Topic: Using pocblm to mine causes 10-100% CPU usage (Read 23368 times)

i had this too, you need to logout and back in and when you do it will show you a TOS that you agree to,  then you can post/reply.

thanks for posting

Not on my screen.

Its in right side bottom of EVERY post. Reply, Quote, Top, Bottom.

Hey. I feel like a dummy, but I can't seem to reply to your thread. I signed up and logged in but I don't see a "reply" button anywhere.

i have started a thread at amd dev forum - opencl section about the 100% cpu usage bug with >1 gpu installed. feel free to jump over there and post your support for this issue being addressed...

http://forums.amd.com/devforum/messageview.cfm?catid=390&threadid=153211&enterthread=y

I still had no CPU usage on stream SDK 2.4, but lower hashrate so I downgraded

All who want to avoid 10-100% CPU usage, also windows not mining with more than 4 GPU's......all problem related to windows->opencl->mining have to send/write to the below forum, coz it deals with opencl.

OpenCL is the root cause of all the problems, from windows not supporting more than 4 GPU's, 100% usage....
Instead of NO ONE asking or writing in AMD DEVELOPER forum, AMD DEVELOPER WILL NEVER know the problem.
Also, if you write to AMD, they won't care, as it MUST be addressed by developers not product division.

So, better don't mass mail, but REGISTER in the developer forum & ask them what features you want, both in Windows & Linux.
Only developer forum can solve all the Windows/Linux->OpenCL issues. No others can solve that.

http://forums.amd.com/forum/categories.cfm?catid=390

I also want to add a note, since the thread was locked i can't post there & don't want to create another thread.
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19038.0

In this thread i accused mining software developers for blocking/limiting 4 GPU's only in Windows.
I was wrong. I came to learn that, its not Windows or mining programs, but its due to limitation in OpenCL.
The misunderstood is due to the reason, no one had time to explain why in Windows with more than 4 GPU's can't mine.
All i got was Windows won't mine more than 4 GPU's, if you want to go for more than 4 GPU's switch to Linux.
This is the only thing i heard. I also may not be knowledgeable/intelligent enough to read some one's post/thread which clearly said its due to OpenCL.

Actually the post of iamzill which divided the problem & cleared me to question where is the problem.

From his post, i got doubt that it may be OpenCL & searched sites & found out, that it is OpenCL.

Before i try to post my findings & apologies, one miner got angry & posted & many complained to moderator, that made him to lock the thread.

I wanted to post this next day itself, but due to many problem i faced, i can't able to post.

All the miners who wrote & writing mining programs apologize me for accusing mining writers in general with out knowing the fact that it is not miners fault, but it is OpenCL & particularly AMD not developing.

I apologize to all miners that i scolded you unnecessarily without knowing the fact.
Forgive me for my no knowledge & no intelligent.

As said above, instead of keep on saying i am getting 10-100% or even 1000% CPU usage, better post to DEVELOPERS forum of AMD.

There's your answer. The problem is NOT the drivers it is the Stream SDK which just so happens to be included in the Catalyst packages these days. The 5 series cards are compatible with ATI Stream SDK 2.1 which does not utilize the cpu. SDK 2.2 started utilizing the cpu to full capacity. The 6 series cards are not compatible with SDK 2.1. For those of you who have the 6 series cards, your stuck with it, at least on windows anyway.

each of the two 5830 eats 25% of i5 quad core cpu here 

Only one card though?

I am using ATI HD 5750, with an E8400 Core™2 Duo processor under windows 7 and I do not have this issue with the latest drivers. My CPU usage is close to 0.

I get around 25% cpu usage using pocblm with my Intel i3 530 with Nvidia gts 250 (with latest drivers).

Core i7
Latest NVidia drivers (as of June 17th)
GeForce GT 330M
Windows 7 x64

Trying to mine with just the video card will try eat 100% CPU (well, 25%, since the CPU is multi-core/multi-threaded).

You are absolutely right. Those clock cycled are wasted! What sucks is that this issue has been known for a long time yet there is no fix yet. Someone clearly doesn't give a shit at AMD.

On any system that dynamically adjusts core voltage with load, this -is- a big deal. Loading up one core will still bump the core voltage way up. It will cause a significant waste of power on an otherwise idle system.

I hope they fix this nonsense soon.

You can set the CPU affinity through a command line parameter to the start.exe program. do start.exe /? to see the options, then google if you need more documentation. I used this and created a batch file that puts all the processes to belownormal priority and all assigned to a single CPU core, so it doesn't slow down my system. They still pretty much use 100% of that one core, but I have a quad core so no big deal.

