Posts by Michael Kingsford Gray

1) Message boards : News : New system in beta queue && long queue (Message 26485)
Posted 27 Jul 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
Yep.
Definitely a bug in these WUs.
2) Message boards : News : Install new drivers for new application (Message 25326)
Posted 29 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
mitrichr:
...Judging from your 52 million credits, you have been around this project for a fair amount of time.

If one calls six months 'a fair amount of time', yes.
3) Message boards : News : Install new drivers for new application (Message 25325)
Posted 29 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
...and don't forget to check the "exit scientific applications" checkbox on exiting.

Except that on install of BOINC software, I always elect to disable this bloody-annoying 'feature', and cannot for the life of me find a way to otherwise exit the manager in this manner.
If one has disabled this (nagging) request, then surely the BOINC manager should add an option on the File>Exit menu to File>Exit & Quit & ShutDown & Everything! so that I don't have to use Task Manager!

(Please excuse the Australian idioms.)
4) Message boards : News : Install new drivers for new application (Message 25279)
Posted 27 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
Bedrich has excellent advice.
Quite why this was not screamed from the rooftops by BOINC or GPUGRID when advising the upgrade is beyond me.
And I am a professional computer programmer, but naïvely trusted the instructions to be complete.
As you suggest, one lives and learns. I trust that the admins will do the same.
5) Message boards : News : Install new drivers for new application (Message 25254)
Posted 26 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
I installed the new drivers whilst 2 existing tasks were running.
(Even though I had exited the BOINC Manager)
They immediately reported a 'computation error'.
Not charmingly good news.

Personally, I would recommend (on the basis of this costly experiment), that one selects "No new tasks", waits for the back log to clear, and only then install the new GPU drivers.
6) Message boards : News : 3EKObis another conformation (Message 25146)
Posted 18 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
I am submitting 500 WUs on acemdlong, 56000 credits each.

I have completed work-unit 3425957, yet garnered 84,000 credits instead of the indicated 56,000!
7) Message boards : Number crunching : No Bonus for finishing within 24 hours (Message 25025)
Posted 13 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
These types of priority/scheduling schemes were debugged in the 1960s/70s in computer science departments around the globe.
That the research teams involved are not aware of the decades-old elegant solutions is but a black mark on their inter-departmental liaison skills/efforts.

And that contributors have to flail around in the dark to re-invent the obvious s a frustration for me personally, having learned these pragmas from almost infancy.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Error PAOLA_RNP (cancel freely) // Addressed & fixed (Message 24906)
Posted 11 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
Nah, not in that colour.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Error PAOLA_RNP (cancel freely) // Addressed & fixed (Message 24820)
Posted 9 May 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
I am glad to discover that it was not the fault of my GPU!
Points/schmoints. I can deal with that.
It's not like the winner gets a free Maserati!
(Mmmm... now there's an idea...)
10) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24274)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
Might I suggest then, that operations might be enhanced by encouraging participants who have buggy-drivers, (No, not those with horse-and-cart!), to adopt a more friendly version?
As you know who they are, as well as their contact details, surely it would not be too onerous to create a script that 'points' each user to the appropriate download page?
And advising those with inappropriate task-selection/Graphics-card combinations to change? Or changing their selections of task types automatically, even?

GPUGrid may well be missing a golden opportunity by not so doing.
11) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24272)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
But...
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 (295 driver on W7)
Coprocessors NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) driver: 296.10

Is the failure down to the driver revision, or the fact that the card has 1/3 the memory of mine?
Or both?
12) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24271)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
If you look here you will see 114 successful tasks, and no failures!

Quite.
That is my pooter.
13) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24269)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
I just noticed something passing strange about driver revisions:
GPUGrid reports
"[2] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (3034MB) driver: 280.26"

Nah, forget my previous blatherings about the driver being 296.10!
I was reading the incorrect row.
They are 280.26, which NONE of the failed workstation have.

You might be correct, after all!

14) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24268)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
If you are interested enough, check workunit:
www.gpugrid.net/workunit.php?wuid=3317664
15) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24267)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
Possibly.
I have resisted the urgings of nVidia and kept them as they are (296.10)
If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

On checking: two of the four failed tasks are running on the same revision drivers.

That cannot be it?
16) Message boards : News : New WUs of TRYP (*adTRYP*) (Message 24265)
Posted 6 Apr 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
178-IBUCH_adTRYP_120402-0-5-RND1445_5
Worked quite OK on my machine, after having previously failed on 4 others machines.
And it only took about 9.6 hours to run to completion.
Do you think that my (unusually huge) amount of GPU RAM (3Gb on *each* GTX580) might be the clue here?
Or could it be the 12 cores, or the 24Gb of CPU RAM?
Dunno.
But no "large" task has failed to run to completion for some months now, if ever.
I must be getting *something* right that differs from others'?
17) Message boards : News : New task on long queue, significantly longer than traditional tasks (Message 23983)
Posted 16 Mar 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
It appears that both the FAX3 and FAX4 tasks have exhausted, potentially rendering nagging gripes moot.
18) Message boards : News : New task on long queue, significantly longer than traditional tasks (Message 23951)
Posted 14 Mar 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
That's around half what I expected (1420MB).
...So is it the operating system, driver, or app?

Problem solved!
I was relying on the windows side-bar widgets (one for each card) which reports half of the memory usage that GPU-Z does.

The widgets are broken.
Damn, I feel like a newbie now!
19) Message boards : News : New task on long queue, significantly longer than traditional tasks (Message 23911)
Posted 12 Mar 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
How much is being used? 1243MB of my GTX470's 1280MB is being used - which explains the higher temps. ~450MB is more common for GPUGrid tasks. I expect W7 may be further restricted by this, as the operating system grabs some GDDR for itself.

My current memory usage is (running NATAHAN_FAX3 task, and one NATHAN_CB1 task) ~700Mb=23% @71 Celcius &
~610Mb = 20% @65C.

Again, this seems like a curious waste of RAM.
20) Message boards : News : New task on long queue, significantly longer than traditional tasks (Message 23891)
Posted 11 Mar 2012 by Michael Kingsford Gray
Post:
They not only take longer per step, but require more memory. Cards with lower memory (below 1GB) may suffer additional performance loss. There is nothing we can do about this, unfortunately.


I have 3034Mb (3Gb) on each of my two GTX 580 cards. (Most of which usually appears unused for GPUGrid tasks).
Is it possible for GPUGrid to allocate the tasks with high memory requirements to such computers?
If not, why not?
It is a high-capacity resource (6Gb) going to waste, as far as I can determine.


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