Windows 10 Creators update problem
14 Jun 2017 12:18:27 UTC
Topic 208287
(moderation:
My desktop which has Win 10 Home has just forced the Creators update upon me. The computer has an NVidia GTX 560Ti which was running one Einstein task at a time.
Since the update its CPDN CPU tasks are running fine, but the Einstein GPU tasks say, in the case of the part-completed one, 'GPU inexistent, waiting to run' and in the case of the unstarted tasks 'GPU inexistent, ready to run'.
I've tried exiting from BOINC Manager & reopening it with no change to the tasks, so I tried exiting BM plus shutting the computer down, with no change to the messages either.
The GPU's driver version is 382.05. Does anyone know whether this version is too old / too new / just right?
It appears that the system in
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It appears that the system in question is running Windows 10 and from the detailed version number that it has gotten the Creators update. I had a somewhat similar experience when my main system got the Xreators update. I healed the system by hand installing 382.33 driver.
See also this thread.
Long standing issues with
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Long standing issues with windows when allowing auto updates to drivers. Seti has a thread over 2700 replies that talks about the evils of allowing windows to update. In short, windows will auto substitute it's own drivers onto your system (most of which have removed the OpenCl) and thereby render useless for project work. It's been a long standing recommendation that if you are forced to do an windows update, that you check the drivers and redownload and install the drivers from the Nvidia website as those have the OpenCl still in them.
Thanks to both of you for
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Thanks to both of you for that advice. I'll try it tonight then come back and report on the results.
Some of the evidence
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Some of the evidence accumulating around the Creators release suggests to me that the problem is not described correctly as being that an incapable driver was necessarily installed during the Windows Update.
Instead, it appears that some status indication--which I'll call the OpenCL-capable Flag--is set incorrectly. What we have seen in more than one case is that BOINC declines even to try to run GPU work, indicating the absence of a suitable GPU. It seems likely that BOINC relies, perhaps indirectly, on the state of the OpenCL-capable Flag, rather than running any sort of actual capability test.
We have at least two cases where the system had a driver installed, at least as reported, on a version number known to be OpenCL capable, which nevertheless had these problems. In one case, the system had settings from use of DDU meant to preclude Windows installation of an Nvidia driver, which appeared to work, as the old version number was still reported after the Creators Update. In another case the user reported that the current driver (again by version number an OpenCL capable version) had been manually installed.
Even if this is all true, it leaves somewhat open the question of exactly what sort of driver re-install is necessary or sufficient to clear the problem.
In my own case I went nuclear:
1. first uninstalled the current drive
2. then ran DDU from a safe login, and kept the option ticked attempting to forbid future automatic Windows NVidia driver updates
3. Then ran the downloaded NVidia installer, selecting only the graphics driver without any optional extras, and ticking the Clean Install box.
I hope other users who succeed in clearing this problem from their system will report on their chosen driver installation procedure. Perhaps we can clarify not only what works, but also what is needed.
Mind you, if people have systems which are accepting and running work, but trashing all of it, that sounds like a genuine driver capability problem. But some of these cases, including mine, seem instead to be a faulty setting of the OpenCL-capable flag.
I got the updated driver
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I got the updated driver directly from the NVIDIA website and it gave me 382.53, which is working for the first of the list of Einstein GPU models. If that version hadn't worked I'd have searched on their website to roll back to 382.33, but there doesn't seem to be any need.
The Windows update hasn't made me feel particularly creative - I just want stuff to work.
Thanks again.
Commenting on your later
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Commenting on your later post, Archae, before I updated the NVidia card's 382.05 I looked at that driver's properties including the list of files it contained. Open CL was there. So maybe the Creators update had indeed messed up the Open CL flag as you suggested. What's clear is that BOINC or maybe the Einstein task couldn't detect the presence of the NVidia GPU.
If this GPU detection failure is the only problem I'll encounter as a result of this massive Windows update I shall consider myself lucky.
I received the Creators
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I received the Creators Update and immediately downloaded and installed the latest nVidia driver, 382.53, for my GTX 1050 Ti . All Einstein GPU tasks fail after 10 minutes, while SETI GPU tasks run OK. My Linux box is running Einstein GP tasks with no problem.
Tullio
tullio wrote:I received the
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Try reinstalling the driver, choose "Advanced" and then make sure to check the box to do a clean install.
If that doesn't work then maybe try Wagnard DDU.
Einstein participant Costin
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Einstein participant Costin started a thread on his experience with the Creators Update failure problem. In his case simply installing a fresh copy of a capable version of the Nvidia driver after the update was not sufficient to resolve the problem. Participant Richie coached him to follow an even more aggressive update process than the one I used, and he succeeded.
I think we have plenty of evidence that the issue is NOT simply a matter of a non-capable driver version having been installed by the Windows Update process. Some configuration stuff somewhere gets set in such a way that Einstein won't work. We don't have sufficient evidence to specify just what fixup procedure is both necessary and sufficient to resolve the problem. (and that answer may differ depending on details of the particular system configuration or history).
My personal guess is that ticking the "clean install" option when running the Nvidia driver installation may be helpful.
I hope more people who succeed and more people who fail will post full details of the exact update procedure they followed, as this might help us give advice. Creators Update has not yet reached two of my own four systems (the ones which followed the free upgrade process from an original Windows 7 install), so I suspect lots more users are going to stumble at this gate in the coming few weeks.
I have used Geforce to
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I have used Geforce to install the nVidia driver, as I have always done. Since installing the Creators Update my 2014 PC, with A10-6700 CPU and 24 GB RAM is suffering a number of unwanted shutdowns, no evident reasons.
Tullio