*** F@H Tech Assistance Thread ***

[[Ion]]

I have no idea what prifinity is but i did check the targets and had -gpu 0 and -gpu 1. Thought i set em up the same as the others but I musta done something wrong.

Download the 2-GPU option from http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net-folding-home-team/458455-guide-multi-gpu2-folding-guide.html. Then just remember to change the username and team over or OCN will get all of our points

 

[hertz9753]

Download the 2-GPU option from http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net-folding-home-team/458455-guide-multi-gpu2-folding-guide.html. Then just remember to change the username and team over or OCN will get all of our points

Ion, thank's for posting the link.

 

[DanishDevil]

Eww. Don't use that. You need a dummy plug, and have to disable SLI.

Tada!

Methinks I need to write it up myself and get it stickied here

 

[[Ion]]

Eww. Don't use that. You need a dummy plug, and have to disable SLI.

Tada!

Methinks I need to write it up myself and get it stickied here

I have 3 monitors, I haven't ever bothered with dummy plugs
Secondly, because I have 3 monitors, I very rarely, if ever, ran with SLI enabled because then I could only use 2 of them By nature I'm suspicious of anything written over at HCF, I think it's all a plot to steal our PPD :shadedshu

 

[DanishDevil]

OK if you've got the monitors, then you're good to use that.

Think it's useful enough to redo over on our end, though? If that didn't work, I was going to get rid of a 285 much sooner because I really wouldn't like having to acquire a dummy plug / the resistors, and enable and disable SLI all the time.

 

[bogmali]

Here are my findings based on my setups (195.39 Beta Drivers):

2x9800GX2, dummy plugged and no SLI bridge; Can enable quad SLI but cannot fold all four cores while SLI is enabled. No dummy plug; cannot extend my desktop but can enable quad SLI.

SO with that being said, DD what driver version are you using?

 

[DanishDevil]

The newest non-betas. 191.07 IIRC?

Try without the dummy plug.

 

[El Fiendo]

I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong either, but it may well be turning out that it can only handle 2 GPUs in this method. I haven't had the success I was suspecting in doing the no dummy plug method. I'm still trying stuff though.

 

[El Fiendo]

Hold up, sorry for the double post but I believe I've figured it out. You don't need to extend your desktop, I just opened all 3 and was everything was running fine. I think if this works, we may not have to worry about losing windows to false screens anytime soon.

It was with driver revision 190.38, and I'm currently downloading the latest non beta to try this with.


Edit: Confirmed, 191.07 works. Do not try to extend your desktop, it won't work. I'l test this later tonight on my 4 card 2 monitor rig to see how it works with that. So far 3 cards and 1 monitor (no plugs) works. Be sure you added the force g80 argument, as I'm sure that's what was hanging me up before (incorrectly entered). Then just open them as normal and they should start fine.

 

[DanishDevil]

Yeah I wasn't extending my desktop because I don't have a desktop to extend it to. This mod is dummy plug free.

Think I should do a write-up of it if I get a chance?

 

[NastyHabits]

Think I should do a write-up of it if I get a chance?

Yes please.

 

[BUCK NASTY]

Think I should do a write-up of it if I get a chance?

Make it a nice one and it will be stickied.

 

[DanishDevil]

It'll probably take a few weeks. I've got too long of a to-do list at the moment.

 

[King Wookie]

Hmm. Seems my pc blue screens and reboots randomly when folding. Running the 190 drivers, with the command line version of FAH. I'll be digging for info on trying to optimise this setup, but any advice would be welcome.

 

[El Fiendo]

Are they beta or actual release drivers? What's the exact version?


Also, my own hardware issues:

Last night my AMD rig went down after it claimed it wanted a reboot from Windows Update. It then spent the next 2-3 hours with a sleep state monitor and running internal fans, HDDs and what not. At some time around then (I wasn't nearby at the time) it appears to have shut itself off. Now when I try to boot it I get the BIOS code 'FF', which in MSI documentation means 'everything is ok', no POST beeps and no signal on anything external. The Windows update was not a BIOS update, just a standard OS update.

Solutions tried so far:
- cleared the CMOS and restart - didn't work
- removed all VGA cards and tried a spare - didn't work
- put a BIOS on a USB flash drive to copy over - didn't work, no activity on the USB ports

Nothing has changed internally since it happened, but I'm going to be disassembling it soon here. Before I pack it up for RMA (if I even can) I'll test it open air to see if it was bad cable connection / grounding to the case. Is there anything else out there anyone else can recommend?

 

[King Wookie]

Looks like final/actual release 190.62 drivers.

Just ran 15min of furmark at max res 16X AA. No temps above 78 deg c. No obvious issues.

Haven't done any form of optimisation on FAH, and still looking for the info on what to do.

 

[msgclb]

Are they beta or actual release drivers? What's the exact version?


Also, my own hardware issues:

Last night my AMD rig went down after it claimed it wanted a reboot from Windows Update. It then spent the next 2-3 hours with a sleep state monitor and running internal fans, HDDs and what not. At some time around then (I wasn't nearby at the time) it appears to have shut itself off. Now when I try to boot it I get the BIOS code 'FF', which in MSI documentation means 'everything is ok', no POST beeps and no signal on anything external. The Windows update was not a BIOS update, just a standard OS update.

