SPCR Folds Team Blog

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:14 pm

I just got one of those 1888 pt. gpu wu's too! Seems to be dragging down my ppd on that. Ah well, take the bad with the good, I guess. On the bright side, I finally got around to installing 64 bit linux on my Atom box, and with the dual cores (and the multithreading enabled in bios, forgot that last time around) giving smp 4 cores, it seems to be whipping along. More numbers as they come through.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 6:36 pm

Things are definitely getting bigger in the gpu WU arena. Today if I didn't have 1 WU from a cpu I would have gone 6 hours without completing a single WU. I have 2 gpus checkpointing every 7 3/4 minutes right now. That's over 6 hours for 1 WU.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Thu Jun 11, 2009 9:15 am

Yeah, something may have been up yesterday. Well, I got hit with windows updates bringing down a couple systems, but they got back up fairly quickly. But one of my boxes was working on gpu units at about half speed, I still haven't figured out why. Might have been the WUs themselves. It was pretty strange, the card was running about 20 degrees under max according to speedfan. Some odd 535 point sized things. Seems ok today though.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:50 pm

What's going on with you KK? You seem a little anemic lately.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:37 am

Hey, so I did pick up an Asus P5N7A-VM, stuck an old core duo in it, and got it running this weekend. According to Fahmon, the on board gpu is running at about 650ppd. Currently, it's stuck on a higher point WU, but it should beat the deadline on it and wrap it up sometime tomorrow. I haven't yet gotten a reliable measure on how much power it's using yet, though, more data on that when I have it. I'm a little worried it'll be higher just because I have it hooked to a 520W supply at the moment, it won't exactly be in the efficiency sweet spot for that. But temperatures on extended folding runs seem ok, mid to high 80s, and the megahalem I put on the cpu is letting me passively cool that really well, so it seems somewhat stable. I'm still a little worried about driver stability, I've already had trouble with the on board NIC, but adding a NIC card was no trouble and now the net connection is solid. All in all, a nice low power solution.

And hey, KansaKilla, what is up?

euimin · Post by **euimin** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:14 pm

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... =&u=247547

that took long enough.

now we just wait for dasman.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 7:03 pm

This morning I opened a log file, I had back to back errors, all the same. Some file or folder could not be opened. This was flagged as UNSTABLE MACHINE, which means after about 10 of these in a row that GPU gets to idle for 24 hours.

These scores are crazy, it looks like 1 or more servers were backlogged with scores and then BOOM the flood gates opened this afternoon and I get credit for 41 work units all at once. Look at my total work units on 6/24 versus 6/23.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:04 pm

Yeah, I got 44 WUs clocked in at 3pm, so that happens sometimes? Servers get backed up? I did have a few days where my posted scores were fairly far under what fahmon was telling me I was running at, I guess this makes up for it, by a lot! It's a shame, my curve was pretty smooth, not too jumpy, I guess this is going to put a big kink in it. Oh well.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:02 pm

Wow, it's hot in here, so I decide to look at some GPU temps. Locally I have 2 9600GSOs, one is a dual slot. It's fine, the other one was 96C! I've never seen it so high, no wonder it's giving me grief. I speed up the fan from 70 to 80% and cut back on the shaders from 1700 to 1600, it's now 80C. Better, but still.

My GTX260 reached 78C, so it's shaders were dropped from 1500 to 1450. Now it's 74C. Better, but still. It's hot in here but it going to get a lot hotter before summer is over.

I wonder if my Artic Cooler S2 Version 2 cooler is more effective than my single slot coolers.

KansaKilla · Post by **KansaKilla** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:01 am

aristide1 wrote:What's going on with you KK? You seem a little anemic lately.

Got back from my board exam. Everything was on hold this time until I found out if I passed or not. I did, so it's back to playing catchup on the honey-do list (think legal-sized paper here, multiple pages). The emperor must be obeyed.

Speaking of the boss, she wasn't too happy with the heat output from the main box. It's hot in Minnesnowta, believe it or not (R). That meant juggling hardware around and down time. I wasn't going to have my 260 sit idle. On top of that, her dedicated computer started acting wonky with the wireless. Probably my fault, trying to sneak some folding in on it and messing with graphics cards to get another folder up unbeknownst to her. So both boxes were taken down and hers was rebuilt. Kept her crappy Via chipset with its DDR ram. It wouldn't take a folding card so I bought a 7600GS and that thing worked. No folding on that box, I'm afraid.

