Hey everyone,

I've been on SETI@home since April 17th, 2001. I have been working with the NewMexico group for most of that time. I built an AMD FX8350 system a few years ago. But I had Hardware problems off and on with it, plus I had heart problems so this year I was able to find a new mother board in March 2017 I was able to get my 8 Cores plus my GPU running again on SETI@home 24x7. I've been getting between 10,000 and most recently 12,800 WU (the last 3 weeks it been way over 12,000WU). Usually, I have my friend Michael Miles who is one of the Admin to our New Mexico group who lives up in BC Canada log into my system with TeamViewer he helped me configure to get the most out of my Bonic software and the system.

About 3 days ago Bonic stopped using 7 of the CPU cores after a reboot to load some new software updates. I have rebooted the system, reloaded BONIC, ran Lunatics_Win64_v0.44 to optimize the GPU system. I have texted Michael Miles about the problem but he is having Computer problems (no computer just a tablet) and unable to help me. He told me to remove BONIC completely delete it, from the system, & reboot it, then reinstall it. I did this 3 times and no results.

I also ran Lunatics_Win64_v0.44. it's still just running one core and the GPU. I have replaced both the motherboard and CPU back in April. My system temps usually sit at 55-58 Degrees C on the CPU (running at 100% Usage) and the GPU sits at about 59-64 degrees C (running at 89-95% Usage) this is from running SIV64X. the system can be overclocked but I am running it just a tad over stock frequency 4.2Ghz and the memory DIMMs are running just slightly over their normal settings. I used the performance mode in the motherboard BIOS for OC. and the ASUS GPU Tweak II software to set the OC Specs on the GPU.

My System is:
AMD FX-8350 CPU
MSI 990FXA Gaming Motherboard
24 GB of DDR3 1600Mhz memory
ASUS R7-250X 2GB Video Card
Corsair H100i v2 CPU water cooler
240GB SSD
2TB Seagate Hybrid Drive
EVGA 760 watt 80 Plus Gold PS
Windows 7 Pro 64bit - SP-1


My Email is screamingtut at gmail dot com

If anyone can help me please Email me.

Kristyanna Virgona

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There are two sets of Preferences that control the CPU usage. One is local in Computing Preferences, the other is on the Web under Computing preferences here, https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/prefs.php?subset=global
What do those 2 locations show for "Use at most XXX % of the CPUs"?

You also need to run the benchmarks again. Your compute speed for a FX-8350 is WAY too low. My FX-8350 @ 4.2 Ghz (same as yours) benches right at 12 billion ops/sec. Your is only showing a computation speed of 1 billion ops/sec.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

My understanding of the configuration settings is they limit what can or can't be used.
BOINC should still be able to find the other cores, it can't.
I would run Task Manager & see how many Cores it can find- i'd suggest it's a hardware/ Operating System driver issue. The fact that the benchmarks numbers are way, way, down indicates a hardware/OS driver issue.

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Grant
Darwin NT

...I used the performance mode in the motherboard BIOS for OC. and the ASUS GPU Tweak II software to set the OC Specs on the GPU.

You never said whether or not Windows sees all 8 cores. From your CPU results it appears the system is just using One CPU core;
Run time 1 hours 42 min 3 sec
CPU time 1 hours 0 min 33 sec
https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/result.php?resultid=5982798265

The Run times should be much closer, the only reason for such a difference is if something else is using the CPU core...such as the OS.
You might try setting those BIOS setting to defaults and see how that works.

So it sounds like most of your cores were disabled about the time you did "some software updates". Any further information about what was being updated could very well be a clue to what the problem is, since that is when you started seeing issues

Also, since you're not running 100% stock speeds, perhaps you accidently disabled some of the cores while setting up the speed tweaks. Most motherboards have an option to "run X cores" where you can choose anywhere from 1 to all of the cores. (And on Intel CPUs that support it, enable or disable hyperthreading.) As Grant suggested, take a look at Task Manager and see how many cores it is reporting. If less than 8, something in the BIOS might very well be to blame and is an easy fix.

Best of luck with everything.

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I ran the bench marks it shows only one CPU. I am not a software person but how can I find out whats what!

I ran the bench marks it shows only one CPU. I am not a software person but how can I find out whats what!

Startup Task Manager, select the Performance tab.
I think the setting is under the View option, to show one graph for each core/thread. For each CPU core/thread, there will be one CPU Usage history graph.
If there is still only one, then there's most likely a hardware issue.

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Grant
Darwin NT

If Task Manager shows only 1 core, here's some things to check.
Limiting number of CPU cores available to the OS.



If that option hasn't been enabled, then i'd suggest rebooting the system, go in to the BIOS, and there should be an option to "Reset to default settings" or similar. Do so, save the changes and re-boot, and check to see of the missing cores then re-appear. I would also disable the GPU overclocking.
When things are broken, it's best to set everything back to it's default settings. That alone can often fix quite a few issues.

