SPCR Folds Team Blog

A forum just for SPCR's folding team... by request.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Fri Jun 24, 2011 1:40 pm

Indeed, welcome back SebRad!

And hey, jhimanka, congrats on taking #1 in production! I think you're being a little modest, you had another giant spike yesterday when you made 650k ppd! Notably, it looks like you returned 2 WUs at 6pm yesterday and got 576k for them! Now assuming that both WUs were about the same, that's some impressive numbers. Now for people wondering how that's possible, you can get some big numbers from multi-socket systems, like a two or four socket xeon board. Nice hardware! And since the 2684 bigadv WUs had their base points jacked up, returning a couple of those done very quickly would do it. At your current speed, I look forward to you passing me in a couple years! :D :D :D

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Sat Jun 25, 2011 4:50 am

:) Puts my 24k ppd to shame !!

In the meantime, the power in our new appartment doesn't have a very high quality, so a brownout yesterday killed the computer and I only noticed it this morning.... Grrrr !!! I guess I have to put that bright blue power LED back in the solo :(

jhimanka
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by jhimanka » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:29 am

Yeah, well, I have to say I was surprised myself at how much points the night time folding on the Xeon servers produced. I have three dual socket Xeon servers folding, one is 8-core, active all the time, two are 12-core, active from 6PM to 7AM and on weekends. A 12-core at full blast consumes about 330W.

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Tue Jun 28, 2011 2:54 am

:shock:

SebRad
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by SebRad » Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:34 am

Well, I've got my ppd's sorted out now. :D
Think where I moved to newer SMP client I hadn't set it up with passkey so not getting the ppd from it. I've also pressed an X2 250 @ 3.7GHz in to service, only worth 2~2500ppd so the ppd/w probably not good... Still every little helps and don't think it using that much power, got hyper TX3 on it at ~800rpm and only 40°C CPU temp :)

Seb

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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Tue Jul 05, 2011 2:53 am

For some reason, my GPU folding is down... I noticed it was down on one GPU, so I installed the new display drivers and now, nothing works :( I also updated to the latest FAH client.
I looked in Afterburner and the clocks jump between the 2d and the 3d speeds all the time (like every 10 seconds). I have all the power settings on high performance everywhere I can think off, uninstalled all the display drivers, rebooted, clean installed the display drivers again, reboot, and still the same result. I'm really confused now...
Any advice, suggestions, things to check... ? :(

[EDIT : checked temps and nothing to report here either...]

Buddabing
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by Buddabing » Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:19 am

I was going to post celebrating getting back onto the first page, then I saw the post about Mike ending the website. Now I'm sad.

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:26 am

Hey Buddabing, great work on top team 100! Yeah, we're all concerned about the site, but it seems to be working out somewhat.

Hey Frenchie, sorry to hear you've been having gpu issues. I haven't heard of speed switching like that before, sounds pretty strange. Might want to find one of those gpu memory testing programs and see if that's ok. If the temps are ok, then it might be something like that. Hope it isn't just broken or something. :(

Hey SebRad, glad to hear that your setup is sorted out, looks like you definitely got a ppd boost, so great work!

SebRad
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by SebRad » Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:03 pm

Hi frenchi, sorry to hear about your folding woes, good for me, I'll make it to 10th spot for longer before you take it off me :lol:
We discussed the down-clocking thing in this thread.
I thought was caused by over ambioshous over-clocking causing the card to crash and the drivers to perform a GPU recover that results in very low clocks. Over quiet cooling leading to over-heating will also cause crash / recover, very much especially if over-clocked too close to limits.
KK seemed to conclud it was caused by screen saver kicking in!

