I purged all the beta drivers and reinstalled the latest release drivers from AMD and no difference. I don't see any errors in the logs, at least not in any logs I know of. My understanding was similar to yours in that AMD should use minimal to no CPU while folding. I don't really know where to troubleshoot from here except maybe to post in the FAH forums.
Folding@Home
- Thread starter The JoJo
- Start date
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
If there is a window environment installed on the Linux machine, have you disabled the screensaver?
Just curious but since you have two video cards, try pausing one of the slots and see what that does to the CPU and to the frame times of the still working GPU slot.
You won't get help from the folding forums, for two basic reasons. First all beta support is done only in the beta forums and you have to be an official beta tester to post there. If you post in the general forums, the thread will be shut down virtually immediately. Second, the AMD Linux GPU core_17 were released as unsupported software. However, if you do post in the beta forums, others can comment and offer suggestions and the thread won't be shut down.
Perhaps sacrilege but also likely the best place to get good answers for this problem is the Curecoin IRC channel. There should be lots of experienced Linux AMD/ATI folders there.
You won't get help from the folding forums, for two basic reasons. First all beta support is done only in the beta forums and you have to be an official beta tester to post there. If you post in the general forums, the thread will be shut down virtually immediately. Second, the AMD Linux GPU core_17 were released as unsupported software. However, if you do post in the beta forums, others can comment and offer suggestions and the thread won't be shut down.
Perhaps sacrilege but also likely the best place to get good answers for this problem is the Curecoin IRC channel. There should be lots of experienced Linux AMD/ATI folders there.
Good question. Yes, there is XFCE installed but I don't recall if there is a screen saver by default. I'll have to figure out if I can disable from CLI. I edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to set DPMS to false for both GPUs and then added options to disable blanking the screen. Not sure if I did it right. I rebooted afterward to be safe.
I've tried with a single GPU and the results are the same. I went so far as deleting the second slot entirely from the config and the PPD is around 3K and CPU usage is 100% on a single FahCore_17 instance. Doesn't seem to matter if one or two are configured, the CPU will get 100% consumed either way.
That's unfortunate that the F@H forums offer no help. I read several different threads with people seeking advice that didn't seem to be closed. I was in the process of posting but I guess I won't bother posting there now. I'm confused if I can post in the beta section or not? Thanks for the suggestion to visit the Curecoin IRC. I'll see if they can offer any clues to my odd problem.
The beta forums are read-only to the general public. You can only post in the beta section, only if you are an "official" beta tester. You can apply here: https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8
The reason for this is all historical. At one time, Beta testing was entirely closed. People had to be invited, and even the mention of its existence in the forums was banned. There were a group of people that got wind of its existence and started posting in their own forums that it was a closed club that got abnormally high PPD by beta testing WU's that were not available publicly. Eventually that false rumor became commonly believed. To fight it, PG opened up the forums to a read-only state to the general public but still kept beta testing semi-closed.
The reason for this is all historical. At one time, Beta testing was entirely closed. People had to be invited, and even the mention of its existence in the forums was banned. There were a group of people that got wind of its existence and started posting in their own forums that it was a closed club that got abnormally high PPD by beta testing WU's that were not available publicly. Eventually that false rumor became commonly believed. To fight it, PG opened up the forums to a read-only state to the general public but still kept beta testing semi-closed.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
My PPD may go up slightly. I replaced the motherboard, CPU, and RAM in my HTPC with an Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz.
This system is just folding with the NaCl client. It seems to complete a WU about every 5 minutes.
Does anyone know if I can do GPU folding with the built-in GPU?
This system is just folding with the NaCl client. It seems to complete a WU about every 5 minutes.
Does anyone know if I can do GPU folding with the built-in GPU?
I decided to abandon Linux for now and installed a new (older 750GB) drive and put Windows 8.1 pro 64-bit on it. I got it all configured and setup and it's running now with F@H. The PPD needs some time to get a better estimate but it definitely seems a little better than 6K PPD. It's estimating 23K PPD which I think is still pretty low for these cards but it needs some time to run to get a more accurate picture.
Each card is running a different work unit. One is a 9201 estimating 11 hours 20 min and the other is a 10467 with an estimate of 8.8 days?!? I hope that improves once it gets cranking.
Each card is running a different work unit. One is a 9201 estimating 11 hours 20 min and the other is a 10467 with an estimate of 8.8 days?!? I hope that improves once it gets cranking.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Did you assign different slot IDs to both you GPU? A Radeon R9 290 should provide, IIRC, over 100Kppd. Each.
I think you can set in the Catalyst Control Center not to throttle the card when it's used by the FAH Client.
