I’m an avid SETI@home cruncher have been for years. My bragging note is that I recently passed 3,000,000 credits on SETI@home and part of that is thanks to the SETI@home CUDA enabled client they released which enables GPU crunching of SETI@home work units!

I’m currently running the CUDA client on two machines that have video cards that support the CUDA API. My home GeForce 8800GTX and my work Quadro FX 4600. From what I’ve read in specs and reviews, they’re basically the same card. So although this issue isn’t TECHNICALLY apples to apples, there might be a connection.

I noticed after a month or so of running the CUDA client on my home GeForce 8800GTX, my Vista machine started to become unstable. Blue Screening (BSOD) or rebooting randomly. It struck me as odd because I had not changed anything and for the most part, the system had just been sitting idle crunching work units.

Your GPU running SETI@home CUDA Client

After some basic trouble shooting I was able to determine that the instability was due to my video card overheating! This struck me as strange, because I know nVidia uses variable speed fans on the 8800GTX, so you’d think that if the system was reaching an unsafe operating level, that the fan would kick on, right? Wrong.

Continue reading “Problems with nVidia cooling over long term?” »