Problem folding with both SMP and GPU

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:01 am

It has been found that NVIDIA has a problem with folding both SMP and GPU at the same time.

My example is this:

I was folding on one right with 3 eVga GTX 660's with each getting around 20,000 points per day.
I was also folding SMP with a i7 2.6GHz 8 core cpu which was getting around 2,500 points per day.

I decreased the SMP from 8 core folding to 4 core folding and the GPU's increased only slightly to 20,500 points per day.
However the SMP even cutting it in half jumped up to 5,500 points per day which over all came out to about a 7,000 per day jump in production.

Seems that NVIDIA GPU's require the full use of 1 core each when folding.
And SMP folding should only be done with an even number of cores, and also has a problem with prime number such as 3, 5, 7,11, etc.

Tks
Rick

btracy · Post by **btracy** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:38 pm

Thanks for the information Rick. Say I have a single GPU system on a box showing 8 cores (technically 4 are HT). Is the test I should be trying dropping the number of SMP cores doing folding down to 4 or 2?

Someday I should really start folding with my more powerful GPUs at home. You seem to have taken off again.

Thanks,
BTracy

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Tue Jun 04, 2013 3:05 pm

btracy wrote:Thanks for the information Rick. Say I have a single GPU system on a box showing 8 cores (technically 4 are HT). Is the test I should be trying dropping the number of SMP cores doing folding down to 4 or 2?

Someday I should really start folding with my more powerful GPUs at home. You seem to have taken off again.

Thanks,
BTracy

If your GPU is NVIDIA you could try it and match the results. You would only have to drop it to 6 though. If you GPU isn't NVIDIA your probably alright.

Got back from vacation and fired the pc's up again. Didn't feel safe leaving them running without supervision after my fire 3-4 years back.

Tks
Rick

btracy · Post by **btracy** » Wed Jun 05, 2013 12:48 am

Thanks Rick.

All my video cards are nVidia but I only GPU fold on one box currently (and that is with an old card). I will try modifying it tomorrow.

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 12:44 am

Has this been fixed yet? or is it still recommended to cut back on the cores as mentioned above? I have an I7 920, 8 gig ram 2.66Mhz, a single GTX-560. I get setting the SMP to 4 versus the 8 it defaults to with -1 as the default. Do the unused 4 get auto assigned to the GPU by GPU setting @ -1 or do I have to set GPU to 0 ? am not sure how to set this.

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 9:45 am

Far-N-Wide wrote:Has this been fixed yet? or is it still recommended to cut back on the cores as mentioned above? I have an I7 920, 8 gig ram 2.66Mhz, a single GTX-560. I get setting the SMP to 4 versus the 8 it defaults to with -1 as the default. Do the unused 4 get auto assigned to the GPU by GPU setting @ -1 or do I have to set GPU to 0 ? am not sure how to set this.

Are you running the v6 or v7 program to do your folding.

If you are running v6 I'd recommend upgrading to v7. First uninstall v6 and then go to here; http://folding.stanford.edu/home/ Click on the START FOLDING button and everything else is pretty automatic.

Once installed (or if your already running version 7) and you've changed to your folding name and team to 15 then you can configure the cpu to use 6 cores (7 is not recommended) and your gpu will be set up to fold automatically.

Have found out since then that the 1 core per gpu is not just a NVIDIA thing, ATI also needs the 1 core per gpu.

If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to ask. If we don't know the answer, we know where to go to ask.

Hope this helps

Rick

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Wed Jul 17, 2013 5:25 pm

I am using 7.1.25 as I do not like the Web based control. For some reason that one will sit at idle on it's own, I can set it to full close the browser and the app is at idle with a yellow back ground on it. Re-starting the browser and moving it back to full and then minimizing the browser, wait a bit and the app is back at idle. I have just re-placed my SSDs in a raid 0 with faster SSDs. A fresh Win7 install and web folding still drops back to idle. So I went back to 7.1.52 and it does not sleep or idle.

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Thu Jul 18, 2013 2:07 pm

Trying to under stand what your saying. If you don't like the web based control, just close it. In Windows 7 just move your mouse over the little up arrow in the lower right corner and see the icons of the programs running. Click on the folding icon and a menu will come up. Select the 'Advanced Control' and you can then see the FAHControl panel come up. It should at first show a yellow connecting message as it searches for your instances of folding. Right below the Configure button you'll see a bar labeled 'Folding Power' and across the panel from left to right the words, 'Off, Idle Light, Idle, Light, Medium, and Full. If the little rectangle associated with the line is not over the word Full your gpu's will not fold but be idle. This sounds like what you've been doing, if it is try and give us a little more information and we'll address your problem again.

