Whats in the first page of your Boinc logs?

You do need to restart after you install the driver!
You may also want to reinstall EVGA Precision.

Last time I was messing around with installing cards on W7, which includes installing drivers, I disabled Boinc from starting with Windows. I booted, installed the drivers, rebooted, installed Afterburner, restarted and started Boinc again. I was running a GPUGrid WU, but had no issues doing it that way.

You really will need to define a fan curve. The auto-temperature control won't do it for you. It will run hot (78°C) and work will fail.

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I have it placed in the boinc data directory. It was read as you can see:
7/2/2013 4:52:55 PM | | Re-reading cc_config.xml
7/2/2013 4:52:55 PM | | Not using a proxy
7/2/2013 4:52:55 PM | | Config: use all coprocessors
7/2/2013 4:52:55 PM | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task

But still no extra task.
I have indeed set EVGA Precision (is same as Afterburner but from EVGA, same menu as well), to autimatic fan control by software and all. In fact I did not change it. The only thing I did was place an extra GTX660 and now one runs hot. There is not a lot of space between both cards though.

There should be at least one slot space between the cards to maintain the temperature.

Do I need to restart the system?

You don't need to restart the system to activate the changes in the cc_config.xml file, you have to re-read the configuration file as you did.
However, if the card is not recoginzed by Windows itself, it may require a system restart. You should check it in the device manager. (Start -> type devmgmt.msc in the search field and press <enter>, click on the + sign beside the display adapters category, and you should see two display adapters by it's actual name ("NVIDIA GeForce GTX660") listed under the category, so "standard VGA adapter" is not appropriate)

Will that kill the part of Nathan's WU already done?

No, it won't. (At least in most cases)

Another question. When teh two AMD's (5870) where in the Alienware they were both recognised by BOINC and there was no need for a cc_config. How about that?

It should be the same with NVidia cards as well, however sometimes this cc_config modification is necessary.

Does Afterburner see both GPUs? If not, how old is the Alienware and what MB is in it?

Thanks Zoltan I know a little more.
I have powers the system down and put one monitor in the second card and start it up. Now two GPUGRID tasks are running.
Temperature remains an issue. There are only two slots. Actually 3 but the last on is very short a few centimeters.
When I got the system there where two AMD 5870 in it also with no space in between and they ran MW and Einstein at around 88°C for 3 years but not always 24/7, 3 4 days in a row mostly.
I have made a curve like skiven said. It worked well with one card but not with 2, because due to lack of space as Zoltan mentioned.
Well it is a very heavy case and cramped, to not a lot of space but nice air flow chambers.
If I can't drop the temperature I shall see where else I can put these GTX660's in. For a new system I have to same more money first. But I will buy a large case that's for sure.

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Greetings from TJ

Does Afterburner see both GPUs? If not, how old is the Alienware and what MB is in it?

Both cards are seen by the system and by EVGA NZ and EVGA Precision and GPU-Z.
But that was after I place a monitor in the second card. The Alienware is almost 3 years old.

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Either rebooting allowed the driver installation to complete and Boinc to see both cards, or the issue was with two monitors being hooked up to the one card.

Maybe some time you could hook both monitors back up to the one GPU and reboot to see if that was the issue? If you do let us know either way.

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There were no drivers updated as already exact the same card was running in the system.
I will let it finish things first and will then try with both monitors to one card again.
Secondly I have also use the famous Afterburner here and it seems that the maximum Fan speed for the GTX660 is 74%. Can someone say if this is true?
One car is running at 70°C (so okay, the other at 77°C (not okay).

I have now opened all my boxes with a quad or i7 ( no need to check the Pentium D4, and Celeron as that are very old systems (8-15 years, so cards won't work) and none has space for cars with double space.

I can try to see if the T7400 has the right PCIE connector on the right place but I gues it has only one PCIE 16 slot. If I have a new PSU installed.

The last thing is what Beyond suggested to put it in my system with a 380W PSU (and replace with the GTX550Ti). Or a new system.

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I'm not talking about a driver update, just installing it for the hardware. The driver still has to be registered against a new card before Boinc or any other app (EVGA Precision) will recognize it. Also, if you start Boinc then install the driver it wont see the GPU until you restart. Reading cc_config won't make it see the GPU either.

