Old PC upgrade suggestions - Updated to RTX2060

[agent71]

Thanks Sven. Will give it a go and see how stable it is.

Just put Mint 19.3 on - very straight forward but as always with Linux... software installs are a pain and dependency hell. Doesn't help with poor instructions either!

Ignore the official folding@home instructions which tell you to use "--force-depends" because you'll wonder why you getting libglut and no module named fah errors with the viewer and control.

Instead found this guide elsewhere on the forum far more useful. viewtopic.php?f=89&t=30450#p314577

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# Download fahclient, fahcontrol, and optionally fahviewer from https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/ and save to your desktop
## Double click on each package, one at a time and have Package Installer install the packages.

sudo wget https://fah-web.stanford.edu/file-releases/public/GPUs.txt -P /var/lib/fahclient
sudo chown fahclient:root /var/lib/fahclient/GPUs.txt
sudo /etc/init.d/FAHClient restart
## Open FAHControl and select <Configure>, <Slots>, <Add>, <GPU>, <OK>, and <Save>.

Now to order GPU!

[agent71]

Hmm.... may have claimed success too early. Whilst I'm going to order a RTX I'm wanting to learn and get it going on Linux Mint with the AMD card I currently have.

Getting the impression AMD not so well supported on Linux? I tried updating the AMD drivers via the AMD site but that completely messed the drivers and I had to rollback. Thankfully had configured TimeShift.

Any ideas anyone? GPU is a Sapphire AMD R9 270X VAPOR-X 2GB and I don't really want to spend on the RTX if I can't get the existing card working. Unless of course the answer is... use NVIDIA for Linux.

Linux sees it as:

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# lspci -nn | grep "VGA\|Display"
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Curacao XT / Trinidad XT [Radeon R7 370 / R9 270X/370X] [1002:6810]

Although FAHControl sees it as:

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22:29:04:Trying to access database...
22:29:04:Successfully acquired database lock
22:29:04:Enabled folding slot 00: PAUSED cpu:1 (waiting for idle)
22:29:26:Adding folding slot 01: PAUSED gpu:0:Hawaii [Radeon R9 200 Series] (waiting for idle)

Whilst I can manually add the GPU I'm getting the following errors in FAHControl:

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21:51:17:******************************* System ********************************
21:51:17:        CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz
21:51:17:     CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
21:51:17:       CPUs: 4
21:51:17:     Memory: 7.73GiB
21:51:17:Free Memory: 7.21GiB
21:51:17:    Threads: POSIX_THREADS
21:51:17: OS Version: 5.3
21:51:17:Has Battery: false
21:51:17: On Battery: false
21:51:17: UTC Offset: 1
21:51:17:        PID: 1164
21:51:17:        CWD: /var/lib/fahclient
21:51:17:         OS: Linux 5.3.0-51-generic x86_64
21:51:17:    OS Arch: AMD64
21:51:17:       GPUs: 1
21:51:17:      GPU 0: Bus:1 Slot:0 Func:0 AMD:5 Hawaii [Radeon R9 200 Series]
21:51:17:       CUDA: Not detected: Failed to open dynamic library 'libcuda.so':
21:51:17:             libcuda.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
21:51:17:             directory
21:51:17:     OpenCL: Not detected: clGetPlatformIDs() returned -1001

[HaloJones]

Sorry can't advise on AMD on Linux but NVidia is real easy on Linux (at least with Mint, IME)

Trying to match AMD and NVidia has always been a little iffy on any OS.

[Kebast]

I have an old R9 270x, and it will work in Linux for games, but I'm not sure you can fold with it. It will work in windows, and is about equal to a 750ti.
Search around here a bit and you might find some amd on Linux threads. Sorry I'm not much help, been a while since I messed with that card.

[Joe_H]

With the R9 270X you are going to run into problems. AMD stopped updating its drivers for the R9 270(X) a while back, especially for Linux, the latest drivers that support use of video acceleration do not include support for OpenCL. The open source drivers will do for video, but not for folding using OpenCL.

Full support was available in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and derivatives from what I have found. AMD left out the GCN 1 based cards from full driver support for later Linux versions. Many other of the R9 200 series were based on GCN 2 & 3, those cards did get full support. Some were able to get the older drivers to install on the later versions of Linux, that included making kernel setting changes.

