Unable to revert to "legacy" driver

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Profile Joseph Stateson
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Message 94460 - Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 19:21:12 UTC

Ran out of GPUGRID tasks and system brought in Einstein. GPUGRID uses CUDA and Einstein uses OpenCL. Those CUDA tasks finished ok but one of the Einstein was taking way too long indicating a problem with the 2nd gtx1070 board. GPUz said the 2nd board was used between %0 to %2 (ie: no usage)

I restarted BOINC so I could look at the startup and noticed 2 CUDA but 4 OpenCL. This is identical to a problem I had with ATI board some time ago.

Nvidia driver was 441.66 and I was running the stock 7.14.2

I tried that 431.60, a known good driver but WTF !!!



My system now requires the DCH class of drivers. So, in addttion to Studio and Game Ready, there is now a DCH version!
I used RevoUninstallerPro to get rid of all NVidia and at same time I put in 7.16.3. One of those or maybe both worked. Windows upgraded the driver for me to 441.66 which is what I had earlier and I noticed the "ghost" pair of GTX1070 are no longer showing up. I have 2 CUDA and 2 OpenCL as it normal, Einstein is working fine and both boards show running warm and usage %90 as is normal.

I am guessing that last Tuesday's Microsoft feature update started required DCH drives but didn't put one in. The other thing that is strange is that I did not have to go and download a driver. Windows put in 441.66 w/o me asking to look for a driver. I assume it found it on the disk and used that one.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 94461 - Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 19:45:49 UTC - in response to Message 94460.  

If you do a full search for Beta / older drivers at NVidia.com, and specify Windows 10, you get a new search term box for "Windows Driver Type:", with a choice of Standard or DCH.

Driver 431.60 is available for download in DCH format.
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Profile Joseph Stateson
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Message 94463 - Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 20:11:03 UTC - in response to Message 94461.  
Last modified: 22 Dec 2019, 20:12:18 UTC

If you do a full search for Beta / older drivers at NVidia.com, and specify Windows 10, you get a new search term box for "Windows Driver Type:", with a choice of Standard or DCH.

Driver 431.60 is available for download in DCH format.


Looks like my collection of previously working drivers is not usable.

This is unreal. At the "normal" download site, https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx the only types listed are GRD and Studio. Clicking on "search" for gtx1070ti shows on 441.66 WHQL There is nothing mentioned about DCH. However, when I click on download the name is "-dch-whql.exe" so the default is dch.

I have noticed for some time that the GeForce Experience wants me to use it to "keep drivers up to date". I have been avoiding installing Experience in the past as there no games to monitor plus they want me to log in and in addition verify a captcha. The last couple of upgrades I have done the Experience checkbox was grayed out which causes it to go in.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 94467 - Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 22:12:16 UTC - in response to Message 94463.  

At the "normal" download site, https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx the only types listed are GRD and Studio.
On that page, scroll down to "Beta and Older Drivers". That's a link, although it doesn't look like it. Click through, and you have a better search tool.
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Profile Joseph Stateson
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Message 94470 - Posted: 22 Dec 2019, 23:22:38 UTC - in response to Message 94467.  
Last modified: 22 Dec 2019, 23:46:26 UTC

At the "normal" download site, https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx the only types listed are GRD and Studio.
On that page, scroll down to "Beta and Older Drivers". That's a link, although it doesn't look like it. Click through, and you have a better search tool.


Yea, I saw that, but it looks like 441.66 is working so going to stick with it. I had read your suggestion on the n00bish thread and went and found that old driver thinking that would solve the problem of the second GPU not getting work.

At some point, not sure when or why, my NVidia system ended up with "phantom" OpenCL devices. This is unique to OpenCL and I have seen this before on ATI video board. I think we discussed this some time ago. It was fixed by originally editing the clinfo xml file to remove the extra devices and then marking it read only so boinc did not try to re-create it. I have not seen this problem on ATI board ever since better drives came out for RX500 class. This is the first time since maybe a year ago.

I just checked BT's "long term history" file and the problem of 1-2 hour Einstein goes back a week. GW's take at most 30 minutes and the 1k-nvidia are normally 12-15 minutes not 2 hours. There are no hour long jobs on any of my NVidia boards. Whatever caused the problem is gone. Either the upgrade to 7.16.3 fixed it or the RevoUninstaller cleaned out an NVidia mess.

I know other project are reporting problems with the newer driver, could it be related to this? The symptom here is it simply takes way to long to complete a tasks with the GPU running at 12.5 watts and averaging %1 utilization but the result eventually validates. I think other projects are getting wrong answers which is not happening here but I will keep an eye on it.
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Profile Richie

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Message 94488 - Posted: 24 Dec 2019, 3:23:33 UTC

I think that 441.71 Vulkan driver is also working properly with Einstein. I've used it now for Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 and haven't encountered any problems. There's also DCH version of that available for 10.

https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver
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Ian&Steve C.

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Message 94511 - Posted: 24 Dec 2019, 16:24:55 UTC

Your problem is that you allowed Windows to install a driver. Windows pushes the DCH drivers and are not compatible with the Standard drivers (as you have discovered).

To "fix" this, you either stick with the DCH drivers as Richard pointed out, obtained from the Beta and older drivers Advanced Search.

or you need to totally remove the DCH driver by wiping it out with DDU from safe mode. after doing that (the program will also disable windows updating your video drivers) you will be able to install the Standard driver again.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : Unable to revert to "legacy" driver

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