Second Gpu not doing work.
1 May 2018 22:38:58 UTC
Topic 214774
(moderation:
Hello! I have a Threadripper CPU with a Radeon WX 7100 crunching away. Today I added a Radeon 460 gpu. It's producing perfectly good video, but doing no E@H work. Should I download the program again? I'm concerned about possibly losing a couple of hundred units in the queu. (sp?) Thanks!
John_Waters wrote:... Should
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I wouldn't since I don't think it's to do with either BOINC or the Einstein apps.
When I look at your computer on the website, only the original GPU is being detected. I use Linux and I know absolutely nothing about Windows but your problem seems to be that Windows (or BOINC) isn't properly detecting your second GPU. I'm guessing that there might be some extra driver component needed or some configuration change to make, for Windows to properly 'see' the new card so that BOINC can properly detect it and then use it.
As I say, these are just guesses but hopefully someone who understands how to get different GPUs properly detected under Windows might be able to add some advice. In the meantime you could lower your cache settings so that you don't have 'hundreds of tasks' on board at the time you start experimenting with getting the second card properly detected :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
What driver version(s) have
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What driver version(s) have you installed for those GPUs? I believe they use different drivers.
RX 460 needs "Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition" :
https://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Windows+10+-+64
... while WX 7100 needs "Radeon™ Pro Software Adrenalin Edition" :
https://support.amd.com/en-us/download/workstation?os=Windows+10+-+64#beta
What does your first 30 lines
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What does your first 30 lines say in the event log after start up. Trying to run 2 different GPUs in boinc will result in only 1 GPU running usually unless you insert a cc_config.xml in the BOINC folder with the command to use all coprocessors. But, first check your start up log so we know if BOINC even detects it.
Assuming the RX480 is not
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Assuming the RX480 is not using the Windows default 'basic' VGA adapter driver I wouldn't worry too much about the driver used in this instance. All you should need to do is add a config file to your project folder, boinc doesn't seem to know how to handle dissimilar GPU's and use both straight off the bat.
Something along these lines should get you going:
<cc_config>
<options>
<use_all_gpus>1</use_all_gpus>
</options>
</cc_config>
Copy the above into notepad and save the file named as cc_config and be sure to use .xml file format then drop that newly created file into the Einstein project directory. You can then tell boinc to re read config files or use my prefered option of exiting boinc and restarting it. The second GPU should then been seen and used :-)
Gavin_14 wrote:... drop that
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I've never had to use a cc_config.xml but my recollection about them is that they need to go into the BOINC data directory and not an individual project directory. It's things like app_config.xml that go in project directories since they are configuring project applications. cc_config.xml is configuring BOINC itself and not any particular project.
Cheers,
Gary.
Gavin_14 wrote:Assuming the
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2 things
1) Yes it goes into the BOINC folder, not the Einstein folder
2) You have to save it as cc_config.xml You have to have .xml on the end. You have to "Save as" and then change Save as type to All Files (*.*) If you don't then it will save it as a .txt and BOINC will ignore it
Thank you Gary and Zalster
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Thank you Gary and Zalster for spotting and correcting my faux pas. It will teach me not to fire off posts without proof reading them first and ensuring the information is correct!
Rest assured I feel suitably stupid :-)
Hello, Gary, and all the
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Hello, Gary, and all the others who responded to my post! I got the latest drivers with no result. I've decided to wait until I can buy another Pro series GPU. As to the cache size, it's no different if one unit is lost or a thousand, but rather, if it was out of my control (say a lightning bolt fried my PC) , or if it was from some klutzy mistake on my part. The first part, I just have a beer or two and order parts to build a new one. The second part is a bad day.
If my concern seems overdone, it's at least in part because my PC and the server have reached an almost ideal equilibrium. My PC is working cpu units with deadlines nine or ten days out and gpu units twelve to fourteen days.This allows the server to drop in larger batches at longer intervals. I don't want to mess with this.
Thanks to all!
John_Waters wrote:... I've
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OK, it will probably be easier to control with similar GPUs. I know that there are people running with two quite different GPUs so there must be a reason why your 2nd GPU didn't get identified. Did you try setting up a cc_config.xml file with the suggested lines in it to 'encourage' BOINC to use the 2nd GPU?
While you wait to purchase the more expensive card, you could try a few experiments to see if you could get the RX 460 going. I did a bit of research and I see that the WX 7100 is a Polaris 10 GPU whilst the RX 460 is Polaris 11 but I would think you would need the same driver for both. Under Linux, I use both types with exactly the same driver setup so I'd be surprised if it were different for Windows.
Also, did you try looking through the startup messages that are in the event log when you launch BOINC? There you can find out exactly what BOINC thinks about your GPUs. It would be very interesting to see about the first 40 lines of messages after startup. The few lines where BOINC reports on GPU detection are easy to find. Just open the event log and copy those lines into a message here. There may be an obvious reason that may be easy to fix.
When you experiment with settings trying to get BOINC to behave in a different way, It's very easy for things to go wrong and for all the tasks in your work cache to become computation errors of some sort. We've all been down that path at some stage. Einstein imposes a daily limit to prevent a misconfiguration of some sort becoming a run away train wreck.
The biggest problem is that if you have a lot of tasks on board and they all fail in this way, you will then have to wait up to a day before you can get any more and initially you may find yourself severely limited in further downloads until you start returning 'good' tasks. So my advice was just a simple temporary precaution to protect your daily limit while experimenting. Once things are working correctly, You can increase your work cache settings to whatever you feel is appropriate.
This sounds like you have a lot in your 'extra days' setting. The work cache is controlled by two settings in your computing preferences - store at least x days and store an additional y days. Your work cache is x+y. When BOINC decides to fill up, it fills right up to x+y. It won't ask again until what is left is below x. If there were an outage when your cache was at its minimum point, you might be at risk of running out of work. Many people prefer to use a fairly constant cache setting where you put it all in x and nothing in y. BOINC then does regular topups to keep the cache full at all times. Personally, I like to see BOINC topping up regularly. I get nervous if the remaining tasks are dwindling and BOINC isn't doing something about it :-).
Cheers,
Gary.