A question for the devs: Is there a cuda 3.2 app in the works?

The 260.89 drivers are now whql'ed. I'm not sure if the cuda 3.2 DLL's are released or still under NDA. Assuming they are released apart from fixing some bugs with cuda 3.1 they have supposedly optimised the DLL's for use on the Fermi chips.
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BOINC blog

I've updated drivers to 260.89 at present, just waiting on the DLL's and apps to become available to use it. Older cuda apps seem to be fine on it. Presumably there will be some speed improvement for Fermi-based cards when using cuda 3.2.
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BOINC blog

I have been using it since it was in Beta, without too much trouble. By itself it brought no speed increase over the previous final release on a GTX470 XP x86. The dll files in 3.2 might help, but only for some tasks; for those already at 93% to 98% GPU utilization there is little improvement to be had.
While the GTX460 could do with a speed bump for Windows, hopefully MJH is also trying to get a working app together for Linux users of the GTX460 and GTS450. These have similar architectures to the still unreleased GTX475 and presently don't work under Linux.

Yes, but I think it is the lightweight IBUCH tasks rather than the driver.
I was running the latest driver when I noticed the almost halving of the GPU Utilization, so I tried the previous full driver and it did not improve. When I get the odd non-IBUCH task the utilization is much higher.

Not sure about the adaptive setting making any difference for Fermis but sometimes did for CC1.3 cards.

I did notice a small performance drop from the 260.89 driver to the previous beta version, but it was around 1% less so prone to inaccuracy.

Beyond: set the windows power settings to maximum performance?

The dll files in 3.2 might help, but only for some tasks; for those already at 93% to 98% GPU utilization there is little improvement to be had.

Thought you would pick up on that ;)

In the latest full release windows version of NVidia Control Panel there is no way to set the Power management mode to “prefer maximum performance”. This is installed with the latest driver Full Release NVidia driver (260.89). I can’t presently check to see what comes with the latest Linux driver (system rebuild in progress). Power management preferences are normally found within Manage 3d settings, but were absent with the latest control panel version when I checked (Win x86, GTX470).

It was an unfortunate coincidence that these frequency reductions occurred during the release of many lightweight tasks. I came across cards reducing their frequencies before (as did many) and found that by using EVGA Precision and leaving it open on the desktop my cards did not slow down, but that workaround may not work on this occasion.
Going back to the previous driver might be the best option, as 260.89 brought no performance improvements, though you could try to just uninstall the NVidia Control Panel from Add/Remove Programs, and then install the Control Panel that came with the 258 driver.
As it appears the 260.89 drivers are BAD for GTX260’s and/or GT240’s under Windows operating systems, I would suggest people stay away from 260.89 if they have a CC1.3 card or below.
There is a 260.99 beta out now, that might bring a fix, but there are few reasons to upgrade NVidia 200 series cards for here.

For anyone with this problem and wanting to go back to 258, be careful the way you uninstall the present driver and reinstall 258, or you will end up keeping the latest NVidia Control Panel.
The usual safe method of going back is running a full uninstall, rebooting into safe mode and installing the older driver, though some of the latest drivers offer up more options to uninstall/install.

For driver 260.99 the Power Management Preferences are now under the Program Settings Tab, however I was not able to set Power management preferences to Maximum; there is only the one setting, Adaptive. So avoid this Beta as well (NVidia Control Panel version 3.4.772.04).

At least the fans didn’t stop this time :)
Finding good cards for this project is hard enough without trying to work out which app works best with which broken driver. GPU crunching is not easy.
While this could just be bad design I’m half expecting NVidia to release their GTX475 after their driver success; It would mirror their first Fermi release – crippled cards with knobbled drivers. To see two broken WHQL released only a week apart tells me something is wrong there.
Although the last Linux driver is 260.1912 released October 13th and the CUDA Toolkit is still at the 3.2 Release Candidate stage, I would not put it past them to release another unsupported card. GTX460 and GTS450 don’t work on Linux and the GTX460 is about 30% too slow on Windows, 3 months after release.

To see two broken WHQL released only a week apart tells me something is wrong there.

low power mode when running GPUGRID with no way to return to normal speed except rebooting.

Anyone who's still got them installed try lauching a 3DMark or Furmark. That should surely trigger 3D mode. But don't use 3D Mark 2001.. that's been cpu limited since many years :p

MrS
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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

This seems some configuration problem.
Try to reinstall BOINC from scratch on a different directory. Maybe also use the latest one. If it works then you can try to trace the problem down if you want.
gdf

No, not before end of January 2011.

gdf