Golden California Girls <gldncagrls@aol.com.mil> wrote:

DaveT wrote:

I have been "happily" processing CUDA units for more than a year. Now, after "upgrading" to BOINC
6.1.0.18, it says "3/28/2010 9:43:05 AM	SETI@home	Message from server: Your computer has no
NVIDIA GPU". Nothing in the computer has changed. I suspect the new BOINC is misinterpreting the
fact that I have two video adapters in the computer. One is an "integrated" ATI that is used for
most computer operations, including booting the computer. The other is a Gigabyte card with an
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS chipset that is connected to a 40" HDTV and is used exclusively for High
Definition video playback. The only change that might affect this is that I upgraded to the 40" HDTV
from a 28" HD monitor. When the TV is switched to another input, the computer seems to "know" about
this, because it makes that "ding-dong" sound like it makes when you plug in a usb hard drive.

For CUDA to be active, the monitor has to be attached and powered.  There are
dongles to make the card think that is the case when it isn't.  Suggest you read
the number crunchers forum at Seti

Thanks. I forgot about the forums. This is interesting for several reasons. The the computer thinks
the 28" monitor is connected even when it's on another input, such as component video. This is not
the case with the 40" TV. Perhaps this is because the TV supports HDCP, which (I believe) sends
information back to the source to facilitate the connection. The monitor does not have HDCP support.
Then there's this issue. CUDA was interfearing with HD playback with the TV but not with the
monitor. I don't know why. I was going to have to suppress CUDA during these times. Now that I know
the monitor has to be connected and powered for BOINC to download CUDA units, that brings up the
interesting possibility that I would be doing HD playback, possibly with others present, BOINC would
sense the monitor and/or the suitability of the Nvidia adapter, download a bunch of CUDA units, and
start screwing up the playback, and the cause would, at that point, be mysterious. Therefore I think
I will skip the dongle and turn off CUDA altogether. HD recording and playback is frought with
enough problems as it is. It was fun to see the computer crunching 5 units at a time, but the
novelty has sort of worn off.