Phoenix 1.5 sucking up massive CPU %

[pandemic]

I'm running Phoenix 1.5 and the CPU usage is insane. I have a 4870 and a 5830 in my miner. The 5830 gets about 307mh/s while the 4870 gets 80 or so mh/s.

When they're both running, Phoenix is running twice and using 48-50% CPU each. That just means it doesn't matter your hash rate, just that you're running the kernel, or so it seems. I've got a Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.2ghz. I really can't imagine this needs that much processing power.

Any idea how I can fix this?

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[pandemic]

I should also add that phoenix is taking 50% CPU from both cores.

[MrWizard]

poclbm uses no more than 1% cpu for me.

[being]

The only fix I have found with my own setup for this, is not using Phoenix.
And I have tried a lot of different driver/sdk combinations, of course.

Inspired by your post, I made an effort to try phoenix once again with the latest Diapolo kernel.
Working fine at ~1% cpu usage.
Win7 32bit, cat11.6, SDK 2.1, hd5870

But it's most likely a dual GPU thing... When I had 2 cards in my rig, there was nothing I could do, to fix the cpu usage bug in windows.

Also it's probably not such a good idea to overclock your cpu, if you're mining. Rather underclock.

[pandemic]

The only fix I have found with my own setup for this, is not using Phoenix.
And I have tried a lot of different driver/sdk combinations, of course.

Inspired by your post, I made an effort to try phoenix once again with the latest Diapolo kernel.
Working fine at ~1% cpu usage.
Win7 32bit, cat11.6, SDK 2.1, hd5870

But it's most likely a dual GPU thing... When I had 2 cards in my rig, there was nothing I could do, to fix the cpu usage bug in windows.

Also it's probably not such a good idea to overclock your cpu, if you're mining. Rather underclock.

I'm getting this even when running one GPU mining. The other is in the machine just not doing anything.

[being]

I'm getting this even when running one GPU mining. The other is in the machine just not doing anything.

Well that would not really matter, if it's mining or not. As long as it's connected to the computer, the bug still comes up.

[pandemic]

I'm getting this even when running one GPU mining. The other is in the machine just not doing anything.

Well that would not really matter, if it's mining or not. As long as it's connected to the computer, the bug still comes up.

That's a bummer.

This is from another thread (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6458.800):

Yep, it's pretty bad. 50% cpu usage per GPU. Something is seriously wrong.

Wow I checked this for my system (Phenom II X6 / Win7 x64 SP1) and Phoenix 1.5 eats one FULL CPU core per instance running (2 GPUs - 2 Cores eaten).
I downclock the cores to 800 MHz each, for Mining so one could think, if I raise the core freq. it will only use 1 core for 2 or more cards. No it eats one core and it doesn't matter, if it's clocked at 800 MHz or 3200 MHz, THAT IS crazy.

Jedi, is there any explanation for this, can we help to track the issue down!?

Dia

Nothing can be done on my end. For Windows if you have more than 1 ATI GPU installed each instance will peg one CPU core at 100%. There is some stupid event loop in ATI's driver. The best way to minimize the problem is to change the process affinity so that all the instances run on the same CPU core. This doesn't reduce hashrate at all.

[Furyan]

I'm running Phoenix 1.5 and the CPU usage is insane. I have a 4870 and a 5830 in my miner. The 5830 gets about 307mh/s while the 4870 gets 80 or so mh/s.

When they're both running, Phoenix is running twice and using 48-50% CPU each. That just means it doesn't matter your hash rate, just that you're running the kernel, or so it seems. I've got a Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.2ghz. I really can't imagine this needs that much processing power.

Any idea how I can fix this?

Have you used GPU Caps Viewer by any chance?

Can you post screenshots of its tabs?

This will happen if your CPU supports the OpenCL instruction set (e.g.: integrated graphics card/and-or shared memory GPU) and you happen to target that device in the miner.  I did that accidentally a couple of times and was shocked to see the CPU usage spike before I figured out what happened.

[pandemic]

I'm running Phoenix 1.5 and the CPU usage is insane. I have a 4870 and a 5830 in my miner. The 5830 gets about 307mh/s while the 4870 gets 80 or so mh/s.

When they're both running, Phoenix is running twice and using 48-50% CPU each. That just means it doesn't matter your hash rate, just that you're running the kernel, or so it seems. I've got a Core 2 Duo overclocked to 3.2ghz. I really can't imagine this needs that much processing power.

Any idea how I can fix this?

Have you used GPU Caps Viewer by any chance?

Can you post screenshots of its tabs?

This will happen if your CPU supports the OpenCL instruction set (e.g.: integrated graphics card/and-or shared memory GPU) and you happen to target that device in the miner.  I did that accidentally a couple of times and was shocked to see the CPU usage spike before I figured out what happened.

Nah, that's not the issue. When only one GPU is mining, CPU usage is 50%. If I were accidentally mining with the CPU, it'd be at 100.

[Diapolo]

Give this a try: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=29086.0

Still one full core is eaten, but not one core per instance!

Dia

[Bitcoin_Silver_Supply]

I also first had this problem only with Phoenix and now, since adding two GPUs, I have it with both Phoenix and poclbm. I have set the affinity to one core but my CPU already runs ridiculously hot at idle so one core going 100% 24/7 hardly seems ideal.

I heard that Catalyst 11.7 may address this issue but thus far there don't seem to be any solutions asides dropping Windows for mining.

[Xenomorph]

Phoenix kept doing this for me, randomly. Something nothing, sometimes it would eat 100% CPU. Stopping & starting over and over sometimes fixes it.

Then again, poclbm never does this. I've been using that instead of Phoenix.

[Bitcoin_Silver_Supply]

Phoenix kept doing this for me, randomly. Something nothing, sometimes it would eat 100% CPU. Stopping & starting over and over sometimes fixes it.

Then again, poclbm never does this. I've been using that instead of Phoenix.

Do you use one card or two? Once I started using two cards with poclbm (and with Catalyst 11.6B) I got the CPU error with it as well. Prior to that I was using 11.6 on one card without the error.

[haydent]

its generally a two+ card thing