I think you can set in the Catalyst Control Center not to throttle the card when it's used by the FAH Client.
As far as I can tell they both have their own slot IDs (see screen capture below). I spent some time in the CCC and disabled CrossFire and set the fans to ramp up quicker. I also have screen saver disabled and all windows power management disabled so that it doesn't sleep the machine. I don't know what else to try changing to improve performance aside from overclocking (which I hear doesn't do well with F@H so I won't bother for now). I did look up the Uber mode for the R9 290X and had to change the physical switch on the card to allow for faster fan speeds in order to get the most out of the cards. There was no clear marking on it so I went by what someone posted in a forum in regards to which position to put the switch into.
Here's what my config looks like for this setup. The PPD number is growing steadily. I am still seeing some high CPU usage even though F@H is not configured to run folding on the CPU. It could just be that this Sempron is so slow that it's starving the GPUs sometimes. I may just suck it up and upgrade the CPU to a better AM3+ chip. I'll let this run for a bit and see how it works out.
In Windows, you might be better off with client-type advanced to avoid Core_18 which has PPD issues with AMD/ATI.
It may be worth installing an OC utility, not to OC but rather to be able to do real-time monitoring of temp, Clock, %GPU usage in the systray. %GPU usage is a good way to tell if something is starving the GPU. Clock rate tells if it is down-clocking for some unknown reason. and It is always good to know temps...
It may be worth installing an OC utility, not to OC but rather to be able to do real-time monitoring of temp, Clock, %GPU usage in the systray. %GPU usage is a good way to tell if something is starving the GPU. Clock rate tells if it is down-clocking for some unknown reason. and It is always good to know temps...
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CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Looking at your stats, my statement above prove to be quite accurate (I didn't check your stats before posting it).
Thanks for the tip on the client-type. I've added it to both GPU slots. Do I need to restart it for them to apply or will it pick up the change the next time a work unit is requested?
I did install the Gigabyte OC utility but it's not that great. I did it for some of the reasons you suggested. It doesn't seem to work through Remote Desktop Connection which is a pain. Neither does the CCC for some reason. I tried installing the MSI AfterBurner but it won't communicate with my GPUs so I can't tell what their usage is like.
I was honestly expecting more out of the cards combined, but maybe I was being unrealistic. I was expecting 150K-160K PPD for each card...not a combined total. I get around 160K PPD out of my GTX 780. I thought the R9 290X was a faster card than my GTX 780...
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
That's what I thought. Thanks for confirming.
Also, I'm still seeing a constant 15%-20% CPU usage per FahCore_17 process while it's running which means it's eating about 30%-40% of the CPU all the time. When it starts up the work unit it's 100% used like it was under Linux. I'm not sure why there's so much CPU usage here given everyone seems to mention that AMD GPUs don't need the CPU like nvidia does. Maybe it just seems like a lot given the Sempron is a single core and slow?
No, you should not need to restart the clients for a new client-type to take effect for the next WU.
Microsoft's Remote desktop is not compatible with GPU folding! Luckily, there are many other options.
Unlike mining, the current king for folding is by far the Nvidia 780 series.
Microsoft's Remote desktop is not compatible with GPU folding! Luckily, there are many other options.
Unlike mining, the current king for folding is by far the Nvidia 780 series.
That being said, you can still add a second video card for folding purposes while using the integrated video for your display and effectively eliminate folding's video lag. So there is still a potential use for the integrated video even if you can't fold on it.
Nvidia uses so much CPU because they decided to use polling of the OpenCl driver to determine if it is ready for more work (Yuk). AMD's drivers are interrupt driven, so no polling is needed producing far less CPU usage. On a modern CPU AMD uses 0-2% of a single core which most people consider insignificant. Yes, I suppose that it is possible that the single-core Semperon is so slow that that 0-2% is translating 15-20%.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
I don't know if the case has enough room for a video card. It's an Antec NSK2400. It also has a Antec Basiq 450 watt power supply, so even if I could fit a decent video card in there, the power supply might not be beefy enough. Cooling might also be problematic.
Are there any "small" video cards that would net a decent amount of PPD?
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Is this possible with Linux? I might need to set this up on my desktop.
I ordered a new CPU (AMD FX8350 8-core black edition), CPU cooler, memory, case, and extra fans for this setup to get it working a little better. Should be here by the end of the week. Maybe that will help the CPU usage with these GPUs and improve my PPD. I can also now fold on the new CPU giving a little more PPD.
What about a GTX 750 Ti? It's fairly small and does not need PCIe power connectors.
