GPU swap

[boston617]

I have an older Acer machine (E2140) that has an nVidia GTS250 under the hood. I have a GTX260 Core 216 sitting around that I could put in the box, though I might have to swap cases with an even older P4 rig for space. My issue is that if I swap GPU's, will it mess up the PG units already on the machine.

The 250 is a single precision G92b chip with CC 1.1, and the 260 is a GT200 (might be a 'b' version) chip with CC 1.3, and I believe it's a double precision FPO card.

[DrPop]

Hi Boston, great to see you! I don't think it will mess up any of the WUs except for the one that is currently crunching. So I would just abort the current one or wait until it finishes, then suspend PG, exit BOINC, shut it down and do the swap. You should probably uninstall the drivers and do a fresh install of the latest NVIDIA Drivers, just to make sure. Then when you resume PG work, it should start a new WU just fine from the ones you've got in cache already downloaded.
Hope that makes sense. You will like the upgrade! ;)

[DAD]

I've had a 250 resume a GPUgrid and other tasks a 560Ti was working on... unless a project limits WUs by compute compatibility, the 250 will just take longer to run things

That often happens in one of my boxes that has a 560ti and a 250 in it.. if I reboot it or restart boinc, the WUs often swap GPUs.

[boston617]

Thanks for the help guys.

It's gonna take a bit on the swap. The Acer case is just a bit of a tight fit, and I'm not sure how well the airflow would be. I do have a case with a P4 2.8 in it that I can swap with. It has more space, fans, and before it had issues crunched good.

I also looked into adding a GT430 PCI to the same rig, but the switch to the 260 might outweigh the benefit of it.



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Posted from my Samsung Galaxy S 4G

[DAD]

Those 200 line cards are SLOW. It takes them about 30hrs to do a gpu grid long run... Better than no gpu I suppose :) this why I still use 200s if I have extra pcie slots. Better o fill with something vs nothing

[DrPop]

I had a GTX 275 before I gave it to Joker, and O/Ced in MSI Afterburner, it was decent (i.e. I considered the points worth the electricity) on PG back when the credits were good (a little better than what DiRT is now). :)