CPU running at 100%?

[mech]

I have an i7 with a GTX1050 whose only job is OpenALPR, and with the GTX1050 doing the video processing, it still takes about 25% of the CPU when there's no actual cars to digest. My LPR cam is 5MP at 30fps, so it's more demanding than most.

If your monitors aren't connected to the GTX1050, it would be worth trying that. Blue Iris's system recommendations include "nVIDIA graphics adaptor for efficient screen display."

 

[pbc]

290W isn't a large supply. You've added in a graphics card - note most manufacturer supplied systems have power requirements very carefully calculated and the PSU's matched almost exactly to the requirements with very little margin for extra to keep OEM costs down. Adding in an accessory graphics card after the fact will increase the power draw.

Using the NewEgg PSU calculator (many others out there, they all differ slightly in results), your system comes out at 360W assuming you have 4 hard drives & 1 SATA for storage. I also assumed 2 sticks of 8GB DDR4 (adding accessory hard drives for Blur Iris will also increase the power draw):

PC Power Supply Calculator – PSU Wattage Calculator | Newegg

Choose Newegg's PSU calculator to simplify PC builds. The PC power supply calculator aids in component choice, making for an easier purchasing process.

www.newegg.com

If they system was problematic before the addition of the GPU, it's probably not the original cause, obviously, but if it is power related, it could make it worse.

I have noticed on older pc's (not CCTV / BI) that sometimes when they go slow they start to report high power usage. Sometimes checking the windows logs can show error messages relating to "power kernal" ie the CPU isn't getting enough power. In older systems this can be the PSU or Motherboard PSU caps wearing out and no longer supplying the CPU with enough power. Not saying it's necessarily the case here, just something to bear in mind in so far as if you can't solve it by other means, maybe a new PSU or if that doesn't cure it MB might be in order. Not quite sure how you could test PSU without swapping it out if you have another good one to test with.

Another thing to try is test windows for errors and resintall if necessary.

Run SFC in command promt. If you get unfixable errors, run DISM.exe to do furtehr checks. From these commands you can also resintall windows insitu with no loss of data / programs etc. My desktop system returned power kernal errors but these have cease since I reinstalled windows. That said, it still runs out of breath vs Video editing these days - new pc for me before long.

Thx. It was acutally spec'd with an AMD Firecore 4100 graphics card which I removed and replaced with the NVidia, so power shouldn't be an issue. Ran SFC /Scannow, no integrity issues.

Maybe I will remove the power to the CD/DVD drive which I do not use and possibly turn off the RAID drive (if I can figure out which is which!)

 

[pbc]

I have an i7 with a GTX1050 whose only job is OpenALPR, and with the GTX1050 doing the video processing, it still takes about 25% of the CPU when there's no actual cars to digest. My LPR cam is 5MP at 30fps, so it's more demanding than most.

If your monitors aren't connected to the GTX1050, it would be worth trying that. Blue Iris's system recommendations include "nVIDIA graphics adaptor for efficient screen display."

I do plug them into the GTX1050.

 

[pbc]

@pbc
How are you raiding mirroring the C drive ?
Is the new and stored on the sam drive ? are you using stored ?

Not sure how the RAID works, my IT team set that up when they gave me the server.

I'm saving the New on the first 3TB Purple drive, and then once it hits 2.2gigs it moves to stored.

 

[shalem2014]

290W isn't a large supply. You've added in a graphics card - note most manufacturer supplied systems have power requirements very carefully calculated and the PSU's matched almost exactly to the requirements with very little margin for extra to keep OEM costs down. Adding in an accessory graphics card after the fact will increase the power draw.

Using the NewEgg PSU calculator (many others out there, they all differ slightly in results), your system comes out at 360W assuming you have 4 hard drives & 1 SATA for storage. I also assumed 2 sticks of 8GB DDR4 (adding accessory hard drives for Blur Iris will also increase the power draw):

PC Power Supply Calculator – PSU Wattage Calculator | Newegg

Choose Newegg's PSU calculator to simplify PC builds. The PC power supply calculator aids in component choice, making for an easier purchasing process.

www.newegg.com

If they system was problematic before the addition of the GPU, it's probably not the original cause, obviously, but if it is power related, it could make it worse.