Re Afterburner. Yes, it's true.
I went back from 320 to 314 drivers thinking they were the issue and reinstalled a slightly earlier version of afterburner. I was then able to move one GPU past 74% fan speed (only at 76% now but can go up to 100%), but not the other GPU fan - it cant go past 74% (it's at 63% and 58°C, so it's not an issue for me anyway).
On a well cooled system with one GPU, 74% should be sufficient to cool the GPU, but 2 or 3 GPU's in the same system will still be a challenge, and extra case cooling may be required. I don't recall this being an issue before for Windows, or seeing it when I only had one GPU in a case, but I remember some versions of Linux would not allow your fan to go over ~85%.

At present I have a GTX660Ti and a GTX660 in one case. The gap between them isn't much, so I use a fan to blow onto them and also have an external rear fan to pull air out of the case. I replaced a good Antec CPU heatsink with an H60 to reduce internal heat buildup, especially on the back of the GTX660Ti (it also keeps the CPU a bit cooler).

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I'm not talking about a driver update, just installing it for the hardware. The driver still has to be registered against a new card before Boinc or any other app (EVGA Precision) will recognize it. Also, if you start Boinc then install the driver it wont see the GPU until you restart. Reading cc_config won't make it see the GPU either.

Okay in that case you where right (again :-) ). Then replacing the monitor with an off system can have easily have nothing to do with it. I will test this with Milkyway (short run) when Nathan's are finished.

There is no room in the Alienware to place more coolers, in fron is a big fan, blowing towards the GPU's, but in the back is a fan with the radiator of the liquid cooling.

I will remove one GTX660 and try it in another system tomorrow. And than it is waiting for a new system. So my RAC will not built up soon.

But I have again learned today, which is nice.

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Maybe some time you could hook both monitors back up to the one GPU and reboot to see if that was the issue? If you do let us know either way.

As promised I tried this. Turned of the PC and put both monitors to one card. There is no SLI connecter fitted. I boot the system and BOINC does see two GPU's.
To be sure I am now crunching little MilkyWay on two GPU's. One is at 63°C and the other 57° with 70-72% GPU load, both.

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Thanks TJ, that eliminates concerns over running two monitors from one GPU when you have two GPU's.

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Thanks TJ, that eliminates concerns over running two monitors from one GPU when you have two GPU's.

Your very welcome. I got a lot of help here, so glad I can contribute a tiny little bit.

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One very interesting thing (for me).
My other i7 with the new trial GTX660 was so unresponsive and continuously at 100% CPU load and the kernel times in top as well. That it was to much for me to watch. So I powered it down opened the case and put the old solid GTX285 back in. Powered it up and the WU started on the GTX660, continues on the GTX285. Amazing!
Six Rosies are crunching happily on the CPU and the Kernel times are very low, almost not to see.
So I will leave this system run as it until in dies. Its MARS, and visible, but it shows still a GTX660.

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Greetings from TJ

One very interesting thing (for me).
My other i7 with the new trial GTX660 was so unresponsive and continuously at 100% CPU load and the kernel times in top as well. That it was to much for me to watch. So I powered it down opened the case and put the old solid GTX285 back in. Powered it up and the WU started on the GTX660, continues on the GTX285. Amazing!
Six Rosies are crunching happily on the CPU and the Kernel times are very low, almost not to see.
So I will leave this system run as it until in dies. Its MARS, and visible, but it shows still a GTX660.

One reason is that the 285 is much slower than the 660 and needs far less GPU support (yet the 285 uses far more electricity) :-(
You need to reserve more CPU for the 660 to allow it to run optimally.

One very interesting thing (for me).
My other i7 with the new trial GTX660 was so unresponsive and continuously at 100% CPU load and the kernel times in top as well.

When a GPUGrid workunit runs on a Kepler based GPU, it will use a full CPU thread (core, if the CPU is not hyperthreaded).

That it was to much for me to watch. So I powered it down opened the case and put the old solid GTX285 back in. Powered it up and the WU started on the GTX660, continues on the GTX285. Amazing!

That is how it should be :) I did similar changes without loosing a workunit.

Six Rosies are crunching happily on the CPU...

Rosetta@home is a tricky application. Sometimes it could use up to 600 Mbytes of RAM, and read-write 100s of MBytes to the HDD (SSD) at startup. Beside of that, I've found out that it won't gain much RAC when more R@h workuntis running than the number of CPU cores (in your case 4). So when a GPUGrid workunit takes a full thread, there is no point to run R@h applications on hyperhtreaded cores.

and the Kernel times are very low, almost not to see.

The GPUGrid application does not need a full CPU core to feed pre-Kepler GPUs.