So, here is how it stands right now:
e2160 @ 2.5 with a GTX 260 (at workplace #1), SMP and GPU folding 24/7.
e2220 @2.93 with a 9800 GT (at workplace #2), plan SMP and GPU, hope to start folding 7/1/09.
q6600 @ 2.4 with a HD3850 (at home), SMP folding 24/7, GPU folding is sporadic at best.
A64 3200 @ 2.0 with a 9600 GT (at the apartment), plan GPU folding only, hope to be up and running by mid-month.
e8400 stock (at workplace #1), running notfred 24/7.
t(somethingorother) at 2.0 (laptop at workplace #1), running notfred 24/7.
t(somethingorother) @ 2.0 (laptop at workplace #2), running notfred 24/7.

We'll see what happens to the points in the next few weeks.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 5:55 pm

I'll OC Intel CPUs a tad, but now I leave AMDs idle. They just just suck up too many electrons.

KansaKilla · Post by **KansaKilla** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 7:30 pm

Good grief that 9800 is an absolute power hog. Have an S1 revision 2 on it and it's smoking along at 48 degrees full throttle. CPU has a S1283 on it, about 50 degrees full throttle. But the EarthWatts 380 is now loud because the graphics card is pulling so much juice.

I suppose I shoulda held out for the GTS 250. The price on the 9800 was right, though, so if the box doesn't fail on me then it should work out okay.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 5:30 pm

KansaKilla wrote:Good grief that 9800 is an absolute power hog. Have an S1 revision 2 on it and it's smoking along at 48 degrees full throttle. CPU has a S1283 on it, about 50 degrees full throttle. But the EarthWatts 380 is now loud because the graphics card is pulling so much juice.

Its suppose to use about 80 watts, not much more than a GSO.

Any PS pushed passed 50% capacity will have its fan spinning, they're all like that.

I suppose I shoulda held out for the GTS 250. The price on the 9800 was right, though, so if the box doesn't fail on me then it should work out okay.

From what I've seen a GTS250 uses about 90% of the power of a GTX260 and delivers 80% of the points. I dunno about you but I don't want to build anymore boxes and I've run out of PCIE slots.

On the other hand the EVGA 1255 is $149 after rebate right now.

AZBrandon · Post by **AZBrandon** » Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:51 pm

aristide1 wrote:On the other hand the EVGA 1255 is $149 after rebate right now.

I saw that too. I'm wondering if they have some backstock built up due to the recession really driving sales down, especially with ATI staying very price competitive in the midrange products. This article states nvidia will refresh the GT200 lineup in 40nm in September, which I suspect will start at the low end, meaning the GTX260. It would be nice if they refresh it the way they did the 9800GTX to the GTS250, making it shorter and with a single power connector. That might be possible going 55 to 40nm; the 55nm GTX260 is already down to 171w TDP, so it's close to the 150w threshold to get away with a single power connector.

KansaKilla · Post by **KansaKilla** » Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:25 am

Am I correct in that 40nm doesn't provide as much benefit from 55nm as 55 did from 65? I'm confused over all the stuff that I've read over the past several months regarding the 4770 and the problems TSMC has had with their processes.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:11 pm

KansaKilla wrote:Am I correct in that 40nm doesn't provide as much benefit from 55nm as 55 did from 65? I'm confused over all the stuff that I've read over the past several months regarding the 4770 and the problems TSMC has had with their processes.

I saw some mention of the NVidia notebook GPU, 40nm. I believe you'll get 9800GT performance from that chip with 9600GSO power usage. It's another incremental gain, and initially for a premium in startup costs.

The 65 to 55 change was suppose to net a smaller gain because it was a simple die shrink (?) as opposed to redoing the entire thing. The 40nm is redoing the whole thing, but they have had reliability issues. Any place that may need to thicken up the silicon will work against us. I'm not sure how yields are today but a couple of months ago they were awful.

I haven't seen any great numbers on ATI GPUs either. I think both companies are buying their wafers from TSMC. Yawn:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/963/1/

The 2 things that make the GTX260 worthwhile are:

1. Low price when price # of stream processors per dollar, ie low starup cost.

2. 1 slot (though double wide) compared to 9800GTs or 9600GSOs.

The reason we're all confused is because all the usual websites that are "reporting" the process are printing nothing more than gossip and speculation. None have proven to have any real sources. Some of the guesses even we could have manufactured.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 11:37 am

So the gtx260 is at the sweet spot for price per ppd now? I was thinking that the gtx275 might be better, with the extra shaders and all. Guess I'll have to redo the math on that and see how it really breaks down. Any good links where somebody has already done the work?

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:37 am

From what's reported on-line the 275 will beat the 260 by amount 10% for PPD, but will use more than 10% more power in the process.

