Has the run time been creeping up while I was not looking? I recall run times of about 6:30 on most of my cards (with some plus minus slop) but now It seems I am seeing 7:30 to 8:00 run times.

I can even see some that have projected run times of over 9 hours...

There is a new bug in BOINC (6.6.36) which assigns all WU to the same gpu if you have multiple gpus. As they time share it, they take much longer.
I am not sure that this is your case.

Can anyone suggest a good BOINC version which is new, but without major flaws?

gdf

I just realized that you neatly sidestepped my original question... :)

Are the tasks longer now, or is it my imagination? I am not talking about longer run times caused by bugs but just normal run times...

There is a new bug in BOINC (6.6.36) which assigns all WU to the same gpu if you have multiple gpus. As they time share it, they take much longer.

There is a new bug in BOINC (6.6.36) which assigns all WU to the same gpu if you have multiple gpus. As they time share it, they take much longer.
I am not sure that this is your case.

Can anyone suggest a good BOINC version which is new, but without major flaws?

Should agree with you, Paul.
Unfortunately, couldn't find the records earlier 31 of July ( when software was updated to CUDA 2.2 capability), to confirm your thoughts, but anyhow, sure that you are totally right: WU's becomes longer.
New WU's are lasts longer (from 6-6:30 hours to complete till 7:30++ hours), according to my feelings. Previously my station was able to complete at least, 3,5 - 4 WU's\day per GPU, right now I'm happy with 3 WU's\day. OK, to keep station more stable, I was downclocked GPU's a bit ( from 1,63gHz till 1,57gHz), but that wasn't the main reason.
Running damn stable GTX260 x3 under BOINC 6.10.0, 190.38 driver on Win Server 2008.

B.T.W., did you run other projects on your farms on CPU's ? If "yes", it could happened, that neighbor project, running on CPU's, could consume a bit of the CPU power, with need GPU's to be served ( data feed & output, etc). That could be one of the reasons, as well, I think. Right now I'm checking this on my system.


____________

No, WUs are not longer. They are designed to last 1/4 of a day on a fast card.

Ok, let's say that it is between 1/4 and 1/3 of a day.
The calculations is made approximately, it is not designed to be exact.

I had a similar increase in runtime just after I upgraded to the 190 drivers. Completely removing them and reinstalling them fixed it for me!

The increased time may be due to a bug in the 190.xx drivers, which puts the GPU in 2D mode, more information in this post.
____________

The increased time may be due to a bug in the 190.xx drivers, which puts the GPU in 2D mode, more information in this post.

With the new Linux cuda 2.2 application, my work units are running faster and producing more credit per day. I am using the 190.32 Nvidia drivers.
When I was running with the 190 drivers in Windows, the work units were not running faster but they were more stable and used less CPU time.

I don't think, that sudden switch to 2D mode could be the reason. I'm almost run all the time GPU-Z, to control the core \ mem frequencies, as well, as core temps. All three GTX 260 runs at full load. Additionally, in <stderr_txt> file main details is shown, as well, as core frequency. Here is sample:

# Using CUDA device 0
# Device 0: "GeForce GTX 260"
# Clock rate: 1.59 GHz
# Total amount of global memory: 939524096 bytes
# Number of multiprocessors: 27
# Number of cores: 216
# Driver version 2030
# Runtime version 2020
# Device 1: "GeForce GTX 260"
# Clock rate: 1.59 GHz
# Total amount of global memory: 939524096 bytes
# Number of multiprocessors: 27
# Number of cores: 216
# Driver version 2030
# Runtime version 2020
# Device 2: "GeForce GTX 260"
# Clock rate: 1.59 GHz
# Total amount of global memory: 939524096 bytes
# Number of multiprocessors: 27
# Number of cores: 216
# Driver version 2030
# Runtime version 2020
MDIO ERROR: cannot open file "restart.coor"
# Time per step: 51.394 ms
# Approximate elapsed time for entire WU: 32121.105 s
called boinc_finish

</stderr_txt>

No any sign of fall to 2D mode.

____________

Another consideration is that the amount of CPU time has risen sharply which slows down other projects.
GPU Grid was my project of choice for the GPU however, it appears it consumes a hefty amount of CPU, more than I would expect and I am aware it needs to use some CPU time.
____________
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Another consideration is that the amount of CPU time has risen sharply which slows down other projects. GPU Grid was my project of choice for the GPU however, it appears it consumes a hefty amount of CPU, more than I would expect and I am aware it needs to use some CPU time.

Should state again, that WU's becomes longer & longer.
I do not make any changes in the system, nor in SW or in HW, but my RAC becomes to decrese step by step & reason is the long time running WU's.
Checking the run times shows, that most of WU's, are lasts much longer, up to 8,5-9 hours. This means also, as I understand, some kind of infaltion of the given credit points, isn't it ?
Can somebody explain this more in details, greatly appreciated !

I've seen this as well -- it is quite noticeable with the slower cards I run (9600GT to GTS 250). In fact, with the 'run time creep' which seemed to start over the summer, I found 9400GT cards which could just squeak in under the 120 hour run limit had no chance to complete any longer. I'm running Collatz for that.

On a 9800GT I used to see 1 WU per 12 to 13 hours. Now it is more like 16 to 18 hours. Same credit for it.

