OK, so I bit the bullet and bought myself a 8600GT 265mb factory overclocked card (Galaxy) installed it and it is up and running. It's fitted in a Dell PC with a Pentium D 3.2Ghz twin core CPU and 1Gb ram.

The CPU is running two instances of Milky way and the third task is running as "GPU Grid Full Atom molecular dynamics 6.55 (cuda) and the status column says "Running 0.06 CPU's, 1 cuda"

Now the time to completion for the cuda task is looking like coming out at about 25 hours????? Surely something is a bit wrong here?

I'm using Boinc 6.4.5 and Nividia drivers 181.20. I set the card to performance rather than quality.

Help! at this rate it's not worth bothering with.....

OK, so I bit the bullet and bought myself a 8600GT 265mb factory overclocked card (Galaxy)

OK, thanks for the reply. I didn't pay much for it and I couldn't run anything faster as my PC power supply wouldn't have handled it. It has been an experiment to see what GPU computing is all about, but it seems unless you're into the high end cards its simply not worth bothering.

25 hours is slow?

My 9600m GT takes 68 hours.

Some of mine even time out because they expire before I can finish processing them.

32bit XP Pro SP3, 6.55 packets, BOINC 6.5.0, (Edit) driver 178.28, no other projects running.

Is this correct?

25 hours is slow?
My 9600m GT takes 68 hours.

Sigh....
I cant just specify seti cuda either....
ok, I'll just keep chugging along..

Well, I've downloaded Nvidia Ntune,and upped the GPU core to 656, the memory to 850, and the shaders to 1443. It all seems stable, so we will see if there is any extra performance to be had here. I'll report back.

Well, I've downloaded Nvidia Ntune,and upped the GPU core to 656, the memory to 850, and the shaders to 1443. It all seems stable, so we will see if there is any extra performance to be had here. I'll report back.

Hi Scott, thanks for the reply. I'm being told that I can overclock further to Core 693, memory 913, and shaders 1826. I might try that after a bit.

I've had two tasks crash out already, but the machine is a 24/7 cruncher with no games or other use. The CPU's are running Milkyway. The power supply is 350W, all the higher cards need 450w minimum that is why I had to stick to the 8600GT. I'd like a 9600GT but I dont think I can run it.

This really is just an experiment at the moment and from what I am seeing at the level of card I'm at, really isn't worth the hassle. I'll let it run for a bit but I think I will wait until I can afford a quaddy with a decent top end card and try again.

It coiuld still very well be the PS ... if it is close to its actual draw, or if it is simply a cheap design the PS can generate noise and ringing signals on the power rails which will drive some components nuts ...

I am not saying that this is the case here ... but it is a possibility to consider.

Or, the card may just be "silently" over-heating and dropping the task with errors because the card does not stay cool enough. You can use external fans to try to see if that is the cause also ...

Or, as you say, wait until you can afford a better card ... :)
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The power supply is 350W, all the higher cards need 450w minimum that is why I had to stick to the 8600GT. I'd like a 9600GT but I dont think I can run it.

Hi Paul and Scott, thanks again for the help. GPU-Z says the card is running at 53C with the fan at 30% so Its definitely not being pushed any! I believe I'm correct in saying that the 8600GT was a particularly low power card anyway which is probably helping.

9600GT Thermal and Power Specs:
Maximum GPU Temperature (in C) 105 C
Maximum Graphics Card Power (W) 90 W
Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 400 W
Supplementary Power Connectors 6-pin

Interim update. The first workunit is still running with these results

24 hours - 43%
37 hours - 65%

Extrapolating forward gives a finish time of about 56 hours which is what was suggested. My original figure of 25 hours came from the time elapsed figure which is counting up at half speed. The time left figure appears about right.

Ted,

Mine is right around the same speed.
Just keep crunching!

Well, we finally got there with the first workunit finished! Took a total of 56 hours, a reported CPU time of 32.7 hours, and a credit of 3232. All apparently about right for an 8600GT. I'll leave it running for another unit then try and tweak the card some more.

Well, I've downloaded Nvidia Ntune,and upped the GPU core to 656, the memory to 850, and the shaders to 1443. It all seems stable, so we will see if there is any extra performance to be had here. I'll report back.