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Folding Confusion

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Skullmonkey42

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I'm not understanding why my computer is only getting 65 PPD. I had to put my 4P build on hold due to an unforeseen circumstance involving my having to acquire a new vehicle upon returning home. So, the system I am running is my DD. It's an ASUS Maximus V Formula, i7 2600k, gskill16gb pc-17000, 2x MSI 680 4gb (sli off when not gaming), and 2x Samsung 830's RAID0 (Intel RST 11.1 for TRIM support). Running SMP only I get 65 PPD, when using the GPU's it's still only 65 PPD, but it says they are running, yet no progress gets made. :screwy:

After turning off the GPU's it moved to 200 PPD
 
Last edited:
in FAH control panel click configure
See the slots tab?
Click it
Make sure you are smp and the settings on the edit button for the cpu (threads) is -1 or a multiple of 2 ie. 8.

Also gaming or doing loads of heavy apps or having a virus could really impact on your free cpu cycles and stop folding form folding.
 
aftermath said:
in FAH control panel click configure
See the slots tab?
Click it
Make sure you are smp and the settings on the edit button for the cpu (threads) is -1 or a multiple of 2 ie. 8.

Also gaming or doing loads of heavy apps or having a virus could really impact on your free cpu cycles and stop folding form folding.
Click to expand...

It is set to -1 and when it's folding, that's all I have running. I haven't changed any of the settings from fresh install.
 
Check to see if all cores are at 100% when folding.
Also check to see cpu usage at idle before starting FAH to make sure nothing is hogging cycles.
 
Skullmonkey42 said:
CPU usage is 0-1% at idle. All cores are at 100% when folding. Is it possible threading is the culprit?
Click to expand...

There are several possibilities:

1) The wu is bad. This happens rarely, but they sometimes slip past the internal testing.

More commonly:

1) PC has something less than a full power setting in it's BIOS or in the OS. I know on Win7, with the "balanced" power settings, my i7 940 turns into an absolute slug for anything that requires performance. Use high performance setting in both your BIOS and your OS.

2) PC has a screen saver or protein viewer, etc., that kicks in, maybe in the background, and causes FAH to nearly shut down. FAH is set up to yield cpu cycles to nearly every other program or service.

Turn off the cpu cycle "thieves".


3) PC has the wrong settings in the client.cfg file. With the Client set to "Advanced" or "Expert" view (upper right hand corner), Click on the "Log" tab, near the upper center part of the page. You should see an entry like this:

Code: 
07:02:49:  <!-- Folding Slots -->
07:02:49:  <slot id='0' type='SMP'>
07:02:49:    <cpus v='-1'/>
07:02:49:    <max-packet-size v='big'/>
07:02:49:  </slot>

which will confirm that you're set for SMP folding (uses multiple cores), and have 1 cpu, with the packet size set for "big".

4) Click on the "System Info" tab and see if your system's hardware and OS were detected correctly. This is not a problem for most systems, but folding programs are only human - they occasionally (rarely), goof up.

I noticed that the time between start up and showing 1% is unusually long for the wu I just started, but now that's been running for 5 minutes or so, it's moving along just fine.

Be patient with it if it's at the 0 % still.

If none of the above help, I need a copy of the log (copy and paste), and what your current PPD estimate is for that WU. We'll get it sorted out.
 
Adak,
Thanks for the reply. I left it folding over night running only SMP (no GPU's) and it was running around 13k PPD this morning. A few hours later it's at 27k PPD and slowly climbing.The config file is as follows:

18:56:05: <!-- Folding Slots -->
18:56:05: <slot id='0' type='SMP'>
18:56:05: <cpus v='-1'/>
18:56:05: </slot>
18:56:05:</config>

I don't have the packet size line yours is showing.

I double checked to make sure I'm running 'High Performance' power option.
System info is detecting the correct hardware for the CPU. It is NOT detecting the GPU's properly. I have Keplars and it shows them as Fermis. It shows them as GF114's in F@H, but I have GK104's according to GPU-Z.
The only thing running other than system files is CPU-Z.
I assume it's ok now, I guess it perhaps had an incorrect WU and needed to complete it and start a new one.
Next, Should I only run SMP, or can I use the GPU's? The main reason I bought the 2nd card was for Folding, I don't have the monitors (yet) to even come close to crippling 2 680's...
 
