Posts by Rick

1) Message boards : News : Server Trouble (Message 72143) Posted 21 Mar 2022 by Rick Post: Don't use an oven, doesn't work. I have a professional SMD reflow station. Two cards reflow GPU others various problems. You need ESR meter, MATS software(Nvidia only), scope and knowledge of how they work.
2) Message boards : News : Server Trouble (Message 72086) Posted 20 Mar 2022 by Rick Post: My Mac's run 280X's, all repaired units + spares, best bang for the buck. Windforce OC seems to be the quickest.
3) Message boards : News : News General (Message 71618) Posted 18 Jan 2022 by Rick Post: Thanks guys, it's what I was asking for.
4) Message boards : News : News General (Message 71612) Posted 18 Jan 2022 by Rick Post: Hi fellow number crunchers. I have backed off a bit and not doing any work at this time because of no feedback as to all this effort being useful, for all I know I could be Crypto Mining. Can somebody point me to where all our effort is to be found or should I just go back to my telescope?
5) Message boards : Number crunching : Updated GPU Requirements (Currently not supporting GPU tasks) (Message 71586) Posted 4 Jan 2022 by Rick Post: Top GPU's page under MAC are incorrect as the top Gpu's are 2-3 times slower than the FP64 GPU's I use. I have dozens of high performance cards to choice from. Just to prove a point I configured some computers with an FP64 of 1.6TF and some at 800GF and left them running for days and watched the 'Top GPU's' change but none of my cards showed up yet my throughput is very good. My computer configuration on each is dual 3.47GHz CPU's @ 70% loading to keep the thermal stress reasonable. The one W10 PC I have does report correctly. Is there a problem with the server ID's of MAC GPU's. This issue is both AMD & NVIDIA. My computers can be viewed but that's irrelevant as I change around configurations regularly.
6) Message boards : Number crunching : Updated GPU Requirements (Currently not supporting GPU tasks) (Message 71408) Posted 30 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: Two of my 3,1's have 5870's and work fine. They are don't have the boot screen, they came from windows machines. They have quite good FP64 capabilities.
7) Message boards : Number crunching : Boinc app Crashing at random (Message 71407) Posted 30 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: Ok, could be ram, try swapping it around. Could be crashing from an 'exception' that is not system critical. Sometimes swapping the ram will do nothing, so problem fixed or crash the system the ram is using which helps you find the stick causing it.
8) Message boards : Number crunching : Updated GPU Requirements (Currently not supporting GPU tasks) (Message 71392) Posted 25 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: For those that would like to use the older Mac's 3,1-5,1 these are the cards I found give reasonable FP64 GPU performance, averaged time over 5 WU's. The 3,1 running El Capitan, Darwin 15.6.0: HD 5870 105 sec, GTX Titan 91 sec. The 5,1 running Majove, Darwin 18.6.0: HD 7870XT, 89.09 sec, HD 7950 62.1 sec. I will continue to test and post as further cards become available.
9) Message boards : Number crunching : Boinc app Crashing at random (Message 71389) Posted 25 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: Could be thermal stress on you GPU. A sudden crash with the system still functioning point to the GPU but go have a look at your crash log and see what upset Boinc. Lots of info on how to check the crash log on the web.
10) Message boards : Number crunching : Updated GPU Requirements (Currently not supporting GPU tasks) (Message 71384) Posted 23 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: Yes it's a good site but the specs give no indication of how well they work in various OSX versions. Like drivers for GTX Titan work in El Capitan but not in Mojave. When it is working it gets through a WU at about the same speed as OSX and W10 with FP64 enabled but slower than the HD 7950 by quite a margin. There will be a work around, I have the programming skills but not the motivation to bother. Another thing with Mojave is that it requires a Metal capable card and the listing on sites leave out so many cards that will work. So it's a matter of finding a fast FP64 Kepler GPU that works with Mojave and MW. A lot of Nvidia cards won't work at full potential as Apple dropped the support in Majove, that's why I run the MacPro 3,1 as well the 5,1 because good cards are supported. As for AMD lots of cards work straight out of the box, far more than the listings suggest. Again Majove requires Metal capable cards, most of the HD 7xxx work in the 5,1 and the HD 58xx-59xx work well on 3,1. So it's been interesting to look at the performance when swapping out cards from W10 to OSX. I can also confirm that some Nvida cards work together on MW in both x16 slots although the power budget has to be watched unless the power leads are tapped before the main board. MacPro cheese grater has close to 1kw available from the power supply to run the computer. Gaming GPU's are not value for money running MW in my opinion as some of the $40 old cards are quite fast, what's outdated for games is great for MW. The Top GPU list For OSX doesn't add up to me, TechPowerUP list some of the FP64 performance as quite poor.
