GPU useage

[jlhawn]

I have 2 GTX 580's in sli and when i open the msi monitor tool it shows that folding is using both gpu's
for a few minutes then it only use's the top gpu on the mother board and then it will only use the
bottom gpu on the mother board then it will use both of them again.
is this normal?
thank you

[bruce]

Welcome to foldingforum.org, jlhawn.

Please post the top page of your log (start with the "Refresh button" or the bootom section of the information on the "System info" tab.

Also, on the Status tab, what does it say under the Folding Slots heading?

FAH does not use sli and I'm not exactly sure what the drivers will do with data that could be folded on either GPU when they're in sli mode.

[jlhawn]

the folding slots heading shows both gpu's and something that say's smp 12 and shows all 3 items are running.
it is now using both gpu's at 99%
i read that in sli it will only run 1 work unit at a time but there is a registry hack you can change and some file in the foh folder
to get a different work unit to run on each gpu, but i think i will leave that alone.
can't seem to figure out how to post my system specs from the folding log
so i put it in my profile

[Jesse_V]

I don't have any experience with SLI, but if you have three slots running then you are working on three distinct WUs. One of them is running on your 12-core CPU. For the others, I don't know whether each WU is being processed by each card, or there are somehow being shared between the two, but I'd suspect the former. I don't know why you'd need a registry hack though, I'd personally only mess with that sort of thing as a last resort.

You should be able to copy/paste the system information from the log file into your reply. We usually like to use Code tags (available if you click the Full Editor button) for posting the log, because it creates a nice neat subwindow thing so that your reply isn't miles long on our screen.

[jlhawn]

thanks for the info.
I don't know about the hack either thats why i normally
don't try things like that.
as for running 3 WUs at a time thats good correct? more
i can run the better?
I also just noticed below the folding slots window there
is a Work Queue window that shows the progress of all 3 folding slots
with 00 @ 72.79% 01 @ 66.95% and 02 @ 45.05% and going up of course

[Jesse_V]

thanks for the info.
I don't know about the hack either thats why i normally
don't try things like that.
as for running 3 WUs at a time thats good correct? more
i can run the better?

In general yes. It's also important to return them quickly as well. Folding@home is simulating protein folding, and while that process can apparently be cleverly subdivided into smaller simulations, those are unfortunately still serial and that's just the way things are. It's a simulation which takes place over time, so it does make sense. Thus, you can't normally start the next part of that smaller simulation until the previous simulation is completed. See this post by Bruce: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=21469#p214731