LHC@home

Hi, I have two devices running Boinc, but particularly my laptop with the i5-5200U CPU is having a lot of VM issues. I already enabled virtualization (something Vx-T) in the BIOS and have HyperV on, but the laptop only completed one task successfully, the rest of about 70 failed with error related to VM. Now I can't receive new tasks, both with HyperV on and off. I tried to look this up online but cannot find any concrete solutions.

To note, I also have Tthrottle installed. I want to make this laptop solely dedicated to running Boinc until its end of life, how can I make that possible? I appreciate any help.

Welcome,
2024-04-02 17:43:37 (6828): Hardware acceleration CPU extensions not detected. Disabling VirtualBox hardware acceleration support.
It can be, after reboot, VT-x is disabled again.
Problem two can be a conflict between Hyper-V and VT-x.
Better, to disable Hyper-V.

You can only run one hypervisor (the thing that manages virtual machines) on a given system. Hyper-V is a hypervisor. So is VirtualBox. Hyper-V loads before VirtualBox when you start the system. They work slightly differently but they compete for the same system resources. Since Hyper-V loads first it blocks VirtualBox.
You need to disable Hyper-V.

This computer? https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/show_host_detail.php?hostid=10849211

Its reporting too little RAM / memory to use for VM related projects. 3.89 GB

ATLAS uses over 4GB and CMS is 2GB. You probably should find a project with low requirements for RAM and processor usage. The projects also like to have constant internet and don't do well to starting and stopping if running multiple projects or different work units. Throttling the processor can also cause problems

I would remove VirtualBox completely from this computer.

Yes that one, I recently restarted and check VTx and turned off HyperV, so it receives a job now. I can see that it did validate a job earlier yesterday, so it is capable of running the Theory Simulation jobs (that requires VM). It probably isn't good at it, but for a laptop I'm not going to touch I prefer it doing something.

I want to dedicate this laptop solely to LHC@home and run it 24/7, and I will not even be using it at all. I would like to just "set it and leave it" until the laptop dies. What's the best configuration you can suggest? Or if LHC really is not the best project for this scope, what's a non-GPU project that this laptop can help with?

Theory tasks and set it to run two concurrent tasks only. I would not use throttling if you are are using only two cores. The individual tasks don't really stress the processors too bad and also they take a bit to get started. There is a bunch of time spent communicating with LHC servers, etc. If you are running tasks successfully, you might increase it to three concurrent.

You might need to set your account to only Theory tasks and that will affect both computers. I am not sure how to block applications for a single computer and hopefully someone else will comment on the best way or other solutions.

If you are having trouble work through the checklist for VM related tasks. You might need more changes since you had HyperV turned on.
https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/forum_thread.php?id=4161&sort_style=8&start=75

Theory have some tasks (Sherpa, or other) with a possibility for looping.
So, you need some watching.
WCG running better, but atm no constant flow of work.

Jonathan wrote:

I am not sure how to block applications for a single computer ...

@kn1000a
Open your prefs page (https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/prefs.php?subset=project) and configure an unused venue (home, school, work).
As for the computer with less than 4 GB RAM I suggest to
- enable SixTrack and Theory
- disable "If no work for selected applications is available, accept work from other applications?"
- disable "Run native if available?" since it runs Windows

Once saved open your computer details page.
Near the bottom you can select the venue the computer should be attached to.
Select the venue you configured above and save the changes.

@Jonathan @maeax @computezrmle Thank you, will give those tweaking a try!