[agent71]

That correlates with my limited research which showed the card ending support with 14.04 and explains why the OpenCL issues.

Thanks.

Seems I've gone as far as I can to test I can get F@H working on Linux without the new card itself. Solving issues on this R9 270 isn't going to help with the new card so will stop.

Will order 2060 and do a fresh install so no AMD drivers present. Thanks!

[agent71]

Took a little longer than expect for RTX2060 to arrive but it came today and PC stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. Treated to new be quiet! Silent Wings 3 fans which seem pretty good and way quieter than previous fans.

Currently showing Est PPD for GPU as 1.2M.

As case, Corsair Carbide 240 Air, has 3 x 3.5" and 3 x 2.5" disk bays and board has 6 x SATA I'm tempted to build this into a backup for our NAS. If I do I'll see if I can get FAH running on Mint in a FreeNas VM or Jail. If so that would be pretty handy.

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20:41:39:******************************* System ********************************
20:41:39:            CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz
20:41:39:         CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
20:41:39:           CPUs: 4
20:41:39:         Memory: 7.73GiB
20:41:39:    Free Memory: 1.40GiB
20:41:39:        Threads: POSIX_THREADS
20:41:39:     OS Version: 5.3
20:41:39:    Has Battery: false
20:41:39:     On Battery: false
20:41:39:     UTC Offset: 1
20:41:39:            PID: 6499
20:41:39:            CWD: /var/lib/fahclient
20:41:39:             OS: Linux 5.3.0-51-generic x86_64
20:41:39:        OS Arch: AMD64
20:41:39:           GPUs: 1
20:41:39:          GPU 0: Bus:1 Slot:0 Func:0 NVIDIA:7 TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]
20:41:39:  CUDA Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:7.5 Driver:10.2
20:41:39:OpenCL Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:1.2 Driver:440.59

[Endgame124]

Took a little longer than expect for RTX2060 to arrive but it came today and PC stripped, cleaned and rebuilt. Treated to new be quiet! Silent Wings 3 fans which seem pretty good and way quieter than previous fans.

Currently showing Est PPD for GPU as 1.2M.

As case, Corsair Carbide 240 Air, has 3 x 3.5" and 3 x 2.5" disk bays and board has 6 x SATA I'm tempted to build this into a backup for our NAS. If I do I'll see if I can get FAH running on Mint in a FreeNas VM or Jail. If so that would be pretty handy.

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20:41:39:******************************* System ********************************
20:41:39:            CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz
20:41:39:         CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
20:41:39:           CPUs: 4
20:41:39:         Memory: 7.73GiB
20:41:39:    Free Memory: 1.40GiB
20:41:39:        Threads: POSIX_THREADS
20:41:39:     OS Version: 5.3
20:41:39:    Has Battery: false
20:41:39:     On Battery: false
20:41:39:     UTC Offset: 1
20:41:39:            PID: 6499
20:41:39:            CWD: /var/lib/fahclient
20:41:39:             OS: Linux 5.3.0-51-generic x86_64
20:41:39:        OS Arch: AMD64
20:41:39:           GPUs: 1
20:41:39:          GPU 0: Bus:1 Slot:0 Func:0 NVIDIA:7 TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]
20:41:39:  CUDA Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:7.5 Driver:10.2
20:41:39:OpenCL Device 0: Platform:0 Device:0 Bus:1 Slot:0 Compute:1.2 Driver:440.59

From my reading, freenas jail will not run F@H. You’ll have to go full VM- I’ve read people have success, but I’ve not seen complete instructions. Let us know if you figure it out.

[agent71]

I had a play the other day and F@H in a freenas VM worked fine for CPU - struggled to get GPU recognised by OS though so didn't get as far as F@H with GPU in VM. Went back to basics with only Mint on PC and learnt a few things so will try again over coming weeks.

[PantherX]

...struggled to get GPU recognised by OS though so didn't get as far as F@H with GPU in VM...

