Folding Forum

I've got two HD 7970 ATi cards and F@H v7.3.6
The load on these to cards is about 40-42%


I've tried disabling CPU folding, but the load on the two GPU's doesn't change.

Any help please?

Which version of the Catalyst drivers are you using? This is a known issue of less than full utilization of the GPU with later versions of the drivers and SDK. The latest version known to work well with Core 16 is 12.8. Some persons have reported success using custom installs of later drivers with the older SDK from 12.8.

PG recently released Core 17 from beta testing to Advanced status. This core does work better with newer versions of the drivers at the cost of either completely not processing Core 16 WU's or processing them at reduced utilization.

Welcome to the folding@home support forum peter24601.

A combination of the AMD drivers and core 16 does produce a lower GPU usage percentage.

There is a new core that increases the usage dramatically. In order to get these newer work units and core_17 you need to add client-type advanced to each of your GPU slots. (FAHControl>Configure>Slots and edit each GPU slot)

Also, these newer GPU work units do get the Quick Return Bonus but you need a qualified passkey in order to receive those bonus points. When you receive your email with your passkey make sure you copy/paste it under the Identity tab in FAHControl. Your 10 work unit requirement will start with the work unit you download following the entry of your passkey and full qualification shouldn't take much more than 1-2 days if both 7970s receive and successfully return core_17 work units.

Catalyst 13.1 and I think SDK 2.7
I'll give bollix47 idea a try. So add "client-type advanced" to each slot. All be back in an hour.

Thanks!

Yes, you need to edit each GPU slot and Add the following:

Name: client-type
Value: advanced

Also, I added some info regarding the need for a passkey in order to receive the QRB points ... see my previous post.

I would also update to later Catalyst drivers for your operating system. I am using 13.6 beta and they appear to be working fine with my 7970 on Windows 7 64-bit.

Even if you have the setting at advanced, that does not guarantee that you will received the preferred Core_17 WU's that work well with newer AMD drivers.

Hi, I've upgraded to Catalyst 13.6 Beta. GPU load increased to 60%+
When the finished there Core_16 WU's, they downloaded Core_17 WU's and now my GPU's are at 90-92 card 1 and 95-97 card 2.
Depends if I'm using my PC.

Again thanks a lot for your great help!

peter24601 wrote:... now my GPU's are at 90-92 card 1 and 95-97 card 2.
Depends if I'm using my PC.

You didn't mention your CPU or how busy it might be. If you're also folding with a CPU slot, you may need to reduce the number of CPUs allocated to that slot. Core_17 uses quite a bit of CPU resources to move data to/from the GPUs and if that ends up interrupting a SMP analysis, you can increase the speed of that WU by REDUCING the number of CPUs allocated to it to the number that are normally unused. [If you're not running a CPU slot, you can ignore this idea for now.]

Wanted to thank the previous posters on this thread. You all provided the final piece of information I needed to get my GPUs working. Been folding for years but I just started on this new PC. Already pushing +190k/PPD Thank you again

I have HD7950 graphics card jumps 60-100% load, I updated the driver from 13.4 to 13.12. When I installed the driver 13.12 increased load on the CPU cycles flows Folding 50-80%. Driver-13.4, Processor load was was 2-5%.
Folding@Home 7.3.6
Please help

Welcome to the F@H Forum Kai,

Regarding the CPU load, please note that it has been reported that using the latest WHQL Drivers from AMD increases the amount of CPU Usage (viewtopic.php?f=81&t=25440) when compared to previous drivers.

Not sure why there is so much variation in your GPU load. Are you using the latest FahCore_17 version which is 0.0.52? Another reason is that your CPU is being over-subscribed so a simple test would be to pause all GPU Slots except one and monitor the GPU load. If the GPU load is above 95% for most of the time (it will occasionally fall to 0% when it is preforming checkpoints and other calcuations), start another GPU Slot and monitor it. Continue the same on the third GPU too.

Alternatively, it could be that the PCI-E bandwidth is being saturated with 3 GPUs. What are the operating speeds of the PCI-E Slots on the motherboard? If you are unsure, please post the motherboard details so additional information about the motherboard can be searched.

Yes, start by upgrading to v14.x cat drivers.