Solutions tried so far:
- cleared the CMOS and restart - didn't work
- removed all VGA cards and tried a spare - didn't work
- put a BIOS on a USB flash drive to copy over - didn't work, no activity on the USB ports

Nothing has changed internally since it happened, but I'm going to be disassembling it soon here. Before I pack it up for RMA (if I even can) I'll test it open air to see if it was bad cable connection / grounding to the case. Is there anything else out there anyone else can recommend?

I'm not sure which MSI board you have but if my MSI K9A2 Platinum pulled this on me I would try this...

- remove power
- remove the battery
- move the clear CMOS jumper to 'clear data'
- wait for an extended time (maybe overnight)

This has work for me on other thought to be dead motherboards. Good Luck!

 

[NastyHabits]

Hmm. Seems my pc blue screens and reboots randomly when folding. Running the 190 drivers, with the command line version of FAH. I'll be digging for info on trying to optimise this setup, but any advice would be welcome.

Looking at your specs, you might be running close to the max overclock for your board. If your FSB is 450 or higher, try lowering it. Also try overclocking only the shaders on your Video card. Leave the core and memory stock.

 

[King Wookie]

Looking at your specs, you might be running close to the max overclock for your board. If your FSB is 450 or higher, try lowering it. Also try overclocking only the shaders on your Video card. Leave the core and memory stock.

The card is running completely stock, as I have not had it long enough to tinker with.
I'll drop the FSB, but I've been running fine for months on these settings. Had no such issues with my 4850. (crunching the whole time)

 

[El Fiendo]

I'm not sure which MSI board you have but if my MSI K9A2 Platinum pulled this on me I would try this...

- remove power
- remove the battery
- move the clear CMOS jumper to 'clear data'
- wait for an extended time (maybe overnight)

This has work for me on other thought to be dead motherboards. Good Luck!

Sorry, its an MSI 790FX-GD70 running a Phenom II 955BE. I unplugged it last night and left it that way, though I don't think its in the BIOS clear position right now. I'll try this though starting when I get home.

 

[DanishDevil]

Remember, disassembling everything and putting it back together often works. my good GTX 285 decided to give me issues last night during a reboot. I reconnected all PSU cables and graphics card and it worked.

 

[NastyHabits]

The card is running completely stock, as I have not had it long enough to tinker with.
I'll drop the FSB, but I've been running fine for months on these settings. Had no such issues with my 4850. (crunching the whole time)

I'm folding and crunching on a Gigabyte P-35 board with an HD 4850, plus everything is water cooled, so no heat issues. Occasionally it would lock up. No blue screens. I had it running an e6750 at 3.6 GHz. Passed all overclocking tests: Furmark for 2 hours, Intel burn test for 12 hours, TAT for 12 hours, Orthos Prime for 24 hours. Once I started folding and crunching, I had to lower the FSB. Who knows why? (The P-35 chipset seems to have a max stable FSB at 450, the only reason for my previous post.)

 

[King Wookie]

I'm folding and crunching on a Gigabyte P-35 board with an HD 4850, plus everything is water cooled, so no heat issues. Occasionally it would lock up. No blue screens. I had it running an e6750 at 3.6 GHz. Passed all overclocking tests: Furmark for 2 hours, Intel burn test for 12 hours, TAT for 12 hours, Orthos Prime for 24 hours. Once I started folding and crunching, I had to lower the FSB. Who knows why? (The P-35 chipset seems to have a max stable FSB at 450, the only reason for my previous post.)

Well, based on input from El Fiendo, I have reinstalled the FAH client, but set it this time to only use 70% cpu. I'm crunching as well.

Been running no issues for 16 hours, so let's see.

I do know thought that this mb oc's very happily based on feedback on the net.

Just as a matter of interest, what temps were you hitting on your northbridge?

 

[El Fiendo]

I got home last night and found that I had left the motherboard in clear CMOS mode overnight, and after setting up my brand new used Jerker desk (pretty good buy) I plugged it in and was amazed as it posted. I had to do it with 1 memory stick, but quickly solved that and a few other problems that cropped up.

There are still 2 problems, one being that one of my GPUs throws NANs like a mother, but I think its because I switched the GPU configuration around. I'll put it back like it was and hope that solves it. Past that my computer ate the MBR on the OS HDD, and when I restored it there was only 111GB out of 297GB shown. Thankfully it was all free space, and its not a storage drive.

To others that may experience this problem, never underestimate leaving it alone overnight. Leaving it unplugged and in 'Clear CMOS' mode fixed a no POST / no activity on the motherboard or its ports issue. I'm really glad there was no RMA involved.

 

[msgclb]

El Fiendo: That's good to here you at least got past the POST!


I haven't heard back from my help request to Gigabyte but I got two video cards running without their help. I made a list of possible causes and one was the video driver. I checked the NVIDIA site and found that the latest version was 191.07. After installing this driver I've got two video cards running. Unfortunately, I'm still having problems.

I got both cards to fold last night. One was running a 787 WU and the other a 1888 WU. The GPU0 card completed the 787 WU but when it loaded the next WU it gave an error message something like UNSTABLE_MACHINE. I closed the GPU1 card and the GPU0 card loaded a 1888 WU and is currently working. I restarted the GPU1 card and to my dismay I lost the uncompleted WU and it gave me the same error.

I'm going to let the GPU0 card complete its 1888 pt WU before I do anything else.

Current system specs:
GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P
AMD Athlon II X4 630
Team Xtreem 2GB DDR2 800
OCZ GameXStream 700W PSU
GPU0: EVGA 9800 GTX+
GPU1: XFX 9800 GTX+
Windows 7 RC 64-bit