Trouble setting up GPU folding

[apvanzanten]

Hello everyone,

I recently started folding as I have free electricity (well, flat rate) and a room that is a few degrees colder than I'd like (and I am barely using most of my hardware most of the time). Everything seems to work like a charm on my CPU, but the GPU is less cooperative, which makes me sad because it can generate easily 3 times the heat my CPU can. I am guessing I am missing some driver or configuration. I realize this post is maybe more suitable for one of the tech support subforums, but I wasn't quite sure which one to choose, and this seemed like the least wrong place to start.

Hardware setup:
Motherboard: ASRock Z75 Pro 3
CPU: Intel i5-3450 (quad-core @ 3.10 GHz)
RAM: 8GB dual-channel (2x4GB) at 1333MHz
GPU: AMD R9 290 Hawaii (Sapphire Tri-X)

• VRAM: 4GB of GDDR5
• System clock: between 0.3 GHz and 1 GHz (depending on load, it seems)
• Memory clock: 1.3 GHz (I guess quad channel, so 5.2GHz?)

Software setup:
OS: Arch Linux, kernel 4.13.11-1-ARCH (kept fully up-to-date through pacman)
GPU Driver: ATI[1], mesa 17.2.5-1
OpenCL: opencl-mesa-17.2.5-1 (tested with opencl-testuite[2] and bfgminer[3])
FAHClient version: 7.4.4 (from AUR[4])

links (forum won't let me post these outside of code tags):

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[1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI
[2]: https://github.com/elhigu/opencl-testsuite
[3]: http://bfgminer.org
[4]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/fahclient/

The problem:
The client seems fine with automatically detecting my GPU but then invariable returns with BAD_WORK_UNIT after downloading the unit and starting the core. Excerpts from log.txt:

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09:40:21:************************* Folding@home Client *************************
09:40:21:    Website: http://folding.stanford.edu/
09:40:21:  Copyright: (c) 2009-2014 Stanford University
09:40:21:     Author: Joseph Coffland <joseph@cauldrondevelopment.com>
09:40:21:       Args: --config /opt/fah/config.xml --exec-directory=/opt/fah
09:40:21:             --data-directory=/opt/fah
09:40:21:     Config: /opt/fah/config.xml
09:40:21:******************************** Build ********************************
09:40:21:    Version: 7.4.4
09:40:21:       Date: Mar 4 2014
09:40:21:       Time: 12:02:38
09:40:21:    SVN Rev: 4130
09:40:21:     Branch: fah/trunk/client
09:40:21:   Compiler: GNU 4.4.7
09:40:21:    Options: -std=gnu++98 -O3 -funroll-loops -mfpmath=sse -ffast-math
09:40:21:             -fno-unsafe-math-optimizations -msse2
09:40:21:   Platform: linux2 3.2.0-1-amd64
09:40:21:       Bits: 64
09:40:21:       Mode: Release
09:40:21:******************************* System ********************************
09:40:21:        CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3450 CPU @ 3.10GHz
09:40:21:     CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
09:40:21:       CPUs: 4
09:40:21:     Memory: 7.76GiB
09:40:21:Free Memory: 6.34GiB
09:40:21:    Threads: POSIX_THREADS
09:40:21: OS Version: 4.13
09:40:21:Has Battery: false
09:40:21: On Battery: false
09:40:21: UTC Offset: 1
09:40:21:        PID: 1042
09:40:21:        CWD: /opt/fah
09:40:21:         OS: Linux 4.13.11-1-ARCH x86_64
09:40:21:    OS Arch: AMD64
09:40:21:       GPUs: 1
09:40:21:      GPU 0: ATI:5 Hawaii [Radeon R9 200/300 Series]
09:40:21:       CUDA: Not detected
09:40:21:***********************************************************************

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13:55:23:WU02:FS01:Assigned to work server 171.67.108.157
13:55:23:WU02:FS01:Requesting new work unit for slot 01: READY gpu:0:Hawaii [Radeon R9 200/300 Series] from 171.67.108.157
13:55:23:WU02:FS01:Connecting to 171.67.108.157:8080
13:55:24:WU02:FS01:Downloading 5.14MiB
13:55:30:WU02:FS01:Download 85.11%
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Download complete
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Received Unit: id:02 state:DOWNLOAD error:NO_ERROR project:9415 run:2417 clone:1 gen:187 core:0x21 unit:0x000000daab436c9d585e06df8f4278db
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Starting
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Running FahCore: /opt/fah/FAHCoreWrapper /opt/fah/cores/fahwebx.stanford.edu/cores/Linux/AMD64/ATI/R600/Core_21.fah/FahCore_21 -dir 02 -suffix 01 -version 704 -lifeline 1042 -checkpoint 15 -gpu 0 -gpu-vendor ati
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Started FahCore on PID 14985
13:55:31:Started thread 60 on PID 1042
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Core PID:14989
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:FahCore 0x21 started
13:55:31:WARNING:WU02:FS01:FahCore returned: BAD_WORK_UNIT (114 = 0x72)
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Sending unit results: id:02 state:SEND error:FAULTY project:9415 run:2417 clone:1 gen:187 core:0x21 unit:0x000000daab436c9d585e06df8f4278db
13:55:31:WU02:FS01:Uploading 6.00KiB to 171.67.108.157

I briefly considered that I perhaps need the more modern AMDGPU driver (there is 'experimental' support for my card), but my gut says OpenCL should really abstract that away enough not to matter. Maybe I'm wrong. Anybody have ideas?

Cheers,
Arjen

[toTOW]

As a general rule, MESA (open source) drivers never work with FAH.

You need to install the proprietary drivers from the AMD site.

[apvanzanten]

Ah. I see. I'll look into that. Thanks!

[apvanzanten]

Seems the proprietary drivers are no longer supported on xorg so would require using an older version of xorg. I am not prepared to do that. Does this mean FAH with an AMD card of this vintage on an up-to-date linux system (at least, one using xorg) is a no-go?

[Joe_H]

As I understand it, yes as long as the current versions of xorg are tied to the mesa drivers folding on a GPU is not going to work in that environment. If the mesa implementation of OpenCL improves to the point that folding will work, then that would change.

[apvanzanten]

Ok. That makes some sense. I suppose I'll keep a lookout on OpenCL-updates in this area. Thanks for the help.

[bollix47]

There is a repository that supplies both AMD video drivers and opencl that you might want to try:
https://launchpad.net/~oibaf/+archive/u ... cs-drivers

Disclaimer: I have not tried it so no promises!