Problem with GPU Grid

[Chris_redfield]

Hi,

I set up a cruncher for WCG a few months ago its a Phenom 9850 with a 8600GTS GPU and 1gb of RAM. I also set it up to run GPU grid as well.

I haven't paid much attention to it until just recently when I noticed that GPU-Grid was always paused a message like 'currently carrying out other work.' On the odd occasion it was running gpu grid its telling me that its going to take 66 hours to complete a unit, which to my mind is a pretty damned long time. I had a look at my stats on the FreeDC site and looking at that it doesn't look like the system has ever completed a unit.

I also noticed that running the system with GPU grid on then it tends to crash about every 3 days. Whereas without it its much more stable.

Is this just because the 8600GTS sucks at GPU-grid or is it because 1gb of ram isn't enough for the system to cope with four WCG threads and GPU grid?

Or might this be videocard driver related? I was running an ATI card in the system previously and before switching GPU's rather than doing a fresh OS install I just removed ATI drivers and then installed Nvidia.

At the moment I'm just going to keep the rig running WCG but I plan on carrying out some maintenance at the end of this month when I have a week off from work and I have some new hardware coming in.

But is it worth ordering a cheap 8800GT or getting some new ram or am I doing something completely wrong my end?

The system isn't OC'd at all because of stability. This 9850 is a pita.

[lkiller123]

You will need some more ram. GPUGrid uses way more memory than WCG.

[OldChap]

Chris, Go look at the list at http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=867 Where they make comment about what works, what works well and what doesn't work at all

The general consensus seems to be that if you can get a 55nm 260 216 you will be crunching well and a 275 is better still

[stoneageman]

Anything less than a 260 is not worth bothering with. 275's are the site recommended minimum card.

[vaio]

Oh well I will go shut down my 2 250's then :rolleyes:

Also no problems here on a dual core with one gig of ram running 2 x Poem and Gpugrid.
Upgrade to a 250 or better and you'll be fine.

[CaptMorgan]

Along with that guys I feel like the 260's are a better bang for the buck. where are you guys picking up the 275's?

[lkiller123]

Anything less than a 260 is not worth bothering with. 275's are the site recommended minimum card.

I don't get what you mean. Does that mean if you get a GTX vid card over a G92, you will see a marginal increase of points?

[Snow Crash]

The GTX200 series give x1.4 ppd more than just the simple increase in shader count/ speed.

[stoneageman]

Oh well I will go shut down my 2 250's then :rolleyes:

Might just as well. Can I see your membership card Sir? :hehe:

[Chris_redfield]

So should I not bother for the moment then and just wait until I can afford a GTX 260 and some more ram?

I think I will wait for fermi to hit and hopefully pick up a bargain 260 or 275 then. I don't want to spend too much at the moment as I'm currently in the process of a dual istanbul build and am saving for the DP evga board for when it hits.

Cheers for the link though oldchap thats really useful.

[PoppaGeek]

Anything less than a 260 is not worth bothering with. 275's are the site recommended minimum card.

link?

[PoppaGeek]

So should I not bother for the moment then and just wait until I can afford a GTX 260 and some more ram?

I think I will wait for fermi to hit and hopefully pick up a bargain 260 or 275 then. I don't want to spend too much at the moment as I'm currently in the process of a dual istanbul build and am saving for the DP evga board for when it hits.

Cheers for the link though oldchap thats really useful.

I had planed the same. The problem I see though I do not think they are being made anymore. As Newegg runs out of stock they are not restocking. There are fewer of the cards and prices have gone up, not down the last month or so. I am now not so sure the prices will go down. :rolleyes:

There are a few people here that have done very well with 9800/250 class cards. Naja and Mikeb12 as well as I think Dak has many 8800s. :up:

You might consider putting the 8600 on F@H if you do not want it to idle. I have 2 8800GTs on F@H. They do ok. My GTX 260 does 2x on F@H as they do but still worth it for me. My other GTX 260 is here.

