Folding on AMD Radeon 8610G

[v-raze]

Trying to help my brother out with folding on his laptop- he's been folding with it for a few weeks already but only with the CPU and not the graphics. He has a Dell Inspiron M531R-5535, which uses an AMD A10-5745M APU with Radeon 8610G graphics. This is a reasonably powerful APU for a laptop and he could be making far more PPD if he were able to fold on it, but I can't seem to get it folding properly- whenever I start it, it downloads a work unit, sits there for a minute or so, and then returns a "BAD WORK UNIT" error, without having folded even 0.01% of the WU.

 

I've tried just about everything I could think of- reinstalling F@H, reinstalling F@H after removing all of the associated data, uninstalling and completely removing the AMD graphics drivers with driversweeper before installing the latest version, removing and re-adding the GPU slot- and nothing has changed it's behavior. I've reached the point where I'm at a complete loss.

 

I've attached a log file as a .txt, showing the GPU attempting to fold a work unit and failing before I paused and removed the slot. If I leave it going it will just download another WU and fail again, exactly the same way. The CPU works fine and you can see it starting to fold at the end of the log.

 

Does anyone else have a suggestion on how I might get this laptop folding on the GPU slot?

log.txt

[v-raze]

I should add that he's running the latest FAHClient, v7.4.4, in a Windows 10 environment.

 

Now oddly enough, it seems the update to the graphics driver didn't work after all. I've tried every method I can think of to update the driver from 15.200.1045.0 to one of the 16.x drivers, and thought I'd finally done it by manually selecting "Update Driver" under the device properties in device manager, as it had shown it was successful and displayed the new driver installed as being that version, but now it's shoowing 15.2 again. It may be the cause of the folding problem. Any insights?

[petem]

1 hour ago, v-raze said:

I should add that he's running the latest FAHClient, v7.4.4, in a Windows 10 environment.

 

Now oddly enough, it seems the update to the graphics driver didn't work after all. I've tried every method I can think of to update the driver from 15.200.1045.0 to one of the 16.x drivers, and thought I'd finally done it by manually selecting "Update Driver" under the device properties in device manager, as it had shown it was successful and displayed the new driver installed as being that version, but now it's shoowing 15.2 again. It may be the cause of the folding problem. Any insights?

Hello, and thanks for your folding support!

 

Not familiar with AMD folding issues.  The server seems to be delivering good work units.

 

The only english post for "NaNs detected in forces" error I found in google was posted at the main pande group forums (where I see you've already made a post in the "Problems with AMD/ATI drivers" section), but that person was running an AMD and NVIDIA card in the same rig, which adds another whole dimension of possible problems.  They had a core 21 work unit as well, so it may just be specific to core 21, and you'd be fine on other cores - have you had errors on other cores?

 

Just as a generic fix, I'd uninstall F@H, clean up the AMD driver issue until you are sure only the latest stable driver is in control, then reinstall F@H.  You might also want to delete the CPU slot before installing the GPU slot so there is no potential conflict between the OpenCL and CPU ids.  Not sure what that's about, but it is a common recommendation for AMD GPU issues from other forum posts.  After (if?) the GPU is working, add the CPU slot back in.  

 

If you still don't have any luck, hopefully the guys at Pande Group can figure it out. They are a lot better at reading logs than me.  Also, while pausing the CPU to keep the log cleaner, get a few failed attempts logged to see if there's a common theme (fails on core 21's only, etc.).

 

Good luck!

- Pete

 

 

[v-raze]

2 hours ago, petem said:

-snop-

Thanks so much for the comprehensive response! I'll be sure to keep those tips in mind about removing the CPU slot and such. I'm not 100% sure but I think the failed WU's have all been Core 21, I don't know that it's tried to download anything other than C21 units yet. Is there any way to chose which Core the units I'm folding are?

 

Good eye seeing my post over on the other forum- good old Joe_H already gave me a response, and mentioned getting drivers from the laptop OEM, which I hadn't thought to try. Hopefully if that fixes the driver issue I can get FAH up and running properly on the GPU. I will try removing the CPU slot first real quick to see what happens. I'll let everybody on both forums know how it turns out! If I can't figure out the driver issues I may just take it up with Dell support.

[v-raze]

Okay, just in case anyone's still interested or reads this later- the APU I'm trying to use has a VLIW4 based GPU. According to toTOW on the folding forums, some work units types can't run on some of these GPU's. The way to test this is to run the different tests on the latest version of FAHBench. If one of them (supposedly the NAV test) fails, you won't be able to run some projects.

 

Also, the driver troubles are a result of the APU being past End Of Life and no longer developed for- the 15.7.1 drivers are the latest good drivers with OpenCL support. This is irritating considering both AMD's website and their Crimson software showed 16.x drivers as being compatible and recommended for my specific GPU.

 

I will update to 15.7.1 if I can find a copy, try FAHBench, and let you know how it goes. This may take a couple weeks as I'm out of town for a while soon.

[Clyne]

I have a A10 5745M laptop with the 8610G graphics, i'd folded on it a while back(2014). I'd say DON'T FOLD ON IT BECAUSE IT MAY CAUSE HEAT ISSUES....APU went to 120C and molded my laptop body shape.

