work.  WCG seems to never run out of work so I dont need a large queue of tasks waiting.

[fred]

Another problem that I failed to mention.  I wrote that BT is handling 7 systems and 82 apps but actually there were over 600 tasks waiting to run that BT handles.  That is a lot of traffic with updates every few seconds. 

I tested it with 10 of thousands tasks, so 600 would have hardly any impact. No all the tasks are read back every ... seconds.