Help with dual GPU folding - Please

[Pickster]

Hi. Some of you may remember my name from the (wisper it) Futuremark forums... If not, no matter.

Basicly my problem is this. I have a 560 Ti (1024mb) and a 460 (768mb) both folding and the 460 is losing about 3000PPD over what it should have.

No matter what slots the GFX cards go in the 560 Ti is recognised by F@H as GPU 0.

Now, I know this isn't directly a hardware issue because if I disable the 560 Ti in windows via Device Manager (just disable, not uninstall) the 460 magicaly gains its full PPD.

I have searched around and found very little info on this as being an issue, however if it is a knowen issue then so be it and I'll put up with the loss. If it can be sorted that would be awesome.

I am using the console client (have triend one console and one windows based one with no change) and I'm running Windows 7 64 bit. Also changing drivers make no difference.

I think I'v covered everything. Thanks in advance.

 

[hmmblah]

Welcome to OC3D. I recognized your name from FM. I'm idchoppers on that forum...

I've heard of this issue before. I'm not sure whether there is a fix or not. I think steve or Ray or maybe even Kup may have had this issue. Hopefully one of them will chime in.

Have you tried using GPU Tracker instead? Does that result in the same issue?

 

[Pickster]

Welcome to OC3D. I recognized your name from FM. I'm idchoppers on that forum...

I've heard of this issue before. I'm not sure whether there is a fix or not. I think steve or Ray or maybe even Kup may have had this issue. Hopefully one of them will chime in.

Have you tried using GPU Tracker instead? Does that result in the same issue?

Yes, infact it was all initially set up via GPU Tracker and then I poached the directories, .exes and made my own shortcuts.

However even when setting up fresh with GPU Tracker its the same result.

Oh and I forgot to mention in my first post, I have tried several fresh installs and the issue is still there.

I'm on the verge of moving my main PC over to the Redline folding team, which is why I have turned here for help to get this issue ironed out if possible.

 

[riotcity76]

I recognize your name as well, I've seen you in the F@H thread at FM.

Do you have the gpu -x flags set on the two console clients? Have you read this guide for multi GPU setups running the console client?

If that doesn't work you could try the beta v7 client...

 

[Pickster]

I recognize your name as well, I've seen you in the F@H thread at FM.

Do you have the gpu -x flags set on the two console clients? Have you read this guide for multi GPU setups running the console client?

If that doesn't work you could try the beta v7 client...

Yeah, all the flags are set correctly. They both fold fine with each other, its just the 460 has loses some PPD where as the 560 Ti is not effected at all.

I have tried with and without the CPU client running, giving each client its own CPU thread, nothing changes.

I've been through a number of guides. Firstly because I like to know what I'm doing and what to look for if things go wrong, rather than jumping in head first, and then after to find out why I might be losing PPD.

I know mixing certain generations of GPU fails for some people. But I thought I'd be ok with the 560 Ti being litte more than a tweak over the 460. But it could be that, or it could be the difference in memory size.... or it could just be a windows fail.

I havnt yet tried the V7 beta for this issue though... not sure why as I tried it previously on my old PC. Hmmmmmm, I will report back.

 

[stevehat1]

Welcome to Redline from another old FM/MO'er

IIRC I had the same problem when I bought my 1st 560TI right after they came out and installed it along side of a 460. The 460 ran slow.

I fixed the problem by buying another 560TI and the 560's are still running fine together. I'm sure that's not the answer you are looking for......

 

[riotcity76]

I fixed the problem by buying another 560TI and the 560's are still running fine together. I'm sure that's not the answer you are looking for......

I like this solution

 

[Pickster]

Welcome to Redline from another old FM/MO'er

IIRC I had the same problem when I bought my 1st 560TI right after they came out and installed it along side of a 460. The 460 ran slow.

I fixed the problem by buying another 560TI and the 560's are still running fine together. I'm sure that's not the answer you are looking for......

Thanks.

It's not quite the answer I was looking for, but I think that's confirmation enough for me to stop scratching my head and finding a solution to the problem.