It'd worked back in 2014, but i'd never consider folding on a laptop APU if you have poor cooling.

[v-raze]

1 hour ago, Bubblewhale said:

It'd worked back in 2014, but i'd never consider folding on a laptop APU if you have poor cooling.

Yes, you're right. I am well aware of these risks but I should have included a disclaimer- never fold on a laptop you're not confident is up to the task, and always use low impact monitoring programs like Core Temp and GPU-Z to keep a close eye on the temperatures and voltages your system is running under. Even if you are cooling alright, a cooling pad or clip-on exhaust fan will help keep it that way and prolong the life of your main fan by not requiring it to work as hard.  Many laptop cooling systems are not adequately designed to cool the system at full load, and FAH puts stresses on your system it would likely never see in ordinary use. Use caution when folding on laptops, turn down to medium if you have to, and keep an eye on things.

[v-raze]

1 hour ago, Bubblewhale said:

It'd worked back in 2014, but i'd never consider folding on a laptop APU if you have poor cooling.

Yes, you're right. I am well aware of these risks but I should have included a disclaimer- never fold on a laptop you're not confident is up to the task, and always use low impact monitoring programs like Core Temp and GPU-Z to keep a close eye on the temperatures and voltages your system is running under. Even if you are cooling alright, a cooling pad or clip-on exhaust fan will help keep it that way and prolong the life of your main fan by not requiring it to work as hard.  Many laptop cooling systems are not adequately designed to cool the system at full load, and FAH puts stresses on your system it would likely never see in ordinary use. Use caution when folding on laptops, turn down to medium if you have to, and keep an eye on things.

[Clyne]

1 minute ago, v-raze said:

Yes, you're right. I am well aware of these risks but I should have included a disclaimer- never fold on a laptop you're not confident is up to the task, and always use low impact monitoring programs like Core Temp and GPU-Z to keep a close eye on the temperatures and voltages your system is running under. Even if you are cooling alright, a cooling pad or clip-on exhaust fan will help keep it that way and prolong the life of your main fan by not requiring it to work as hard.  Many laptop cooling systems are not adequately designed to cool the system at full load, and FAH puts stresses on your system it would likely never see in ordinary use. Use caution when folding on laptops, turn down to medium if you have to, and keep an eye on things.

My HP laptop has poor cooling in the first place, idles at 85C...so i'd have to add a external exhaust cooler to my laptop.

[v-raze]

4 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

My HP laptop has poor cooling in the first place, idles at 85C...so i'd have to add a external exhaust cooler to my laptop.

Yeah, some laptops just really aren't built for people who actually use their processing power.

If it's that bad, it might be that the thermal paste has dried into a thermal brick. That or the stock cooling is just total garbage and you shouldn't even consider folding without rigging up a better heatsink of some kind.

[Clyne]

5 minutes ago, v-raze said:

Yeah, some laptops just really aren't built for people who actually use their processing power.

If it's that bad, it might be that the thermal paste has dried into a thermal brick. That or the stock cooling is just total garbage and you shouldn't even consider folding without rigging up a better heatsink of some kind.

Yeah i'd tried everything even replacing the thermal paste, even upgrading a SSD didn't help(like it would in the first place).

I'm probably going to get a Lenovo Yoga to replace my current laptop. 

[v-raze]

4 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

Yeah i'd tried everything even replacing the thermal paste, even upgrading a SSD didn't help(like it would in the first place).

I'm probably going to get a Lenovo Yoga to replace my current laptop. 

You should keep your old one too. You could always build/hack together a custom case for it and make it a portable mini desktop. That way you could slap a low profile cooler with a proper fan on it. Then use it for an HTPC or a smaller room or even your kitchen or something. Or you could just take the bottom plastic off, zip tie an old stock cooler to the PCB, find/make something to keep it up off the work surface, and leave it on a desk. It would be a desktop computer, because it's a computer on top of a desk darnit

[petem]

On 7/7/2016 at 8:14 AM, v-raze said:

Trying to help my brother out with folding on his laptop- he's been folding with it for a few weeks already but only with the CPU and not the graphics. He has a Dell Inspiron M531R-5535, which uses an AMD A10-5745M APU with Radeon 8610G graphics. This is a reasonably powerful APU for a laptop and he could be making far more PPD if he were able to fold on it, but I can't seem to get it folding properly- whenever I start it, it downloads a work unit, sits there for a minute or so, and then returns a "BAD WORK UNIT" error, without having folded even 0.01% of the WU.

 

I've tried just about everything I could think of- reinstalling F@H, reinstalling F@H after removing all of the associated data, uninstalling and completely removing the AMD graphics drivers with driversweeper before installing the latest version, removing and re-adding the GPU slot- and nothing has changed it's behavior. I've reached the point where I'm at a complete loss.

 

I've attached a log file as a .txt, showing the GPU attempting to fold a work unit and failing before I paused and removed the slot. If I leave it going it will just download another WU and fail again, exactly the same way. The CPU works fine and you can see it starting to fold at the end of the log.

 

Does anyone else have a suggestion on how I might get this laptop folding on the GPU slot?

log.txt

You might also consider BOINC, I understand it is more flexible about how much CPU power is handled.