You would need need two GPUs for that. Once for the host (it can be an iGPU) and one for the VM (AMD/Nvidia) as folding in a VM on the GPU requires PCI pass-through. Also, you will need the proprietary drivers (closed-source) from AMD/Nvidia and to install OpenCL package.

[agent71]

Ok that might possible then. CPU is Intel i5 3570 which I think has iGPU. I'll have a play. Thanks.

[agent71]

A little update...

On paper ASRock H77M mobo and Intel i5 3570 appear to meet requirements for PCI passthrough but my current reading suggests that if you want a virtualised system with PCI passthrough you need to select your hardware carefully from the outset - specifically the motherboard. Depending on your hardware it either seems to work with very little config changes or you are in deep hacking the hypervisor files, custom ISOs and pulling custom drivers from various sources. Each configuration will be unique so no easy runbook to follow.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/7 ... with_esxi/

VMWare ESXi 7.0 appears to have enough issues to avoid for now and ESXi 6.7 a far better bet at this point although documentation sketchy and unless in list of approved passthrough PCIE cards you are on your own with custom install ISOs.
You can get a free license key from VMWare and only need to pay if you want support.

Given I only need very basic SMB file shares, rather than a full blown NAS, I would normally stop at this point, forget about any VMs and just install Linux, F@H and configure Samba.

But I'm going to keep going as I have a more spare time these days!

Looking into proxmox as the x86 hypervisor. It appears to have PCI passthrough more clearly documented than VMWare and possibly more flexibility in the hypervisor for passthrough devices. ESXi appears very limited to select vendors.
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Pci_passthrough

[agent71]

Almost there...

Promox hypervisor installed. Linux Mint 19.3 running in VM with PCI passthrough enabled and RTX 2060 showing.

Nvidia-440 drivers and Cuda installed too.

However... can't fire up the GPU in F@H. Any ideas?

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14:58:42:      GPU 0: Bus:0 Slot:16 Func:0 NVIDIA:7 TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]
14:58:42:       CUDA: Not detected: cuInit() returned 101
14:58:42:     OpenCL: Not detected: clGetPlatformIDs() returned -1001

