GPU won't start folding

[Bullifreund]

Hello there...
There's a problem with starting my GPU folding, that I've had years and years before with different configurations using AMD-GPUs. Somehow I always managed to get the GPU running but now I don't remember how. Maybe you can help.
I currently have a Biostar board with a A10-7850 APU - e.g. CPU and R7-GPU in one chip - that performs pretty bad compared to other systems (~6000 pts/day compared to 60.000 pts/day with an old core2quad 9300 + GTX660). So I added a Radeon HD 5850 GPU as I know this performs quite good - if it's running.
Now one core of the APU is cut off (that's normal as far as I know) but the Radeon won't start folding. It alwas gets stuck on "ready" and "downloading" but remains at 0%. I reinstalled the whole fah-package, tried different drivers from AMD but the result is always the same: "downloading 0%".
What's wrong, what can I do?
Hope you can help...
Reinhard

[ProDigit]

hope you're not running on a mac.
An old core 2 duo would only get 2k PPD, so I would think an old c2q would get not more than 6kPPD, not 60k.
The majority of your points there would probably be the DGPU.

Personally I'd go to slots, remove them all, and insert 2 new ones.
GPU -1 on both of them.
I wouldn't try CPU folding when having 2 GPUs to feed with only 2 cores. Those APIs aren't very powerful.
Or, if you do, make sure your CPU slots are set to 2 (if you have 4 cores).
I've read posts about how bulldozer architecture never uses real cores. They only have half the amount of real cores. the other cores can be compared to hyperthreading cores, as they are sharing resources with the other cores.
So if your APU has 4 cores, it's probably only good for CPU folding on 1 core (the other 2 are probably filled feeding the GPUS).

Also, make sure the slider is set to full.
If the slider is set to light, FAH will wait until your system is idle before folding.

[JimboPalmer]

The Radeon HD 5850 GPU, introduced Sept 2009, uses the TeraScale 2 instruction set. No more Work Units seem to be available for TeraScale 2 or 3; only the Graphics Core Next instruction set is getting work on AMD GPUs.

I do not believe there has been an official announcement that Terascale is EOL, but it has been some time since WUs for it were available.

[Joe_H]

The actual issue is that most of the Terascale GPU's do not support double precision calculations. So while the current GPU core does run, but poorly compared to on GCN based cards, they are getting excluded because all of the recent GPU projects have required mixed precision calculations.

The few Terascale 2 or 3 cards that could fold because they support DP are being excluded because they are in the same group as many that can not fold. It will take a revamp of the GPUs.txt classifications before they could get work. That is being worked on, but the priority has been identifying the GCN cards that do not support double precision, and the Terascale cards that have been grouped with GCN because they were part of the HD 7000 and later series as low end cards.

As for folding on the IGP that is part of an APU from AMD, that rarely works well as it is sharing cooling with the CPU. One or the other or both get throttled to stay within the TDP for the APU. Often just doing CPU folding will get the same or better PPD.

[Bullifreund]

hope you're not running on a mac.
An old core 2 duo would only get 2k PPD, so I would think an old c2q would get not more than 6kPPD, not 60k.

You're right. 60k is including a NVidia GTX660. This combination works pretty fine so far.
Reinhard

[Bullifreund]

The Radeon HD 5850 GPU, introduced Sept 2009, uses the TeraScale 2 instruction set. No more Work Units seem to be available for TeraScale 2 or 3; only the Graphics Core Next instruction set is getting work on AMD GPUs.

I do not believe there has been an official announcement that Terascale is EOL, but it has been some time since WUs for it were available.

Well - this sounds feasible and fits to some notes I read in the log.
So I think I will remove the GPU from the system and go on without.
BTW: the APU alone (with advertised 12 cores - 4 CPU + 8 GPU) gets about 6k ppd.

Thanks for help to understandig the reason why it is not working as expected.
Reinhard