My GTX260 is connected to two screens so it never drops the clock speeds. I believe this is common to both ATI and Nvidia cards, two (or more presumably) screens = no idle clocks! Obviously the power consumption is nothing like under load but even so... I think I read it was something to do with the two screen refresh-rates not being in sync and therfore not possible to drop the GPU (or was it RAM or both) clock during the screen refresh to avoid a "flicker"

you got two GTX460s, both in same PC? Try with just one then other? Temps OK? Leave GPU-Z open and refreshing in back ground and can click on temps later to toggle current/min/avg/max to see how high it got? [sorry if you already know all this]

Seb

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:59 pm

Hi all, have some terrible news. As reported here:
http://en.fah-addict.net/news/news-0-36 ... hanges.php

They're going to readjust bigadv points, so that they'll be worth less than they used to be. So all those big points any bigadv folders have been racking up are going to drop. No sure when. But it's also interesting that they are looking at bringing the gpu and uniprocessor clients into the bonus program, that will probably help those out. So I suspect that gpu jobs will wind up getting proportionally more points now, and that may help a bit here. Basically, when readjustments like this happen, you see more shifts in optimal hardware mix, so you may want to re-think processor upgrades and look at gpu upgrades more. But I wouldn't do anything rash until it all becomes official. Ah well, things change, it'll be sad to see all those points drop off. :(

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Mon Jul 11, 2011 7:06 pm

Quick update, it's getting late.... I'll read the previous posts later....

STUPID Nvidia drivers !!! the latest ones totally broke my folding. Back to the old one I was using before, at stock clocks, only one GPU. I will update tomorrow if all goes well tonight and tomorrow.

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:47 pm

Hey Frenchie, sorry to hear about the trouble. I did find this thread about nvidia driver trouble people have, might help: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=18814

Good luck!

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:44 pm

Hi all, just saw this on engadget and wanted to share, some guy built a folding farm box out of legos. It's really 3 systems in the same box, pretty great performance on the cheap. Check it out: http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=572
Sadly, he's running ibm distributed stuff, but it's still a great build! :D

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:04 pm

Thank you all for your advice.
Cordis, that's the link that made me think I had a driver issue, thanks for posting it; I had perfect temps (in the 30C at idle, 70C under furmark), my games were running fine, and the computer overall was behaving normally. It was just the folding. I wish I had taken a screenshot, but was happening was that the clocks (core, shader and memory) would stay about 10 seconds at the right speed, and 10 sec at the lowest possible speeds... it was so stange. And the CPU folding was not impacted at all. I was also unlucky, because when I tried a set of older drivers (from the ones that are supposed to work in the link you posted), I had the exact same problem. I ended up going back to the drivers that had been working (260.99), at stock speeds at first, and then at overclocked settings. I'm not going to be upgrading those in a while !!
All is now back to normal :)

This lego farm is so old school, yet so great !! Makes me wonder if I still have this barrel full of lego at my parents... :lol:

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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by aristide1 » Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:48 pm

A team congratulations for surpassing the 1,000,000 WU milestone.

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Sat Aug 20, 2011 3:40 am

Those new GPU WU are wrecking my ppd.... :(

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Sun Aug 21, 2011 7:36 pm

Hey, found this announcement: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=19390
Looks like they're new, but it appears they only come on if you use -advmethods. So you may be able to avoid them by changing your settings. Worth a try, anyway, if you're really taking a hit.

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Sun Sep 11, 2011 8:41 am

Got rif of the -advmethod flag for the GPUs and folding has been pretty steady since then (except for the power outage cased by Irene... grrrr)
Just ordered a new case for my NAS/HTPC/folder build, a GTX460 should be folding in a couple of weeks !!! I'll have to see how the stock cooling configuration works (SG02B-F), so it might be a bit longer than that before it's a steady folder. I'll post pics in the gallery once it's up and running.

NeilBlanchard
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Sep 27, 2011 3:42 am

Holy moly matman -- cmh is contributing points at nearly 1M / month!

http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... =&u=563902

:shock: :o :D :twisted:

dereksbelanger
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by dereksbelanger » Tue Sep 27, 2011 5:52 am

Nice work cmh!

Which reminds me I've got a little folding info...