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*********************** Log Started 2020-05-22T14:58:41Z ***********************
14:58:41:Trying to access database...
14:58:41:Successfully acquired database lock
14:58:41:Read GPUs.txt
14:58:42:Enabled folding slot 00: READY gpu:0:TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]
14:58:42:ERROR:No compute devices matched GPU #0 {
14:58:42:ERROR:  "vendor": 4318,
14:58:42:ERROR:  "device": 7817,
14:58:42:ERROR:  "type": 2,
14:58:42:ERROR:  "species": 7,
14:58:42:ERROR:  "description": "TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]"
14:58:42:ERROR:}.  You may need to update your graphics drivers.
14:58:42:****************************** FAHClient ******************************
14:58:42:    Version: 7.6.13
14:58:42:     Author: Joseph Coffland <[email protected]>
14:58:42:  Copyright: 2020 foldingathome.org
14:58:42:   Homepage: https://foldingathome.org/
14:58:42:       Date: Apr 28 2020
14:58:42:       Time: 04:20:16
14:58:42:   Revision: 5a652817f46116b6e135503af97f18e094414e3b
14:58:42:     Branch: master
14:58:42:   Compiler: GNU 8.3.0
14:58:42:    Options: -std=c++11 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -O3 -funroll-loops
14:58:42:             -fno-pie
14:58:42:   Platform: linux2 4.19.0-5-amd64
14:58:42:       Bits: 64
14:58:42:       Mode: Release
14:58:42:       Args: --child /etc/fahclient/config.xml --run-as fahclient
14:58:42:             --pid-file=/var/run/fahclient.pid --daemon
14:58:42:     Config: /etc/fahclient/config.xml
14:58:42:******************************** CBang ********************************
14:58:42:       Date: Apr 25 2020
14:58:42:       Time: 00:07:53
14:58:42:   Revision: ea081a3b3b0f4a37c4d0440b4f1bc184197c7797
14:58:42:     Branch: master
14:58:42:   Compiler: GNU 8.3.0
14:58:42:    Options: -std=c++11 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -O3 -funroll-loops
14:58:42:             -fno-pie -fPIC
14:58:42:   Platform: linux2 4.19.0-5-amd64
14:58:42:       Bits: 64
14:58:42:       Mode: Release
14:58:42:******************************* System ********************************
14:58:42:        CPU: Common KVM processor
14:58:42:     CPU ID: GenuineIntel Family 15 Model 6 Stepping 1
14:58:42:       CPUs: 2
14:58:42:     Memory: 1.94GiB
14:58:42:Free Memory: 248.72MiB
14:58:42:    Threads: POSIX_THREADS
14:58:42: OS Version: 5.3
14:58:42:Has Battery: false
14:58:42: On Battery: false
14:58:42: UTC Offset: 1
14:58:42:        PID: 4122
14:58:42:        CWD: /var/lib/fahclient
14:58:42:         OS: Linux 5.3.0-53-generic x86_64
14:58:42:    OS Arch: AMD64
14:58:42:       GPUs: 1
14:58:42:      GPU 0: Bus:0 Slot:16 Func:0 NVIDIA:7 TU106-200A [GeForce RTX 2060]
14:58:42:       CUDA: Not detected: cuInit() returned 101
14:58:42:     OpenCL: Not detected: clGetPlatformIDs() returned -1001
14:58:42:******************************* libFAH ********************************
14:58:42:       Date: Apr 15 2020
14:58:42:       Time: 21:43:24
14:58:42:   Revision: 216968bc7025029c841ed6e36e81a03a316890d3
14:58:42:     Branch: master
14:58:42:   Compiler: GNU 8.3.0
14:58:42:    Options: -std=c++11 -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -O3 -funroll-loops
14:58:42:             -fno-pie
14:58:42:   Platform: linux2 4.19.0-5-amd64
14:58:42:       Bits: 64
14:58:42:       Mode: Release
14:58:42:***********************************************************************
14:58:42:<config>
14:58:42:  <!-- Client Control -->
14:58:42:  <fold-anon v='true'/>
14:58:42:
14:58:42:  <!-- Folding Slot Configuration -->
14:58:42:  <gpu v='false'/>
14:58:42:
14:58:42:  <!-- Network -->
14:58:42:  <proxy v=':8080'/>
14:58:42:
14:58:42:  <!-- User Information -->
14:58:42:  <passkey v='*****'/>
14:58:42:  <team v='10'/>
14:58:42:  <user v='agent71'/>
14:58:42:
14:58:42:  <!-- Folding Slots -->
14:58:42:  <slot id='0' type='GPU'>
14:58:42:    <gpu-index v='0'/>
14:58:42:  </slot>
14:58:42:</config>
14:58:42:WU00:FS00:Starting
14:58:42:ERROR:WU00:FS00:Failed to start core: OpenCL device matching slot 0 not found, make sure the OpenCL driver is installed or try setting 'opencl-index' manually
14:58:42:WU00:FS00:Starting
14:58:42:ERROR:WU00:FS00:Failed to start core: OpenCL device matching slot 0 not found, make sure the OpenCL driver is installed or try setting 'opencl-index' manually
14:59:42:WU00:FS00:Starting
14:59:42:ERROR:WU00:FS00:Failed to start core: OpenCL device matching slot 0 not found, make sure the OpenCL driver is installed or try setting 'opencl-index' manually
15:01:19:WU00:FS00:Starting
15:01:19:ERROR:WU00:FS00:Failed to start core: OpenCL device matching slot 0 not found, make sure the OpenCL driver is installed or try setting 'opencl-index' manually
15:03:57:WU00:FS00:Starting
15:03:57:ERROR:WU00:FS00:Failed to start core: OpenCL device matching slot 0 not found, make sure the OpenCL driver is installed or try setting 'opencl-index' manually

[Joe_H]

For the Linux install people have reported needing to install the dev support for OpenCL as well, and there being permissions issues to fix up.

The folding as installed is done under a fahclient user with few privileges, more recent Linux versions need it to be added to the video group to access the GPU and related drivers. There are som e recent posts about this especially as related to Ubuntu.

[agent71]

Thanks but it's not that unfortunately.

I had exactly the same issue installing F@H in a non-virtualised and I swear just a simple install of a Nvidia package resolved it. Annoyingly I didn't note which one.