Last edited:
Skullmonkey42 said:
Adak,
Thanks for the reply. I left it folding over night running only SMP (no GPU's) and it was running around 13k PPD this morning. A few hours later it's at 27k PPD and slowly climbing.The config file is as follows:

18:56:05: <!-- Folding Slots -->
18:56:05: <slot id='0' type='SMP'>
18:56:05: <cpus v='-1'/>
18:56:05: </slot>
18:56:05:</config>

I don't have the packet size line yours is showing.

I double checked to make sure I'm running 'High Performance' power option.
System info is detecting the correct hardware for the CPU. It is NOT detecting the GPU's properly. I have Keplars and it shows them as Fermis. It shows them as GF114's in F@H, but I have GK104's according to GPU-Z.
The only thing running other than system files is CPU-Z.
I assume it's ok now, I guess it perhaps had an incorrect WU and needed to complete it and start a new one.
Next, Should I only run SMP, or can I use the GPU's? The main reason I bought the 2nd card was for Folding, I don't have the monitors (yet) to even come close to crippling 2 680's...
Click to expand...


As I understand it, there are two kinds of 680's:

1) Fermi models, that have been rebranded to be Keplers, and
2) Kepler models.

Folding Forum said:
NOTE: Not all GeForce 600 series GPUs are Kepler A few are rebranded Fermi. Note the second letter in the chip's code name (e.g.- GF119 vs. GK107)
Click to expand...

You can use the GPU's - but each of them, as they're added, will take a certain percent away from the cpu folding - and from each other, as well.

I know, :bang head

I'll check into the status on Kepler folding, but this is what it was, a few months back:

* you can fold with them, but the folding doesn't take full advantage of the power of the 680. Iirc, it folds like a fast 560. FAH is aware of the advantage of Kepler, but hasn't finished the software changes needed to use that advantage, yet.

There is no GK 680 model in the Whitelist of GPU's, yet, but there is a GK 670, and a GK 690. So the first thing I'd do is grab this file and put it into your folding data directory, and then restart your Folding software.

File is here:
https://fah-web.stanford.edu/file-releases/public/GPUs.txt

The Whitelist file goes in the Data Directory, NOT the directory that contains the client.db! There was some confusion on this, in the Stanford Folding forum.

So, looks like two ways to go:
With v7 client, upgrade to 7.2.9, (or later version), and it should update the Whitelist file for you, and give you the best chance of your card being recognized properly.

Or

Switch to ver. 6.34 and use the forcedgpu flag. (Which the v7 client doesn't support).

Either way, until the software is changed, the Keplers can run like 560's or so, but not use their full potential. That's not bad though, AND they should run cooler, as well.
 
Last edited:
Adak said:
There is no GK 680 model in the Whitelist of GPU's, yet, but there is a GK 670, and a GK 690. So the first thing I'd do is grab this file and put it into your folding data directory, and then restart your Folding software.

File is here:
https://fah-web.stanford.edu/file-releases/public/GPUs.txt

The Whitelist file goes in the Data Directory, NOT the directory that contains the client.db! There was some confusion on this, in the Stanford Folding forum.

So, looks like two ways to go:
With v7 client, upgrade to 7.2.9, (or later version), and it should update the Whitelist file for you, and give you the best chance of your card being recognized properly.

Or

Switch to ver. 6.34 and use the forcedgpu flag. (Which the v7 client doesn't support).

Either way, until the software is changed, the Keplers can run like 560's or so, but not use their full potential. That's not bad though, AND they should run cooler, as well.
Click to expand...

I tried adding the GPUS.txt file in the data directory. I restarted the F@H client and they still aren't folding. I'll try 7.2.9 and see what happens. If that doesn't work I'll try forcedgpu. It seems F@H is geared towards CPU folding.
 
6.34 didn't work, but 7.2.9 has them folding. Hopefully they will get Kepler's CUDA skills worked out in a future release. Thanks for the help, Adak.
 
Even though I have not seen it here, running tourent can slow F@H as well. I know a few friends that game while running tourent and can't firure out why they get crapy game play :)
 
To give 6.34 a chance to work, you'd have to use the forcedgpu flag. Terrific that 7.29 came through for you.

More than one way to make it go. Actually, just thought of another way, but that's for another day.
 
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