GPU units stalling

[KaHNZa]

Don't know when this started. But GPU units seem to stall if the computer has been idle for several hours. Normal GPU usage seems to be 70-90%, but when stalled its 1-4%. Relaunching BOINC, or snoozing and unsnoozing fixes it temporarily. I checked power settings and its set to Performance. Only thing set to shut off is the monitor.

Any ideas?

 

[KaHNZa]

It appears as though I had the screen saver enabled. Ribbons actually.

 

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Most screensavers will kill gpu performance if you selected run GPU based on preference or suspend GPU, (both under Activities) and under Tools-> Computing Preferences you de-selected Use GPU while computer is in use.

Even if you changed that to always use GPU all the time, GPU heavy program and screensaver may still degrade performance anyway.

I have mine to not use any screensaver. Instead I set under power options to blank monitor. Most monitor goes to sleep without signal which IMO is better than screensaver if you want to score big in RAC's.

 

[KaHNZa]

Disabling the screensaver didn't seem to make a difference. Disabled SLI as well.

 

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Maybe the GPU is downclocking into 2D mode?

 

[KaHNZa]

What would cause that and how do I prevent it?

 

[KaHNZa]

Looks like my core clocks are all kinds of messed up. Just checked and they are running at 51Mhz?!

 

[FloridaBear]

Looks like my core clocks are all kinds of messed up. Just checked and they are running at 51Mhz?!

I see that 51MHz speed when the GPU has been idle and I'm driving only one monitor (it never seems to drop that low with 2 monitors). However, I never see that when BOINC is crunching GPU units--it always stays at my set speed. You may want to try a newer driver version if you're a bit behind.

 

[KaHNZa]

I checked an am running the latest from nvidia. 295.73 I think.

 

[KaHNZa]

Well I launched BOINC earlier and it ran fine for a short while. Don't know the exact time it took, but it stalled again. This time the gpu core clock stayed at 810 though. If I had to guess it took <1hr to stall. I am at wits end. Unless I can figure this out I am out of distributed computing.

 

[heezer7]

Hmm, basically the same thing is happening to me. A <10minute wu is taking 7+hours. This only recently started happening and I am also running 295.73. Maybe that is the culprit. Happens to both my GPUs that are different.

 

[heezer7]

I just rolled back to 295.51. Will let you know if it seems to work for me or not.

 

[4GHZ_or_bust]

There's another possibility, I just glanced over it when I was looking for other fixes. If your monitor is connected via DVI and you have set in the power options to sleep the monitor, that could be causing the problem.

 

[KaHNZa]

There's another possibility, I just glanced over it when I was looking for other fixes. If your monitor is connected via DVI and you have set in the power options to sleep the monitor, that could be causing the problem.

Oh? I'll try setting it to never and see if that helps.

 

[heezer7]

I have 4 monitors hooked up to my 2 cards and them going to sleep has not been a problem for the last year+. But I did within the last few weeks upgrade the nvidia drivers. Still running strong but I will be active on this machine all day. Mine only seem to mess up very randomly. Happens after a few days.

 

[KaHNZa]

So far so good. Normally it would have stopped by now while I was AFK.

 

[KaHNZa]

3 hours and still working strong. Setting the monitor to never sleep did the trick!

 

[bioevolve]

I'm trying it too, working! Wondering why my RAC was so low hahaha.

You guys Rock!

 

[heezer7]

Well after running fine all day once my monitors went to sleep mine also hung up. It was never like this before. I am going back to 290.53 now as it was never like this with what ever past version I was using. I am not going to deal with turning on and off 4 monitors all day long.

 

[4GHZ_or_bust]

Good to know disabling sleep worked on current (and somehow bugged) driver. You guys should take a look over at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_help_desk.php once in a while, it's where I got the idea to disable the sleep mode.