Folding with bad vram

[wolfgang]

Is it possible to fold on a gpu that has bad vram? Would there be any side effects to doing so?

I have a 770 that was artifacting and sent it to evga. They said its the ram and that they cant repair it. So I am curious if I can just turn it into a folding card.

[TheRandomness]

I don't get how F@H would need VRAM (other than the GUI).

[iamdarkyoshi]

What happens if you downclock the shit out of it? I would be the guy who replaces the VRAM chip myself

[Godlygamer23]

I don't get how F@H would need VRAM (other than the GUI).

If the folding is occurring on the GPU.

[TheRandomness]

If the folding is occurring on the GPU.

I thought it would only use the core?

[Godlygamer23]

I thought it would only use the core?

Data still needs to be stored. I can't verify it now because I'm at work, but when I get home, I'll verify it on my 660 Ti.

[TheRandomness]

Data still needs to be stored. I can't verify it now because I'm at work, but when I get home, I'll verify it on my 660 Ti.

Oh ok. I was previous set on believing that only video frames were stored there...

[Coaxialgamer]

Try downclocking the shit out of the vram ? Maybe that will help ?

[iamdarkyoshi]

Try downclocking the shit out of the vram ? Maybe that will help ?

 

What happens if you downclock the shit out of it?

[wolfgang]

Oh ok. I was previous set on believing that only video frames were stored there...

With my 980ti that is folding right now. Idle is 215MB and when I resume folding it moves to 342MB and the memory clock speeds jump up as well. This is all according to precisionx16.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Wonder if it would be possible to flash a custom BIOS that ignores the bad VRAM chips

[Whaler_99]

VRAM isn't really that important to folding, in that a 2GB card won't really perform any better than a 4GB card, folding wise. But, as mentioned, you still need enough to load all the data in. Best bet, load the card and try. Most likely if it isn't going to work it will fail right off as there isn't enough VRAM. But, might just work, esp if this is a second card in a system without even any displays hooked up to it.

[wolfgang]

VRAM isn't really that important to folding, in that a 2GB card won't really perform any better than a 4GB card, folding wise. But, as mentioned, you still need enough to load all the data in. Best bet, load the card and try. Most likely if it isn't going to work it will fail right off as there isn't enough VRAM. But, might just work, esp if this is a second card in a system without even any displays hooked up to it.

Having it as a second card is the plan. I will give it a try when I get the card back.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Having it as a second card is the plan. I will give it a try when I get the card back.

I know that my r9 270x I bought dead from ebay would talk to the PC, but the whole system would hard-crash as soon as the GPU tried to compute something, like F@H or even plugging in a monitor. So I reflowed the videoram and GPU die with my hot air rework station, and it has been working flawlessly ever since.

 

But it begs the question, which was bad on mine, the VRAM or GPU die?