I have noticed on older pc's (not CCTV / BI) that sometimes when they go slow they start to report high power usage. Sometimes checking the windows logs can show error messages relating to "power kernal" ie the CPU isn't getting enough power. In older systems this can be the PSU or Motherboard PSU caps wearing out and no longer supplying the CPU with enough power. Not saying it's necessarily the case here, just something to bear in mind in so far as if you can't solve it by other means, maybe a new PSU or if that doesn't cure it MB might be in order. Not quite sure how you could test PSU without swapping it out if you have another good one to test with.

Another thing to try is test windows for errors and resintall if necessary.

Run SFC in command promt. If you get unfixable errors, run DISM.exe to do furtehr checks. From these commands you can also resintall windows insitu with no loss of data / programs etc. My desktop system returned power kernal errors but these have cease since I reinstalled windows. That said, it still runs out of breath vs Video editing these days - new pc for me before long.

Uh... not quite. Yes, it's not a large power supply, but most computers use a lot less than 100w on average, and don't even peak at 100w. OEM power supplies specced at 150–250w typically have LOTS of headroom! Unless you've put in some monster video cards or upgraded to a significantly more powerful CPU and/or the original power supply's capacitors are failing, there's rarely a need to upgrade it. Any "power kernel" related error in the Windows Logs are likely to be caused by a driver issue, unless something hardware specific is also reported. This is why your "power kernel errors" ceased when you reinstalled Windows. If it were a hardware/power problem, it would've persisted in the new installation too.
If your power supply is inadequate or can't regulate its outputs well enough, one of two things will happen: Randomly, your computer will either lock up completely, or power off abruptly. Oftentimes, in this state you will have to unplug it and plug it back in to reset, as the power button may not work at all. If you've installed a lot of harddrives, it may have trouble powering on (powering on and then powering right back off and having to be unplugged before it will turn back on), or waking up from standby (rebooting instead of waking up). Also, an older power supply running near the limit that was designed with higher amperages on 5v and 3.3v and not enough on 12v can cause HDDs to go bad prematurely (overvoltage on 5v and undervoltage on 12v; you can test with a meter to avert this). But that's it. Your computer is not going to "slow down" because of the power supply. It will either work perfectly, or it will freeze/power off. There is no in between! The only "slowing down" that could happen is if your heatsink is plugged with dust, the CPU fan isn't working correctly, or if something is wrong with how the heatsink is mounted/thermal paste conductivity. Most likely you won't get any warning from Windows; the only clue you'd have is checking the CPU speed reported live in the Performance tab of Task Manager and comparing it to the CPU's rated speed (keep in mind that it's supposed to slow down when idle, run at full speed under full load, and some run above full speed under moderate load). If your CPU is maxed out near 100% and showing speeds significantly below the "base speed" figure, I would definitely check out what's going on with CPU cooling.

 

[CCTVCam]

My cpu runs 37C. Microsoft and several reliable sources say different that kernal power issues are often a sign of failing PSU / MB caps.

A computer running BI has a low power draw because the video encoding is being done on the Intel CPU efficiently leaving the only activity BI writing to the hard drives. Graphics cards on the other hand can suck huge amounts of power and additional hard drives can begin to increase the loading. Also:

1. Just because you have a 190W PSU doesn't mean you have 190W. For a start in most instances thats peak maximum power not continuous. The peak power is often 100w more than the continuous rating. In your case that reduces it potentially to 90W before you take into account any other factor.

2. A PSU can also reduce by 25% in capacity by temperatures above those that the manufacturers tested them and rated the PSU at so eg a psu rated 90W continuos at 25C might only deliver 75W at 40C. Reducing available power by 25% again. What this comes down to is marketing.