I have this issue on both AMD and intel. Not enough poll choices.

For you guys tweaking affinity and priorities, check out Prifinitty. http://edgemeal.110mb.com/PriFinitty/index.htm

It's definitely a driver issue. The only REAL fix would come from AMD. Let us all bug AMD about it. Seriously people write to AMD and stop whining and complaining about "how come there is no fix..." or whatever..

Thanks for the unlock tip. I tired it out and.. no luck. Mobo supports unlocking but maybe the hidden core is bad. As for overclocking.. the way the usage pegs at 100% makes me think that no matter how fast the chip its going to peg. Still nobody has an answer on how to fix.

This post suggest it may be a driver issue

 http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=14074.0

I am only having problem on 2 card rig with windows 7. The single card rig is vista 64. I hate to have to the miners offline for awhile but i guess ill try and install vista dual boot for a test.

Anyone has ideas for a fix or found other threads that can help?

for all the sempron 140 users.. you know, that cheapo 35-45 dollar proc.. it can be unlocked to be
a dual core chip. if your motherboard has ACC or some type of core unlock feature you can make it a dual
core.. plus it over clocks pretty well too from what i have read.

if that helps you feel free to send a tip :-)  1P4Z4eu7TxGq8qvSpzfKgWyyXCWn7ZbB9o

if i have time tomorrow ill make the new rig dual boot with vista64 and see how that goes... 100% cpu with sempron isnt horrible.. like 45 watts? power is cheap here but its annoying for me to see  that bar at 100% on the cpu meter.

If Windows outperforms Linux (especially if by a factor of 10!) you are doing it wrong!
My first guess was that you are CPU-mining, but that wouldn't make sense with 0-3% usage...
Have you installed the latest GPU & OpenCL-drivers? How high load has the card? Is there a significant increase in temperature?

set to one core... im running a single core sempron ....

The only thing I have found to help is setting the affinity. Until the drivers are fixed this is the only option or running Linux. I am using Phoenix Rising now because it allows you to set the affinity on start up to a random core.

That means i am right. you using CPU to mine with version 11 catalyst drivers, besides GPU.
Use affinity & set all miners to one core, then you will see increase in performance.

tried granola and with miser setting it just slowed my hash down... yah cpu was down too but hash went down same %

2.7 amd dual core.

4x 5850 = 100% CPU (2.4, 11.5 ccc, windows 7 64 bit)

Same system on Ubuntu (11.04 ubun , 2.1 SDK)  10-15% CPU usage.

just fired up a new rig.. win 7 guiminer sempron 140... 100% cpu usage any way to slow this down? 11 drivers

trying granola... will report back

This really sucks. With 11 series CCC I get 100% CPU usage. With 10 series, guiminer doesn't recognize any OpenCL devices

13% on each instance of poclbm, running a 5970 which is 2 5870s so 26% cpu usage.

Thanks for the info dishwara. I will try option 4 when I get home and update with the info.

The CPU usage problem by pocblm is actually not a problem.
Its due to feature added to catalyst driver after version 10.

If you use version 10 series catalyst driver, then you will see, it uses 1-2% cpu only. & you can further reduce it using granola software.
What it does actually is, it doesn't uses CPU for any graphics work.
The catalyst driver restrict the graphics processing only to GPU.

This has been changed in version 11 series or HD 6000 card series.
In this, catalyst driver allows CPU also can process graphics.

Why this is added & what is the benefit you may ask.
They have added CPU to process graphics to give back up in case GPU usage goes OVER 100%.
I have seen many times, that with version 10, pocblm crashes, if i open some graphics related program.
With Windows 7 & Aero enabled, it can be seen very clearly.
Since Aero uses graphics which is also processed only by GPU, any additional graphics processing, crashes pocblm , so that GPU will be free to process graphics.

You have now 6 options to try.
1.Run with version 10 series catalyst driver + granola + affinity, this gives the LEAST amount of CPU usage.
2.Run with version 10 series catalyst driver + affinity.
3.Run with version 10 series catalyst driver.
4.Run with version 11.5 or latest catalyst driver + granola + affinity.
5.Run with version 11.5 or latest catalyst driver + affinity.
6.Run with version 11.5 or latest catalyst driver, this uses the MOST CPU usage.

