And thanks to input from flashawk we will now avoid the "bad" temperature reading software and not become worried over what are basically inaccurate temperature readings. That's essential stuff when building your own. Thanks flashawk :) BTW, the expression "knowledge is power" probably grew from Diderot's, "To ask who is to be educated is to ask who is to rule."

Ya, the deal with those temp readings really throws a wrench in people's plans and pushes them to throw money at something that could be better spent on other components. It's like teaching your self to let off on the brakes when your doing 360's in the snow so you can regain control, some people just can't let go of it (some won't either). "Diderot", that's it! Or him, it sucks getting old, I'm starting to forget stuff. I missed you last summer Dagorath, where did you disappear too? We missed you stirring things up around here, our discussions about cheaters on points and witch BOINC application gives the most points. I better not get to far off topic, the mods do a good job giving out tech advice too, this is actually one of the better GPU forums and we don't do gaming (or at least talk about it much).

Edit: I like your new quote, it's deep.

I'm basically retired but I have mineral claims. To make a long story short, some claim jumpers tried to move in. Things got ugly. The leader went to jail but kept giving me grief. Then someone burned his property to the ground, they arrested me for it and refused bail. In jail I had a "talk" with the claim jumper and convinced him to never even think of setting foot on one of my claims again. See what happens in jail pretty much stays in jail as long as you make a reasonable effort to not put the guards in a position where they have to do their job and report stuff. It couldn't have worked out better vis a vis stopping the claim jumpers if I had planned it that way.

The Crown thought they had enough to put me away for 2 years but a week before the matter went to trial the Crown persecutor finally admitted he had nothing so he dropped all but one of the charges and asked for my immediate release in return for a guilty plea on one of the lesser charges. I was in for 4 months and 2 days. A week after I was released I broke my shoulder and had some nasty complications as it healed. Spent 2 months in lala land stoned on morphine for the pain. Around September I healed properly, kicked the morphine and started rebuilding.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Your blowing my mind over here, I grew up on a mining claim in the Central Sierra's and the foot hills (49er country). My family were all hard rock and hydraulic miners on my fathers side, we had a 1944 Dodge Power Wagon we drove in 32 miles where we had a tarpaper shack, tack room, feed shed, lunging stable and stock pins with 2 quarter horses, 1 thoroughbred, 2 appaloosas, 1 Dunn and a Surrey plus 8 mules and 2 burrows. All 6 of us kids (me and 5 sisters) would sand bag the creek and he had a 4" floating dredge and the slurry got pumped in to a 6 stage sluice box with carpeting in it.

The Forest Service dynamited our 87 year old cabin in 66 and he bought 2 14 man GP tents, we built wooden floors for them, put up perimeter shock wire (appaloosas are the nosiest creatures God created) and that was our life in the summer time. The ride on horse back was 7 1/2 miles from the end of the dirt road. I hope you've managed to settle down after your excellent adventure, I know about claim jumpers, we always had a care taker around to keep an eye on things in the winter.

You always manage to get me laughing with the predicaments you end up in, at least you had 3 hot's and a cot, I hope there weren't to many battle royals over the clicker.

The TV clicker? There wasn't one because it would have batteries in it and batteries can be rigged to light cigarettes, joints or start fires.

You were lucky to grow up there and that way. Not many of us get to live like that anymore. Gold is hard work requiring a big initial investment, the way I see it. You need your dredge, sluice box and all that and the law can blow it up if they don't want you around. I'm after gemstones. It's hard work too but all I've got invested is the cost of filing the claims, a 20 lb. sledge hammer for breaking rock plus smaller hammers for lighter work, a shovel, pry bar and a backpack. My claims are in a very geologically active area between 2 dormant volcanic mountains, 2,000 ft. above the valley floor. I don't like digging and the terms of my claim don't allow me to dynamite or use motorized equipment. I can dig by hand, pan creeks or smash rock with a hammer. My way is the latter. I have a few rock outcrops that have been productive so I hammer away at them. When I get tired of that I crawl through spring runoff chutes turning over boulders.