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Grant
Darwin NT

If Task Manager shows only 1 core, here's some things to check.
Limiting number of CPU cores available to the OS.



If that option hasn't been enabled, then i'd suggest rebooting the system, go in to the BIOS, and there should be an option to "Reset to default settings" or similar. Do so, save the changes and re-boot, and check to see of the missing cores then re-appear. I would also disable the GPU overclocking.
When things are broken, it's best to set everything back to it's default settings. That alone can often fix quite a few issues.

And if you want a true complete reset, sometimes you even have to power down and also remove the backup battery from the board for 10-15 minutes before starting back up. Should leave the board in as-new state. With the possible exception of some boards that will intentionally store bios settings in non-volatile RAM. But those are generally backup copies of the bios, not the working copy,

Meow.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Grant,

I went in and found several processors set on Manual, I just reset them and deselected ones I did not want to run on startup. rebooted re-run CPU Bench marks

it shows 8 Cores now.

9/1/2017 4:38:17 PM | SETI@home | Not sending work - last request too recent: 283 sec
9/1/2017 4:40:53 PM | | Running CPU benchmarks
9/1/2017 4:40:54 PM | | Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
9/1/2017 4:41:25 PM | | Benchmark results:
9/1/2017 4:41:25 PM | | Number of CPUs: 8
9/1/2017 4:41:25 PM | | 3273 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
9/1/2017 4:41:25 PM | | 11118 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
9/1/2017 4:41:26 PM | | Resuming computation

Thanks for the help

Grant,

I went in and found several processors set on Manual, I just reset them and deselected ones I did not want to run on startup. rebooted re-run CPU Bench marks

it shows 8 Cores now.

Good to hear.
It will take a while for the work done while things were broken to clear, but if you have a look at your actual processing time in the BOINC Manager, both your GPU & CPU Elapsed times should be significantly reduced. If you keep an eye on your results (using the your Account link here on the web page), and the number of Valid WUs should increase significantly over the next few days. If so, then all is well.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Grant,
I have another computer question.

I am going to replace my R7250X 2GB with a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP 6GB GDDR5 (it was a great price at $278.00 on NewEgg), if I move the R7250X from my PCIe 16x slot to the PCIe 8x slot and use the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP in the PCIe 16x, could I still use the R7250X as just a GPU processor for SETI and not as video card on my MSI 990FXA Gaming Motherboard? I was going to get an RX580 8GB but it was $330.00. because if I had been able to buy a new card back in May I could have gotten a new GTX 1080 8 GB for $330.00 and a 11GB for $20.00 more at that time. Those mining butt holes messed it up for all those Gaming and Video editing people like me. I may start slowly buying parts for a Ryzen 1700x system build if I buy a part every other month or so. I will use the GTX 1060 in that and put back the R7250X in the FX8350 system. I'll just wait till something goes on sale. Anyway if you have any info it will be great.

Krisy

I am going to replace my R7250X 2GB with a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP 6GB GDDR5 (it was a great price at $278.00 on NewEgg), if I move the R7250X from my PCIe 16x slot to the PCIe 8x slot and use the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP in the PCIe 16x, could I still use the R7250X as just a GPU processor for SETI and not as video card on my MSI 990FXA Gaming Motherboard?
Krisy

Sure, both cards can be used for GPU crunching. Just add <use_all_gpus>1</use_all_gpus> to your cc_config.xml file.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I am going to replace my R7250X 2GB with a ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP 6GB GDDR5 (it was a great price at $278.00 on NewEgg), if I move the R7250X from my PCIe 16x slot to the PCIe 8x slot and use the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1060 AMP in the PCIe 16x, could I still use the R7250X as just a GPU processor for SETI and not as video card on my MSI 990FXA Gaming Motherboard?
Krisy

Sure, both cards can be used for GPU crunching. Just add <use_all_gpus>1</use_all_gpus> to your cc_config.xml file.

Although I don't know how easy it will be to get them to work together as one is by AMD, the other Nvidia and so will require different drivers, and each will require different applications in order to process work. And it may be necessary to go back to running stock as I don't know how easy it would be to set things up to run the 2 different cards using Lunatics.

And you would need to make sure not to run BOINC until you have installed the new card, replaced the existing driver with the one needed for the new card, and then re-run the Lunatics installer to select the appropriate application for the new card (which would be the SoG application). Otherwise any existing GPU work in your cache is likely to get trashed.


Someone else with experience might want to post how possible (and if possible, how easy) it is to setup 2 different brands of GPU and get them setup with Lunatics?

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Grant
Darwin NT

AMD and NVIDIA cards play nicely together. Better than mismatched cards of the same type as you have separate config files.

If using Lunatics, just install the app for each type of card, and the video drivers for each.

That's what I thought. Even though I've never run different brand cards at the same time, the Lunatics installer takes the setup headache out of the equation. As long as you install a valid driver for each card manufacturer, every app needed is written to the app_info.xml file as far as I can tell.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)