Folding Forum

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:52 am**

Is there a sticky in one of these forums that identifies the latest nvidia driver that everyone is happy with (or at least is proving to be folding-friendly)?

i see the info now and again while browsing, but can't seem to find it when I need it.

thanks.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:26 am**

There is no universal answer, but judging from the bulk of the messages on the NVidia GeForce Forums, the best one to try first is 306.97.

A very small number of people have reported that they have a problem with 306.97, and they have success with 310.70. A much larger number (on the NVidia Forums) report that 310.70 does not work for them, and that 306.97 works OK. Other people report that both 306.97 and 310.70 work OK for them.

All 3 of my computers here work with 306.97. Two of them work just as well (no better) when using 310.70. So I would suggest that you try 306.97 first, and if that does not work for you, then try 310.70. There is no advantage in FAH performance that I have seen, both 306.97 and 310.70 have identical FAH performance.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 1:04 pm**

gtx680 and GT430 work fine on the 310.70-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-english-whql. These are the latest ones.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:27 pm**

I'm running 310.70 with a GTX 680 and 460 (in two different PCs, one Win8, one 7). Everything seems to be working fine here.

Posted: **Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:05 pm**

I'm running 306.97 on my Win 7 Home Premium 64 desktop with two cards - GTX560Ti and GTX660Ti with no problems. Actually, I haven't run them both at the same time yet - I bought the 660Ti when the 560Ti had fan problems and needed an RMA return. I've got a replacement 560Ti back from MSI now and will add it in shortly. But the 560Ti was running fine on 306.97 for weeks before I swapped in the 660Ti.

My other systems with GPUs have older drivers (Win XP running 301.42 on a GT430 (PCI non-express), and Win 7 Home Premium running 285.30 on a mobile GTX560M). As has been mentioned by many others, I don't usually update my drivers unless there is a reason to do so.

Posted: **Tue Jan 08, 2013 10:38 am**

Please also read this:
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=23253&p=233217#p233211

The fix that does work for most of these users, is to go back to an earlier driver version (306.97 or earlier).

Just do a Google search for "NVidia driver 310.70 problem" and see what you come up with.

What's really scary, is that NVidia has now created drivers that work perfectly on some computers (including 310.70 on two of my own Windows machines), but that cause weird effects, freezes, crashes, BSODs, or worse for other people. And it is completely unpredictable beforehand which way it will go if someone upgrades. It could work perfectly, or it could require you to go back to the older driver, or it could make your computer unusable (requiring a reformat and reinstallation of Windows).

Again, saying "it works for me" is not meaningful. It works for a lot of people. And it does not work for a lot of other people. And NVidia does not seem to have a clue as to what is going wrong.

Posted: **Sat Jan 12, 2013 8:04 pm**

Running nVidia GeForce driver 310.90 here for a few days now. For some reason, my 2x 480 GTX GPUs are running almost 10C cooler, there's hardly any screen stuttering or freezing when moving, resizing or minimizing or maximizing windows, normally this would be so bad as to make the system unusable, with all previous drivers. I can play videos or games with mild to moderate stuttering. It's fine for wandering around in a game, but not for any combat or time sensitive content, then I must pause the GPUs. This is a MASSIVE improvement over all the previous drivers, for me.

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:57 am**

Running the 310.90 driver here, no problems!

:0)

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:30 am**

warp-9.9 wrote:Running nVidia GeForce driver 310.90 here for a few days now. For some reason, my 2x 480 GTX GPUs are running almost 10C cooler, there's hardly any screen stuttering or freezing when moving, resizing or minimizing or maximizing windows, normally this would be so bad as to make the system unusable, with all previous drivers. I can play videos or games with mild to moderate stuttering. It's fine for wandering around in a game, but not for any combat or time sensitive content, then I must pause the GPUs. This is a MASSIVE improvement over all the previous drivers, for me.

That sounds like really good news. Was the 10C cooler change accompanied by a change in TPF for WUs of the same project?

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:51 am**

warp-9.9 wrote:Running nVidia GeForce driver 310.90 here for a few days now. For some reason, my 2x 480 GTX GPUs are running almost 10C cooler, there's hardly any screen stuttering or freezing when moving, resizing or minimizing or maximizing windows, normally this would be so bad as to make the system unusable, with all previous drivers. I can play videos or games with mild to moderate stuttering. It's fine for wandering around in a game, but not for any combat or time sensitive content, then I must pause the GPUs. This is a MASSIVE improvement over all the previous drivers, for me.

I too seem to be running a bit cooler but only 7C but cooler is better none the less.... As far as points go bruce "for me" I don't care but also I have not ran just the gpu it's been with either the uniprocessor or smp running with the gpu so sadly I could not answer that part for ya and not going to change back just to check it either

As far as which driver everyone is happy with the simple answer is the 1 that works with out problems for me it's the 310.90 but for others it's the 306.xx and afew others is before the 306 but don't remember off the top of my head

Also a side note with what I think is going on with some drivers working and some not... As far as I can tell there is no such thing as a Nvidia card... It's msi or gigabyte or something else.. Yes the card might be the 650Ti but with different makers using different parts or having different speeds... Something is different because the new 310.90 driver works for me and does not for others... It could also however be overclocking alone or with the different makers/parts or speeds. Since no one seems to really know why this works for some while it makes more problems for others this is what I have come up with...