Yah, I get into some pickles but it beats the heck out of being normal. Glad you can get a chuckle out of my adventures, I do too :-)

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Well - the PNY GTX 770 idea was a pig's breakfast. Should have been with me two days ago but...

1. Amazon France did not put my phone number on the address label
2. TNT "Express" were too idle to look in the phone book
3. TNT dropped it off this morning at a "Relais", a package distribution office 10 miles away.
4. Picked it up. WRONG GPU!! I ordered the one-fan rear-exhaust version. They shipped the three side-fans version and, judging from the packaging, I was a second user... What to do?

I installed the new beast on my old rig 'cause I noticed the three-fan version sells on Amazon France for twice what I paid. Did I get a steal (early data says a Nathan will complete in eight hours but 80C temp)? You be the judge:



Yes --- that's a de Havilland Mosquito, the only one flying today!!

Try turning the fan speed up!

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Try turning the fan speed up!

I think I might need help on how to do that...:)

In the big controller box that says "Precision", at the bottom is the fan speed controller, click on "Auto" to switch it over to manual, slide it to 100% or how ever high it will allow it to go. Let the temperature settle down, then start working it back down in increments until you find a balance between cooling and noise that suits you.

Edit: Make sure "Apply at Windows start up" is checked or lit up, I'm not completely familiar with that version of Precision X, they have a much newer version (or one I recognize) at evga.com, creating a forum account is required though.

In the big controller box that says "Precision", at the bottom is the fan speed controller, click on "Auto" to switch it over to manual, slide it to 100% or how ever high it will allow it to go. Let the temperature settle down, then start working it back down in increments until you find a balance between cooling and noise that suits you.

Edit: Make sure "Apply at Windows start up" is checked or lit up, I'm not completely familiar with that version of Precision X, they have a much newer version (or one I recognize) at evga.com, creating a forum account is required though.

That "Apply at Windows start up" fixed it"! After the boot I could drag the slider. Great! Many thanks for the heads-up.

It was a pig's breakfast but don't deal with it by creating another pig's breakfast.

If you have cooling problems now then remember they are only going to get worse in the summmer unless you have air conditioning and can afford to run it 24/7. If you have 3 rear-exhaust GPUs in 1 rig I can show you how to build a very simple and inexpensive duct to collect the hot air at the back of the computer and duct it out a window, into the attic or even into another room but the first step in that process is to have all the hot air coming out of the rear of the computer where you can easily collect it and deal with it.

If you leave the 3 fan GTX 770 in your old rig you can solve the cooling problem NOW by increasing the fan speed BUT unless you have air conditioning, that's only going to bite you in the a** when summer comes because then you'll need to vent 2 rigs outside instead of just 1. In the long run the best solution is 3 rear-vent cards in 1 rig with 1 duct to carry the hot exhaust outside. And that can scale up to 4 cards in 1 rig if you can overcome the rumored driver issues.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

For reference about high GPU temps...

I have 3 GPUs in my main rig, which runs quite hot.

The only way I can keep my Kepler 660Ti at maximum-boost clock speed, is to set a custom fan curve in Precision-X. So, I have "Auto" checked there, but I've gone into the options to set a custom curve, where I have set it to use maximum fan (80% for this GPU) before reaching the downclocking temperature threshold (70*C for a GPU Boost v1 GPU).

If your card has GPU Boost v1 (where Precision-X lets you adjust Power Target), I recommend creating a custom fan curve that will keep the temp below 70*C for maximum crunching performance.

If your card has GPU Boost v2 (where Precision-X lets you adjust both Power Target and Temp Target), I recommend creating a custom fan curve that will keep the temp below 80*C for maximum crunching performance. (I don't have such a card, but I'm told by others that the GPU doesn't start downclocking by 13Mhz intervals until 80*C on those GPUs)

Regards,
Jacob

Thread starter here...

I have to say that my new rig is a big disappointment.

