External Graphics Cards PC

[glimpse]

nice work, Itou31! how was the feeling harming GPUs? =DDD

[itou31]

Some scare and joy at the same time !

[Notiusweb]

Some scare and joy at the same time !

You are like Eren with your Attack on 'Titan'...!

[itou31]

Hi Notiusweb,

Just received the cluster.
Connected an old 580GTX on it. My others GPU are on the splitter and packed watercooled with a fixed bridge, so I cannot connect them yet on the cluster.
But test with the GTX and gess what : you red car baking cam works !! even at 8000x4000 ! no pb on the standalone V3 alpha 6 or in OcDs.
So need now to see how I will move my GPU to the cluster.... Not easy !

[Notiusweb]

Hi Notiusweb,

Just received the cluster.
Connected an old 580GTX on it. My others GPU are on the splitter and packed watercooled with a fixed bridge, so I cannot connect them yet on the cluster.
But test with the GTX and gess what : you red car baking cam works !! even at 8000x4000 ! no pb on the standalone V3 alpha 6 or in OcDs.
So need now to see how I will move my GPU to the cluster.... Not easy !

Hey Itou,
Wow, that's crazy that it worked, however I am very happy for you!

Okay, now I really will bug you with you having the same splitter, but working!
(1) Which revision is stated on the green board (should say by the "SLOT 3" on the board)....REV 1.1, or REV 1.2. I (I am currently using 1.2 so I am hoping you'll say 1.1 !!!)
(2) When you connected the old GTX 580 and the OS added it in, did it revert the drivers back to an earlier version? If so, what version?

Anyway, congratulations! Although I caution as I am curious if the 580 would also work on the USB riser you had. I am a conspiracy theorist here, wondering if maybe the cards themselves make a difference. (i.e. I am using 3 Titan Z vs your one 580, which is 6 GPU cores vs 1 core). Thus, I would urge you to try and test 1 780 first before fully committing to put them all into the cluster.

(3) How many cards do you want to put on the cluster, I can give you an idea with mine how I got it to work watercooled. You have to overcome the airpockets with the cards sideways in a "H"-formation.

Thanks!
-Notiusweb

[itou31]

Hi Notiusweb,

Something new that could lead to : "the freeze" could be a hardware problem.

So I just set up a new PC from what I have in house : a xeon (i7) on a MSI simple motherboard and 16GO of RAM.
add the splitter with 780Ti and Titan Black (not the cluster) + the 780Ti on the USB3 riser : --> no freeze with V3.0.6 standalone or OcDs.

About your question :
1) revision 1.1 and 1.2 test only with the 580GTX for the moment.
2) use the same OS but need to use DDU to erase all settings and reinstall the lastest one 364.51
3) will populate all slots with the Backplane rev 1.2 (Splitter --> cluster)

But I will check again my config hardware first....

[Notiusweb]

Hi Notiusweb,

Something new that could lead to : "the freeze" could be a hardware problem.

So I just set up a new PC from what I have in house : a xeon (i7) on a MSI simple motherboard and 16GO of RAM.
add the splitter with 780Ti and Titan Black (not the cluster) + the 780Ti on the USB3 riser : --> no freeze with V3.0.6 standalone or OcDs.

About your question :
1) revision 1.1 and 1.2 test only with the 580GTX for the moment.
2) use the same OS but need to use DDU to erase all settings and reinstall the lastest one 364.51
3) will populate all slots with the Backplane rev 1.2 (Splitter --> cluster)

But I will check again my config hardware first....

Thanks itou,

So you tried the same GPU arrangement that was crashing on your ASUS board with the i7 3930K, but now with the MSI board and i7 XEON it is not crashing, correct?
If so you may have honed the crashing down to mobo and/or CPU.
(a) Or could the RAM be at play? Is it the same ram sticks (brand)?
(b) what model MSI and XEON.
(c) are the size of the PCI bandwidth slots that you were plugging the connections into the same? (ie if plugging into an 8x on the ASUS, was it also an 8x on the MSI)
(d) was there a BIOS setting you can think of that maybe is different? (imagine this was all a BIOS setting...)
(e) was there a different OS on this new PC?
(f) because Amfeltec had asked me a lot about the nature of my PSU setup and possibility of adding grounding wire to my cluster's chassis
and then to my PC and PSU, I have to ask, was there any difference when using the MSI board as far as PSU to the GPUs, etc?
(g) Just to clarify, you ran a successful test with 1.1 or 1.2? Or did you test both, just I wasn't following from what you wrote.

Ugh...so many questions, I'll stop myself, I am OCD with puzzles like this....sorry
but you have it! GREAT!!!

[itou31]

Hi,

I will try to answers :

a) RAM are very stable (full test with processor) : 3930K (64GB) vs Xeon with 16GB
b) Z77MA-G45 - Msi + Xeon E3-1230
c) PCIe 8x
d) BIOS ? sure different !
e) same OS windows (it's a clone image) : so "same" application etc...
f) PSU for splitter is the same.
g) Yes, I have test both version with the 580GTX with 3930K and the two works OK.

I even test the xeon rig with a PCIe riser (15cm) to work easier, and no problem.
Just replug back to the 3930K and freeze again.

I will check the 3930K rig BIOS and will do some update or so....

See you on next episode...

[Notiusweb]

It is amazing itou, that you have replicated both a working and non-working scenario. You have potentially narrowed it down to mobo and CPU. The question is, which of the 2 is the cause...
Fight night.
The greatest gladiator match in the history of the world.
God versus man.
Day versus night!
Son of Krypton versus Bat of Gotham!
Mobo vs CPU
Batman vs Superman
Captain America vs Iron Man...

You just started a War, itou!

I can't take it anymore!

Or maybe we should start a 'Deadpool' on which we think is gonna turn out to be the underlying cause...

[itou31]

OK, second episode :
- just update BIOS to the newest beta for P9x79 Deluxe asus --> still freeze with splitter.
- Change USB3 riser to another PCIe 1X slot --> Still freeze.
- just add a second 580GTX to the cluster (revision 1.2) --> No freeze

So is it 780ti or Titan that are not "compatible" with splitter with X79 board ?

Next episode : try to put a 780Ti on the cluster (not easy as they are all packed watercooled)