I am now using 4 option & i see less CPU usage & temperature as all poclbm or phoenix is set to only one core using affinity.

poclbm causes 100% usage of both my cores on my AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+.
poclbm sees my GPU as

• GeForce 8800 GTX

Ubuntu 10.10 x64
GeForce 8800 GTX (128 CUDA cores,768 MB Memory, 384-bit Memory Interface) on PCIExpress x16
NVIDIA Driver Version: 270.41.19

Excellent! That is very much appreciated.

I've just updated my ScreenSaver that is a front-end tested with poclbm to automatically set the affinity to just one processor in hopes of lower cpu usage and lower power consumption.

Thought so, so this is a windows issue with the OpelCL SDK using the CPU spinstates...in linux you can apparently disable this, but not in windows.

Installed Ubuntu 11.04, now i've got 20% CPU usage.

EDIT:
For those who want to try, I followed this guide:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ubuntu-natty-narwhal-1104-mining-guide-howto-7514

lool...that indeed is a problem. The only other thing I can suggest is to give linux a try and see if it does the same thing under linux. Check this out:

https://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=7374.0

The problem is that i've only one core

Nope. The best you can do for now is set the affinity for each miner process to one core.

Someone have found the way to fix the 100% CPU bug?

I have 2 5850, Windows 7, Amd64 3500+.

Hmm...yeah I think I will be moving on to linux for my dedicated miners. I managed to reduce the cpu usage to 50% by setting the affinity for both poclbm processes but still why should the cpu consume 50% more electricity than is necessary.

That new bitcoin linux distro looks mighty spiffy! I'll probably be using that on a usb drive.

I had the same issue, using an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 and a Nvidia 8800GT GPU on ubuntu 10.04 64-bit.

I tried tossing a spare harddrive I had laying around in my PC and installed Ubuntu 10.10, the result when running poclbm = 0-3% CPU.

I can see that the Nvidia driver in my 10.04 is version 195.36.24 which is quite old, so I'm guessing that's the problem. Try 10.10 on a spare harddrive or an old usb key you have lying around to see if that solves your problem as well

Damn. OK, I am officially both frustrated and confused lol

I wish I could upgrade my kernel too (win 7) Ohwell, I guess there is always mining under Linux.

Yeah, CPU usage was always pegged at 100% on one core when GPU mining with either pocblm or phoenix, didn't seem to matter to mining rate if I ran something else CPU-heavy that cut down on the amount it could use.  And now all of a sudden it uses less than 1%.  No idea if it's the same bug as people with multiple cards or not, just figured it might help someone else out.

But you only have one card. This problem should occur only when running more than one GPU in the same system. I'm surprised to hear that you were having this problem. CPU usage was always at 100%?

Well I was having this problem and just found that after upgrading from kernel 2.6.36-gentoo-r5 to kernel 2.6.37-gentoo-r4 it seems to have gone away.  No hardware changes, don't think anything else major got upgraded (although the fglrx kernel module was recompiled).  HD5770 w/ AMD 64 x2 CPU running Gentoo, not sure if that helps anyone else or what the changes between those kernels are, but figured I'd post for what it's worth.

I wish it were possible to disable it with OpenCL. If you find some way or method please share. I'd like to get the CPU to idle as it would save some watts.

Funny thing this happens only when using two or more GPUs. When mining with a single 5870 card I get little to no cpu usage...go figure.

Yep. To be able to respond quickly, the CPU spin-waits when waiting for the GPU to complete. This causes 100% CPU load.

This is the default with both AMD and NVidia compute drivers, although it can be disabled with a special setting, at least with CUDA, I'm not sure OpenCL has a similar directive.

worked perfectly. thank you!

would you care to elaborate how to do that? thank you in advance.

Tip for multiple gpu users - assign all proccesses to one parcticular core. This way u will have only one core loaded 100% with no loss of performance.

After updating to new miners with BFI_INT , now i also get 10-15% cpu usage both in pocblm & phoenix.
With HD 6870 i am getting 302-304Mhash/s , if used -f1 flag & system crashed more than 10-20 times in a single day with my normal application & showed 10-15 % cpu usaege.
Now i am forced to run with out -f1, without -f flag to avoid system crash.
Getting now 292-296 Mhash/s

I have two computers setup with identical miners and very similar settings on those miners. My first PC has an AMD Phenom II x4 970 with an HD 6870 and has 0-1% CPU usage by the phoenix miner. My second PC is using an AMD Semptron 140 CPU with quad HD 5870's (no crossfire) and opening even one instance of the miner triggers 100% CPU usage. My first PC is running Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, my 2nd PC is running 32-bit (same OS). Both are running Catalyst 11.3.