Tks
Rick

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 12:44 am

Your description is correct. I had it at full power but for some reason it will slip out of full back down medium and GPU is not folding. If I leave the browser open and the folding power at full. The GPU will fold untill my monitor is shut off by the power saver. The rest of the computer is set never to sleep or hibernate. only the monitor is automatically shut down. I have even disabled the power saver options so the monitor is left on and I manually turn it off. After a few minutes the full power is at medium.

I had one Nvida tweak running where I had set the Shader Mhz bumped up a bit from 1660 Mhz to 1800 (less than 10%) increase. Doing so the card ran cooler from 66C (fan speed 74%) un-tweaked. I tweaked is at 1800 Mhz which ran WUs at a smidge slower speeds at 44 C (fan speed 50). I have undone all my tweaks, the card ran hotter back to 66C. In any case it would slip to back to medium both tweaked and un-tweaked, so I just stopped using it.

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Fri Jul 19, 2013 1:15 am

Ok. Some things come to mind. What model of gpu's are you using? When was the last time you upgraded your drivers? (For latest drivers go to http://www.nvidia.com and you can get the latest drivers available there). What other programs are running when this happens.

Rick

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Sun Jul 21, 2013 1:08 am

Have you checked to see if your gpu is being throttled down automatically, from 3D to 2D? I ran into that problem lat year with my GTX 460.
Open GPU-Z (free) and keep it running. It will give you a good idea of exactly what your video card is doing and the current load.

If it's powering down, try adjusting the power management in Nvidia Control Panel, or try Riva Tuner to turn off the power adjustment (convoluted but I can point you to some guides).

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Sun Jul 21, 2013 10:07 pm

Build
Version 7.1.52
Date Mar 20 2012
Time 19:37:42
SVN 3515
Branch fah/truk/client
Compiler Intel (R) C++ MSVC 1500 mode 1200
Options / TP/nologo / KHa /Qdiag-disable:4297, 44103,1786,279 /0x -arch:SSE /QaxSSE2,SSE3,SSE4.1,SSE4,2 /Qopenmp /Qrestrict /MT
Platform win32 XP
Bits 32

System
CPU Intel (R) Core(TM i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz
CPUID Genuine Intel Family 6 Model 26 Stepping 4
CPUs 8
Memory 799GiB
Free Memory 697GiB
Threads Windows _Threads
On Battery false
UTC offset -6
PID 2716
CWD C:/ProgramData/FAHClient
OS Windows 7 Home Premium
GPUs 1
GPU 0 FERMI:1 GF114 [GeForce GTX 560]
CUDA 2.1
CUDA Driver 5050
Win32 Service false

2 SSDs (Sandisk Extreme 120 Gb) in Raid 0 (240 Gb total)
Tweaked via SSD Speed Tweaks posted on Speedguide
http://www.speedguide.net/articles/ssd- ... weaks-3319

GeForce 340.49 driver, Release Date 7/1/2013

Power management is turned off on this machine. no video screen savers or hibernation or any disk shutdown after a period of time.

NVIDA settings for graphs options
All Off or set to Performance, No filtering

A list of services are turned off or set to manual in the event a service is needed it can be turned on. Services are largely set to conserve settings, nothing truly aggressive. All logging was turned off after the setting seemed stable an I could turn off logs with no errors.

Windows experience 1 - 7.9 rating. Mine came in at 7.5

I have no problems with games, browsing, streaming Netflix or any music / DVD editing apps. Just just the Folding app switching to Idle as mentioned above.

Also there was a mention about setting CPUs used in SMP from 8 to 6 so 2 so the single GPU I am using can use 2 CPUs.
Other than that I can't think of anything I left out.

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Sun Jul 21, 2013 10:26 pm

I guess I left something out

Gigabyte Easy Boost (untweeked)
GPU - 830 MHz
Memory - 2004 MHz
Shader 1660 MHz
GPU Usage 99%
GPU Temp 65 C
Fan Speed 74%

Gigabyte Easy Boost (Tweeked)
GPU - 900 MHz (gets unstable at 913)
Memory - 2004 MHz (never changed this)
Shader 1800 MHz (gets unstable above 1850)
GPU Usage 99%
GPU Temp 64 C (have seen this as low as 44)
Fan Speed 72% (have seen this as low as 50)

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 1:31 am

Have you run GPU-Z or similar to see if the card is downclocking?

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 11:11 am

Ok, what I'd like you to do is this.