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 3:04 pm**

warp-9.9 wrote:Running nVidia GeForce driver 310.90 here for a few days now. For some reason, my 2x 480 GTX GPUs are running almost 10C cooler, there's hardly any screen stuttering or freezing when moving, resizing or minimizing or maximizing windows, normally this would be so bad as to make the system unusable, with all previous drivers.

It is probably due to the change in the work units, from the P76xx to the P807x. That has resulted in a 5C drop for both my GTX 660s and GTX 560 Ti. I doubt that the drivers had anything to do with it.

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:22 pm**

JimF wrote:
warp-9.9 wrote:Running nVidia GeForce driver 310.90 here for a few days now. For some reason, my 2x 480 GTX GPUs are running almost 10C cooler, there's hardly any screen stuttering or freezing when moving, resizing or minimizing or maximizing windows, normally this would be so bad as to make the system unusable, with all previous drivers.
It is probably due to the change in the work units, from the P76xx to the P807x. That has resulted in a 5C drop for both my GTX 660s and GTX 560 Ti. I doubt that the drivers had anything to do with it.

for me....

Code: Select all

13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Folding@Home GPU Core
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Version                2.25 (Wed May 9 17:03:01 EDT 2012)
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Build host             AmoebaRemote
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Board Type             NVIDIA/CUDA
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Core                   15
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Window's signal control handler registered.
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Preparing to commence simulation
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:- Looking at optimizations...
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:DeleteFrameFiles: successfully deleted file=00/wudata_01.ckp
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:- Created dyn
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:- Files status OK
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:sizeof(CORE_PACKET_HDR) = 512 file=<>
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:- Expanded 126176 -> 507182 (decompressed 401.9 percent)
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Called DecompressByteArray: compressed_data_size=126176 data_size=507182, decompressed_data_size=507182 diff=0
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:- Digital signature verified
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Project: 7626 (Run 206, Clone 2, Gen 9)
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Assembly optimizations on if available.
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:0x15:Entering M.D.
13:58:25:WU00:FS00:Project 7626 description downloaded successfully
13:58:26:WU00:FS00:0x15:Tpr hash 00/wudata_01.tpr:  477457356 3771304968 565208885 3312146314 1439590153
13:58:26:WU00:FS00:0x15:GPU device id=0
13:58:26:WU00:FS00:0x15:Working on Protein
13:58:26:WU00:FS00:0x15:Client config unavailable.
13:58:27:WU00:FS00:0x15:Starting GUI Server
13:59:35:WU00:FS00:0x15:Setting checkpoint frequency: 400000

have not had any other unit number as of yet

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 10:23 pm**

What PPD are you getting with the new drivers? The 38 C GPU temperature looks very low. Is that a steady-state value?

Posted: **Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:21 pm**

JimF wrote:What PPD are you getting with the new drivers? The 38 C GPU temperature looks very low. Is that a steady-state value?

I don't notice PPD's because I don't care about points but if I had to guess they are about the same but I have only had one work unit number and it only show base Credit as stated before I have not only ran the GPU and don't want to stop the other cores "processor" from working. Yes it's stable been working about a week here is when I started it viewtopic.php?f=80&t=23253&start=15#p233188 about a week now running the unit number 7626 with different projects numbers like 0, 15,11 and 0,111,10 and so on and it's stock GPU settings NO overclocking on GPU only CPU

Posted: **Thu Jan 24, 2013 1:11 pm**

There continue to be many reports at the NVidia GeForce Forums, from users who have problems with the 310.70 and 310.90 drivers. Five of the top 7 "Popular Topics" there are about problems with the 310.xx drivers, especially the 310.90 driver.

Many of these users are able to restore normal operation of their system by going back to version 306.97. A typical comment, one of many similar comments in the 39 pages of the Official NVIDIA R310.70 WHQL Candidate Display Driver Feedback Thread, is this:

GigglesSupreme wrote:Upgraded from 306.97 and made my system unstable. BSOD 30-60 seconds after boot into Windows. Tried both 310.70 and 310.90 both are the same. Had to go back to 306.97, now all is peachy.

and this:

Lockjaw333 wrote:Same issues with 310.70 as I've had with each 310.xx driver.
Once agained rolled back to 306.97. I moved from an AMD 6950 that gave me zero problems driver wise to a GTX 670 expecting to take advantage of the "superior nvidia drivers". At first with 306.97 it was great, but every release since has been bad. I don't understand what's going on with this, but I've NEVER had issues like this with AMD. If it doesn't get straightened out, I might be switching back next year.

So I would suggest that the answer to the initial question about the "latest working nvidia driver", is that you should use version 306.97. A newer version may work for you, or it may not. It's just the luck of the draw.

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