Hope that helps someone figure out the cause of this problem.

I doubt he meant that. Also many said that if you don't run in crossfire mode you should not have this problem, but that is not true as I recently built a new mining rig with dual 5870s in non crossfire mode with a athlon x2 5200+ and guess what each poclbm instance chewed 50% of the cpu. What I ended up doing is setting the affinity for BOTH poclbm processes to ONE core. Thus I've cut CPU usage in half.

Yep I know that. I am surprised that if the problem is easily fixable as geebus suggested why haven't all the mining programs already implement the fix?

What? It doesn't use high CPU if you are only running one miner on one GPU.

You get 13% usage because you have eight cores, and poclbm is only written to utilize one core. So, one core out of eight = around 13%. If you had a dual core CPU, for example, you'd get 50% usage per miner process.

experiencing a similar problem (100% cpu usage in one core) with 3 different gpu miners (poclbm/phoenix/diablo) on wife's nvidia 8600gt, windows7-32bit. since only some of us have this problem (and with different architectures and different windows versions) could it be the drivers, and/or some version of win7?

You're quite sure this is JUST a poclbm problem? I recently switched to a new miner and it does the same thing.


Also guys let me be clear. I do not get 100% cpu usage across all cores. I get a constant 13% cpu usage PER miner process (regardless if its poclbm.exe or something else)

One of the developers of the new miner I'm using said that this is caused by ATI's OpenCL implementation.

The only thing that's made any different is setting CPU affinity for the poclbm processes to a single core.  That cuts CPU usage in half and decreases Mhahs/s by like 2-3.

Or link to one of the various posts in one of the various threads, so you don't have to explain it again?

Why not just explain it out in the open?

I've explained this a few times now, in various threads... The reason poclbm takes high CPU is because there is no wait delay in between thread executions. It can be fixed with 2 new lines of code, and changing 1 line of code.

I'll be happy to explain. If you're interested, PM me.

How does this "granola" program fix this problem? How does that have any relation to this high cpu usage while mining problem? I do not want to undervolt (already did that) my cpu, nor underclock it, nor disable any of the cores. I just want the damn miners to stop chewing constantly 13% of each core for a total max cores of 2. So that's 100% cpu usage for one core relative to 8 hyper-threaded cores (i7 920).

I used granola & after that i see 0 CPU usage.
But that too didn't help ~anyone

Dang! So is there ANY fix for this? This extra CPU load is just wasted electricity.

It doesn't.

Is it true that catalyst 11.4p fixes this issue?

catalyst 11.4 & app 2.4 both preview of 7 march.
Win7 32, quad core intel, HD 6870

I tried all iteration of intel, amd, ati, win7 32/64.

For those who don't have this problem, what it your openCL / driver installation procedure ?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ running on W7 Ultimate 32bit, I get ~60% runing poclbm gui pre in 2 graphic cards(5770 & 5850). I had 100% but after set afinity only in one core, CPU usage low to ~60%

I am seeing 100% CPU usage ever since I updated to the NVIDIA 270.26 beta drivers. Before, on 260.19, the miner only used about 3 or 4% CPU.

Out of curiosity I just booted Windows Vista Home 64 on the same maschine and installed pocblm. The CPU usage is between 0 and 3% Furthermore Windows outperforms Linux by the factor 10  (3.5 vs. 33 Mhash/s)

I don't like that 

I get 100% core usage per instance of poclbm on Windows 7 64bit, My XP boxes don't have this problem.

I haven't checked my ubuntu box, I just got it up and running last night.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ running on Ubuntu 10.04 amd64. I'm running the CPU miner only on one core, because I end up with 100% CPU usage on the other core if I run pocblm 

There is a long thread going on with no one can able to answer "why my CPU usage is 10-100% when i mine with GPU?"

I got a hunch that it may be CPU make.
So created this poll.
So far i rarely saw my 10-100% usage of pocblm in my pc.


Please vote which make, Intel or AMD CPU you use in your mining pc/laptop/...
Also, you can post about your complete CPU details with OS details.


EDIT

I forgot to mention one thing, i too once got 15% cpu usage after reinstall. i also installed a software the day i started mining, i think
Granola i already even made a post about it.
Its free. Please try & see if, at least granola reduces cpu usage.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.66422

https://grano.la/software/index.php

May be it making 0 usage of my cpu.