I've just installed a Q6600 in my old PC, which arrived today from of JackOfAll, and have been trying to get the SMP client working on it for about half an hour now. I'm using the MPICH version and keep getting a "fah6 has encountered a problem and needs to close" message if I change any of the client parameters in the last stage of configing it. Halp tbh, this is a stupid problem to be having. I'm 99% sure I have installed everything properly and this just seems like a stupid Windows thing like it's not letting it run or something. I'd appreciate some prompt help with this as I have one PC down whilst this isn't running. My Q66 is purring away at a hair below 3Ghz at the moment and I reckon it'll be good for a good PPD value when I finally get the SMP client working. TIA, Uni EDIT: the plot thickens; After a normal restart the system is now throwing up a "Windows has recovered from a serious error" box repeatedly (3 times per restart) even though no error occured. I'm thinking Notfreds virtual SMP folding application might be the way to go here, as I've configured it before and it was a breeze compared to this.
Running 2 instances of notfred SMP is definitely the better option on a Q6600. You will get about twice the amount of points with A2 core units than WinSMP A1 core. Running at 3Ghz, I would guess at about 4K+ ppd between the two.
I've now got VMware and notfreds application installed and folding, but my CPU usage is only at 50% and the vmware app says "setting up instance 1". Do I need to run two VM's to run 2 instances? Sorry for asking questions that have simple answers and that I really should know, but I haven't folded on a Quad before. This is what VMware looks like at the moment;
Only started to use notfred a couple of weeks ago but yep, I'd run two VMs. I do this out of habit because I'm used to VMware only being able to recognise 2 cores of a CPU. This may have changed but I don't think so. Config looks OK except you may want to change the backup to every 15 minutes to prevent any unnecessary slowdown and change the final line of the config to 'SMP instance per 2 CPUs'. I'm not sure what went wrong with the WinSMP installation. Did you run the file called 'install' which asks for your user name and password prior to configuring?
OK, will get another instance of it running now. I'll change each to use 2 cpu's in the config, and if you say it causes unnecessary slowdowns I'll change the backup back to every 15 minutes. I like to keep it on 5 on normal GPU clients probably for no good reason. I guess If I have to shut a machine down in a hury (Which lately I have had to do) it keeps wasted processing time to a minumum. I did run install.bat, yes. Followed the guide line by line! No idea what's going on with it, maybe my PC is just throwing it's head up because I stripped it to it's bare chassis today to clean it and rebuild it with the new Q66 It hasn't looked this good since the day I built it. The bedroom it was in at my old uni house was very dusty and I never bothered cleaning the filters I'll post some pics of the rebuild up in the morning once I get them off my camera. EDIT: Still only getting 50% overall CPU usage on task manager & prifinitty even after installing and running the second vm app. I'm clearly doing something wrong, but don't know what! EDIT2: Aaand for some reason the second SMP core has just kicked in and shot my CPU usage to 100%, about 10 minutes after I started the VM. Strange, but at least I know all four cores are now folding!
Make sure your gpu affinity is set to core 1 for 1 gpu and 3 for the other. That solve the issue for my Q6600.
On my main PC (not dedicated folding rig) I run a Q6600 @ 3ghz and run 2 x Notfred VM clients and 1 x GPU client and all I need to do is set the 2 "vmware.vmx.exe" instances in task manager to "low" which gives the GPU client enough CPU time to produce good points! I get about 2500 PPD from each of the VM clients making around 5000ppd just from the Q6600 @ 3ghz woooooop You dont need to change the affinity, well i dont anyway but make sure you set both the "vmware.vmx.exe" to low to get the best out of the GPU!
That's exactly what I've done and for good measure I have used prifinitty to set the GPU's FAHcore_11 to use realtime and only one CPU core, and set that and vmware-vmx on "low" to auto set and enforce every time they start. My 2x SMP clients are running at about 2K PPD each now which I'm very happy about! I'm going to reapply the overclock today and maybe see if it'll go higher? (Had to remove the OC yesterday as the room that my folding hardware runs in hit 40 celcius and the Q6600 wasn't happy -.-)
You can set the affinity in task manager for the VM machines as they don't restart at the end of a unit.
Which OS are you using as you need to run as administrator with vista. Also make sure you input your password properly. Apologies if you knew this already.
It's XP 32bit, and the password should be fine also. Thanks for the help, although I'm much happier running notfreds app because it gets more PPD
