I have a bit of suspicion about GeForce driver '344.75-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql'. Since I installed it, I have had a few instances of finding mfaktc not running. When I restart it, I find that the 580 has locked down to 400 MHz, requiring a reboot. It must be a couple of years since I saw such a problem.

I have now rolled back to the next previous 344.65, but haven't been using it long enough to establish stability. I also have earlier versions like 344.48, in which I have confidence.

Has anyone else noticed a change in behavior with 344.75?

[QUOTE=kladner;388258]I have a bit of suspicion about GeForce driver '344.75-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql'. Since I installed it, I have had a few instances of finding mfaktc not running. When I restart it, I find that the 580 has locked down to 400 MHz, requiring a reboot. It must be a couple of years since I saw such a problem.

I have now rolled back to the next previous 344.65, but haven't been using it long enough to establish stability. I also have earlier versions like 344.48, in which I have confidence.[/QUOTE]

I moved to 344.65 on Nov 11 and haven't noticed any problems with it. I don't see any performance changes from earlier versions (I don't do any gaming).

[QUOTE=Chuck;388269]I moved to 344.65 on Nov 11 and haven't noticed any problems with it. I don't see any performance changes from earlier versions (I don't do any gaming).[/QUOTE]

So far, so good, here, with 344.65. I am thinking that there may be little reason to keep up with the latest drivers for something as old as the 500 series, if the drivers' main purpose is to tune the latest cards to the latest games.

[QUOTE=kladner;388271]So far, so good, here, with 344.65. I am thinking that there may be little reason to keep up with the latest drivers for something as old as the 500 series, if the drivers' main purpose is to tune the latest cards to the latest games.[/QUOTE]

I still update occasionally for a 8000 series

[QUOTE=kladner;388271]So far, so good, here, with 344.65. I am thinking that there may be little reason to keep up with the latest drivers for something as old as the 500 series, if the drivers' main purpose is to tune the latest cards to the latest games.[/QUOTE]

Agreed. I don't think driver updates have ever made any significant difference on mfaktc performance.

344.65 has yet to dump on me. My suspicions about 344.75 are solidifying.

Our work boxes are not connected to the Internet. We have a USB key setup with a Windows 7 installer and the few files necessary to set up a barebones CUDA environment. Once a particular program or driver has proved itself to be stable we have no intention of ever replacing it. We can replicate our install from scratch in under 30 minutes. (The configuration files are already built on the USB key.) We have every step written down on a piece of paper and we do the absolute minimum "tweaking" possible to ensure a stable system.

[QUOTE=kladner;388258]Has anyone else noticed a change in behavior with 344.75?[/QUOTE]

I upgraded to 344.75 and haven't noticed any problems running mfaktc on my dual GTX 560s.

[QUOTE=kladner;388258]I have a bit of suspicion about GeForce driver '344.75-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql'. Since I installed it, I have had a few instances of finding mfaktc not running. When I restart it, I find that the 580 has locked down to 400 MHz, requiring a reboot. It must be a couple of years since I saw such a problem.[/QUOTE]

Just as a heads-up, you can disable/re-enable the video card under device manager and accomplish the same thing most of the time. Saves the headache of having to restart the entire computer when you push the video card a little too far (as I often do...).

[QUOTE=wombatman;388332]Just as a heads-up, you can disable/re-enable the video card under device manager and accomplish the same thing most of the time. Saves the headache of having to restart the entire computer when you push the video card a little too far (as I often do...).[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the tip! :smile:

I found a "bug".

While double checking some trial factoring assignments in another thread, mfaktc picked 75bit_mul32 for Factor=N/A,54820379,63,66 instead of the usual barrett76_mul32_gs. It ran about 1/7th the speed that 64,66 assignments run since it was sieving on the CPU.

I think the default should be to always GPU sieve, or if the CPU sieve is to be used, to split the assignment at the cross over point.