I'd be interested to know how things would go with a 460 768 and a 560 non Ti in the same box, or a 560 Ti and a 560 non Ti. Would possibly help narrow down the cause.

As for the V7 beta. I still have the same issue.

Its frustrating because I picked up the 460 on the cheap (ish) just for folding, and in its current state it's not worth the price I paid over the 8800GT it replaced. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[Pickster]

I like this solution

So do I, but I've blown my budget on the 2600K.... and everything else (cough - unplanned SSD - cough)

 

[riotcity76]

Thanks.

It's not quite the answer I was looking for, but I think that's confirmation enough for me to stop scratching my head and finding a solution to the problem.

I'd be interested to know how things would go with a 460 768 and a 560 non Ti in the same box, or a 560 Ti and a 560 non Ti. Would possibly help narrow down the cause.

As for the V7 beta. I still have the same issue.

Its frustrating because I picked up the 460 on the cheap (ish) just for folding, and in its current state it's not worth the price I paid over the 8800GT it replaced. Oh well, live and learn.

Just a thought - have you tried monitoring the 460 in Afterburner to make sure it's not defaulting to 2d clocks? Sort of a long shot but can't hurt to check.

 

[Pickster]

Just a thought - have you tried monitoring the 460 in Afterburner to make sure it's not defaulting to 2d clocks? Sort of a long shot but can't hurt to check.

Yeah I have. All is present and correct. I even have the 460 overclocked to 800mhz to try and make up some of the gap.

HWMonitor shows the voltage is at 3D clock speeds and the temp is right around where I would expect it to be under load (73c with the 560 Ti folding right under it too). Close the folding window and its back down to 2D volts and the temp to about 40c.

Tripple checked with gpu-z too.

 

[stevehat1]

Thanks.

It's not quite the answer I was looking for, but I think that's confirmation enough for me to stop scratching my head and finding a solution to the problem.

I'd be interested to know how things would go with a 460 768 and a 560 non Ti in the same box, or a 560 Ti and a 560 non Ti. Would possibly help narrow down the cause.

As for the V7 beta. I still have the same issue.

Its frustrating because I picked up the 460 on the cheap (ish) just for folding, and in its current state it's not worth the price I paid over the 8800GT it replaced. Oh well, live and learn.

Assuming you meant 470 above.....

A 460 and 470 would probably work together, although I'm not positive. The 5xx cards are a little removed from the 400 series. When the 560TI was first released it had it's own set of drivers, the 500 series cards had seperate drivers for quite some time before being included with generic Nvidia drivers.

 

[Pickster]

Assuming you meant 470 above.....

A 460 and 470 would probably work together, although I'm not positive. The 5xx cards are a little removed from the 400 series. When the 560TI was first released it had it's own set of drivers, the 500 series cards had seperate drivers for quite some time before being included with generic Nvidia drivers.

No, I did mean 560, because the 560 has the same number of cuda cores (or what ever you want to call them) as the 460. Unless I'm remembering it wrong.

So 460 + 560, slightly changed core, same number of 'processors'

vs

560 + 560 Ti, same core, different number of 'processors'

Anyway, it doesnt matter all that much, was just my brain wandering down a path trying to find a way to figure out whats causing me to lose PPD.

 

[riotcity76]

Just had a read through this thread...the OP had the exact same issue as you. Unfortunately it's starting to look like some sort of unfixable bug.

There are quite a few suggestions in there but it sounds like we pretty much covered them. Not sure what else you could try...

 

[Pickster]

Just had a read through this thread...the OP had the exact same issue as you. Unfortunately it's starting to look like some sort of unfixable bug.

There are quite a few suggestions in there but it sounds like we pretty much covered them. Not sure what else you could try...

Thanks for putting in the effort. I knew it would either be something easily fixable but totally obscure, or just not fixable.

I had tried and checked many things before posting, but figured I'd try my luck just incase someone here knew of a cure.

I wonder if performance is held back for other cuda functions like Physx....