PCI-e bandwidth/capacity limitations

[NGBRO]

Have you watched it run with Windows/Task Manager/Performance to see if Q9400 is maxing out

Yeah, only used 20-30% CPU while chugging with only the GPU.

[Aurum]

I recently got a GTX 1060 Mini 3GB to try folding full-time. I installed in a slapped-together system with a Q9400 and I see that the GPU is running at PCIe 1.1 x16, which seems to be the max supported by the mobo and CPU.

Here's your MB: https://support.hp.com/nz-en/document/c01357119

[Aurum]

There's some pretty WUs running now, maybe you caught one of those.
x16 1.0 ~ x8 2.0 ~ x4 3.0 so you may be taking a bite out of your 1060 PPD.
I've got a rig with four 1060 6GB cards at x16 2.0, x8 2.0, x8 2.0 & x1 2.0.
PPD ranges: 348477, 331888, 266147 and 206888.

Update after all four cards have moved on to new WUs:
380905, 358867, 265628 and 101697

NGBRO, Your x16 1.1 has 8 times the throughput of my x1 2.0 so I think it should do just fine with a 1060. Give it time to work on several WUs.

BTW, Look at Processes in the Task Manager and see if something is hogging memory. E.g., FAHControl has a memory leak and if you leave it open it will grow to over a GB before you know it. I never leave mine open any more.

[NGBRO]

Here's your MB

I know, just that they didn't state the PCIe gen on there. I got my PCIe 1.1 x16 info as GPU-Z.

NGBRO, Your x16 1.1 has 8 times the throughput of my x1 2.0 so I think it should do just fine with a 1060. Give it time to work on several WUs.

BTW, Look at Processes in the Task Manager and see if something is hogging memory. E.g., FAHControl has a memory leak and if you leave it open it will grow to over a GB before you know it. I never leave mine open any more.

Mine is the 3GB variant with less CUDA cores. What is the expected and avg ballpark of PPD for that instead? Btw I didn't run out of RAM when I checked occasionally. How would it affect anyway?

EDIT: Moved the system to an open place and removed the side panel. Now it'd max out ~75degC and stayed at 1835Mhz, TDP is 80-98%. PPD so far is ~285K. CPU usage for fahcore is 25% (which is technically 1/4 of my cores) and RAM maxes at ~450MB for fahcore.

[bruce]

I just ordered these 1x risers hoping they'll fit in the 1x slot tucked under an EVGA card plugged into a 16x slot.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B017Q ... UTF8&psc=1

Does anybody know if this adapter (or something like it) will fit UNDER the HS/Fan on a GPU that's two slots wide?

[foldy]

@NGBRO: For 1060 3GB 338k PPD compared to 1060 6GB 375k PPD. When I substract 15% because of slower pcie slot then this is 287k PPD and matches your GPU speed when not thermal throttling anymore. Your CPU and RAM looks good.

@Aurum: Do you know why your 2nd and 3rd slot give such performance difference although look equal?
x16 2.0, x8 2.0, x8 2.0 & x1 2.0
380905, 358867, 265628 and 101697

[Aurum]

Since all four cards are the same I have no way of telling which is which with F@H. I can tell with GPU-Z or if I have 4 different kinds of cards. I just sorted from highest to lowest. From GPU-Z I can tell you that the 1060-3GB card is in the x16 2.0 slot and the other 3 cards are 1060-6GB.

[foldy]

@Aurum
Do all GPUs run with same clock speed? I calculated 2nd GPU is 25% faster than 3rd GPU although both are 1060-6GB and use pcie 2.0 x8. That would match if 2nd GPU runs at 2000 Mhz while 3rd GPU runs at 1600 Mhz.

As the 1060-6GB has 10% more shaders than 1060-3GB I would recommend to put that in the x16 2.0 slot to minimize pcie bandwidth losses if any.

[bruce]

On GPU-Z the "bus interface" will say something like this: PCIe x16 2.0 @ x4 2.0.

List all of them.

[NGBRO]

I hit the absolute ceiling for my GTX1060 3GB (if it's below 65degC and hits 1900Mhz) at about 285k PPD. I think that's as high as it'd go on my "ancient" motherboard with PCIe 1.1 x16. If I can recoup the power cost and even make a profit from merged folding, I think it'd be a good bet to cash in on a cheap LGA1150 Pentium setup with PCIe 3.0.

Meanwhile, running with case side open and in open space, 100% fan, it tops out 76degC and 1823Mhz, 275k+ PPD? It's hard to get better ventilation than this as my case is a cheapo one with no provisions for mounting fans.

[foldy]

Looks good. You could put a case fan next to the GPU using cable ties. Or you can make some holes in the case using a drill machine - now you can mount fans.

[boristsybin]

Any experience to get more than 250k ppd from pci-e x1 2.0 on Linux? Looking for best card for thin pci-e bus.

[ComputerGenie]

Looks good. You could put a case fan next to the GPU using cable ties. Or you can make some holes in the case using a drill machine - now you can mount fans.

I've actually done that
When I first put my 1 rig in my "miner room", the rack position wasn't ideal for a PC. So I took a spare fan for my S9s, plugged in as the CPU opt fan, and ran a zip-tie through the top 2 holes in the fan and each of the cards. Looked and sounded like crap, but 5,600 RPMs of a 12cm fan will keep em cool.

[Aurum]

Today ryoungblood over took Ed in daily PPD Congrats, you beat me too it
Do tell, what's the config of your latest folding rigs
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/ ... 1&t=224497

FYI, those unshielded risers have a chance to drop your PPD. There is an ongoing discussion of this in the Overclockers.com Folding Forum. The EZDIY risers from Amazon are great.

I've heard this but I've also heard not to use magnetic tools on PCs, yeah back when they had 5" floppy drives, not today. What's the physics of this interference??? Aren't the PCIe signals digital? Are some lines analog AC??? Is it parasitic capacitance??? Besides if you shield the ribbon cable outside how does that reduce interference line-to-line. If strong fields are coming from somewhere else then one should be able to insert a Gauss meter and detect them.
Risers have been so poorly made they're just trash. I just got some Gigabyte Aorus 1080 Ti's and those monsters are fat!!! I'm going to have put them up on risers so it's time I break down and buy EZDIY unpowered risers.

[ComputerGenie]

It's really hard to get an accurate comparison of shielded vs non-shielded because of quality differences. That being said, I ditched all of my old, cheap non-shielded risers and replaces them with the "Thermaltake TT Gaming PCI-E x16 3.0" (looks about the same as the EZDIY version, but a tad shorter) and it made a big difference. The most notable difference was during boot up, the z170 boards do NOT want to boot in any timely fashion with more than one 1080 on the non-shielded risers (even powered versions), but with the Thermaltakes there was no noticeable difference vs cards directly in slots. As far as PPD difference goes, there is no discernible difference between the Thermaltakes and direct slotted (where as it was kind of "hit and miss" as to if the non-shielded would work correctly). I wish I had a comparable set of shielded vs non-shielded to test the difference that was in the shielding alone, but I'm totally pleased with the more expensive, higher quality version.