3. Just because a PSU is rated at 190 Watts doesn't mean it can deliver 190W to whatever you stick in there. That rating is spread over all the different rails unevenly and a PSU that can deliver say 190W may only be able to deliver 100W of that (Peak) on the the 12V rail before taking into account the above (which obviously reduces that rail figure massively). So if your system is heavy on a particular rail, you can easily exceed the power draw for devices / components connected to that rail only whilst still being below the overall rated power.

4. Most websites / professional builders will tell you that OEM power supplies are marginal at best on run of the mill desktop PC's. The Manufacturer doesn't want to erode margins putting in a 500W supply if a 250W will do. They also build to their specs not making allowances for additional devices to be added later so overheads on OEM systems can be marginal. Gaming deisgned pc's may have a littlre more headroom but I still wouldn't upgrade a system with a 1050 to a 2080ti!

5. If you need info on PSU's and power draw I suggest looking at reliable website for info such as Anandtech etc.

6. Although it's unlikely playing back video (as opposed to editing or decoding) you're using the full capacity of your GPU, Nvidia rate power draw for the 1050 @ 75W and recommend a minimum system PSU of 300 Watts for any i7 PC with one installed:

NVIDIA GeForce 10 Series Graphics Cards

Finds specs and features of NVIDIA GeForce 10 series graphics cards.

www.nvidia.com

 

[IAmATeaf]

Why bother moving clips between drives? It’s just a waste of time and resources. Configure it so that some of the cams write to 1 drive and remaining to the other and disable the move.

Don’t select any age related option for the drives and simply select a size/space to use as being approx 10% less of the available drive space

 

[pbc]

Well, out of sheer frustration, I:

1. Removed one of the SSD drives
2. Changed the BIOS from RAID to ACHI
3. Unplugged the optical drive (so the PSU per NewEgg is around 283 now vs over 300)
4. Did a fresh install of Windows 10
5. Reinstalled BI, Deepstack, AITools

BU is running at 15%, +/- 2% or so whereas it was 30%, +/- 5% last night when I was down to the same number of cameras.

Once I get some new cameras later this week will see how it is going.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

 

[SouthernYankee]

Some times to fix a problem, you just need to hit it with a large hammer.

Good start with the new windows and bi install. I would suggest keeping a written log of all your changes. I mean every thing.in the log, keep tract of the memory and CPU utilization along with the changes. Do a reboot of the system regularly, this will force all the changes to take effect.

 

[pbc]

Some times to fix a problem, you just need to hit it with a large hammer.

Good start with the new windows and bi install. I would suggest keeping a written log of all your changes. I mean every thing.in the log, keep tract of the memory and CPU utilization along with the changes. Do a reboot of the system regularly, this will force all the changes to take effect.

Yeah, I felt like literally hitting it with a hammer.

BTW, I thought the yellow triangle like the one now on my LPR camera for some reason was indicative of a difference in FPS. But it's correctly setup as 30 in BI and in the Cam itself?

 

[wittaj]

Slide over on the Status screen - it looks like it is loosing signal? Or thinks it is loosing signal - mine does that occasionally at night too and I think because the screen is all black for so long it is mistaken for lost signal? I ended turning off Watchdog for that camera.

And sometimes just a simple reboot of the camera will do it.

 

[pbc]

Slide over on the Status screen - it looks like it is loosing signal? Or thinks it is loosing signal - mine does that occasionally at night too and I think because the screen is all black for so long it is mistaken for lost signal? I ended turning off Watchdog for that camera.

And sometimes just a simple reboot of the camera will do it.

Ah, yes that's probably it given the black screen. Triangle disappears once a car goes through.

 

[shalem2014]

Try unticking the "Interpret monochrome video as loss of signal" watchdog box. That feature was included for DVRs streaming analog cameras, where you could lose the analog camera signal but the DVR will keep streaming black frames to Blue Iris. With the IP camera, Blue Iris would know when data (even blank frames) are still streaming in, and the watchdog function would be nice to have if working appropriately for this situation.

 

[pbc]

Some times to fix a problem, you just need to hit it with a large hammer.

