Hi all.
I would like to know the minimal Nvidia graphic card on notebook to run notlong WU of GPUGRID.
Thanks in advance

I don't think any notebook would be enough. Plus, it would overheat.

The only thing you can do with a laptop is put an External GPU, but don't expect the same performance than in a internal one.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/10/2698168/msi-GUS-II-external-thunderbolt-gpu-enclosure

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Many tanks to Toni and Damaraland.
Have a good day.

I have recently joined to GPUGrid a laptop with an nVidia GT630M in it, and it is crunching fine.
It took 39h 33m to crunch a NATHAN_CB1 workunit, and 32h 14m for a KASHIF_HIVPR.
It runs cooler with GPUGrid's workunits than PrimeGrid's, but good ventilation and frequent air dusting is needed.
I've put some extra rubber spacer under the laptop to ensure proper airflow.

I highly recommend against running distributed computing on a notebook. They don't have the heat dissipation capability for it. I tried it once on a Dell XPS and it significantly shortened the lifespan of the computer.

I highly recommend against running distributed computing on a notebook. They don't have the heat dissipation capability for it. I tried it once on a Dell XPS and it significantly shortened the lifespan of the computer.

I've been running DC on a Dell XPS continuously for over a year, without sign of distress so far. It isn't a mission-critical machine, so I'm prepared to risk the adventure - other users may need to heed your warning.

I do take care to look after system temperatures, though. I use an active (powered) laptop cooling pad, maintaining positive air pressure beneath the base of the laptop, where the cooling air intake vents are situated.

And I have an active cooling policy set in the processor power management (Windows 7). I can hear that the main systen fan speeds up if the GPU ever reaches 75°C: once that has happened, the cooling power available is plenty to keep the whole system temperature under control.

The GT 420M is a bit under-powered to run GPUGrid tasks (although I have completed one successfully), so it usually runs other, shorter, projects. But it runs them, no problem, even when playing full-screen video.

I have recently joined to GPUGrid a laptop with an nVidia GT630M in it, and it is crunching fine.
It took 39h 33m to crunch a NATHAN_CB1 workunit, and 32h 14m for a KASHIF_HIVPR.
It runs cooler with GPUGrid's workunits than PrimeGrid's, but good ventilation and frequent air dusting is needed.
I've put some extra rubber spacer under the laptop to ensure proper airflow.

Thanks Retvari Zoltan,
I'd like to purchase a notebook with Nvidia Geforce GT540M (similar to GT630M), and after your report ... i'll got it and an air-cooler !

I have recently joined to GPUGrid a laptop with an nVidia GT630M in it, and it is crunching fine.
It took 39h 33m to crunch a NATHAN_CB1 workunit, and 32h 14m for a KASHIF_HIVPR.
It runs cooler with GPUGrid's workunits than PrimeGrid's, but good ventilation and frequent air dusting is needed.
I've put some extra rubber spacer under the laptop to ensure proper airflow.

I've bought, but not yet started using, a product that looks likely to help laptop cooling even more:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834992818

A few others look more suitable for notebooks:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=laptop+cooling+pad

The G105M on my laptop is slow enough that I'm only using it for other GPU BOINC projects with lower requirements.

Also, I've found that a temperature control program is needed for reasonable BOINC use on my laptop:

http://efmer.eu/boinc/

A little OT:
I am crunching on the HP 6735b GPU/CPU for 3 years 24/7 without any probem. GPU is weak HD 3600 (only Collatz). I found the best cooling in position of NTB as a letter "A". 3 month cleaning period to clear dust is necessary.

A little OT:
I am crunching on the HP 6735b GPU/CPU for 3 years 24/7 without any probem. GPU is weak HD 3600 (only Collatz). I found the best cooling in position of NTB as a letter "A". 3 month cleaning period to clear dust is necessary.

I have a Dell Inspiron that is now 3 years old and has been crunching with at least one of its dual cores 24/7 since day 1! It is NOT mission critical but is used daily for other things too, I am typing this one it right now. It sits by my couch in my family room so we can look up interesting stuff or whatever that we see and hear on the tv. Often my wife or I will use it when one person is watching something on tv the other isn't interested in. I DO have a laptop cooling device underneath, have since day 1 also. I buy the USB powered kind and just replace it when the fans squeak, I DO NOT buy the real expensive ones, the $10US ones are fine for me and I repalce them about once a year. I have a backup plan that backs up the laptop monthly to a different pc on my network. The gpu on this is NOT capable of crunching but if it could it would be!! Oh I take the cooling devices with the squeaky fans and spray them with CRC, an electronic spray that frees them up but is non conductive, and reuse them for my other laptops that are not crunching.

An old post in an old thread (Video Card Longevity), but still relevant.

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If you can actually get proper cooling on it and your temperatures don't run too high, then it could be viable. Just monitor it very closely. If temperatures skyrocket, you are either going to have to perform surgery on your laptop to improve the cooling, or just abandon the idea for that particular piece of hardware.

If you can actually get proper cooling on it and your temperatures don't run too high, then it could be viable. Just monitor it very closely. If temperatures skyrocket, you are either going to have to perform surgery on your laptop to improve the cooling, or just abandon the idea for that particular piece of hardware.

I agree! One more thing before you do it on a real old laptop think many times, those older drives will not handle all the reads and writes like the newer drivers do. And I am not talking SSD either, they too seem to crash after too many writes, just like USB drives!! I am speaking of the much older IDE/PATA drives, I went thru several before getting a laptop with a SATA drive that seems to be doing just fine! Crunch, crunch, crunch but ALSO backup, backup, backup!!!

Out of pure curiosity I let my laptop (with a GT630M) crunch a NATHAN_FAX4 wu. I've overclocked the GPU to 800MHz (it runs at 670MHz by factory setting). It's finished in 3 days 20 hours and 13 minutes (332000 secs). The GPU is 76°C, and the CPU is 82°C.

How did the other system temperatures fare (motherboard and HDD)? I think 82°C is a bit high for a laptops CPU.
- Periform's Speccy shows all these. It's one of the best pieces of software out there; CPU temps, HDD temps, motherboard, GPU.
Often the weakest links in using laptop GPU's is the laptop fans; they tend to be very small and prone to failures. They also tend to cool down the GPU/CPU but ignore other components such as HDD and motherboard.

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That processor is rated for 85°C max for PGA and 100°C max for BGA. Either way that's pretty warm.

Since this wu finished, I turned swan_sync off, and cleaned the cooler. At this moment the GPU's temperature is 62°C and the CPU's is 61°C. There is two HDDs in this laptop, their temps are 44°C and 38°C (they were 49°C and 42°C while the NATHAN_FAX4 was running with swan_sync=0). The motherboard's temp is 65°C.

That's much better.

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This notebook (others too) self protect itself by reducing the CPU core clock to 800MHz, and reducing the core voltage at the same time, when the CPU core temperature reaches 82°C.