Though a search shows that it might have issues with F@H...not sure why, maybe because it's a new GPU core type.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
It does look fairly small, though I bet it still generates a lot of heat. Plus, I just spent $400 upgrading this machine today. Maybe I'll consider it in a few months.
Maxwell's (GTX 750 Ti's) certainly has very good potential but currently has OpenCL driver issues that haven't been addressed by Nvidia yet. That being said, there is supposedly a fix found for Core_17, but that fix isn't working with Core_18 nor ocores which are the in future. At the moment, I would be cautious, it you intend to buy that specific card just for folding.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Thanks for the information. I'm probably not going to buy anything in the immediate future. Can you please keep us up to date on whether this issue gets resolved?
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Doug, looks like you're getting pretty good output today. Already over 400k points.
I'm happy to see a nice boost in PPD. It's working much better under windows than Linux. Now I'm hoping I can get the PPD up a little higher with a faster CPU and a little better cooling so that the 290X doesn't thermal throttle as often. I was hoping for a little closer to 500K PPD total between all three systems I have running. That may be a bit ambitious.
I'm planning to upgrade my current desktop in the later fall when the new Intel chips come out which will give me a bit more PPD from FAH.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
If you're waiting for Haswell-E, then it could even be early Fall if you wish so. However, if you're waiting for Broadwell, it won't be this year. Might not even be Q1'15.
I'm not interested in Broadwell right now; I'm after the socket 2011-3 Haswell-E with the X99 chipset. I say late fall for me because I want motherboard manufactures to iron our the first run issues then I'll buy into it. I don't think I'll spring for the i7-5960X, so likely the i7-5930K. I'll have to wait and see if Microcenter offers their usual discount on CPUs which may sway me in my timing if they do offer their discount.
Looks like I may get close to 500K PPD today. I would have definitely broke 500K if my main desktop with my GTX 780 didn't power off at 1:00AM this morning for unexplained reasons. It wasn't folding for about 7-8 hours because of this. I looked through windows logs but couldn't find a cause. Fortunately it ran fine throughout the day while I was at work.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Yesterday, for the first time since many, many months, someone outproduced for a day for a reason other than my setup experiencing an outage.
Congratulations Handruin.
Congratulations Handruin.
Thanks. I'm surprised I generated that many points in a day. I got my new parts in and plan to upgrade during the weekend. That might get me a few more points.
I got my new parts in and put together. One thing I forgot was that while mining I had my second 290X in a x4 PCIe slot vs the x16 in order to give it some extra space for cooling. For mining that was way more than enough but I don't know how much it matters for F@H. None the less, I moved the GPU into the second x16 slot so both now have equal and full x16 bandwidth for F@H. I also played with the fan speed mapping and so far it looks like I can keep the temps near 75C on the top card and 68C on the bottom card. That's pretty decent considering they normally run at 95C. The GPU core wasn't throttling back which was the reason for me doing this. The downside is the fans are spinning at 90% and are pretty loud but it's in the basement so I don't care too much.
I also noticed that even with the new AMD CPU which claims to have 8 cores (but really 4 core with AMD's sad approach at hyperthreading), each Core_17 is still using 10-12% CPU each. The claims of AMD GPUs not using much CPU don't seem to be true for me. I set the new CPU to fold at 50% CPU leaving headroom for the GPUs. At most I think it's using a total of 75-80% CPU all combined.
Hopefully with the new case, CPU, fans, etc, I'll get a little more bump in folding capabilities and PPD out of this setup. Tomorrows PPD might be down because I lost a few hours of folding for the change-over but hopefully after that I'll pump out decent numbers for a while.
I also noticed that even with the new AMD CPU which claims to have 8 cores (but really 4 core with AMD's sad approach at hyperthreading), each Core_17 is still using 10-12% CPU each. The claims of AMD GPUs not using much CPU don't seem to be true for me. I set the new CPU to fold at 50% CPU leaving headroom for the GPUs. At most I think it's using a total of 75-80% CPU all combined.
Hopefully with the new case, CPU, fans, etc, I'll get a little more bump in folding capabilities and PPD out of this setup. Tomorrows PPD might be down because I lost a few hours of folding for the change-over but hopefully after that I'll pump out decent numbers for a while.
timwhit
Hairy Aussie
You could also try the NaCl client, it doesn't seem to affect my GPU folding with my GTX 650 Ti and it produces pretty decent PPD.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Since the beginning of our team, we've maintained an average production of 140809 ppd. I had a few minutes to kill (10 minutes of ice on sore muscle) and calculated that.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Is it the end of Mark's effort to the cause?