First things firts, im running openSUSE 11.2 x86_64.
Second, im processing work units from Folding@home on this pc.
Strange thing is, when i actually leave the pc alone and working on folding@home, my performance actually drops instead of going up as i would expect.
I believe there is some kind of powersaving feature i cant find or something else thats hurting quite a bit on the PC.
Im talking about maybe 20-30% performance loss.
Pc in question is: Athlon II 630.
Already deactivated Cool’n’Quiet from the BIOS.
Got no fresh ideas on what could cause this weird behaviour.
UPDATE
[22:05:52] Completed 260000 out of 500000 steps (52%)
[22:18:28] Completed 265000 out of 500000 steps (53%)
[22:30:41] Completed 270000 out of 500000 steps (54%)
[22:40:20] Completed 275000 out of 500000 steps (55%)
[22:48:16] Completed 280000 out of 500000 steps (56%)
PC was “idle” working on folding and i came back at 54%, see the huge difference?
Frames were taking about 13 minutes each when “idle”. When im using the computer, frames are done within 8 minutes.
Well, I do not know why your PC would get slower when left alone for a while, but surely your background tasks would pick up as other foreground requirements go down. It may even take a while for the background tasks to subside when you start using your PC again.
I would like to say that disabling the AMD BIOS option for Cool’n’Quiet does not do the good that you think. When activated, and using the default Presentation mode, the CPU is set for Dynamic (On Demand Mode). When using my PC, I could tell no difference, under normal operation, with the Cool’n’Quiet BIOS option disabled or enabled.
But, using my UPS program, my power consumption went up nearly 20 %, for seemingly no benefit, when Cool’n’Quiet is disabled. And, my computer case is stuffed in a desk and so my PC internal case temperature went up nearly 5 degrees C when Cool’n’Quiet is disabled, a real problem for a case that runs hot already. Since you did not see disabling Cool’n’Quiet as helping, I would turn the AMD BIOS setting for Cool’n’Quiet back on and look for something else that might be the problem.
Thank You,
Yeah but thing is, when cool and quiet was active, openSUSE throttling didnt let me to overclock it, it was only set to the maximun stock frequency.
Will try setting the process FahCore_a3.exe to a higher priority, over Xorg, etc. See what that does.
I do understand about over clocking. I can push my AMD black edition CPU faster if I want, but only my case temperature gauge a cpu benchmark could tell it was faster. I could only get an extra 200 mhz out of it anyway. I do wish you good luck if finding a solution and let us know if you determined what the problem was.
Thank You,
Thanks for your support!
I could actually take it to 3.6 Ghz, but i wont until i find the ccause of the trouble.
Is there any Hourly history CPU usage program? Like i could leave the PC at night Idle, and the next morning check some kind of Log or even better, a GUI, showing what processes went and ate my resources?
The System Monitor (ksysguard) shows you what is going on right now, but not sure about an application that would log such things to look back at later and see what was going on in the past. However, it should show, when it is slow, just what is going on right then, which may be all you need.
You are welcome for the support, please come back anytime you need help or just want to look for a solution to a problem you did not know you had. lol!
Thank You,
Did a small research, leaving my screen on, without any powersaving things on. Had monitor and folding@home running.
It only took 2-3 minutes for the experiment to work.
And this is the result:
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/2430/houstonwehaveproblem.th.jpg](http://img202.imageshack.us/i/houstonwehaveproblem.jpg/)
Its Xorg using 25% of the CPU while idle.
This might be a video driver problem, but I am not sure. Are you using the latest video driver or a beta driver of some sort? You could look at your xorg log at /var/log/xorg.0.log, at least that is what mine is called. Xorg on my computer is running 6% max and most often nothing or 1 to 2%. I have an nVidia driver loaded using the “ftp://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/11.2/” repository that loads into the kernel for you.
Thank You,
Im actually using the open source radeon driver.
Last time i updated using the Xorg repository was some weeks ago.
So i added this repo: download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.2/ in case anyone else has this issue. Updated and problem solved. 
Only stupid annoying thing still messings around, is that i cant overclock using CnQ. On the picture i uploaded some posts back, where it says 3118,42 Mhz, if i activate CnQ, it goes down to the stock Clock of 2.8 
THANKS !
Well I know that not being able to over clock your PC does not make you happy. But, the difference in speed is not that significant, trust me on this. Do not lose any sleep over this issue.
I would like to consider this message thread a success since the problem was determined to be your video driver. Yeh!
Thank You,
Well, you know, thats when problems arise, my mainboard BIOS wont let me set the voltage as it should. The lowest possible is already higher than the stock one. So why loose this extra voltage is what i thought, im wasting energy anyway with this higher Voltage.
Im already talking to MSI support board in the meantime.
Most of the time I try a BIOS update first and if that does not work, I start looking for a different motherboard for my CPU. I like ASUS and Gigabyte the best of all of the many brands I have purchased over the years, but any motherboard can go bad. And, getting too hot is one of things you must avoid for any motherboard to last long enough to be considered old. Good luck in your search.
Thank You,
Ill post back when iget news from MSI.
