New SETI gauntlet Sept 25-Oct16

[biodoc]

Remember this problem I was having with my GTX295?

I uninstalled the nvidia drivers then ran driver sweeper. Then I installed 191.07 drivers and now it seems to be working flawlessly in SLI mode.:sun:

I think it was a driver problem. When one GPU workunit finished, the screen would blackout for a second and then recover and I'd get a system message saying the driver failed but successfully restarted. Simultaneously, the second GPU WU would fail with a computation error.

As it turns out, the new drivers didn't solve the problem. After searching on the net, I did find a solution though. Lots of people have seen this issue on Vista (mainly) when the GPU is under heavy load like gaming, dc crunching, etc. The screen goes black for a second or 2 and a popup appears with the message "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" with a reference to nvlddmkm.exe. Apparently Vista monitors the video driver and if the driver doesn't respond within 3 seconds, the system restarts the driver. I guess this prevents hard crashes and lockups. There were a few possible explanations on the net:

1) driver problem (I already had the latest driver with a clean install)
2) hardware issue/weakness under heavy system load (power supply, RAM, faulty Video card (;(), etc
3) GPU/driver under heavy load and does not respond to system within 3 sec timeout

#3 was the problem in my case. This only happened when one GPU WU finished and "uploading" and the other GPU stopped crunching for a few seconds and then the latter WU reported a computation error (screen blacked out and the popup appeared).

The solution from the wizards on the net was to disable the Vista system monitoring of the video driver in the registry:

Under HKLM/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/GraphicsDrivers I added the following:

TdrLevel REG_DWORD with a value of "0" for "off"

No problems now for more than 2 days. 🙂

The issue with this solution: If I ever have a legit video driver failure, the computer will lockup or a blue screen "message of death" will appear.

 

[petrusbroder]

Nice solution - with advantages and disadvantages ... Thanks! 🙂

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
@

Originally posted by: dajeepster

Originally posted by: biodoc
I agree, if you're crunching CPU only, setting the cache to 10 days is an easy, relaxing ride through the Seti outages.

If you have a modest GPU (9800GTX+ in my case), it's another story. Setting the cache to 4 days only gives me 24 h of GPU workunits. I can change that with the reschedule app though.

Times have changed....a GTX260 (<$200) will probably outperform (ppd) any Quad core on Seti.

If you are dedicated Seti cruncher, I would get a dual core and 2 fast GPUs.

I like the quad core cpu, dual gpu setup.

Have you seen anyone try dual 260's on a crossfire mobo?

I'm doing that now... of course they are X58 boards though... so does that really count?.. ok.. one of them doesn't have SLI support, so then that would be yes.

I also have a couple 8800GT on a p45

hmmm... I do have enough 260GTXs to throw 4 of them on my PII board... just not the power supply to do so. 🙁.... maybe that will be my next project... I've got a case that would handle it along with a watercooling setup. 😀

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: dajeepster

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
@

Originally posted by: dajeepster

Originally posted by: biodoc
I agree, if you're crunching CPU only, setting the cache to 10 days is an easy, relaxing ride through the Seti outages.

If you have a modest GPU (9800GTX+ in my case), it's another story. Setting the cache to 4 days only gives me 24 h of GPU workunits. I can change that with the reschedule app though.

Times have changed....a GTX260 (<$200) will probably outperform (ppd) any Quad core on Seti.

If you are dedicated Seti cruncher, I would get a dual core and 2 fast GPUs.

I like the quad core cpu, dual gpu setup.

Have you seen anyone try dual 260's on a crossfire mobo?

I'm doing that now... of course they are X58 boards though... so does that really count?.. ok.. one of them doesn't have SLI support, so then that would be yes.

I also have a couple 8800GT on a p45

hmmm... I do have enough 260GTXs to throw 4 of them on my PII board... just not the power supply to do so. 🙁.... maybe that will be my next project... I've got a case that would handle it along with a watercooling setup. 😀

scratch that... board will only handle three double wide cards

 

[petrusbroder]

One dual core and three 260GTX - that should give quite a nice ppd ...
AFAIK there are some boards which can accomodate 4 double wide cards - bout you would need a 800 - 1000 W PSU and probably a dual core CPU ... and some good tweeking. OTOH: this comp could probably be a very good folding computer too ...

Edit: Next time I get a nice pay check I may build it ... but where to put it? I do not have a room to heat that much ... 😉

 

[Rudy Toody]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Well, we really need to up our production ... anyone more who can add comps to the Gauntlet?

Rudy Toody? How are your comps doíng? Is there any chance?

I put 2 quads on SETI for a few days. Hope my little bit of production helps.

 

[biodoc]

Originally posted by: Rudy Toody

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Well, we really need to up our production ... anyone more who can add comps to the Gauntlet?

Rudy Toody? How are your comps doíng? Is there any chance?

I put 2 quads on SETI for a few days. Hope my little bit of production helps.

Thanks RT!:beer: This race is so tight a 1000 points could do it!:

Peter, if you have enough power from your rigs to heat your house, you may want to add a sauna!🙂

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
One dual core and three 260GTX - that should give quite a nice ppd ...
AFAIK there are some boards which can accomodate 4 double wide cards - bout you would need a 800 - 1000 W PSU and probably a dual core CPU ... and some good tweeking. OTOH: this comp could probably be a very good folding computer too ...