So I will leave this system run as it until in dies. Its MARS, and visible, but it shows still a GTX660.

It will show the correct GPU after your BOINC client communicates with the GPUGrid server.

Thanks for the explanation Zoltan.
I leave always 2 cores free on a HT (i7 in my case), so the CPU has 6 and the GPU 2 (uses 1).

Indeed there are strange things at Rosetta, but I really like the science they do. Perhaps I can let it run on the quad with no usable GPU's (cuda 1.0).

So I have GTX660 "left". As I have already a screwdriver in hand all day I thought I put it in the T7400. (Its PSU has 2 6-pins and 1 cable has also a 8-pin, so a GTX690 would fit), there is a PCIE 2.0 line (in the middle of the MOBO in the center of a fan). It works like a train, doing a Nathan at 63-65°C at 65% fan speed.
Was it not all of a bad buy then, however my girlfriend my not find this out, as I still want a new one with the two GTX660 in one system (Yes AMD).

One more thing about the T7400 it two Xeons have only a heat block (6 copper tubes and a lot of Aluminum blades), one fan is placed behind the second CPU, from the front seen, placed under a tilted hook and blows air towards the heat blocks. CPU running at 50-60°C! So not bad from Dell after all.

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I put the left over GTX660 in my quad core Vista x86, 24/7 system and just as Beyond predicted, it runs fine with a PSU of only 380Watt.
Temperature went quickly to 76°C when GPUGRID running with the fan speed at 74% (its maximum). I set the GPU power target to 90% and now it runs at 72-73°C with a GPU load of around 85%. So not to bad.
The time estimate for a Nathan LR is 30 hours. Two Einstein WU run on the CPU, but have set to no new work, to see if that changes anything. However I think estimation is wrong as it does ~8% in an hour.

All in all not great, but it can run 24/7 until I have all the parts for a new system in a couple of months, in which I put the two GTX660 I now have running in old systems.

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Greetings from TJ

The time estimate for a Nathan LR is 30 hours. Two Einstein WU run on the CPU, but have set to no new work, to see if that changes anything. However I think estimation is wrong as it does ~8% in an hour.

The estimates don't mean much, sounds like around 12.5 hours. Not bad conidering it's throttled. Why will the fan only go to 74%? You could try setting: "On multiprocessor systems use at most 90% of the processors" in BOINC to reserve another core and see if the GPU utilization goes up. Don't change the "Use at most 100% CPU time" though.

The time estimate for a Nathan LR is 30 hours. Two Einstein WU run on the CPU, but have set to no new work, to see if that changes anything. However I think estimation is wrong as it does ~8% in an hour.

The estimates don't mean much, sounds like around 12.5 hours. Not bad conidering it's throttled. Why will the fan only go to 74%? You could try setting: "On multiprocessor systems use at most 90% of the processors" in BOINC to reserve another core and see if the GPU utilization goes up. Don't change the "Use at most 100% CPU time" though.

That seem the be the maximum of these cards. Skgiven has the same, he even downgraded the nVidia drivers. With the EVGA software, afterburner, set the fan curve manually to 100% from 50°C does not help. In the programs, Afterburner and EVGA are two yellow lines, it seems that the fan speed can (an will) only operate between both lines.
The quad is set to use only 3 cores, so 1 for GPU and 2 for CPU and one free.
If Einstein is finished GPU has 4 CPU for its one, see what that does in a few hours.

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Greetings from TJ

I put the left over GTX660 in my quad core Vista x86, 24/7 system and just as Beyond predicted, it runs fine with a PSU of only 380Watt.
Temperature went quickly to 76°C when GPUGRID running with the fan speed at 74% (its maximum). I set the GPU power target to 90% and now it runs at 72-73°C with a GPU load of around 85%. So not to bad.
The time estimate for a Nathan LR is 30 hours. Two Einstein WU run on the CPU, but have set to no new work, to see if that changes anything. However I think estimation is wrong as it does ~8% in an hour.

All in all not great, but it can run 24/7 until I have all the parts for a new system in a couple of months, in which I put the two GTX660 I now have running in old systems.

Seems not good. Two Nathans have failed with the ACMD message on the screen. There is now a third one in process, if that fails I will update from 3.14 to 3.20 driver for a last test. Then I swap the cards and wait for a new system.

On the GTX285 one Santi SR failed but looking at the tasks there where more errors of these today. So that seems coincidence.

The old T7400 is happily crunching on the GTX660. Pity only one cards fits. If the 690's where no so expensive...

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