Most users know how to check the status of their CPUs, see how much memory is free or find out how much disk space is free. In contrast, keeping tabs on the health and status of GPUs has historically been more difficult. If you don’t know where to look, it can even be difficult to determine the type and capabilities of the GPUs in a system. Thankfully, NVIDIA’s latest hardware and software tools have made good improvements in this respect.
The tool is NVIDIA’s System Management Interface (nvidia-smi). Depending on the generation of your card, various levels of information can be gathered. Additionally, GPU configuration options (such as ECC memory capability) may be enabled and disabled.
As an aside, if you find that you’re having trouble getting your NVIDIA GPUs to run GPGPU code, nvidia-smi can be handy. For example, on some systems the proper NVIDIA devices in /dev are not created at boot. Running a simple nvidia-smi query as root will initialize all the cards and create the proper devices in /dev. Other times, it’s just useful to make sure all the GPU cards are visible and communicating properly. Here’s the default output from a recent version with one Tesla K80 GPU card:
Tue Apr 7 12:56:41 2015
+------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 346.46 Driver Version: 346.46 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
| 0 Tesla K80 On | 0000:05:00.0 Off | Off |
| N/A 32C P8 26W / 149W | 56MiB / 12287MiB | 0% Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 1 Tesla K80 On | 0000:06:00.0 Off | Off |
| N/A 29C P8 29W / 149W | 56MiB / 12287MiB | 0% Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: GPU Memory |
| GPU PID Type Process name Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| No running processes found |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Persistence Mode
On Linux, you can set GPUs to persistence mode to keep the NVIDIA driver loaded even when no applications are accessing the cards. This is particularly useful when you have a series of short jobs running. Persistence mode uses more power, but prevents the fairly long delays that occur each time a GPU application is started. It is also necessary if you’ve assigned specific clock speeds or power limits to the GPUs (as those changes are lost when the NVIDIA driver is unloaded). Enable persistence mode on all GPUS by running:
nvidia-smi -pm 1
On Windows, nvidia-smi is not able to set persistence mode. Instead, you need to set your computational GPUs to TCC mode. This should be done through NVIDIA’s graphical GPU device management panel.
GPUs supported by nvidia-smi
NVIDIA’s SMI tool supports essentially any NVIDIA GPU released since the year 2011. These include the Tesla, Quadro, GRID and GeForce devices from Fermi and higher architecture families (Kepler, Maxwell, etc).
Supported products include:
Tesla: S1070, S2050, C1060, C2050/70, M2050/70/90, X2070/90, K10, K20, K20X, K40, K80
Quadro: 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000, M2070-Q, K-series, M-series
GeForce: varying levels of support, with fewer metrics available than on the Tesla and Quadro products
Querying GPU Status
Microway’s GPU Test Drive cluster, which we provide as a benchmarking service to our customers, contains a group of NVIDIA’s latest Tesla GPUs. These are NVIDIA’s high-performance compute GPUs and provide a good deal of health and status information. The examples below are taken from this internal cluster.
To list all available NVIDIA devices, run:
[root@md ~]# nvidia-smi -L GPU 0: Tesla K40m (UUID: GPU-d0e093a0-c3b3-f458-5a55-6eb69fxxxxxx) GPU 1: Tesla K40m (UUID: GPU-d105b085-7239-3871-43ef-975ecaxxxxxx)
To list certain details about each GPU, try:
[root@md ~]# nvidia-smi --query-gpu=index,name,uuid,serial --format=csv 0, Tesla K40m, GPU-d0e093a0-c3b3-f458-5a55-6eb69fxxxxxx, 0323913xxxxxx 1, Tesla K40m, GPU-d105b085-7239-3871-43ef-975ecaxxxxxx, 0324214xxxxxx
Monitoring and Managing GPU Boost
The GPU Boost feature which NVIDIA has included with more recent GPUs allows the GPU clocks to vary depending upon load (achieving maximum performance so long as power and thermal headroom are available). However, the amount of available headroom will vary by application (and even by input file!) so users and administrators should keep their eyes on the status of the GPUs.
A listing of available clock speeds can be shown for each GPU (in this case, the Tesla K80):
nvidia-smi -q -d SUPPORTED_CLOCKS
GPU 0000:04:00.0
Supported Clocks
Memory : 2505 MHz
Graphics : 875 MHz
Graphics : 862 MHz
Graphics : 849 MHz
Graphics : 836 MHz
Graphics : 823 MHz
Graphics : 810 MHz
Graphics : 797 MHz
Graphics : 784 MHz
Graphics : 771 MHz
Graphics : 758 MHz
Graphics : 745 MHz
Graphics : 732 MHz
Graphics : 719 MHz
Graphics : 705 MHz
Graphics : 692 MHz
Graphics : 679 MHz
Graphics : 666 MHz
Graphics : 653 MHz
Graphics : 640 MHz
Graphics : 627 MHz
Graphics : 614 MHz
Graphics : 601 MHz
Graphics : 588 MHz
Graphics : 575 MHz
Graphics : 562 MHz
Memory : 324 MHz
Graphics : 324 MHz
The above output indicates that only two memory clock speeds are supported (2505 MHz and 324 MHz). With the memory running at 2505 MHz, there are 25 supported GPU clock speeds. With the memory running at 324 MHz, only a single GPU clock speed is supported (which is the idle GPU state). On the Tesla K80, GPU Boost automatically manages these speeds and runs as fast as possible. On other models, such as Tesla K40, the administrator must specifically select the desired GPU clock speed.
