Abnormal behaviour of the GPU tasks

Questions and Answers : GPU applications : Abnormal behaviour of the GPU tasks
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Message 1489579 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 0:10:22 UTC

Does anybody have an idea what could be the root cause for the strange way of work of my GPU tasks? Is it due to the hardware or is there a problem in the BOINC software?

The explanations follow but brief BOINC info first.
I have BOINC client version 7.2.42 for windows_x86_64 installed and this is about the GPU:
CAL: ATI GPU 0: AMD Radeon HD 7850/7870 series (Pitcairn) (CAL version 1.4.1848, 2048MB, 2008MB available, 7040 GFLOPS peak)
OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: AMD Radeon HD 7850/7870 series (Pitcairn) (driver version 1348.5 (VM), device version OpenCL 1.2 AMD-APP (1348.5), 2048MB, 2008MB available, 7040 GFLOPS peak)

Well, it is not possible to copy it from the BOINC to show you directly. I'll try to explain what happens very often and even in the moment. The (1 ATI GPU + 0.45 CPU) starts a new task and the Progress is only 0.006% after a few hours (right now after 6:40 hours). It also says the Remaining (estimated) is 0.001%. So, I usually have to suspend such task. The BOINC manager starts another task for the GPU. Then I resume the suspended one and it starts normally when its turn comes again. That's all.

I am a kind of frustrated that so much time is wasted in such way by the GPU instead of running real calculations meanwhile.

Thank you very much in advance for your help.
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Message 1489623 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 3:53:48 UTC - in response to Message 1489579.  

This 'hang' happens sometimes at start of ATI tasks.

You may try to:

1) Free a CPU core (run one less CPU task) by:
"On multiprocessors, use at most 99% of the processors"
in Computing preferences

2) The following command is equivalent to 'Snooze GPU' but only for 13 seconds
(this will stop/exit all GPU tasks/apps and restart them again after 13 seconds):

boinccmd.exe --set_gpu_mode never 13

a) Make a shortcut to boinccmd.exe
Edit the shortcut to add the above cmdline parameters
Run the shortcut manually when needed

b) Schedule the above command to run every 30 or 60 minutes


Надявам се поне едно от тези да помогне.
Давам 13 сек. като пример, може да пробваш и с 5
 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Message 1489715 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 13:45:38 UTC - in response to Message 1489623.  

Thanks for your prompt response BilBg.

I've already tried your first suggestion and it didn't solve the problem. I am going to try the second one.

Чудех се дали има общо и с процесорните ядра освен видеокартата, защото някакъв процент от тях участват. За второто решение някои неща не са ми ясни и ще пиша на лични. Благодаря отново!
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Message 1489826 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 20:02:29 UTC - in response to Message 1489715.  
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 20:18:50 UTC


http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=7219652&offset=0&show_names=0&state=6&appid=

This was task that was 'hang' for too long (10x the estimate): 'Maximum elapsed time exceeded'
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=3436095225

Some of the tasks have this error:
'SETI@home error -6 Bad workunit header'
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=3425990773
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=3435957170

Something maybe corrupted the WU file:
- bad Internet
- computer hang or restart during download
- Antivirus interfering

http://boincwiki.mundayweb.com/index.php?title=Add_the_BOINC_Data_directory_to_the_exclusions_of_my_antivirus_program


And this is crash (may happen if game started during GPU compute; if do not happen too often may be considered as just a glitch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch):
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=3426520210

Or is caused by too much Overclock:
- from tasks: Max clock frequency: 1100Mhz
- from ATI AMD:
860MHz Engine Clock for HD 7850
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7850/pages/radeon-7850.aspx#3

1000MHz Engine Clock for HD 7870
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESKTOP/GRAPHICS/7000/7800/Pages/radeon-7800.aspx#2

(and the two pages differ: 800MHz is shown on the second for HD 7850)


 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 
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Message 1489872 - Posted: 16 Mar 2014, 22:21:18 UTC - in response to Message 1489826.  
Last modified: 16 Mar 2014, 22:46:14 UTC

Wow, you did quite a research on my problems in order to help me. Thanks for that.

I am not sure for some of the examples you gave, however, my computer system is rather new (less than a month) and I still install or remove programs, do some settings and so on. And all of this leads to many restarts of the system.

What I am pretty certain is that I don't play games and haven't overclocked either the CPU or the GPU. The BOINC manager doesn't recognize my Graphic card correctly. It is ATI R9 270X. Perhaps ATI 7850/7870s have the same GPU cores as mine.

Anyway, thanks a lot again.
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Message 1489939 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 2:41:42 UTC - in response to Message 1489872.  

... haven't overclocked either the CPU or the GPU. The BOINC manager doesn't recognize my Graphic card correctly. It is ATI R9 270X

Then it may be slightly overclocked version (overclocked by the card manufacturer)
https://www.google.bg/#q=R9+270X+oc

ATI AMD give for GPU Clock Speed 'Up to 1.05GHz'
http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/r9/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-r9-series.aspx#5

(This was only one crash, nothing to worry about if do not happen 'often')
 


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Message 1490050 - Posted: 17 Mar 2014, 10:16:20 UTC - in response to Message 1489939.  

Your assumption is correct.

In fact the Video card is this one:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2036&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

I am not worried. ;)
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Questions and Answers : GPU applications : Abnormal behaviour of the GPU tasks


 
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