On further assessment I think my problems may be showing a partial fry of my XFX 9800GT card :( . Like one or more of its cores blew up... It quit running any tasks successfully and I am seeing a sort of pixellation problem on other graphics now. Any recommended diagnostics to test the card? SETI@Home CUDA may have been more than it could handle.

Graphics cards produce so much more heat than CPU that I wonder if they give better performance per watt than CPUs, or it's all just marketing...

(if they're 10x faster and use 11x the electricity and heat 11x more, what's the point?)

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Did you overclock the GPU?
Which drivers was this with?
On what operating system?
Is the card passively or actively cooled? (heat sink only or does it have a fan?)

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The exact card is the XFX GeForce 9800 GT. The GPU is not overclocked. The 9800 GT's driver is: 6.14.11.7824 dated 10/7/08. I'm running MS XP Pro SP3 32-bit. The graphics card is actively cooled. Yesterday and today the card seems to be running CUDA tasks OK but yesterday it was not kicking in on some tasks; e.g. no processing complete shown and clock counting up instead of down. I aborted those tasks manually.

Hello

I'm having a similar problem. Lost of pixels appearing on screen. I have a nvidia 8600 gt latest drivers (178.24). XP sp3, intel dual core 2,4 GHz, 2 gb ram.
You can see a sample here, after a little shake of the window:
http://oblah.mine.nu/images/pixeis.jpg

Thanks,
Sérgio

Does it go away when you reboot the system?

I forwarded that picture link to the developers, so please keep it online for now.

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After a reboot it seems to go away. It only uses the gpu processor? The main processor is idle(?).

Hello,
I have similar experiences with Boinc 6.4.5, NVidia 8800GT/driver 180.48 and Vista/32 - not that worse, but similar pixelation everywhere.
It is always the result of a Seti calculation error - a reboot returns the system back to normal. Logoff/logon does not help.

The calculation error is often provoked by a return from hibernate status.
The computer does not recognize, that the CPU is idle, but the GPU is busy and decides to hibernate.

So far no other problems with the HW at my system.

Regards, Edgar

Any recommended diagnostics to test the card? SETI@Home CUDA may have been more than it could handle.

Tools to monitor your card search for "NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support" keep a watch at your temp.

Graphics cards produce so much more heat than CPU that I wonder if they give better performance per watt than CPUs, or it's all just marketing...

(if they're 10x faster and use 11x the electricity and heat 11x more, what's the point?)

I was wondering that myself. Looking at my system A E6850 will consume 130W (full), a Geforce 8800GTX 300W (full). And the 8800GTX is at least as fast as both cores (20% faster). But if it's already there it (8800GTX) consumes 160W anyway doing nothing. So for 150W extra you get 2x the computing power. It will not be entirely correct because there are a lot of other things using power on your computer (memory, etc). So it's not a green solution it takes more energy. But I doubt it will be more than 2 computer systems. And it is tempting to get a computer twice as fast (Seti when it works properly without the bugs). And I'm not sure they use the full power of the GTX.

Hello

Going back to 6.2.19 :(

Besides the pixelization problem, CUDA is taking all my GPU power. Sluggish desktop graphics, mouse lag, etc.

Is there a way to disable CUDA?

Thanks,
Sérgio

Is there a way to disable CUDA?

In Seti? Yes.

In Your Account, go to Seti@Home Preferences, edit them.
Now scroll all the way down and set the check mark on "Use Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) if available".
Update preferences with the button at the bottom of the page.

The next time BOINC contacts Seti it'll get these preferences in immediately and no longer send you CUDA tasks.

You do not need to go back to 6.2.19 for that.

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How do I disable CUDA on a per computer basis?

Use the venues (default, home, work, school etc.) or get BOINC 6.5.0 (or later) and use the option in cc_config.xml .. See this FAQ.

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Is there a way to disable CUDA?

In Seti? Yes.

In Your Account, go to Seti@Home Preferences, edit them.
Now scroll all the way down and set the check mark on "Use Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) if available".
Update preferences with the button at the bottom of the page.

The next time BOINC contacts Seti it'll get these preferences in immediately and no longer send you CUDA tasks.

You do not need to go back to 6.2.19 for that.

Thanks. Sorry for the late acknowledgment.
Working fine now.

Bye,
Sérgio

Use the venues (default, home, work, school etc.) or get BOINC 6.5.0 (or later) and use the option in cc_config.xml .. See this FAQ.

Just wondering if this is a typo in the FAQ?

<np_gpus>1</no_gpus>

I'm guessing the first 'np_gpus' should actually be 'no_gpus' like the second one? (I'm not using 6.5, nor do I have a GPU yet, so I can't test it.)

Thanks and regards
Rod

Yes, thanks for proof reading for me. Changed now. :-)

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