Folding Forum

Any success stories folding with Windows 10? I'll be upgrading my 4GB RAM with two more GB. I assume 6 will be enough but I'm not sure about the OS. This would be my fourth try at folding. I tried with my old computer before and after a memory upgrade, and again with my current computer when I had the problems that I posted in thread 23275 (I can't post links yet, not even to this forum). I figure a new OS (Win10) and more memory may do the trick but I figured I'd ask first.

Whether you choose Windows 10 or 7 or 8 is up to you. It's unlikely that it will make any difference to FAH -- unless you run into a OS bug. FAH makes significant demands on your hardware so more RAM is probably helpful.

Personally, I wouldn't ben in a hurry to upgrade to Win-10. (I heard that MS has alresdy released the 3rd update for it, so they're working on fixing whatever was not fixed prior to release.

As a support forum, we hear mostly "I can't get it to work" rather than success stories so we've heard mostly about problems with GPUs. See viewforum.php?f=101 but remember it's likely to be biased toward the problems, although you can tell that things are improving.

I only fold GPU so I can't say anything about CPU WU's. I have a GTX 970 running latest at the time drivers (353.62) with Windows 10 RTM and it's working perfectly. I also see no noticeable difference in PPD.

As far as the 3 updates released so far for Windows 10. That has pretty much nothing to do with "bugs". There have been reliability and stability improvements included just like with Windows 7/8.1 along with security enhancements. The big difference is Microsoft is no longer having a "Patch Tuesday" with Windows 10. They will release updates as they see fit to release them. And all updates are cumulative. So a fresh install won't need 100 different updates after a year. It'll just be the one.

Happy folding!

I've also been running Windows 10 on my new system build (brand new install). I'm running a single GPU and also doing CPU units. So far everything has been pretty stable. I've turned off the automatic update for hardware drivers as outlined in this thread : viewtopic.php?f=101&t=27880. I don't know if it's actually working or not, but I haven't had any problems yet. The Nvidia control panel pops up a reminder that there are newer drivers available, but I haven't updated yet.

Bleeder wrote:snip...

The big difference is Microsoft is no longer having a "Patch Tuesday" with Windows 10. They will release updates as they see fit to release them. And all updates are cumulative. So a fresh install won't need 100 different updates after a year. It'll just be the one.

Our helpdesk actually staffs up to handle the extra calls generated by Patch Tuesday and the various softwares they break. In WinX you might get hurt by a weekend patch release where staffing tends to be lower.

And I don't really see the difference between loading 100 small individual updates next year after a fresh build, or 1 giant cumulative update containing 100 combined patches. It only really helps IMO if some of the 100 patches were superseded by a previously released patch, and so there were only 95 patches combined in to one.

And why bother with a cumulative update when all patches are mandatory anyway? Just a very odd and abrupt transition in policy. Not saying it is a bad idea, just one that doesn't seem like it would make much difference.

Nert wrote:I've turned off the automatic update for hardware drivers as outlined in this thread : viewtopic.php?f=101&t=27880.

Uh oh. I read here that "the "never install drivers" thing is only for plug and play devices and not graphics and other hardware."

There must be a work around that F@H could figure out, that could be built into the client. It's hard to believe that the folding software is so different from all other software that Microsoft didn't consider this problem. My hunch is that F@H could build around this.

Uh oh indeed. I guess there's nothing to do except hope that a driver doesn't get pushed down some time while I'm folding. Unfortunately, that scenario is guaranteed since I fold 24 x 7.

In addition to that future problem, I just tried to start the NVIDIA control panel to see if it still shows that I have a driver update available. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be working at the moment either. Oh well. Reboot time. <sigh>

Just thought I'd tack on one additional piece of info to this thread. After reboot I was able to get into the Nvidia control panel. It shows that GEFORCE Windows 10 driver 355.60 is available and that I currently have version 353.54 installed. Dunno how all this stuff works, but it kinda looks like I haven't been automatically updated. Not much I can do about it one way or another. I'll post if something blows up.

FYI

With windows 10 you can download and run Microsoft's wushowhide.cab to hide an update. You might have to uninstall the driver you don't want and install the more appropriate driver and then run wushowhide.cab and the driver you don't want should be listed for you to hide under "Hide updates". Personally, I run wushowhide.cab on a regular basis just to make sure the offensive driver is still on the "Show hidden updates" list and that no new driver is on the "Hide updates" list. I'm not sure what MS means by temporary but hopefully it means they're working on a better method.

Also, to ensure fah doesn't get shutdown because of a reboot make sure "Notify to schedule restart" is shown - see Start - Settings - Update & Security - Advanced options. There should be a drop-down box with that option. Check Update & Security near the end of the day to see any scheduled restarts and you can either stop folding while you reboot or reschedule the update to a more convenient time.
( MS likes 3:30am ) More info.

BarryII wrote:

Nert wrote:I've turned off the automatic update for hardware drivers as outlined in this thread : viewtopic.php?f=101&t=27880.

Uh oh. I read here that "the "never install drivers" thing is only for plug and play devices and not graphics and other hardware."

There must be a work around that F@H could figure out, that could be built into the client. It's hard to believe that the folding software is so different from all other software that Microsoft didn't consider this problem. My hunch is that F@H could build around this.

Video drivers are NOT plug-and-play. Microsoft did force the install an update just before Win X was released so technically it was during beta testing. Maybe Microsoft discovered and fixed the problem. (That's what Virtual-Aidz response implies.) FAH cannot do anything to detect or fix the problem if MS still forces the video drivers updates due to the non-plug-and-play nature of those drivers.

bruce wrote:FAH cannot do anything to detect or fix the problem if MS still forces the video drivers updates due to the non-plug-and-play nature of those drivers.

The problem is "a loop of failing BAD WORK UNITS with Bad platformId size...a PC restart fixed the problem" so can't F@H check for a loop of bad work units with bad platform size and pop-up a notice to reboot, and have an option to auto-reboot after such a loop of a certain duration?

I have got 4 systems now working fine on Windows 10. All were upgrades from Win 7, and all have 2 GPUs (1 AMD and 1 NVIDIA).

I did have some fun getting them to work - see viewtopic.php?f=96&t=28015 for the gory details

D

BarryII wrote:The problem is "a loop of failing BAD WORK UNITS with Bad platformId size...a PC restart fixed the problem" so can't F@H check for a loop of bad work units with bad platform size and pop-up a notice to reboot, and have an option to auto-reboot after such a loop of a certain duration?

please post the log showing a "large" number of reportedly bad WUs.

bruce wrote:please post the log showing a "large" number of reportedly bad WUs.

It wasn't me. It happened to Breach. I read about it in the thread Nert linked to

Breach wrote:...Trouble is that this apparently happened while Core 21 was processing a WU so I came to the PC to see a loop of failing BAD WORK UNITS with Bad platformId size.. From what I gather this happened because the driver was updated while the core was using it - a PC restart fixed the problem.

Anyway, Windows 10 never downloaded for me. I got a message about Intel drivers not being available, but now I just get a "please wait" message that disappears after 10 seconds. I did install 4 GB more RAM though so I may not wait for Windows 10.