To review the current GPU clock speed, default clock speed, and maximum possible clock speed, run:
nvidia-smi -q -d CLOCK
GPU 0000:04:00.0
Clocks
Graphics : 875 MHz
SM : 875 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Applications Clocks
Graphics : 875 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Default Applications Clocks
Graphics : 562 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Max Clocks
Graphics : 875 MHz
SM : 875 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
SM Clock Samples
Duration : 3730.56 sec
Number of Samples : 8
Max : 875 MHz
Min : 324 MHz
Avg : 873 MHz
Memory Clock Samples
Duration : 3730.56 sec
Number of Samples : 8
Max : 2505 MHz
Min : 324 MHz
Avg : 2500 MHz
Clock Policy
Auto Boost : On
Auto Boost Default : On
Ideally, you’d like all clocks to be running at the highest speed all the time. However, this will not be possible for all applications. To review the current state of each GPU and any reasons for clock slowdowns, use the PERFORMANCE flag:
nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE
GPU 0000:04:00.0
Performance State : P0
Clocks Throttle Reasons
Idle : Not Active
Applications Clocks Setting : Not Active
SW Power Cap : Not Active
HW Slowdown : Not Active
Unknown : Not Active
If any of the GPU clocks is running at a slower speed, one or more of the above Clocks Throttle Reasons will be marked as active. The most concerning condition would be if HW Slowdown or Unknown are active, as these would most likely indicate a power or cooling issue. The remaining conditions typically indicate that the card is idle or has been manually set into a slower mode by a system administrator.
Reviewing System Topology
To properly take advantage of more advanced NVIDIA GPU features (such as GPU Direct), it is often vital that the system topology be properly configured. The topology refers to how the PCI-Express devices (GPUs, InfiniBand HCAs, storage controllers, etc.) connect to each other and to the system’s CPUs. If not correct, it is possible that certain features will slow down or even stop working altogether. To help tackle such questions, recent versions of nvidia-smi include an experimental system topology view:
nvidia-smi topo --matrix
GPU0 GPU1 GPU2 GPU3 mlx4_0 CPU Affinity
GPU0 X PIX PHB PHB PHB 0-11
GPU1 PIX X PHB PHB PHB 0-11
GPU2 PHB PHB X PIX PHB 0-11
GPU3 PHB PHB PIX X PHB 0-11
mlx4_0 PHB PHB PHB PHB X
Legend:
X = Self
SOC = Path traverses a socket-level link (e.g. QPI)
PHB = Path traverses a PCIe host bridge
PXB = Path traverses multiple PCIe internal switches
PIX = Path traverses a PCIe internal switch
Reviewing this section will take some getting used to, but can be very valuable. The above configuration shows two Tesla K80 GPUs and one Mellanox FDR InfiniBand HCA all connected to the first CPU of a server. Because the CPUs are 12-core Xeons, the topology tool recommends that jobs be assigned to the first 12 CPU cores (although this will vary by application). Get in touch with one of our HPC GPU experts if you have questions on this topic.
Printing all GPU Details
To list all available data on a particular GPU, specify the ID of the card with -i. Here’s the output from an older Tesla GPU card:
nvidia-smi -i 0 -q
==============NVSMI LOG==============
Timestamp : Mon Dec 5 22:05:49 2011
Driver Version : 270.41.19
Attached GPUs : 2
GPU 0:2:0
Product Name : Tesla M2090
Display Mode : Disabled
Persistence Mode : Disabled
Driver Model
Current : N/A
Pending : N/A
Serial Number : 032251100xxxx
GPU UUID : GPU-2b1486407f70xxxx-98bdxxxx-660cxxxx-1d6cxxxx-9fbd7e7cd9bf55a7cfb2xxxx
Inforom Version
OEM Object : 1.1
ECC Object : 2.0
Power Management Object : 4.0
PCI
Bus : 2
Device : 0
Domain : 0
Device Id : 109110DE
Bus Id : 0:2:0
Fan Speed : N/A
Memory Usage
Total : 5375 Mb
Used : 9 Mb
Free : 5365 Mb
Compute Mode : Default
Utilization
Gpu : 0 %
Memory : 0 %
Ecc Mode
Current : Enabled
Pending : Enabled
ECC Errors
Volatile
Single Bit
Device Memory : 0
Register File : 0
L1 Cache : 0
L2 Cache : 0
Total : 0
