VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 07 2005 - 22:22:16 CDT

Gonzalo,
  Thanks for letting me know about your solution. VMD is indeed a
processor intensive application, so a properly functioning CPU heat sink
is indeed in order! :) Let us know if you have other questions.
I'm glad that everything is working now.

  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Wed, Sep 07, 2005 at 10:28:47PM -0400, griadi_at_utalca.cl wrote:
> Thank you so much, John.
> A few days after my e-mail to vmd-l, the computer became so hot when I started
> VMD1.8.3 that it begun to turn off after 5 minutes with 100% of CPU usage.
> Apparently, the problem was either in the heat dissipator of the processor or
> in the WindowsXP installation. I changed both, and (so far) problem solved.
> Thanks for the info about the OpenGL. It's been a while since the first time I
> had the doubt about how OpenGL worked.
>
> Gonzalo Riadi.
> Lab of Bioinformatics.
> University of Talca, Chile.
>
>
> Mensaje citado por John Stone <johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu>:
>
> >
> > Hi,
> > Two things to check:
> > 1) when you run VMD, it'll display a rotating VMD logo until you
> > load a molecule. While animating, VMD does use all available
> > CPU/GPU horsepower to get best speed. Typically the limiting factor
> > is the graphics board, so on a normal machine the CPU load is
> > hardly noticable. If you've just loaded VMD and it's eating CPU,
> > load a molecule and it'll drop back to zero so long as you're not
> > actively rotating the molecule or leaving it spinning.
> >
> > 2) If you're seeing excessive CPU usage, this may indicate that your
> > machine is using the Microsoft software OpenGL rasterizer, which
> > uses the CPU to do all of the graphics work. If so, this explains
> > why your CPU is completely pegged. If this is the case, you're going
> > to want to search for a hardware accelerated OpenGL driver for your
> > machine, or to upgrade the graphics board in your machine with
> > something that's more appropriate for molecular visualization,
> > namely, a board that has hardware transformation and lighting
> > acceleration at a minimum.
> >
> > Let us know if you need more help with this.
> >
> > John Stone
> > vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 07:46:46PM -0400, griadi_at_utalca.cl wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > VMD 1.8.3, just installed, is taking 100% of CPU capacity of the computer.
> > The
> > > computer turns slow and hot. Is it normal? Is it fixable?
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > > Gonzalo.
> > >
> > >
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > Este mensaje fue enviado por: http://utalca.cl
> >
> > --
> > NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
> > Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
> > University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
> > Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu Phone: 217-244-3349
> > WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078
> >
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Este mensaje fue enviado por: http://utalca.cl 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078