how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

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erich56
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Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 11:35 am
Location: Vienna, Austria

how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by erich56 »

When I installed FAH on a PC with 2 GTX980Ti inside, and wanted only one of the two cards to crunch FAH, I removed one of the GPUs under "Configure" > "Slots". Easy enough.
However, after rebooting the PC (when having made the monthly Windows Update), both cards are back in the "slots" section, and both are crunching.
How can I remove a given card from FAH on a permanent basis, so that I don't have to do it manually each time I reboot the system?

What was also interesting to notice: In the NVIDIA Inspector as well as in GPU-Z, the upper card (the one closer to the CPU) was "0", the one below was "1". In FAH it's exactly the opposite. Why so?
ajm
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Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by ajm »

You can just pause the card in FAHControl ("Advanced Control" in Windows): right click on the corresponding folding slot, select "Pause". If the card is now folding and you want to first finish the job, you also can select "Finish" and the card will pause when the present job will be done. BUT you then will have to select "Pause" after that nevertheless if you want that the paused state survives a reboot.
erich56
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Location: Vienna, Austria

Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by erich56 »

hi ajm, thanks for your reply. But this was not my question. What is important for me is that I do not need to intervent manually each time I reboot the PC.
In other words: once I remove one of the 2 cards in the "slot" section of the "configure" tab, this setting should last all the time long, regardless of how many reboots I am making.
ajm
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Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by ajm »

I think that I answered your question, actually. To delete the slot is NOT the way to go, because FAH is programmed to detect the available slots at start-up. Whether the slot was already configured or not does not make a difference. But if you pause a slot (it should read "Paused:by user" in FAHControl), then FAH will obey you and not use it. And thus you won't have to do anything after a reboot: the slot will stay paused and is not going to fold.
erich56
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Location: Vienna, Austria

Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by erich56 »

ajm wrote:... But if you pause a slot (it should read "Paused:by user" in FAHControl), then FAH will obey you and not use it. And thus you won't have to do anything after a reboot: the slot will stay paused and is not going to fold.
oh, okay, I now understand. So I will try this out. Many thanks for the hint :)
gunnarre
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Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by gunnarre »

You can put "pause-on-start" as an option on the slot, and it shouldn't start on its own.
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JimboPalmer
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Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by JimboPalmer »

As gunnare hints, you can go into the Advanced Control or FAHControl and choose the Configure tab and then the Slots tab.
Select a GPU slot, (you should have two) and click Edit.
Now in Extra Slot Options click Add.
Type the Name pause-on-start and the Value true and save.
This will not stop the GPU, but when you restart, it will not run automatically. (I suggest click Finish and then just let it be)
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erich56
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Location: Vienna, Austria

Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by erich56 »

hi guys, many thanks for your helpful hints :-)
bruce
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Re: how to disable 1of 2 GPUs permanently

Post by bruce »

FAH was dessigned with the goal of using ALL unused resources so it's not surprising that it at least tries to use your GPUs.

With the unused GPU permanently assigned the status of "paused" you'll get what you want. It should be noted that you can always choose to fold with it using the following guidelines:
* You can unpause any time
* To get it back to permanently paused status, do the following:
* * Set that slot to "Finish" and wait until the active WU finishes.
* * Manually set "Pause" and don't mess with it.

Something like this may appeal to you if you're going out of time for a while.
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