Folding Forum

Hello,
I am starting a new topic as I have searched here, without finding anything that looks similar to my problem.

I have recently set up my computer to fold, and it usually it works quite well.

How ever I sometime come back to my computer and I find it completely blocked, frozen, deader than a dodo, more dead than an ex-parrot, and I have to switch it off by brute force.

This happened only after I installed F@H.

How can I start to investigate the causes of this problem, to solve it?

Here is my system info:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770K CPU @ 3.50GHz
CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 60 Stepping 3
CPUs: 8
Memory: 15.94GiB
Free Memory: 13.26GiB
Threads: WINDOWS_THREADS
OS Version: 6.2
Has Battery: false
On Battery: false
UTC Offset: 2
PID: 14300
CWD: C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\FAHClient
OS: Windows 10 Enterprise
OS Arch: AMD64
GPUs: 1
GPU 0: Bus:1 Slot:0 Func:0 NVIDIA:2 GF119 [GeForce GT 610]
CUDA Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:2.1 Driver:9.1
OpenCL Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:1.1 Driver:391.35
Win32 Service: false

I would install some software that monitors temperatures. many will work, but I use Speccy and GPU-Z, both of which do so.

https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

i would consider removing the slot for the GPU, a GT 610, it may be generating a lot of heat for not much result.

Open up the case and clean it out.

CPU WUs on FAH use AVX extensions. That puts a lot more stress on your CPU resulting in a lot more heat. Most stress tests and benchmarks don't even come close to that. The GPU WUs also create more heat than most benchmarks or stress tests.
100 % load of a game, other program or benchmark / stress test don't come close to 100% load FAH.
If there are weak spots in the cooling system, FAH will find them first.
As mentioned before, get some monitoring software, like GPU-Z to monitor the GPU sensors and something like Hardware monitor, Intel Power Gadget or similar to monitor your CPU.

Oh, well, that will have to wait until the end of the lockdown...

smiley1081 wrote:Oh, well, that will have to wait until the end of the lockdown...

I can download software during lockdown. Cleaning the dust out of the ventilation passages takes time and patience, but lockdown should actually help.

Not if I must also keep the computer available for work...

Sorry, my problems...

smiley1081 wrote:Not if I must also keep the computer available for work... ...

Welcome to the F@H Forum smiley1081,

You can always say that your companies' internal IT team has scheduled maintenance on your system so you can't do work on it as the system is off-line for a few hours

I think you better upgrade your GPU.

The GT 610 model number was given to 3 or 4 distinct devices. I do NOT know how to tell them apart but at least one of them is incompatible with FAH and I think that includes your device. Notice that your OpenCL support is 1.1 and I'd really like to see OpenCL 1.2 there. (It's already probably the slowest GPU that we currently support.)

If you happen to have a motherboard with more than one PCIe slot, you might keep the GT 610 to run your monitor while adding a new GPU for FAH, but please stop folding on the GT 610. (That may also solve your DOA problem)

Oh, thanks.

Is there a list of inexpensive GPUs to choose frome?

smiley1081 wrote:Oh, thanks.

Is there a list of inexpensive GPUs to choose frome?

Seeing that you already got a Nvidia GPU, which you might want to keep in order to drive your display, you can start looking at anything from GTX 750 Ti on. My 750 Ti gives me about 100k ppd on linux and got a TDP of only 60W. Many of those cards don't need a power plug from the PSU, in case your system is quite old and on a PCIe 2 x16 slot the utilization peaks at 30%, most of the time it shows less than 20%.
Splitting with your current card shouldn't cause any problems.

Adding an ATI / AMD card to your current card might become a little difficult.

Many cards have been discussed here, just read up a bit and see what you want to afford. Keep in mind, that many older cards tend to use quite a bit of electricity and you might as well pay a bit more for the card itself rather than putting strain on your electricity bill.

Is this acceptable for folding?

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0727WGG3F/

The 750 is a bit too expensive for an everyday computer.

The GT 1030 will fold, and is pretty recent so should have vendor support for quite a while. Eventually it will be too slow to finish F@H in time, but that should be years from now.

(As simpler Proteins all get folded, F@H will process more and more complicated proteins, so it will need faster and faster gear)

While this is an older card, it should be MUCH faster. (2.5 times faster? It is actually faster than the GTX 1050 ti and may match a GTX 1060 3 gb)

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B082YXLW2X

It would draw more power, do you have a large power supply with extra power connectors? 8 Pin and 6 Pin

I do not read Italian, so I am just looking at the page, not reading it.

Uh, it seems that QYWJ is not a reliable seller.

https://www.amazon.it/product-reviews/B ... 10MVEEEYZH

It seems that the 1050 by the same seller is a 450 with a modified BIOS...