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Old 09-26-2010, 06:57 AM   #1
mug2k
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Converting brings my PC to its knees !!

Hi

I'm converting most of my very large library over to mobi in preparation for my Kindle. The problem is that when I convert it hogs 99% of my computers resources and I can't do anything else. I just wondered if I could lower the priority on this so it will work in the background and not take over my computer ?.

Thanks,
Marcus
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:18 AM   #2
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I'm converting most of my very large library over to mobi in preparation for my Kindle. The problem is that when I convert it hogs 99% of my computers resources and I can't do anything else. I just wondered if I could lower the priority on this so it will work in the background and not take over my computer ?.
Go to preferences - behavior and change job priority to low. Restart calibre and you're all set.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:20 AM   #3
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I had a similar problem when converting my HTML manuscripts to mobi/epub via Calibre... it kept timing out (though I was able to carry on doing everything else concurrently). Moving it to my more powerful AMD 7550 dual-core machine solved that problem. The little Atom 1.6 I use for my every day workstation just didn't have the omph.

Paul.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:24 AM   #4
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I had a similar problem when converting my HTML manuscripts to mobi/epub via Calibre... it kept timing out (though I was able to carry on doing everything else concurrently).
What does "timing out" mean? I've run a conversion or two that took over 5 hours to complete. I never had it time out. In my experience it either stops with an error message or it continues to completion.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:26 AM   #5
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Go to preferences - behavior and change job priority to low. Restart calibre and you're all set.
Wow I don't know how I missed that, thanks

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrPLD View Post
I had a similar problem when converting my HTML manuscripts to mobi/epub via Calibre... it kept timing out (though I was able to carry on doing everything else concurrently). Moving it to my more powerful AMD 7550 dual-core machine solved that problem. The little Atom 1.6 I use for my every day workstation just didn't have the omph.

Paul.
I feel the same, I have a AMD X2 4200+ and 1.5GB Ram. I could do with an upgrade as its a bit weak in comparison to today's hardware.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:29 AM   #6
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What does "timing out" mean? I've run a conversion or two that took over 5 hours to complete. I never had it time out. In my experience it either stops with an error message or it continues to completion.
It'd come up with an error message, saying the conversion had failed, when looking at the message it indicates that the Python process timed out. Quite likely the problem is that I might have a process-time-limit set on my configurations within the system or Python, I've not gone and checked yet.

Either way, the move to the more powerful machine solved it all - probably should have done it there in the first place (and it's not like it's a pain, since with using Linux I can just run Calibre remotely but it behaves like it's running on this machine).

Paul.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:37 AM   #7
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It'd come up with an error message, saying the conversion had failed, when looking at the message it indicates that the Python process timed out. Quite likely the problem is that I might have a process-time-limit set on my configurations within the system or Python, I've not gone and checked yet.
Thanks, my curiosity is sated.
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Old 09-26-2010, 07:59 AM   #8
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If you are running Calibre using Windows on a low-end machine, then I find that as well as setting the worker processes to run at Low priority, it is also a good idea to add the /belownormal option to the shortcut used to launch Calibre. This keeps the whole machine a lot more responsive, and does not seem to adversely affect calibre to any noticable extent.
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Old 09-26-2010, 09:18 AM   #9
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I run XP SP3 on p4-3.2GHz 1G RAM with worker process at 6.,

I do lots of things while conversions run, (and run, and run) my knees are still holding up my keyboard

Your Anti-whatever is probably scanning every access to the book sources.
Call off the (realtime) scans of the Calibre Library.
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Old 09-26-2010, 10:30 AM   #10
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When I have a time consuming, RAM intensive job to be done (such as using Adobe Acrobat to reduce the file size of graphic intensive PDFs I've created; that hogs as much as 50% of the 3.2GB I have available and can wonk up screen displays), I just let it run overnight while I'm in bed.
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Old 09-27-2010, 12:32 AM   #11
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I have recently returned home after 5 months away.
My 3 year old 32 bit quad core desktop is much faster than my 1 year old 64 bit duo core laptop. SO much so that I sold the laptop.
Calibre and adobe both run way faster they seem to run better on my desktop. Too bad I can't cart it around with me.
Next laptop I buy must run calibre better than last one.
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Old 09-27-2010, 01:02 AM   #12
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The big killer on laptop performance is the hard-drive. Those little 2.5" drives are profoundly slower than the normal desktop 3.5" drives. Most of the time the CPU just spins its wheels doing nothing.

If you switched over to an expensive SSD the laptop performance would suddenly skyrocket.

Of course, for some, a suitably sized SSD would cost a lot more than the laptop
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Old 09-27-2010, 01:59 AM   #13
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what's the logic behind a default of 6 threads - would performance be better if number of threads = number of cores ?
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Old 09-27-2010, 02:13 AM   #14
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The big killer on laptop performance is the hard-drive. Those little 2.5" drives are profoundly slower than the normal desktop 3.5" drives. Most of the time the CPU just spins its wheels doing nothing.
Interesting is that what generated the heat that sent my laptop into hibernation when I tried to convert more than 200 books at once?

Prettty sure it was heat as it stopped hibernating spontaneously when I put a plastic pop crate ( like milk crate but shorter) under it for ventilation.
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Old 09-27-2010, 02:22 AM   #15
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what's the logic behind a default of 6 threads - would performance be better if number of threads = number of cores ?
It's a semi-random shot in the dark really. On PCs the CPU is mostly I/O bound, that is to say that the CPU spends most of its time waiting for data to be fetched either from memory or the drives. While a process/thread is waiting for its data you could be doing other things, of course this assumes that there is something else that can be done that isn't also waiting on pending data.

Of course, the problem with the concept of having 6 threads to run the program is that they're not the only things running on the system, there's usually a good 100+ other things running around on a modern desktop OS (my Ubuntu system here has 197 processes at the moment).


As for the heat issue, that'll be the CPU + HDD probably, though your move to put it onto an elevated surface with an airgap underneath is a good idea, your drive will thank you by living for longer. Most things in laptops will die over time due to heat, a very big reason that I'm a lover of these Netbooks with very low power requirements

Paul.
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