At a good moment when what ever work unit your working on is finished and has been sent, stop folding and remove the folding program from your computer. Reboot and then download the latest version of FAHClient V7.3.6 I believe.
You like I don't like the web based monitor so what I do is just close it and then either go to the start menu and open the FAHControl monitor, you'll see the other is there also if you want to ever use it. Or go to the lower right where you can show hidden icons and click on the folding icon and select advanced control which will bring up the FAHControl program.
Make sure it's folding 'Full' and monitor it to see if it still has the problem.
Tks
Rick

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:02 pm

Humboldt wrote:Have you run GPU-Z or similar to see if the card is downclocking?

I downloaded the GPU-Z app from CNET.com A friggin virus server if you ask me, I should have known better... I had to uninstall 7 games, 3 or 4 other apps I did not want and a back up app that came with it. Once you start installing it your screwed. you have to install everything and uninstall everything. Thank God for CCleaner.

Plus after all that there is nothing about throttling after leaving log open and running all day. There is no useful information from that APP. You get everything you need from the folding App under expert mode and the sys info tab. GPU-Z = Crap

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:02 pm

rickoic wrote:Ok, what I'd like you to do is this.

At a good moment when what ever work unit your working on is finished and has been sent, stop folding and remove the folding program from your computer. Reboot and then download the latest version of FAHClient V7.3.6 I believe.
You like I don't like the web based monitor so what I do is just close it and then either go to the start menu and open the FAHControl monitor, you'll see the other is there also if you want to ever use it. Or go to the lower right where you can show hidden icons and click on the folding icon and select advanced control which will bring up the FAHControl program.
Make sure it's folding 'Full' and monitor it to see if it still has the problem.
Tks
Rick

In 11 hours I'll give it a try.
Thanks

Humboldt · Post by **Humboldt** » Mon Jul 22, 2013 6:14 pm

Far-N-Wide wrote:I downloaded the GPU-Z app from CNET.com A friggin virus server if you ask me, I should have known better... I had to uninstall 7 games, 3 or 4 other apps I did not want and a back up app that came with it. Once you start installing it your screwed. you have to install everything and uninstall everything. Thank God for CCleaner.

Plus after all that there is nothing about throttling after leaving log open and running all day. There is no useful information from that APP. You get everything you need from the folding App under expert mode and the sys info tab. GPU-Z = Crap

There's nothing to install, it's a stand-alone program that runs without installation. Used it for years and never encountered any viruses, malware, or additional programs.
One of the most recommended gpu utilities on foldingforum.org
Best of luck.

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:52 pm

just over 12 hours folding with the 7.3.6 App, It's web based, does not load at start up. Un-tweaked it runs about 2 or 3 C hotter (67 to 68 C), 27% more CPU usage, 22 Meg less ram and about 5K less points a day. Might be I'm getting smaller jobs. will let this go as is for awhile. There is the 1 tweak I added, where I set SMP from 8 to 6 CPUs as mentioned above. Other than that nothing other than standard installed options.

Also this might be just because of over heating (Not over clocked)... can of air time?

*********************** Log Started 2013-07-24T01:41:40Z ***********************
01:42:54:WARNING:WU01:FS0:D etected clock skew (1 mins 07 secs), adjusting time estimates
03:52:49:WARNING:Exception: 12:127.0.0.1: Receive error: 10054: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 10:26 am

Sounds good so far. The web based is a separate program so it doesn't start at startup but the folding does. As I mentioned before you don't have to use the web monitor at all. You can use the FAHControl program that's connected to FAH folding through the hidden icons tab, or start it from your Start menu.

That first message is just telling you that your computer clock was a little off.
The second one I'm not sure about.

Rick

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Wed Jul 24, 2013 11:01 am

You've already used the Configure folding slot window to change your number of cores on your cpu so what you can do now is.
From the Configure, then slots option select one of your gpu's and select 'Edit'.
When that window comes up select 'Add'
A small window opens with Name and Value for you to input. There are a view options I'm aware of and probably more I don't.
1. next-unit-percentage (then in the Value line you can put 99 or 100, default is 98) That will change when the next unit gets downloaded to fold.
2. client-type (then in the Value line you can put either 'advanced' or 'beta' (for beta it is advised you be a member of the beta folding team but is not rigidly enforced) beta means that the work units you get are not ready to be released to the public and you may have some problems with them and lose some folding time. advanced means the work unit has passed the beta state and is being tried with a larger folding spectrum, you still may have a problem with some of them, but less likely.

Rick

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:42 pm

So add them like this?

GPU Folding options.png

rickoic · Post by **rickoic** » Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:05 pm

Yep that'll do it.
Rick