Of course if you're limited by slots that make affect your decision. Heat maybe an issue as well.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:42 am

Hi,

My home dual core (Athlon X2 4200+) died last night. The machine was "asleep" and when I pushed the power button, it caused the UPS to start screaming. I restarted the UPS, and something in the PSU popped, zapped, and smoked...

Also, something happened to the SMP client on the machine at work -- other people have been working on it when I am not there, and so I had to install two instances of the regular client (one is the GUI and the other as a service), so at least it will be using both cores to Fold...

Does the GPU client run in Linux? I really can't deal with Windows anymore...

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:13 am

Neil,

I share your frustration.

According to the Stanford forums yes, but the procedure looks a bit daunting if you're not a Linux guru. That said at least one person has cut and paste the instructions right from the thread and it worked.

OCing your GPU is another story.

Aris

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:47 am

I've been working on getting gpu folding going on linux too. It seems like the most complete guide I've found is here:

http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=6793

This one also looks good:

http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net- ... linux.html

But I still don't have it working yet. I think it's because I started with Mint instead of Ubuntu, next I'm going to reinstall with the specific Ubuntu version they recommend and see if that works. Let us know if you have any luck or find better instructions.

Lockheed · Post by **Lockheed** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:10 pm

Post removed

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:26 pm

Hey, so if you have it working, that's great! Can you fill me in on all the different versions of stuff you're using, sound like ubuntu 9.04, but how about card driver, cuda driver, cuda toolkit, and so on? I'm at the point of reinstalling 8.04 to match the headless setup. Did you use a post someplace as a guide to get it set up? I've been thinking about setting up something like a linux farm, but running windows on everything would make it so much more expensive.

Lockheed · Post by **Lockheed** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:07 pm

Post removed

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 6:24 pm

Wow. Just cleaned out 1 PC. The video card was clean not too long ago, but it got to the point it was running to hot even at stock speeds. I open it up and I am shocked. Every vent hole in the little radiator is shut tight by dust, and it's 1/4 of an inch thick! It came off in 1 continuous piece, like a long band of cloth. I then wiped everything with a dry Q-tips and I blew on it, which caused a nice cloud of dust. Reinstalled temps dropped 20C! Now I can crank it up again.

Something I had not done in an even longer time, I tried to make the PC quieter. I swapped power supplies and put a quiter fan on the CPU heat sink. I think what I succeeded in doing was making the the 40mm fan on the northbridge more obvious. And it's an annoying little bugger. But the size, shape, and location doesn't lend itself to a traditional northbridge replacement. Its an NVidia 570 dual slot board I believe.

Must put brain in gear.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 4:49 am

Hiya,

I finally got my own 24" iMac to upload finished WU's without requiring a restart: I deleted everything related to F@H (I had installed a few different versions over the years) and then made a clean (re)installation -- and all is well! Ditto for my brother's 17" iMac -- his was redoing the same WU for over two months...and it seems to be back on track, now.

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... s=&u=34703
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... =&u=189150

Now, I just need to get back to my work machine and get it humming on the SMP client again -- I was forced to install two instances of the regular client before I was out for my surgery...

KansaKilla · Post by **KansaKilla** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:53 pm

Good to hear you're back up, Neil. Do you mind if I ask if your surgery went okay?

Aris--maybe I should also clean out my vid card too. Maybe it is a heat thing that has been going on from dust accumulation. As for the northbridge, how about something like an NB47J or the like?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:12 am

Hi,

My surgeries went very well: I had a small squamous cell carcinoma on my gum, so the first surgery removed 3 teeth and the bone around the roots. The margins were clean, and it is expected to be curative.

Because I had that, they did a PET scan which turned up the tumor on my right kidney. So the second surgery was to remove the tumor (leaving ~2/3 of the kidney intact), and again the margins were clean. Better yet, the tumor was oncocytoma -- it is benign!

So, the number of follow up scan have been greatly reduced. I had the 41 staples out last Friday, and I am up and about and feeling much, much better than I thought I was going to. The worst is definitely over.

aristide1 · Post by **aristide1** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:23 pm

Wow Neal, you've been through a lot. Agreed, I hope the worst of it is behind you, and it's always good that stuff is benign, less worry about it coming back that way.

In the long run sounds like you may save money on beer, by not being able to hold as much. Such a deal.

cordis · Post by **cordis** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:37 am

Hey, has anyone else tried fahweb.com? I set it up yesterday. So far so good, I'm able to get my fahmon display on the web here at work, so that's cool. Has anyone else tried it, is there a hidden downside I don't know about, or is it just new or something?

SPCR Folds Team Blog

me too!

yesterday was bad

update

me too

260 sweet spot

been working on it

awesome!

Re: awesome!

fahweb.com