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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : Adding a second (different) video card

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HPew
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Message 8835 - Posted: 24 Apr 2009 | 13:46:59 UTC

I have a SLI box crunching with XP, 6.6.23, 182.50, and one GTS250. I dug up an original 8800GT (with a substantial HR03 cooler) and installed it. Both cards are recognised by Windows but BOINC only sees the GTS. What should I do to make BOINC recognise that there are two cards? Or, despite them being both G92s, have I hit a cuda limitation?

An aside: BOINC Manager's estimate of GFLOPs for a card is much lower than that listed in the FAQs.

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Message 8836 - Posted: 24 Apr 2009 | 13:56:21 UTC

Ah, solved it myself... I think.

It seems BOINC didn't like that I was only running gpugird on this box, adding a second project--even without downloading any work--and suddenly a second gpugrid WU is running.

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Message 8856 - Posted: 24 Apr 2009 | 18:23:03 UTC

No, not solved. :(

Both cards are now recognised by BOINC and both are given tasks, but only one card is actually doing any work. The other cuda task just sits there, not increasing "progress" just ticking ever up on "CPU time" and "to completion".

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Message 8947 - Posted: 26 Apr 2009 | 7:15:30 UTC - in response to Message 8856.

No, not solved. :(

Both cards are now recognised by BOINC and both are given tasks, but only one card is actually doing any work. The other cuda task just sits there, not increasing "progress" just ticking ever up on "CPU time" and "to completion".


What does the first couple of lines in your BOINC log have to say? Does it detect both cards or just the GTS250?
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Message 8948 - Posted: 26 Apr 2009 | 7:27:43 UTC

Do you still use the 6.6.23? With the 6.6.24 I have the same problem, but with BM 6.6.23 it's running fine.
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Message 8989 - Posted: 27 Apr 2009 | 12:38:12 UTC - in response to Message 8948.

As has been mentioned here in the forum several times - 6.6.2x are BETA versions of BOINC, and have had some problems with GPU scheduling. Suggest you fall back to version 6.5.0 of BOINC client and see if you still have problems.

Somewhere in the 6.6.23 or .24 timeframe, there were some changes made to GPU card detection in BOINC client, and if the GPU cards were not identical, BOINC would refuse to use the lesser card. I believe that change was withdrawn, but if you are trying to run multiple GPU cards, I would stay away from those versions.

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Message 9006 - Posted: 27 Apr 2009 | 19:07:33 UTC - in response to Message 8989.

As has been mentioned here in the forum several times - 6.6.2x are BETA versions of BOINC, and have had some problems with GPU scheduling. Suggest you fall back to version 6.5.0 of BOINC client and see if you still have problems.

Sadly 6.6.20 is now a recommended version though I think that this was a poor choice ... just as 6.4.5 was rushed out and made the "standard" ...

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Message 9010 - Posted: 27 Apr 2009 | 20:01:43 UTC - in response to Message 8947.

What does the first couple of lines in your BOINC log have to say? Does it detect both cards or just the GTS250?


Both cards are recognised by BOINC, it is just really intermittent on using them. The best I can end up with is both cards running SaH and never switching to Grid despite what I set in 'Options', unless they run out of SaH WUs then only one Grid WU runs.

*Sigh* I've decided to stop BOINC for a while and come back at 7.0 or 8.0 when things work better.

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Message 9031 - Posted: 27 Apr 2009 | 21:48:00 UTC - in response to Message 9010.

*Sigh* I've decided to stop BOINC for a while and come back at 7.0 or 8.0 when things work better.


Isn't that a bit rush? You could easily run a single card, you could try 6.5.0 (which I'm still using as it's so much better than 6.6.x) or you could run seti (if you can justify supporting their science).

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Message 9091 - Posted: 28 Apr 2009 | 23:11:19 UTC - in response to Message 9031.

Isn't that a bit rush?


I've been following the discussion in my other problem thread between you and Paul D. Buck. And it seems it is just going to get worse the more GPU-exclusive time I put into BOINC. I'm not going to run other projects just to make it work. Makes more sense to wait until the problem is fixed.

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Message 9093 - Posted: 28 Apr 2009 | 23:41:31 UTC - in response to Message 9091.

Isn't that a bit rush?


I've been following the discussion in my other problem thread between you and Paul D. Buck. And it seems it is just going to get worse the more GPU-exclusive time I put into BOINC. I'm not going to run other projects just to make it work. Makes more sense to wait until the problem is fixed.

If you use 6.5.0 it is NOT a problem.

It is only a problem with 6.6.x versions. They made a lot of changes and the problems are not fully resolved, yet.

I run 6.6.23 or now 6.6.25 so that I can see these issues on one system but run 6.5.0 on all the others.

Please give it a try.

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Message 9103 - Posted: 29 Apr 2009 | 7:27:11 UTC - in response to Message 9091.

I'm not going to run other projects just to make it work. Makes more sense to wait until the problem is fixed.


I can understand this practice very well, stopped GPU crunching over some weeks by eliminating all unneeded cards from the hosts, using just IGP or low powered PCI cards. Especially GPUgrid regarding the scheduler seems not to be manageable (unattended) by one, single BOINC version in a kind of: configure once > run over months.

But I had fun crunching with CPUs also, no more noise, no more overheated computer rooms. It is possible to stay happy without GPU crunching.

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Message 9116 - Posted: 29 Apr 2009 | 19:32:50 UTC - in response to Message 9103.

Especially GPUgrid regarding the scheduler seems not to be manageable (unattended) by one, single BOINC version in a kind of: configure once > run over months.


Well, currently "fire and forget for months" is asking for too much. Still too much develoment going on at different places: the project, BOINC and the drivers. However, what you ask for is almost what I do with 6.5.0 and my single GPU rig: I keep checking it via "your account", but the machine just runs. The scheduler does what it's supposed to be and does nothing else (well, not that I see anything).

Seriously guys, recommending 6.6.20 was a huge mistake by the BOINC developers. But don't let that spoil your fun: if you have issues try 6.5.0!

The only drawback of 6.5.0 for me is that it's difficult to keep a small cache to get the early-return bonus. But setting project share and cache size should be able to handle this.

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