About three months ago I upgraded to the 7.1.24 client (just noticed that 7.1.33 is now available https://fah-web.stanford.edu/projects/F ... etaRelease) and resolved the issues I was having with running DDR3 @ 1333 on the AMD Phenom II X6 1090T. I did both of these things at about the same time so I cant say for certain what the contributing factor was - but PPD went up from 10k to 14-15k. Thats +50%. I managed to get the RAM running without a voltage adjustment so at a total system load of 170 watts the rig is now getting 88ppd/watt.

I havnt been able to find a stable CPU OC that has noticible impact on PPD - but I'll keep tinkering with it.

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Wed Sep 28, 2011 3:34 pm

Now folding with an extra GTX460 :) (Anonymous user should thank me for 5 WUs... that's what you get for not getting sleep when you should... :) ). My HTPC is pretty much done, it just needs a bit of airflow management.
Temps at a steady 72C with 2 80 mm fans (soon to be 92mm) at 9V , GPU fan at 32%. Not SPCR quiet yet but pleasantly surprised for a system with barely any mods. Pics to follow in the next few weeks in the galery and ppd/Watt numbers here !

[EDIT] news of the day : Folding works better when the folding program is running.... :roll:

dereksbelanger
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by dereksbelanger » Fri Sep 30, 2011 5:03 am

frenchie wrote:[EDIT] news of the day : Folding works better when the folding program is running.... :roll:
Now you are an advanced user :lol:

dereksbelanger
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by dereksbelanger » Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:28 am

Just added a GTX 560Ti to my folding computer!

cmh
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cmh » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:48 am

Looks like you've about doubled your PPD. Nice! Which one did you get? Are you OCing it? Temps and noise?

dereksbelanger
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by dereksbelanger » Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:38 am

MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk. Comes with factory OC: Core 950, Shader 1900, RAM 4200. Haven’t done any additional OC.

The whole rig consists of...

Case: Antec Three Hundred
CPU Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283
Power Supply: Antec TruePower Quattro TPQ-1000
CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
Motherboard: ASRock 880G EXTREME3 (3x PCIe slots)
RAM: OCZ AMD Black Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) DR3 1600
Hard drive: Mushkin Enhanced Callisto Deluxe MKNSSDCL60GB-DX 2.5" 60GB SATA II

Not running any CPU OC.

Noise? At idle its not too bad - while folding its too loud for my sensitivity.

Idle 120 watts
CPU folding 170 watts - temps unknown
GPU folding 288 watts - temps unknown
CPU + GPU 355 watts - CPU 50, video card 70

Dont need the 1000PS yet, but with two PCIe slots still available....

KansaKilla
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by KansaKilla » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:55 am

A couple of my folding boxes were offline for a while as I changed one of my job sites. Finally getting them back up, but I had to threaten IT to do it. I am now an administrator on my desktops at work, thank goodness. Hopefully, the production will improve shortly. With the point change, though, who knows?

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Wed Nov 02, 2011 3:09 pm

Offline for a few days thanks to the early snow. Back up at full speed tonight !!

cordis
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by cordis » Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:48 pm

Yeah, nasty weather back east. Hope you're all ok over there!

NeilBlanchard
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:38 pm

What is the fastest passively cooled video card for Folding? My son wants to build a gaming (Steam) machine and so I might as well Fold on it when he isn't gaming. Do only nVidia Fermi cards Fold? Can you pause the GPU client, or does it pause itself like the CPU client does?

The fastest one I can see on NewEgg (this Sparkle) is out of stock at the moment. Does SLi help Fold faster?

frenchie
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Re: SPCR Folds Team Blog

Post by frenchie » Wed Nov 16, 2011 2:44 am

No for sli. Run one separate client for each card.
For the gaming pause, I think it depends what software you use. I use GPU tracker V2 and it has a gaming option that automatically pauses the client when a game is detected. It's also very easy to install and configure. If you just install the folding client, I think you'll have to manually pause it, especially for demanding games.
My GTS450s get about 9,000 ppd (not passive, but very quiet, fans at 30% even when folding, temps in the high 60s low 70s)

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