[stoneageman]

link?
system requirements (http://www.gpugrid.net/index.php)

[PoppaGeek]

Well since I cannot afford the higher end stuff I guess I would just give up here except for several reasons GPUgrid works out better running on my daughters PC. But after reading that I doubt I will add more here. I will put my next card on F@H. Hope to get a 5850 or maybe Fermi in next few months. Kinda feel like GPUGrid is an elitist project now. :down:

[CaptMorgan]

the GTX 260's have done ok so far for me

[OldChap]

Lets have a go at putting numbers on this based on the comments in the recommended cards I linked above and my personal experience before my 295 died. If we are to believe that the gigaflops figure is reliable as they say then the following should be true as ppd output for each type of card. This is not the full list they provide but representative of it

295 36000 Mine
285 21383 SnowCrash
275 18121
260 16188 CaptMorgan (this must be a 55nm 216 else there can be problems)
250 9000 MikeB12 (rarely runs without errors)
150 14195
98gx2 23195
98gtx+ 9000 lkiller123
98gt 10228
96gt 6282
96gso512 4711
96gso 7973
88gts512 12564
88gt 10148
88gs 7973
86gts 2799

Now like I say this is their theory ...so you guys will probably tell me that the numbers stink but I can correct for future reference and the numbers in bold are actual (mine for the first one)

[PoppaGeek]

This news blurb at HardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/01/09/gpu_news_from_ces) may mean some good closeout deals for the those that keep a close watch.

GPU News from the CES (http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/01/09/gpu_news_from_ces)


Rumor has it that this week NVIDIA will let it officially be known that XFX's European operations will cease to be an NVIDIA Approved Partner. This means that XFX will lose all underlying NVIDIA support on GPU allocation and new product launches...including Fermi. It also looks as if Visiontek will be kicked out of a MAJOR USA e-tailer, which will probably decimate Visiontek's business. We will be seeing other major changes in video card sales this year here in the USA as well. The video card manufacturer landscape will be very different in the USA this year. Expect to see two or three major brands fall by the wayside when it comes to NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

[CaptMorgan]

Those numbers seem to make sense for the 260 OldChap, Thank you

and yes all of mine are 55nm; the 260's were my first card(s) since my trusty 8800GTS

[lkiller123]

If the numbers mean average numbers, then I think the numbers for the 98GTX+ is kinda off..

Now I am running fairly large WUs, I can finish about 1 WU a day, 2 WU for the next day. My number bounces between 6k-12k. My card is mildly overclocked at 720/1930/1130.

[Snow Crash]

Those numbers are about dead on for my 295 and 285.
When fermi is available there will be at least one cheap 285 and possibly even a 295 :-)

[OldChap]

I somehow expected this so if you could watch the output for a few days and report the total for x days I can correct this

[lkiller123]

81422 points in 9 days for a 9800GTX+ at 720/1930/1130.

[PoppaGeek]

When my GTX 260 ran 24/7 it averaged 16-17k a day so your numbers look good there.

[Otis11]

Lets have a go at putting numbers on this based on the comments in the recommended cards I linked above and my personal experience before my 295 died. If we are to believe that the gigaflops figure is reliable as they say then the following should be true as ppd output for each type of card. This is not the full list they provide but representative of it

295 36000 Mine
285 21383
275 18121
260 16188 CaptMorgan (this must be a 55nm 216 else there can be problems)
250 14195
150 14195
98gx2 23195
98gtx+ 14195
98gt 10228
96gt 6282
96gso512 4711
96gso 7973
88gts512 12564
88gt 10148
88gs 7973
86gts 2799

Now like I say this is their theory ...so you guys will probably tell me that the numbers stink but I can correct for future reference and the numbers in bold are actual (mine for the first one)


When my GTX 260 ran 24/7 it averaged 16-17k a day so your numbers look good there.

I'll agree with the 260 numbers, but a moderate OC brings it up to 18k+
(I'm at 17,770 after losing some production to Use and Downtime recently.)

[vaio]

Might just as well. Can I see your membership card Sir? :hehe:

Yup
(http://www.gpugrid.net/show_user.php?userid=47058)

[MikeB12]

I'm running a single gtx260 (192sp) and 2 dual gts250 rigs...

The gtx260 consistently does about 16k ppd. the dual gts250's whhen running without errors will do about 18k ppd. the issue is they very rarely run without errors.

and the result is:

http://i48.tinypic.com/wv1ukp.jpg

[stoneageman]

Yup
(http://www.gpugrid.net/show_user.php?userid=47058)
splitter
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE)
:D

[vaio]

@Stoneagedude.........shame I have no idea what the point of your posts were,

@Mike......try 18585 driver with the 250's.....so far this year I have had 6 errored wu's.....not as bad as some,

[OldChap]

Is it worth visiting these numbers again now that there is a new acemd

[Snow Crash]

PPD have gone up quite a bit with the new version of ACEMD2 ... depending on OS, CPU, GPU, etc, etc anywhere from 35% - 60% faster with the same number of points per WU so we are all going quite nicely :clap: