Crunching w/ Intel HD + discrete GPU?

[zombie67]

So I have this i7-3770, and I have it crunching collatz and SETI astropulse. All good. Then I add a 7970, and BOINC no longer sees the HD 4000. Is it possible to make BOINC see and use both GPUs?

[John P. Myers]

Kinda sounds like a BIOS setting. By default, most BIOSs won't init both on boot. Some boards allow you init both, but you have to specify it in the settings. Hopefully you have that option.

If the 3770 is in your Big Bang Marshal, perhaps i could fiddle with it and figure it out.

Also, Z, i found something yesterday you might find as interesting as i did: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517017 It's a single case that holds both a high-end build and a mini-itx build in the top compartment.

[zombie67]

BIOS! *face palm* * didn't even consider that.

It took a bit of fiddling, but I am now running both the HD 4000 and a discrete GPU. How I made it work:

1) Made the HD 4000 the primary GPU

2) Turned on Share Memory and IGPU Multi-Moniter settings.

3) Connected a monitor to the mobo DVI port. (I tried to connect a DVI loopback to the mobo DVI port, but it could not go in. On the DVI plug, there are a couple of pins on the sides of the long slot. But the mobo DVI connector doesn't have the mating holes like discrete GPUs do. What's up with that? Am I going to have to keep a monitor connected to this dedicated cruncher? Or are there D-Sub/DVI plugs without the extra pins I could turn into loop-back plugs?)

4) Also, because it is an ATI GPU, I also attached a DVI loopback connector to the GPU.

[Fire$torm]

The reason for the missing pins? Content protection and is called a DVI-D connector. It's digital only. The connector with the extra 4-pins is called DVI-I and can carry digital & analog video signals.

Edit: The loopback setup uses the analog channels to trick the GPU into thinking a monitor is connected.

[zombie67]

The reason for the missing pins? Content protection and is called a DVI-D connector. It's digital only. The connector with the extra 4-pins is called DVI-I and can carry digital & analog video signals.

Edit: The loopback setup uses the analog channels to trick the GPU into thinking a monitor is connected.

Thanks!

More info:

If I detach the monitor, then BOINC does not see the HD 4000. So I also had to detach the DVI loopback on the 7970. Now BOINC sees both again. :-bd

But a side-effect is that CCC will not show the performance tab any more. :mad:

And based on your Edit comment, a DVI-D loopback is not possible. So no way to make a headless cruncher work properly. :mad::mad::mad:

[Fire$torm]

Thanks!

More info:

If I detach the monitor, then BOINC does not see the HD 4000. So I also had to detach the DVI loopback on the 7970. Now BOINC sees both again. :-bd

But a side-effect is that CCC will not show the performance tab any more. :mad:

And based on your Edit comment, a DVI-D loopback is not possible. So no way to make a headless cruncher work properly. :mad::mad::mad:

I made an error. My previous post on loopback portion only applies to ATI/AMD. The HD 4000 is Intel not ATI... duh. (Me thinks Intel's APU naming scheme was meant to trick the unwary)

Have you tried replacing the ATI with a CUDA card? Then no dummy plug would be necessary at all.

[Slicker]

I seem to recall that BOINC's hack for identifying and reporting GPUs was causing problems when crunching with Intel GPUs and some other brand (AMD or nVidia). The original design was only for NVidia. Multiple GPUs were expected to be 2 of the exact same nVidia brand and model set to run in SLI mode. The fact that any other combinations works is a hack. Suggestions on how to fix it (e.g. use a proper design) have resulted in a response of "that's too much work". So instead, they are spending hundreds of hours trying to get BOINC to run on Android devices which will only work when plugged in. I happen to know my phone is only plugged in for a few hours every several days. Do the fracking math DA!!!!!!