ODD F@H problem

[Markfw]

OK, I have been folding for years, but this is a first. All my other boxes are fine, and they all run XP32 and nvidia 258 drivers, and have 2 video cards, that run even ppd.

Now my new 3930k box, not sure the nvidia driver version, but the box is XP64. The problem is, that when I run both video clients, the first one slows down to 1000 ppd, and eveything on the computer (like firefox) is so slow, its almost unusable, but when I shut it down, the other matching card does 18k ppd, where the first one runs or not. WTF ? is it a setting ? or the driver version ? wil my 32 bit drivers work on the 64 bit OS for the nvidia drivers ? they are 296.10 I think

 

[VirtualLarry]

OK, I have been folding for years, but this is a first. All my other boxes are fine, and they all run XP32 and nvidia 258 drivers, and have 2 video cards, that run even ppd.

Now my new 3930k box, not sure the nvidia driver version, but the box is XP64. The problem is, that when I run both video clients, the first one slows down to 1000 ppd, and eveything on the computer (like firefox) is so slow, its almost unusable, but when I shut it down, the other matching card does 18k ppd, where the first one runs or not. WTF ? is it a setting ? or the driver version ? they are 296.10 I think

Wierd. I've never had that problem with only one card out of two. Running PrimeGrid under BOINC, using NV GPUs, I've noticed GUI slowdown on my quad-GPU (9600GSO) cruncher rig, so bad that there is literally a 1-2 second delay open and selecting windows.

On my main rig, with two GTX460 cards, there isn't that much GUI lag. There is however when I enable SLI and leave it enabled when I crunch. Then it lags pretty heavily, although still not quite to the point of Un-usibility.

wil my 32 bit drivers work on the 64 bit OS for the nvidia drivers ?

No, you need the 64-bit drivers.

 

[Markfw]

maybe SLI is somehow enabled ? I did not do it that I know of, and I can't see it on the nvidia control panel. Where is this enabled ?

 

[postaled]

maybe SLI is somehow enabled ? I did not do it that I know of, and I can't see it on the nvidia control panel. Where is this enabled ?

Not sure if that is the same way on XP but that is how you do it with 7 in the nvidia control panel.

 

[Markfw]

Not even on my control panel. It just has physx on that page

 

[biodoc]

OK, I have been folding for years, but this is a first. All my other boxes are fine, and they all run XP32 and nvidia 258 drivers, and have 2 video cards, that run even ppd.

I did some searching in the F@H forum and couldn't find your exact problem so the first thing I would suggest is to change you driver version to the same one that you are using on the 32-bit XP machines (v 258.xx as you stated above) except it would be the 64-bit version. The latest drivers are causing other problems on Win 7 machines. If you wanted to try a later version of the driver it seems the 285.62 WHQL drivers have the least amount of issues on Win 7 machines but I have no idea on XP-64 machines.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm using 280.26 64-bit on Windows 7, btw.

 

[Markfw]

well, 280.26 did not change a thing. 1170.9 vs 19k ppd. Maybe its the virtual box thing ?

 

[GLeeM]

Maybe its the virtual box thing ?

Are you running the GPU client in the virtual box?

 

[Markfw]

Are you running the GPU client in the virtual box?

No, they are the normal way. bigadv is machine ID 4 in virtual box, video cards are 2 and 3

This is disgusting, 19k ppd just sitting there doing nothing.

 

[blckgrffn]

No, they are the normal way. bigadv is machine ID 4 in virtual box, video cards are 2 and 3

This is disgusting, 19k ppd just sitting there doing nothing.

The vm can starve out the CPU needed for cuda. Try manually lowering the priority of the virtual box process in windows.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What video card gets 19K PPD? My GTX460 1GB OC cards only got 10-11K PPD. Maybe 11.5 if I OC to 840 core.

 

[Markfw]

My 460's get 11-14k, my 470's gets 17.3, and my new 560ti gets 19k.

 

[Markfw]

The vm can starve out the CPU needed for cuda. Try manually lowering the priority of the virtual box process in windows.

I could see that, but my one 560 is fine, no impact, and the other is 1k ppd, and the system is unusable, almost locks up. Something is FU'ed.

 

[biodoc]

So both GPU clients fold at high ppd without virtualbox running? I seem to remember that when you were running the windows smp client before you installed virtualbox. Try lowering the priority for virtualbox as blckgrffn suggests. That may solve the windows lag problem.

 

[blckgrffn]

I was able to run one GPU folding w/o issue when I was running a folding VM maxed out, but when I ran two GPUs with a folding VM, it starved out the GPUs and while they ran at full clocks, the ppd was atrocious.

I fixed this by taking a CPU away from the VM, but in your case that would not be a wise choice given the SMP client, above a certain point, really likes certain numbers of cores (like eight and twelve) and not so much numbers in between.

Therefore, I think you need to play with CPU scheduler priority levels to make sure your GPUs get fed before the VM.

 

[Markfw]

If I pause the vm totally, I get 50% ppd, and the only thing running are the 2 gpu clients. See picture.

 

[blckgrffn]

If I pause the vm totally, I get 50% ppd, and the only thing running are the 2 gpu clients. See picture.

Hmm, so it's better, just still slower than it should be at that point?

Can you, and this is just to satisfy the inner Windows Admin in me, reboot - don't start the VM - and then kick off the GPU client for a few folding cycles and see if the behavior persists?