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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : 1% load for GTX 560 Ti: a little too low

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Message 21255 - Posted: 27 May 2011 | 14:38:08 UTC

My situation: Home 7 64 bit, i7-2600, as mentioned above a Palit GTX 560 Ti, driver 266.66, if I'm not wrong.
Without changing any setting whatsoever, it's 2 days my gpu has just a 1% of load while crunching Gpugrid's wu. Obviously, I had to abort.
I can't understand why...

http://www.gpugrid.net/results.php?userid=17279
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Message 21256 - Posted: 27 May 2011 | 22:22:20 UTC - in response to Message 21255.
Last modified: 27 May 2011 | 22:26:26 UTC

We can see that your system is using 266.66 and as you described.

The symptoms (1% utilization) can be caused by a number of things:
Settings that prevent the use of the GPU when the user is active, non-Boinc programs using too much of the system resources along with undesirable Boinc settings, the task being suspended, Snooze being used, not using recommended settings (the CPU not being available)...

1% load is about right for background GPU use only (monitor displaying a basic web page) - i.e. no crunching or heavy GPU use.
Check your computing preferences in Boinc (Processor usage).

I can see you are not using the recommended settings, and contribute to 4 CPU projects. So my guess is that these other processes are hogging the CPU and starving the GPU. The heavier I/O projects can exasperate such problems.
Configure Boinc to crunch with 7 CPU threads and use swan_sync. You may be experiencing other problems, downclocking, low power mode, or some of the above as well, but this should make the picture clearer.

FAQ: Best configurations for GPUGRID

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Message 21258 - Posted: 28 May 2011 | 21:52:56 UTC

I set the Swan_Sync to 0, as mentioned in FAQ. And I discovered the reason for my problem, even if it's "impossible" (= this shouldn't happen): whenever I stop ANY cpu-using projects, my gpu card load goes to 80%, crunching Gpugrid wus as usual. And of course, whenever I start again ANY cpu-using project, gpu load falls again to 1%. I repeat myself: since when I could crunch at the same time Gpugrid and other projects wu without this kind of problem, I didn't chance any settings whatsoever.
Moreover, there are no other software that may affect gpu performances. So, basically, the problem remains.
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Message 21259 - Posted: 29 May 2011 | 12:19:31 UTC - in response to Message 21258.

Have you configured Boinc to use 7 CPU cores?
This is required along with swan_sync.

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Message 21260 - Posted: 30 May 2011 | 6:33:44 UTC

Ok, after having posted, I figured to set 87% in "On multiprocessor systems, use at most" etc.
But, why? I mean: until 25th of May (when I noticed the problem explained above), I could crunch with all my 8 cores AND with the gpu...
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Message 21261 - Posted: 30 May 2011 | 9:52:34 UTC - in response to Message 21260.

We have always needed to disable a CPU core/thread to guarantee that it's free for the GPU to utilize when it needs to. If we do not then it's down to the tasks you crunch, but could be influenced by system updates, drivers and obviously application changes. By default GPU tasks are run at a slightly higher priority than CPU tasks, but that does not mean they will immediately get access to the CPU and some CPU projects might not stick to this. With HT CPU's I would expect trying to use all 8 threads would lead to more noticeable GPU downtime; there is always a backlog.
On the upside leaving one CPU core free greatly improves the performance of the GPU tasks, reduces failures, tends to improve system responsiveness, reduces the CPU Time to Elapsed Time delta for CPU tasks, and on HT systems you are really only losing half a core.

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Message 21265 - Posted: 30 May 2011 | 12:51:17 UTC

Understood. Thank you very much for your kind and very clear answer :D
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Message boards : Graphics cards (GPUs) : 1% load for GTX 560 Ti: a little too low

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