1. The mobo (ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0) boasts four PCIe slots. Yep. They're there! My plan was to fill them eventually with four top-of-the-line GPUs so I bought a big PSU. What do I find? I can only get two wide GPUs in there. Yes, there's room for two single-width GPUs too but I know of no single that is useful for GPUGrid (perhaps I'm mistaken...). Here's the pic (red lines are single PCIe slots):



2. The case (Cooler Master HAF932 Advanced) does not help with the PCIe problem. It has but seven PCI slots:



The left-most is useless since it aligns with the mobo. There was a chance that, by moving the PSU, I could get a third wide PSU in there on the right but there's no eighth slot to accommodate half of the double.

3. GTX 770s were recommended here. I had one for a few days. Its GPUGrid performance was 1.4x the 660s. At twice the price I passed.

I'm still within Amazon's return window for the mobo and the case. If you have recommendations Tom is listening!!.

Yikes! I thought the space between the slots was discussed upthread before you bought the board. Yes, that definitely is an issue. My advice at this point would be to search for a board with adequate spacing and if the price is acceptable return yours.

Another thing to be wary of is using after market cooling solutions as they often increase the width of the card to the point that it occupies 3 slots.

Regarding the case, you might have to modify the case by cutting a hole in the bottom and raising it up on blocks if you can't find one that accommodates 4 double-wide cards. Or just forget about the case and leave the boards sitting on a shelf. Or build a custom case.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

Thread starter here...

I have to say that my new rig is a big disappointment.

1. The mobo (ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0) boasts four PCIe slots. Yep. They're there! My plan was to fill them eventually with four top-of-the-line GPUs so I bought a big PSU. What do I find? I can only get two wide GPUs in there. Yes, there's room for two single-width GPUs too but I know of no single that is useful for GPUGrid (perhaps I'm mistaken...).

You have three options:
1. install water blocks on your GPUs, and they will fit in single slots.
2. Use two top-end GPUs (at the moment: GTX 780Ti)
3. Use a different motherboard. I've checked the ASUS website, and I didn't find any AMD motherboards which could accomodate four double-slot GPUs. But I've found a Gigabyte MB which does: GA-990FXA-UD7

2. The case (Cooler Master HAF932 Advanced) does not help with the PCIe problem. It has but seven PCI slots:

The left-most is useless since it aligns with the mobo. There was a chance that, by moving the PSU, I could get a third wide PSU in there on the right but there's no eighth slot to accommodate half of the double.

The ATX standard consists only 7 PCI slots. The 8 slot wide ATX cases are very rare, mostly custom-made. (for example the one mentioned in this post). If I were running a host with four air cooled GPUs, I wouldn't put it in a case at all. It is very hard (loud) to dissipate 1kW from a PC case sustaining low component temperatures, using air cooling. Higher temperatures shorten the lifetime of the components. I do not recommend four GPUs in a single MB.

3. GTX 770s were recommended here. I had one for a few days. Its GPUGrid performance was 1.4x the 660s. At twice the price I passed.

The price of the cards are *not* in direct ratio of their performance. You always have to pay extra for the top-end cards. The 770 is 68% faster than a 660 - in theory. The faster the GPU the harder its performance will be hit by the WDDM overhead of the Windows 7 (Vista, 8, 8.1) (depending on the workunit batch). To fully utilize the performance of fast GPUs, you should run that fast card on an OS which does not have the WDDM overhead (Windows XP, Linux), and you have to leave a CPU core free from CPU tasks per GPU. Besides, in the long term it is much better to have two 770s in a single PC than four 660s. The cooling of these cards is *not* made for four-way crunching in 24/7. As time goes by new (faster) GPUs will be released, workunits will get longer, so the 770 is more future proof than a 660. BTW I think that the new Maxwell series GPUs (to be released later this year) won't have that WDDM overhead, or not that much.

Yes we told you that 4 GPU's would be a problem. Not only for fitting on the MOBO but also for heat.
There are bigger cases but they cost (a lot) more. Cosmos II is huge. MOBO's with more space between PCIe lanes are hard to find, but there are with 4, 5, 6, 7 of those slots but you have to pay between 400-700 for such a MOBO.

Skgiven has told many times in many threads that 660's or 660Ti's are the best for performance/costs. And that when more than 2 GPU's in a case may result in several issues.

Building one ones PC is fun, but you need to make a list of specifications you want and then see for the costs. It is not possible to build an "ideal" system cheap, but others have other ideas about that.