11) Message boards : Number crunching : Updated GPU Requirements (Currently not supporting GPU tasks) (Message 71382) Posted 23 Nov 2021 by Rick Post: There seems to be so much miss-information about GPU's and the ability to number crunch. I have 5 computers running Darwin and another W10 i7 working on MilkyWay@Home. My situation with regard to Video cards is fortunate as I have several boxes of them all what gamers call 'good to have' but few are suitable for FP64 and MilkyWay@Home. My computer configuration is visible and the changes I make to improve performance can be seen. Interesting results so far with more changes coming. The GTX Titan is good in W10 (Drivers installed) and Darwin as long as the Darwin 15.6.0 is used and drivers installed as the drivers will not install in 18.7.0. The difference in compute speed with both OS's without drivers is -2.5x. With Darwin Mojave you need a Metal compatible card and the fastest doing a WU is the HD 7950 so far, some 75% faster than the Titan and a GTX 680 with drivers installed. Lots of older AMD cards tried and they just seem to be on steroids, the later ones just don't do FP64 as well. NVIDIA seem to be behind the 8 ball in every GPU swap I have done. Some of the cards I have played with: HD 7950 FP64 GF 716.6 1:4 HD 5870 544 1:5 GTX 780 Ti 222.7 1:24 GTX 480 168 1:8 GTX 680 135.4 1:24 GTX 970 122.5 1:34 GTX 570 Ti 105.3 1:12 R9 270 168.1 1:8 GT 640 28.86 1:24 GTX Titan 1570 1:3 HD 7870 748.8 1:4 Nowhere do I see information on consumer math capable cards but look and you will find cards 7-10 years old that suit this project by a wide margin unless your a gamer. More card swaps coming and btw, in MacPro 5,1 using Triple Channel memory makes no difference to compute times so I went back to all slots filled with ram. Found that changing the CPU usage to 60% keeps the thermal stress down with not much difference in outcome. Still playing, any thought or advice?
12) Message boards : Cafe MilkyWay : Crazy GPU prices (Message 71271) Posted 26 Oct 2021 by Rick Post: The mining craze will slow, Bitcoin rates are dropping and it won't get better until an anticipated coin addition in 2040. It's a downward spiral now for those mining.
13) Message boards : Number crunching : Server update stats lag? (Message 71242) Posted 13 Oct 2021 by Rick Post: Thanks for the info, thought something like that, looks like I have to do my performance tweaks as I see it not via Milkyway@home.
14) Message boards : Number crunching : Server update stats lag? (Message 71240) Posted 13 Oct 2021 by Rick Post: I have many options to play around with hardware like having more than one GPU per machine or upgrading CPU's but it doesn't reflect in the Measured floating point speed or the Measured integer speed on each machine. Is there a problem? I do check my GPU's and CPU's and due to the loading I have had to throttle usage back to 80% just to not stress my systems. they are crunching. Being a Newbie what am I missing here?
15) Message boards : Number crunching : New team member lots of pendings or invalids. (Message 71225) Posted 8 Oct 2021 by Rick Post: Have done a few upgrades, any further suggestions?
16) Questions and Answers : Macintosh : ati 5770 computational errors (Message 71154) Posted 25 Sep 2021 by Rick Post: As I have the same problem with the 5770 & 5870 I slowly have changed over to other video cards as there doesn't seem much support for Darwin OS or AMD video cards. Look at 'Computer breakdown by operating system', doesn't even count in stats.
17) Message boards : Number crunching : New team member lots of pendings or invalids. (Message 71117) Posted 17 Sep 2021 by Rick Post: Done a processor update and ram update on a couple of computers, no GPU at this time, any worthwhile change?
18) Message boards : Number crunching : New team member lots of pendings or invalids. (Message 71099) Posted 4 Sep 2021 by Rick Post: Thanks for the input. Credits and that don't concern me, just want to contribute as I am an Armature Astronomer and take photo's of Spiral Galaxies and the idea of being part of 3D mapping spins my wheels! If you guys can help me be more efficient in my contribution then I am very thankful for that :-)
19) Message boards : Number crunching : New team member lots of pendings or invalids. (Message 71098) Posted 4 Sep 2021 by Rick Post: Not interested in updating the GPU's as a priority but am interested in having my computing 'off grid' already have 50KWh of Lion batteries, need to sort out a controller and a turbine as I have wind 80% of the time. Your help has been very welcome, all but one of the computers came from the scrap yard. If I come across a 4GB GPU I will install it.
20) Message boards : Number crunching : New team member lots of pendings or invalids. (Message 71095) Posted 3 Sep 2021 by Rick Post: Thanks for the advice, that was the computer that concerned me the most. It's getting a CPU upgrade due to that model Xeon is not very power efficient, just waiting on them, in the mean time I have changed the video card to a 5770 to see if there is a change. The computers were left on line to stress test them and I will put them back to normal operation sometime today but still doing tasks as they become available. Really appreciate the help you have given a 'Newbe'.

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