Maintaining your BOINC equipment.

Dear Steemians,

While there are multiple guides on how to maximize your results by overclocking your system, picking the right work units and graphics card for the job, the ways how to conserve power, lower noise & heat, reduce wear and ultimately prevent total failure that can cost a lot of money are not that easy to find and scattered around the web.

I'll try my best to write up my findings and personal experience. Most of them are common sense and/or knowledge and can be done without too much technical experience. This can also be used to maintain your computer in general ofcourse.

-Image provided by Pexels.

Maintenance

Maintenance on a desktop is pretty easy; the components are easy to reach, replaceable and upgradeable.

On a laptop not so much, and quite the opposite: most of the parts are soldered on the main board, space is tight, heat is a big issue and the only things that can be upgraded most of the time are the memory and solid state/hard disk drives. So failure to any other component can kill your laptop. And ofcourse most things tend to break just after your warranty is over ;-)

What you can do

• Keep your cables tidy and together in a desktop case to optimize air circulation.

• Remove the dust on fans; dust on the blades can accumulate after a while reducing airflow:
  they will need to spin faster, make more noise,use more power and increase stress to bearings (failing fans brake mostly unnoticed and are thus very fatal).
  This can be done with a brush but my preffered method is by compressed air. Available with an air compressor or in cans.

• Reapply cooling paste between cpu and cooler. After some time the cooling paste that helps exchanging heat to the cooling system will dry up due to heat and age. Video's how to apply the paste are abundant on the web.

• Remove your laptop battery if your laptop is stationary most of the time. Most laptop batteries stop charging when it reaches a certain percentage to prevent constant charging but if you can prevent wear all together then why not? This will save a lot of battery cycles and heat. Just remember to treat it as a desktop when you pull out the plug.

• Remove the desktop casing, having a naked system can dissipate more heat on other area's of your system but has some trade-offs in more dust accumulation, being noisier and vulnerable to external sources (liquids, physical force).

As you can see, opening a laptop can be trickier than a desktop, but the results were worth it, lowering temperatures by about 10°C.

Hardware

Investing in better hardware or components can greatly prolong or add quality to life.

• Invest in a better (efficient) power supply , higher wattage on a PSU isn't the only thing to consider, better thermals and a less noise are also factors. And a smooth constant output providing current to your system offer more performance and can avoid harm to a lot of components on your main board and peripherals. Check for atleast an 80 Plus label, it also has bronze that lead up to titanium rating labels indicating efficiency and load capacity. An added bonus is a modular PSU where you can remove unused power cabling to improve air circulation in the case.

• Upgrade the CPU stock cooler to an after market one; they can offer larger air displacement, pure copper cooling fins and thicker heat pipes. If you really want to keep it cool you can also opt for water cooling and even liquid nitrogen, but that can chew a hole in the budget.

• Buy a laptop cooler, these exist in various sizes, design and ergonomy. the built in fans can add a bit of airflow, some have usb ports and adjustable fan speed control. But don't expect huge gains if you don't want more noise, alternately if you have a usb fan laying about you can point it on the area your cpu or gpu is, usb fans are very noisy though.

Tip: If you don't want to shell out money on a laptop cooler, just put something under the laptop to ensure the inlets don't choke for air (don't obstruct outlets too). Placing a laptop on your lap or cushion can seriously heat your laptop up. And your legs too ofcourse ;-)

Software

BOINC

In preferences you can choose how much CPU time you want to dedicate (be sure to give enough so work units can be finished before their deadline) and when it needs to be stopped or paused, even which days to run on.

I configure it in such a way that it's "fire and forget": it autostarts when I turn my computer on and pauses if my pc needs it's resources and performance elsewhere (e.g. gaming). That way you don't need to tweak every time and it never becomes a nuisance that makes you eventually even think of uninstalling BOINC.

TThrottle

I found this gem today after searching for a way how to limit my graphics card as BOINC doesn't have that option (the reason why still eludes me to this very day).

This is a big deal for me, because whenever I try a gpu work unit it sets my gtx1060 on maximum power on my 15 inch laptop making it a sound barrier breaking flaming torch...

As I write this my laptop just finished it's first ever gpu work unit on a very stable and cool temperature. CPU temperatures are also a lot more stable. Trending confirms this.

It's because the program acts as a PID controller: you set the desired temperature and it throttles CPU and GPU to it.

It's super easy to setup and just check auto-active and it links to the boinc client automatically. VERY HIGHLY recommended. Super happy I found this. I can finally join with my gpu and crunch for Gridcoin/Boinc credit in a responsible manner.
You can get it for free at: https://efmer.com/

Underclocking

You can also reduce the voltage on your card and effectively lower heat and power usage but also performance across the board (no pun intended..). I dont have much experience in this area, but I'm not sure if this is healthy to the system components and is not a "fire and forget" if you need the performance somewhere else.

I hope this helped in your scientific ventures!