Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything – AMD - November 6

[Dirk Broer]

All was well till last Thursday, when it appeared my Ubuntu box had spontaniously re-booted.
It would not recognize the GPUs (and that's three of them) in Boinc since, nor would it start up with launch bar or menu bar when run with fglrx drivers (either 13.4 or 13.8)
The open source drivers have no missing bars, but you can't crunch with them.

I had my earlier Lubuntu problems solved by re-installing 13.10 with a newly burned DVD, and BOINC 7.2.7 is running fine with Catalyst 13.4 on the Lubuntu box, only a bit sluggish. I even returned valid MilkyWay WUs done on the A10-5700! But what makes people at Canonical decide to use experimental (7.2.7) BOINC versions?

I just burned a new Ubuntu 13.10 disk to try and repair the installation on the Ubuntu-box and so far, so good. The Ubuntu box is happily crunching on the fglrx drivers that came with 13.10 and started using the HD 6550D and the better (2 GB) HD 6670 without even a cc_config.xml edit!
Almost like the time I installed my GTX 630 alongside the A8-3820 -under Windows- and got PhysX for the HD 6650D too.
Looks like the OS-es do not 'see' the AMD IGP of the APU, at least not as being equal to a discrete graphics card. In the case of the HD 7660D a most remarkable feat, as it outperforms a HD 6670.

[Dirk Broer]

And again! After an upgrade and subsequent reboot the GPUs are no longer detected in BOINC.
And this while I have a functioning Catalyst Control center....

dirk@ASUS-F1A75V-EVO:~$ lspci | grep VGA
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] BeaverCreek [Radeon HD 6550D]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Turks XT [Radeon HD 6670/7670]
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Turks XT [Radeon HD 6670/7670]
dirk@ASUS-F1A75V-EVO:~$


dirk@ASUS-F1A75V-EVO:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6550D
OpenGL version string: 4.2.12337 Compatibility Profile Context 13.101

display: :0 screen: 1
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6670
OpenGL version string: 4.2.12337 Compatibility Profile Context 13.101

display: :0 screen: 2
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6670
OpenGL version string: 4.2.12337 Compatibility Profile Context 13.101




# Warning: This xorg.conf file is autogenerated by fglrx-pxpress. All changes to this file will be lost.

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "aticonfig Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
Screen "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
Screen "aticonfig-Screen[2]-0" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[2]-0"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
BusID "PCI:0:1:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[2]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
Device "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]-0"
Device "aticonfig-Device[1]-0"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[1]-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[2]-0"
Device "aticonfig-Device[2]-0"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[2]-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection


za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Starting BOINC client version 7.2.28 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Libraries: libcurl/7.32.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1e zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.28 librtmp/2.3
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | GPU detection failed. error code 65280
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | No usable GPUs found
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Host name: ASUS-F1A75V-EVO
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Processor: 4 AuthenticAMD AMD A8-3870 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics [Family 18 Model 1 Stepping 0]
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid pni cx16 popcnt lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt arat hw_pstate npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save pausefilter
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | OS: Linux: 3.11.0-13-generic
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Memory: 5.81 GB physical, 7.49 GB virtual
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Disk: 65.86 GB total, 39.44 GB free
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Local time is UTC +1 hours
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | VirtualBox version: 4.2.16_Ubuntur86992
za 09 nov 2013 22:25:40 CET | | Config: use all coprocessors

[AMDave]

I suspect that your 'updates' are 'dist-upgrade's which means you get the kernel updates
When you get a kernel update the machine needs to re-compile the kernel modules, which includes your custom install of the AMD driver which is not included in the re-build script.
If you use the distro version of the proprietary driver the kernel module IS included in the re-build script after the updates are downloaded.

So if you are getting kernel updates you should always know that you need to re-install your custom driver.
OR you can turn off the kernel updates in the software updater.
OR use the distro version of the proprietary driver and watch your worries fade away ;)