Edit: Next time I get a nice pay check I may build it ... but where to put it? I do not have a room to heat that much ... 😉

put it outside 😉

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Well, I agree. But you have to remember, in our house of 380 m^2 (4 090ft^2) there are 6 teenagers, 2 adults, 4 cats and a number of friends ... that takes a little energy. I may be able to build it more energy efficiently, but using only computer generated heat for heating a house in northern Sweden (we are only 260 km (162 miles) sounth of the arctic circle) --- it is kind of funny and quite "green".
BTW: just now it is -3º (26ºF) and a steady northerly wind outside, and a comfy 23.5ºC (74ºF) indoors - on computer generated heating only ... 🙂

it is 10:40 pm right now and it is 75 degrees F...outside my house. It doesn't take much to heat it in south tx, even in winter!

lol @ sauna comments

 

[biodoc]

Yesterday was a good day!:thumbsup:

__7days______1day_________total________Team

2.740.632 __ 414.962 ___ 6.399.057 ___ [TA]TAS
2.846.228 __ 419.852 ___ 6.263.417 ___ OcUK[Spankers]

They outproduced us by 5 K yesterday and we have a 136 K point lead.

Keep up the great work TASer's!!! :beer::thumbsup:

 

[Wiz]

Well my production is definitely up, thanks in no small part to the upgrade of my wifes PC.
It's RAC bumped up over 2000 today! Schweet!!

 

[petrusbroder]

My production is also rising - but we will see tomorrow if that is sufficient.
Today is Tuesday, soon the outage will strike and the stats will be somewhat in disarray.
Wednesday all will be more correct, I assume ... 🙂

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
My production is also rising - but we will see tomorrow if that is sufficient.
Today is Tuesday, soon the outage will strike and the stats will be somewhat in disarray.
Wednesday all will be more correct, I assume ... 🙂

but everyone will still be checking the stats every ten minutes even though they know that it's tuesday :shocked:

 

[petrusbroder]

Yeah, that is probably so. But not me ... 🙂 Tomorrow is a new day! 😀

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: petrusbroder
Yeah, that is probably so. But not me ... 🙂 Tomorrow is a new day! 😀

correct.... tomorrow is a new day that is in increments of ten minutes away. 😀

 

[Rudy Toody]

Has anyone considered the possibility of the aliens already living amongst us and running the SETI project to keep us from finding their signals from home?

 

[biodoc]

Originally posted by: Rudy Toody
Has anyone considered the possibility of the aliens already living amongst us and running the SETI project to keep us from finding their signals from home?

:laugh: A conspiracy theory!

To me it's simple....some friendly folks from across the pond in Britain are trying to kick our butts in this race!

We can't let that happen, can we?😉

 

[filibusterman]

Is sli better or keeping the cards separate better. Its not an issue for me now but in the past I didn't know whether or not to enable sli mode in the nvidia conrol panel or just leave it disabled. Either one or two wu would be worked on at a time and I cant see how having two cards split one wu would be better than both of the cards working on their own wu. Any thoughts from you guys with all those crunching rigs?

 

[biodoc]

Originally posted by: filibusterman
Is sli better or keeping the cards separate better. Its not an issue for me now but in the past I didn't know whether or not to enable sli mode in the nvidia conrol panel or just leave it disabled. Either one or two wu would be worked on at a time and I cant see how having two cards split one wu would be better than both of the cards working on their own wu. Any thoughts from you guys with all those crunching rigs?

I have a GTX295 running in SLI mode now. After the race (this weekend), I will go to radio shack and buy some resistors to make a dummy plug. It'll be tough to do a controlled test though since most of my GPU WUs have different crunch times.

 

[filibusterman]

Also my current work crunching rig is a dell and doesn't have a power supply with any p6 power connectors but only sata power connectors. Would it be worth getting a card for crunching that only rely on pci-e power or just save up for a better card in the future...I assume a sata-->molex or eventually rigging to p6 would be a bitch.

 

[Rudy Toody]

Originally posted by: biodoc

Originally posted by: Rudy Toody
Has anyone considered the possibility of the aliens already living amongst us and running the SETI project to keep us from finding their signals from home?

:laugh: A conspiracy theory!

To me it's simple....some friendly folks from across the pond in Britain are trying to kick our butts in this race!

We can't let that happen, can we?😉

I think aliens would fit right in at Berkeley!

Edit: I am completely out of work. I have gone back to my other projects. Sorry!

 

[petrusbroder]

The difference (between us and the Spankers) is still 135 640 - but it seems that the numbers have not been updated. 🙁

 

[biodoc]

Hang in there everyone!:thumbsup:

Lets do max production for another 48 hours?

When does the race end?

No matter how it ends, I'm really proud to be part of TA!

Both TeAms really are doing great!:beer::beer:

 

[Rattledagger]

Originally posted by: biodoc
Hang in there everyone!:thumbsup:

Lets do max production for another 48 hours?

When does the race end?

Exactly when it ends is a little uncertain, since it depends on when SETI@home next does a stats-update...

But, if doesn't mis-read anything, it's most likely somewhere between 18 and 28 hours from now...

Going by the last update it's probably roughly 26 hours from now, but since this update was after an extra long Tuesday-outage wouldn't gamble it will be so late next time...

 

[bryanW1995]

wow, it looks like we'll get 2nd and 14th place. If we would have not split the TeAm up we would have gotten...2nd place. stupid southpark... first they give hillary clinton a snuke, and now this!!