Occasionally, when starting a new Seti@home CUDA task, my computer will completely lock up. No blue screen or other error message, everything just stops. This does not appear to happen during crunching, only when crunching first begins. This does not happen constantly, it varies between once every couple weeks and a couple times a day.

The GPU temperatures were always in the green, as were CPU temperatures. Upgrading drivers and CUDA version from 1 to 2.2 didn't seem to work at the time. Since I mainly run Seti@home, I don't know if the problem occurs with other CUDA projects or only Seti. I'm running a few GPUGrid workunits now so we'll see.

Originally I had a GeForce 8400 GS that never locked up. Then I upgraded to a GeForce 9600 GT card. Unfortunately, I had to send it back to the manufacturer 3 times under warranty for various issues. During that period I ran on a GeForce 8600 with no problems.

The fourth 9600 I received worked fine...except for CUDA. That's when the locking up first began. I was running 186.18 drivers and Cuda 2.2. A couple days ago I upgraded to a GeForce 9800 GT (same driver version), and the locking up continued.

I have just now updated to the latest drivers (190.38), and Cuda 2.3. I will have to wait and see if this has any effect. I have also put my old 9600 in another computer to see if it has issues there as well.

While I wait to see what happens, does anybody have any suggestions as to what else I should look at? Thanks!

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

Process of elimination. Put all cards in other machines. If they don't lock up there, try running with the CPU only on the affected machine.. or try running something else that stresses the videocard, like a heavy OpenGL game such as Crysis.

If that locks up the machine as well, you could be looking at a damaged motherboard.

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Sure they aren't VLARs, my system became very unresponsive when CUDA ran VLAR WU. I'm on 190.18/CUDA 2.3 on two GTX 260-216 (HEAVILY OC) and the system is pretty slow when crunching any WU, haven't tested yet to see if it's my OC or the CUDA doing it, but didn't do it before (I set the OC shortly after upgrading).

Process of elimination. Put all cards in other machines. If they don't lock up there, try running with the CPU only on the affected machine.. or try running something else that stresses the videocard, like a heavy OpenGL game such as Crysis.

If that locks up the machine as well, you could be looking at a damaged motherboard.

I'll try running 3dmark, as well as Ntune's stability test and Sandra's burn in. Don't have Crysis, unfortunately.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

I've had this error in the past but upgrading to cuda 2.3 seems to have stopped the problem.
Bob

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I've had this error in the past but upgrading to cuda 2.3 seems to have stopped the problem.
Bob

Very good news, I anxiously await the results on this end. Thanks!

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

So far after upgrading to Cuda 2.3, my 9800 system is running fine (knock on wood). However my 9600 system running 2.2 just locked up. Thus I can conclude it's not something unique to my system, as the lockups occurred with both computers when they ran the 9600. I will try upgrading the other computer to Cuda 2.3 and see if that fixes it.

Interestingly though, it seems that the lockup did NOT occur at the start of a workunit. It happened about 89% of the way through. After hitting the reset button, the same workunit picked up where it left off.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

The 9600 locked up again, even with the latest drivers and CUDA 2.3. 9800 still running fine. I will try to downgrade the drivers to the earliest ones that support CUDA and go back to 1.0.

Edit - Before downgrading, I decided to try to underclock the card and see if that helped. If not, I'm curious if possibly Raistmer's V12 CUDA app could be the culprit...perhaps I should go back to the standard Seti CUDA app?

Any other thoughts?

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!

Well a week after I downgraded from Raistmer's V12 CUDA app to the stock Seti 6.08 app, the 9600 machine is still locking up occasionally...only this time it seems to un-lock after 10 - 20 seconds and runs fine afterwards. I don't recall the computer recovering on it's own with the V12 app. The 9800 machine isn't locking up at all. This is most curious...

It appears upon reflection to lock up mainly when I have a game running in the background, so it could be competition for resources that's causing the issue. Since the computer appears to recover on it's own without need for a reboot, it's pretty much moot at this point.

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You will be assimilated...bunghole!