Dual GPU Folding, am I doing anything wrong?

[natermeister]

Alright, so I just got a second X1900XTX installed in my dedicated GPU folder. The clients are:

C:\Program Files\GPU Folding@home\FAH5.91beta3-console -gpu 0

C:\Program Files\GPU Folding@home\FAH5.91beta3-console -gpu 1

The machine IDs are 1 and 2 respectively. The two cards are connected to a display through their primary DVI port. When I start up I have the first console, GPU 0, up and running fine. It's still spitting out frames at the same rate, so I'm not running two cores on one GPU.

The second console hangs when starting the GUI Server or shortly thereafter. I've been through the (rather poor) FAQ on the Stanford site and I don't believe that the GPU FAQ here covers dual GPU folding. Any ideas?

 

[7im]

I guess poor is better than nothing.

Depending on how you extended your desktop across the multiple monitors, you might have to use the switches -gpu 0 and -gpu 2, or 0 and 3.

Or post more details over here for more help: Running 2 GPU's - Hardware Related Questions...

 

[natermeister]

I got it going, but the second GPU is a lot slower than I had expected. It's turning in between 12 and 13 minutes per frame. The Stanford guide isn't horrible, it could just use some fleshing out.

I'm wondering if the second X1900 is running 2D clocks. When I started folding on the first card, for some reason it always seemed to run 3D clocks (625MHz, it's a CrossFire edition). I'm going to have to fire up ATi Tool for the second card and see what is going on. I know I'm supposed to take a performance hit, but not 100%, that's just gotta be something wrong.

 

[7im]

What was the fix? I can try to have it added to the Stanford FAQ.

Yes, 12+ minute frames instead of 9+ on the 2nd card probably means 2D speeds.

 

[Tigerbiten]

C:\Program Files\GPU Folding@home\FAH5.91beta3-console -gpu 0

C:\Program Files\GPU Folding@home\FAH5.91beta3-console -gpu 1

Any ideas?

Are the clients in the same "GPU Folding@home" folder ?
From you post it looks like it so your trying to fire the same client up twice.

When I got both my X1950xtx's up and running then they folded within a few seconds of each other with respect to frame times.
Also frame times went from ~6:20 for a single card to ~7:10 for dual.

Luck ........

 

[7im]

Nice catch Tigerbiten. Ya, that was probably it. And even the best FAQ might not cover that one, although I will ask them to add it.

 

[natermeister]

No, they were never installed in the same folder. However, BOTH cards are turning in frames at ~13mins per frame. Now something just has to be wrong for them to be going that slow. I have the default 3D speeds running on them, supposedly. When either card is running by itself, I get the usual ~7min frame times. It's strange to say the least.

Card #1 is running very hot, as you would expect. However, card #2 is running so cool it must be in 2D, despite ATi Tool saying it's running at 648MHz.

The original problem was a miscue on my part, had the second card plugged into the secondary DVI port. The folders are GPU Folding@home and GPU Folding@home01 respectively, I just forgot to type it in.