Good start with the new windows and bi install. I would suggest keeping a written log of all your changes. I mean every thing.in the log, keep tract of the memory and CPU utilization along with the changes. Do a reboot of the system regularly, this will force all the changes to take effect.

So interestingly BI CPU usage has doubled (avg 15% to now over 30%) since yesterday, tried rebooting as well. Only changes I've made are:

1. Checked "Capture and alert image" in the trigger section of the main FrontDoor and Driveway cams
2. Unchecked Interpret monochrome video as loss of signal in the LPR
3. Went into web server and changed authorization required to non-LAN only.
4. Went into Windows Firewall to "allow" the BI app in both public and private networks (was checking to see if that resolved the issue I was having with my BI app not getting notifications on my phone)

I undid the above, but same result. This is really odd.

 

[wittaj]

It is possible to see a difference in CPU between day time when more motion is happening than nighttime - try to compare your CPU usage at same time of day.

And I have said it before, try the substream route. It will bring it down, which you need as you are running other things on that PC.

 

[shalem2014]

I am going to suggest that the CPU usage is fluctuating between day/night because of the color/monochrome image from the cameras and the black frame from the LPR camera at nighttime. See if the CPU usage drops back down tonight!

 

[pbc]

It is possible to see a difference in CPU between day time when more motion is happening than nighttime - try to compare your CPU usage at same time of day.

And I have said it before, try the substream route. It will bring it down, which you need as you are running other things on that PC.

Haven't gone the substream route since 1) ALPR and Deepstack are only around 10% and don't impact BlueIris (i.e. BI only sends images to a different folder for the AITool/Deepstack tool to work and shutting off the OpenALPR service helps the BI CPU usage by say 3 to 5%; and 2) I don't think I should be at a 25 to 30% CPU usage for BI alone with 3 cameras.

Even if I don't use Deepstack, turn off AITools and get rid of ALPRD, BI still runs close to 30% CPU usage. There is no way it should be that high with 3 cameras looking at this and selecting the 6700 CPU.

Blue Iris Update Helper

Blue Iris Update Helper

biupdatehelper.hopto.org

So something else has to be up.

I haven't tried substreams "yet" because Fenderman mentioned in the latest BI they are unstable, and it feels like there is another issue here somewhere. But I'll try them out at some point to reduce things if I can't figure out what is otherwise going on.

Is there a way to check if the CPU and/or memory are deteriorating and causing this spike in usage?

 

[pbc]

In the mean time, I disabled all cameras and then checked each:

No cameras enabled - BI at 0 to 0.1%
Driveway Camera only - BI at 12-14%
Front Door only - BI at 10%
LPR Only - BI at 4%

LPR is a 2MP Dahua (Z12E) and the other two are 4MP Hikvision ColorVu's.

Adding each camera becomes additive to the CPU. E.g., Front Door + LPR = 14% or so, Driveway + LPR = 15 - 16% or so.

I have six Dahua 5442's to add this week so I'm a bit concerned!

 

[wittaj]

@pbc -

I agree, it does seem high for only 3 cameras on that CPU.

I have 20 cams and also 9 clones going on a i7-4790 and running 5,150kB/s and 290MP/s and am around 15% day and 9% at night running the substreams on all but LPR cam. I was around 25% CPU prior.

OK - you did the troubleshoot to see if there is a leak somewhere. BI should be around 0% with no camera load, so that is good.

WOW - 14% CPU per camera seems high - I would suggest start backing down FPS and bitrate until you see a degradation - or live with the high CPU

 

[pbc]

Right, but if I'm at 2582kB/s (half of yours) and 307 MP/s (around the same as yours)...



.... shouldn't the load be way under yours?

FPS on the LPR is set at 30 which I will probably reduce since I don't think it needs to be that high, and then 15 on the others. Bit rates on the Hikvision's at 6144, "Highest Video Quality" which I think just means the bit rate is 6144.

Adjusting those two to 4096 gets me to this:



But did nothing for my CPU usage:



So it feels like there is something going on in BI that is causing that spike regardless of bitrate/FPS?