Hello everyone!

I'm new with BOINC and have been struggling to get my GTX 460 to work, not only with GPUGRID. I wonder if I'm the only one with these problems.

I'm using Ubuntu Lucid x86_64 on an i7 860 along with BOINC 6.10.58. No fancy hardware, no overclocking or anything.

When I first got the card I upgraded to the then standard and stable 256.44 nVidia drivers. The GTX 460 was properly identified by BOINC and my desktop worked. All jobs I got from GPUGRID, Milkyway and Einstein crashed within the first few seconds. It was extremely hard to find an error description somewhere as boinc doesn't talk much, and the ones I finally found didn't help me. After a while I gave up as it appeared that working apps didn't even exist at that time. The same with 256.53.

This leaves me wondering why BOINC identifies my card only to download inappropriate executables for it, but anyway.

Later I upgraded to 260.19.04 and 260.19.06. Both drivers installed without errors and identified the GTX 460, so did BOINC, but the screen was repeatedly and reproducably screwed up about one minute after login, to the extent that even switching to the console wasn't possible and a hard reset was necessary. The login screen would be there forever, but working on the desktop wasn't possible. Did this occur to anyone? I haven't found anything about it anywhere.

Well, it's a beta version after all, but the additional PPA I was using only knows bleeding-edge 260.19.06 or nothing for lucid, so I went back to 195.36.24 which is the standard. This driver doesn't know the GTX 460, but I just finished my first WU for GPU-Grid using this driver (cuda30-task). About 5800 points in 42 hours GPU time, which looks disappointing but is better than nothing. Most of the time, the GPU didn't seem stressed at all and the calculation speed was slow, but sometimes the temperature would suddenly increase for a while, along with an about 7x increase in progress speed.

1. Am I the only one with these problems?
2. Why does my card crunch cuda30 tasks with a driver that doesn't even identify my GPU and why don't these jobs work with a driver that does?
3. Most importantly: What can I do to finally get my card loaded - I want to put it to use, finally ;-) It's been idle for a month.

Any ideas?

Presently there is no Linux app that works with the GTX460. There is only a Win app. A Linux app is being written using the latest CUDA development package.

http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=2291&nowrap=true#18815

Thanks for posting!

Presently there is no Linux app that works with the GTX460. There is only a Win app. A Linux app is being written using the latest CUDA development package.

http://www.gpugrid.net/forum_thread.php?id=2291&nowrap=true#18815

That's what I read before. But I just finished a WU using the GTX 460, Linux 64 bit, cuda30 and the nvidia 195.36.24 driver. So it does work, but it stops working with a newer driver version, apparently.

Will the new app need an nvidia driver >256?

The nvidia 195.36.24 driver is very old. I'm surprised it works for a GTX460 given that the driver was released long before the GTX460. I can't see your system or the tasks it ran as you have these hidden and did not provide a link to the task.

No it does not.
We have to update the applications to make it work.

gdf

The nvidia 195.36.24 driver is very old. I'm surprised it works for a GTX460 given that the driver was released long before the GTX460. I can't see your system or the tasks it ran as you have these hidden and did not provide a link to the task.

I was surprised, too. Here are the links, I changed the settings so that they should be accessible.

http://www.gpugrid.net/result.php?resultid=3076028
http://www.gpugrid.net/workunit.php?wuid=1949703

However, more weird stuff happened this morning upon booting the machine. The BOINC client no longer recognized the GPU, thus pausing the second GPUGrid job that had reached 92%. At this point I was still using the 195 driver - just like the days before.

I decided to give the newer drivers another try, 256.53 detected the card but crashed the job, and 260.19 did that and also crashed the X-Server. Now I'm back with 195, but can't crunch for GPUGrid anymore. So GDF, you're right.

However, as I got this one job finished, I insist it does work - somehow.

Device 0: "Device Emulation (CPU)", 57h run time.

The driver did not work. You just managed to use a Cuda emulator to run it on your i7 CPU. Not sure why you would want to do this.

Device 0: "Device Emulation (CPU)", 57h run time.

The driver did not work. You just managed to use a Cuda emulator to run it on your i7 CPU. Not sure why you would want to do this.

I didn't know there was such a thing. Thanks for clearing this up for me. I didn't even start to think in that direction as I thought I saw evidence for GPU utilization (PowerMizer automatically stepped the frequency up, temperature increased to 75° sometimes, fan speed increased, power draw increased, the other crunching jobs for CPDN and WCG appeared to run normally).

From what you initially said and what I saw it looked like your were running an emulator. But if the card was heating up to 75° perhaps it was trying to do something. I guess your CPU would take about 57h to complete a task.

Whatever the case the present Linux app is not suitable for the GTX460 on Linux: Even if it had been running on the card a 57h run time on a GTX460 would be a waste of a GPU. Ditto for running on a CPU, if it was doing that.

I expect this is also true for the GTS450 and cards based on similar designs. When the GTX470 eventually turns up their will probably be a large take up of the card, so the programmers will be under a bit more pressure to get a working app out. At the minute I am only aware of 2 crunchers being effected.

...

Whatever the case the present Linux app is not suitable for the GTX460 on Linux: Even if it had been running on the card a 57h run time on a GTX460 would be a waste of a GPU. Ditto for running on a CPU, if it was doing that.

...

Of course it wouldn't use the card's potential, but it would at least do something. So far this was the only time I got it working (kind of), jobs of all other projects failed immediately. So I thought if I can get at least one WU done for GPUGrid every two or three days, it would be better than nothing, especially since the other tasks seemed to be unaffected.

This morning BOINC recognized the emulated device again, I tried to run a new GPUGrid task, but it crashed after about an hour and I don't think I will try it again with this setup.

Will the new app need cutting-edge nvidia drivers (260 and above) to work or does 256.53 suffice as it does recognize the GTX 460?

It will probably need the latest drivers. The app developers will hopefully let us know when they are releasing the new app.

Thank you!

... At the minute I am only aware of 2 crunchers being effected.

By "2 crunchers", I'm not sure whether you meant apps or users but if you mean users and are not including me, please increment by 1. I replaced two 9800GTX+'s with two 460's in this machine hoping to realize at least a modest increase in GPUGrid crunch rate. I have been sadly disappointed - that's what I get for pulling the trigger before sufficiently researching.

Of course, if you meant effected rather than affected, then the meaning is clear.

OK, three crunchers ;)
We are moving closer to a working Linux app for both the GTX460 and GTS450, and I am sure many Linux users will be drawn to the GTX475 when it is available and confirmed as a good crunching card - but hopefully not before.

It will work very soon, as soon as we update the application.
gdf

Thank you for all your effort. It seems to work now!