I would suggest you put the 770 in as the primary GPU and one 660 as the second GPU. Safe some money per month and build a second one later in the year.

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Greetings from TJ

It is not possible to build an "ideal" system cheap, but others have other ideas about that.

I think you can build an "ideal" and well cooled system cheap and cool it very well with air alone. You might have to think outside the box and build some of the components yourself but it's doable.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters

I had my hand slapped on another thread for not using my spare CPU threads on another worthwhile BOINC project. So I'm now running six Rosettas. With the two GPUGrids, the eight CPU cores are committed.

The effect is that the the CPU temperature has risen from 55C to 64C and the CPU fan RPMs has risen from 3700 to 4300. Is that a problem?

The CPU fan noise is a bit higher but acceptable.

My case has four big fans; front, back, side & top. They are connected only to the mobo. I did not take the option to power them using the supplied Molex connectors, which makes them run at 100%.

Here are the fan RPMs:



I've never seen fans 1-4 vary from these numbers.

How can I involve these fans in doing a better job of cooling the inside of my rig?

I didn't mean to slap your hand :-p.

My 5-year-old water-cooled quad-core hyperthreaded Intel i7 965 Extreme Edition (XE)... runs 77-87*C under full load.

Without Precision-X fan control and additional system fan control, my 3 GPUs would typically run 75-87*C. But one of them is a GTX 660 Ti, and I don't want it to downclock, so I strive to keep it below 70*C.

With Precision-X fan control (using a fan curve such that GPU reaches maximum fan before 70*C) and additional system fan control (via Dell XPS Thermal Monitor), my GPUs typically run 65-70*C.

And I run BOINC on all of this (3 GPUs, 8 logical CPUs), 24/7. The fans are loud, but the music is louder.

Hi Tom,

I have the same MOBO and CPU with AMD stock cooler. It can go to 6300rpm in summer here in the Netherlands.
I have two top fans, one front fan and one side fan connected to the MOBO connectors. i have the back fan connected to CHA_FAN4 as Asus recommend.
The values of the rpm's is varying almost constantly.

Have you made any setings for the fans in thermal Radar?
For each connecter on the MOBO and thus fan, you can set a scheme. I have used standard for all fans, as it is now winter, or it should be winter. In summer I use turbo and user.

Hope this helps a bit.

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Greetings from TJ

If your CPU's max temp is 100*C then 64*C is a pretty decent CPU temperature. If you aren't bothered by fan noise, and your GPUs stay below 70*C and you can maintain those temperatures in the summer then I don't see much point in trying to improve anything.

If you want to make some inexpensive improvement then get some cable ties and tie every cable back to a wall inside the case to reduce turbulence and improve air flow. The best is if you have absolutely no cables running through the middle of the case. Bunch up the slack and tie it up with a cable tie then tie it back to a wall. Even better is to cut the cables to the exact length required and reposition the connectors so there is no slack at all.

Your 4 big fans are an example of the "high horsepower" mentality. If it works then it works but I've always preferred "smart horsepower" over "high horsepower" because it costs less and frequently does a better job. One school of thought says 4 fans pointing in 4 different directions creates a lot of turbulence in the case and doesn't improve cooling much. Experiments I have done and experiments others have performed and documented suggest that theory holds true in many cases, not necessarily your case, but in many cases. You have to remember that every case is different so what works very well for my case may not work as well for yours. Still, there are a few good principles that seem to work for everybody. The first is if you are not going to use internal ducts then keep the airflow going in one direction, preferably along the longest case dimension. That means fans on the front and rear only and not on the sides or top. Fans in the front pull air into the case while fans on the rear push hot air out, usually, but if the reverse direction works better for you then that's what you should do.

If you use an internal duct that directs cool air from outside the case directly onto the CPU or GPU then the game changes completely. The presence of the duct alone causes turbulence but since the cool air goes directly onto the heat source before it has a chance to heat up by mixing in with hot air, you get much better cooling performance from fewer fans. Less noise too.

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BOINC <<--- credit whores, pedants, alien hunters