Boinc Nvidia GPU Drivers

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 07:57

I've long suspected that my 980Ti isn't cutting the mustard on Boinc stuff. There is nothing wrong with the card, it's gaming performance is just fine. But crunching is pants.

As an example in primegrid, a wingman with a 750Ti has taken half the time to do the same WU as me. I was only running the single GPU WU at a time, and no restriction on how much CPU thread it needed to support on a i7-5820.

I suspect it is a driver thing as previously I was doing OK with a GTX 970 on projects like Einstein, then something updated and my output plummeted. I'd put that down perhaps to different type of WUs, but now I'm thinking otherwise.

So are people running the current nvidia driver (368.39), or do they use something else?

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 09:10

MSI afterburner says the clock is 1166Hz which is the factory setting for the Gigabyte GTX980Ti Waterforce. Use is at 100%. No idea though how to tell if the clock setting is actuated under load :confused:

Will try an earlier version 355.98 - there seems to have been a jump in WHQ nvidia drivers to 358 after that suggesting there may have been a change to something, and see what happens.

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 09:48

It's Windows 10. The sidebar monitoring thingy on afterburner was reporting 1066Hz as the clock (also shows temps, memory use etc). What I don't know is if that is just the speed the card is set to run at if the clock kicks in, or if infact it's running slower. So for example how would I tell if it's using it's 2D rather than 3D capability :confused:

I'm a numpty on any clocking stuff so hardware runs at whatever the default manufacturer settings are. So no idea how I would monitor what the actual clock being used is :confused:

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 10:54

An example of the results I was getting : http://www.primegrid.com/workunit.php?wuid=484570185 Doesn't seem right to me

I'm trying different driver combos and seeing if I get better overall results running 4 WUs at once. So it's a bit harder now to establish what is going on.

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 11:35

Yep they are nvidia drivers, not a windows version.

I know that was a 780Ti WU of the wingman. The 980Ti should perform faster than that, but mine is so much slower. At the time of that WU I was running one at a time, with the 368.99 driver.

I'll have to wait till this evening, when I get home, to change any settings again. But at the moment from results now being submitted it's taking around 1 hour 12 minutes to do 4 WUs running together. That's around 18 minutes per WU. It was taking just over 17 minutes for the "PPS (Sieve) v1.39 (cudaPPSsieve)". So something is very amiss if I'm doing one WU on my 980Ti for every 2.5 you chew through on the 780Ti.

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 18:46

Further investigation: It seems that the GPU is working at idle speeds, So not ramping up with the BOINC stuff. No idea how to force it to power up.

MGP · 10 Jun 2016 at 21:46

Well I haven't a clue

Drivers were uninstalled using that DDU thing.

The Nvidia Inspector doesn't give a P2 profile, only P0 and P8. It appears P0 is the standard overclock / boost profile. P8 is idle. The moment Boinc loads the card switches to P8. Exit Boinc and it reverts to P0.

MGP · 11 Jun 2016 at 00:26

I've tried all sorts of drivers now, no difference in dodgy performance. For the time being I'm back on the 368.39 version which is the latest available.

MGP · 11 Jun 2016 at 08:58

Swapped the 980Ti out with a 970 I keep meaning to sell off. Immediate difference as the 970 trundles off at normal speeds, no downclocking to idle, and Boinc returns on primegrid are swift. Indeed the 970 also shows 4 different P-state profiles through nvidia inspector.

MGP · 11 Jun 2016 at 22:33

Wohoo, found the problem.

Manuals for the card (Gigabyte Geforce GTX 980Ti Extreme Waterforce) as both supplied on the CD with the GPU and also as downloadable from the Gigabyte support sites are incorrect / incomplete / wrong model card.

There is a weird button on the end of the card, with an additional 6 pin power socket. This seems to be referenced only on the product details page for Gigabyte as "Built in the LN2 BIOS and extra 6-PIN PCI-E power connectors provide the xtreme overclocking potential by one-click BIOS switch button." Whatever that might mean. Now I only saw this button and socket once I had pulled the card from the computer.

If the LN2 thingy is active, the card doesn't perform. Perhaps it might with added power? That's something for another day. It seems it was active (LED lit red). Deactivate (blue LED) and the card now seems to run fine. Indeed Nvidia inspector suddenly lists all those other performance level options too.

Now with a factory overclock at 1442MHz active on the 980Ti GPU it's chewing those PPS sieve WUS at 5:50 (the 970 managed around 9:50).