Text 42070, 83 rader
Skriven 2008-01-18 06:52:44 av Jeff Guerdat (1:124/311)
     Kommentar till en text av Björn Forsström
Ärende: Re: Strange problem...
==============================
Björn Forsström wrote:
>>>  RC> One thing to try is to leave the second core enabled and set the
>>> affinity
>>>  RC> for that program to use core 0.
>>>
>>> Not possible to do in the bookkeeping program.
> 
>  JG> Why not?
> 
> Uuuhhh....Don't ask me. It's a bookkeeping program and nothing else.
> But to clear it up properly, what do you mean with affinity here. I can
> translate
> it to Swedish but that word doesn't mean anything to me in our computer
> language.

In this case, affinity means to attach the process to only one CPU/core. 
  It's as if it were attracted to that core and won't even consider the 
other.  Go to Task Manager (use CTRL-ALT-DEL or right-click on an unused 
area of the task bar and choose Task Manager).  Now click on the 
processes tab.  Right-click on any process and click on the Set Affinity 
selection at the bottom, just below Set Priority.  Of course, these are 
the English words - you may need to translate/guess at the Swedish word 
used in XP.

Now that you've opened a new dialog box, you should see that 2 CPUs are 
available and that both are selected.  What we want to do is to run on 
only one CPU so turn off one of the CPUs.  Note that this doesn't turn 
off a CPU, it simply has the app run on only the selected CPU.

What's happening here is that the OS switches back and forth between 
CPUs so one doesn't get bogged down.  I also believe this helps with 
heat management - each CPU/core runs cooler since it's only working with 
50% of the load.  While this switching normally doesn't matter much 
(there is a cost in time as the registers are swapped, context changed, 
etc.) there are occasional apps that work better when assigned to only 
one CPU, where it runs exclusively.

Now that you've seen how this works, Cancel any operation and go back to 
Task Manager with the bookkeeping app running.  Go to the Applications 
tab and right-click on the selection pertaining to the app.  Choose Go 
To Process which will switch you to the proper process in the Processes 
tab.  Now, right-click on that process and set the affinity to only one 
core.  With this set, now test the app to see if it works properly. 
Effectively, it's as if it's running on a single core machine although 
there may still be something that prevents it from running properly.

If this works, you can use the little program referenced in that Tom's 
Hardware link you posted yesterday to always run the bookkeeping app 
that way, at least until the app is fixed.

> I've learned from you to Google everything....

Good!  Now, let's lean on the others...  ;)

>  JG> What it boils down to is sometimes a single CPU is better than
>  JG> more.  Sometimes not.  It's a tool to try to see if it allows the app to
>  JG> work properly - more information is better...
> 
> But I didn't find a program to help XP to remember that only one core should
be
> used for this program.

It's on the first page of the Tom's Hardware link you sent, where it 
says "Download the THG Task Assignment Manager".  Here's the specific 
link for the utility but the article has more descriptions and 
directions for its use:

http://images.tomshardware.com/2004/05/28/getting_more_bang_out_of_your_dual_processing_buck/taskassign.zip


First, try setting the affinity and see if it helps.  If so, using the 
Task Assignment Manager will be useful to force it to always use only 
once CPU.

Let us know how you progress...

-- 
Jeff Guerdat

The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do.
                                                       B.F. Skinner
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