What I've taken to doing is splitting between GPUGrid and Collatz -- which has forced a move to the 6.10 series of the client (Collatz requires 2.3 CUDA support). One big thing with Collatz -- *if* (relatively big if) you can live with the 6.10.x client, it supports not only slower CUDA cards -- all the way down to a 8400GS I pulled out of the 'give to the needy' collection I have, but also with ATI GPU's -- including embedded 3100/3200/3300/4200.

If GPUGrid is to consider moving to CUDA 2.3, in my view (since that will force the 6.10 client as well as driver updates), along with that stick, they ought to offer the carrot of ATI GPU support as well.

Should agree with you, Paul.
Unfortunately, couldn't find the records earlier 31 of July ( when software was updated to CUDA 2.2 capability), to confirm your thoughts, but anyhow, sure that you are totally right: WU's becomes longer.
New WU's are lasts longer (from 6-6:30 hours to complete till 7:30++ hours), according to my feelings. Previously my station was able to complete at least, 3,5 - 4 WU's\day per GPU, right now I'm happy with 3 WU's\day. OK, to keep station more stable, I was downclocked GPU's a bit ( from 1,63gHz till 1,57gHz), but that wasn't the main reason.
Running damn stable GTX260 x3 under BOINC 6.10.0, 190.38 driver on Win Server 2008.

Though it is not a "cure" and I have not done it universally yet... I have started to run MW on one of my CUDA equipped machines. With the longer run times here, I hate to say it, but, based on my thumbnail calculations the pay is better with MW ... I have not yet tried Collatz on the CUDA cards yet to see what the time is ... but ... with the time creeping higher and higher ...

Anyway, you can tell that the run times are longer by looking at the queued tasks where the DCF shows the expected run times and for 260 cards that is now 7:40 vice prior 6:00 ...

Stable versions of 6.10 are 6.10.3, 6.10.7 and 6.10.11 ... I have run, was running, or am running those versions. There are issues with work fetch and resource share and running MW ... You have to trim your cache settings back to about 0.1 to have RS work properly ...

The problem has been reported ...

I have updated the recommended client to 6.10.3.

thanks, gdf

Sounds like it's a good time for me to start preparing to check the 64-bit Windows 6.10.11 version for similar problems, then.

I may have to wait for The Lattice Project to release another batch of their workunits that ask for 1 GB each to check the memory limits problem; I'll let them know so they have more chance of getting their alpha testers to check for this problem before deciding whether to report it to the BOINC alpha testers group.

Could you modify the procedure for creating new posts in this thread so that I don't often have to wait until the next day after the last post until I can see the last post without the graphics and ads for the bottom of the thread overlaying it and keeping me from seeing all of the last post? A number of other threads need this as well.

Since the button to add another post to the thread is visible this time, I've decided to try that and see if it helps.

Note - I finished uninstalling 6.10.3 and started looking for 6.10.11 to install. Surprise - 6.10.11 is no longer available at any site I've found.
Finding this and downloading 6.10.13 instead took long enough that I plan to wait until tomorrow to do the installation.

Since the button to add another post to the thread is visible this time, I've decided to try that and see if it helps.

Note - I finished uninstalling 6.10.3 and started looking for 6.10.11 to install. Surprise - 6.10.11 is no longer available at any site I've found.
Finding this and downloading 6.10.13 instead took long enough that I plan to wait until tomorrow to do the installation.

You can find all of them here.

Have finished installing and found the following:

Under 64-bit Vista, it is not adequately compatible with Norton Internet Security 2009, which prevents boinc.exe and boincmgr.exe from communicating with each other. That version offers some capability to give certain programs more internet access, but when I tried it, I found that it will let you do this only for 32-bit programs.

I was able to handle this by upgrading to Norton Internet Security 2010 instead, although that version took more Vista restarts than I expected before it stopped causing error messages every time I restarted 6.10.11. This version starts out with boinc.exe (64-bit version) able to reach the internet.

The first GPUGRID workunit after that would not start until I adjusted the local preferences to allow GPU use while I use the computer. It then ran about 5 hours, then had a computation error, and have been unable to download another GPUGRID workunit since even though the GPU is still waiting for its next workunit. It keeps asking all the BOINC projects I participate in for GPU workunits, even though none of the others are supposed to have any.

The first GPUGRID workunit after that would not start until I adjusted the local preferences to allow GPU use while I use the computer. It then ran about 5 hours, then had a computation error, and have been unable to download another GPUGRID workunit since even though the GPU is still waiting for its next workunit. It keeps asking all the BOINC projects I participate in for GPU workunits, even though none of the others are supposed to have any.

As for the error, can you give us a link to the work unit in question and then we can try and see what its doing.

Talking about runtimes and me crunching my first NVidia wu for GPUGRID, how long will it take for my XFX 9600GT 512MB to finish the wu? It has run now for almost 9 hours, progress showing 22% now. Other projects are running on the CPU (POEM@Home and WCG).

Talking about runtimes and me crunching my first NVidia wu for GPUGRID, how long will it take for my XFX 9600GT 512MB to finish the wu? It has run now for almost 9 hours, progress showing 22% now. Other projects are running on the CPU (POEM@Home and WCG).

Thanks for the info Michael.

Will see how long it takes. Estimated time of completion in BOINC is about 30 hours as of now (25% after 10 hours).

Thanks for the info Michael.

Will see how long it takes. Estimated time of completion in BOINC is about 30 hours as of now (25% after 10 hours).

I've recently run both Collatz and PrimeGrid successfully on an G105M Nvidia card, which is near the low end of the Nvidia cards now available.

They both appear to require CUDA 2.3 or higher and computing capability 1.1 or higher, but no other special requirements.