Double Bit
Device Memory : 0
Register File : 0
L1 Cache : 0
L2 Cache : 0
Total : 0
Aggregate
Single Bit
Device Memory : 0
Register File : 0
L1 Cache : 0
L2 Cache : 0
Total : 0
Double Bit
Device Memory : 0
Register File : 0
L1 Cache : 0
L2 Cache : 0
Total : 0
Temperature
Gpu : N/A
Power Readings
Power State : P12
Power Management : Supported
Power Draw : 31.57 W
Power Limit : 225 W
Clocks
Graphics : 50 MHz
SM : 100 MHz
Memory : 135 MHz
The above example shows an idle card. Here is an excerpt for a card running GPU-accelerated AMBER:
nvidia-smi -i 0 -q -d MEMORY,UTILIZATION,POWER,CLOCK,COMPUTE
==============NVSMI LOG==============
Timestamp : Mon Dec 5 22:32:00 2011
Driver Version : 270.41.19
Attached GPUs : 2
GPU 0:2:0
Memory Usage
Total : 5375 Mb
Used : 1904 Mb
Free : 3470 Mb
Compute Mode : Default
Utilization
Gpu : 67 %
Memory : 42 %
Power Readings
Power State : P0
Power Management : Supported
Power Draw : 109.83 W
Power Limit : 225 W
Clocks
Graphics : 650 MHz
SM : 1301 MHz
Memory : 1848 MHz
You’ll notice that unfortunately the earlier M-series passively-cooled Tesla GPUs do not report temperatures to nvidia-smi. More recent Quadro and Tesla GPUs support a greater quantity of metrics data:
==============NVSMI LOG==============
Timestamp : Tue Apr 7 13:01:34 2015
Driver Version : 346.46
Attached GPUs : 2
GPU 0000:05:00.0
Product Name : Tesla K80
Product Brand : Tesla
Display Mode : Disabled
Display Active : Disabled
Persistence Mode : Enabled
Accounting Mode : Enabled
Accounting Mode Buffer Size : 128
Driver Model
Current : N/A
Pending : N/A
Serial Number : 0324614xxxxxx
GPU UUID : GPU-81dexxxx-87xx-4axx-79xx-3ddf4dxxxxxx
Minor Number : 0
VBIOS Version : 80.21.1B.00.01
MultiGPU Board : Yes
Board ID : 0x300
Inforom Version
Image Version : 2080.0200.00.04
OEM Object : 1.1
ECC Object : 3.0
Power Management Object : N/A
GPU Operation Mode
Current : N/A
Pending : N/A
PCI
Bus : 0x05
Device : 0x00
Domain : 0x0000
Device Id : 0x102D10DE
Bus Id : 0000:05:00.0
Sub System Id : 0x106C10DE
GPU Link Info
PCIe Generation
Max : 3
Current : 1
Link Width
Max : 16x
Current : 16x
Bridge Chip
Type : PLX
Firmware : 0xF0472900
Replays since reset : 0
Tx Throughput : N/A
Rx Throughput : N/A
Fan Speed : N/A
Performance State : P8
Clocks Throttle Reasons
Idle : Active
Applications Clocks Setting : Not Active
SW Power Cap : Not Active
HW Slowdown : Not Active
Unknown : Not Active
FB Memory Usage
Total : 12287 MiB
Used : 56 MiB
Free : 12231 MiB
BAR1 Memory Usage
Total : 16384 MiB
Used : 2 MiB
Free : 16382 MiB
Compute Mode : Default
Utilization
Gpu : 0 %
Memory : 0 %
Encoder : 0 %
Decoder : 0 %
Ecc Mode
Current : Disabled
Pending : Disabled
ECC Errors
Volatile
Single Bit
Device Memory : N/A
Register File : N/A
L1 Cache : N/A
L2 Cache : N/A
Texture Memory : N/A
Total : N/A
Double Bit
Device Memory : N/A
Register File : N/A
L1 Cache : N/A
L2 Cache : N/A
Texture Memory : N/A
Total : N/A
Aggregate
Single Bit
Device Memory : N/A
Register File : N/A
L1 Cache : N/A
L2 Cache : N/A
Texture Memory : N/A
Total : N/A
Double Bit
Device Memory : N/A
Register File : N/A
L1 Cache : N/A
L2 Cache : N/A
Texture Memory : N/A
Total : N/A
Retired Pages
Single Bit ECC : 0
Double Bit ECC : 0
Pending : No
Temperature
GPU Current Temp : 34 C
GPU Shutdown Temp : 93 C
GPU Slowdown Temp : 88 C
Power Readings
Power Management : Supported
Power Draw : 25.65 W
Power Limit : 149.00 W
Default Power Limit : 149.00 W
Enforced Power Limit : 149.00 W
Min Power Limit : 100.00 W
Max Power Limit : 175.00 W
Clocks
Graphics : 324 MHz
SM : 324 MHz
Memory : 324 MHz
Applications Clocks
Graphics : 875 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Default Applications Clocks
Graphics : 562 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Max Clocks
Graphics : 875 MHz
SM : 875 MHz
Memory : 2505 MHz
Clock Policy
Auto Boost : On
Auto Boost Default : On
Processes : None
Of course, we haven’t covered all the possible uses of the nvidia-smi tool. To read the full list of options, run nvidia-smi -h (it’s fairly lengthy). If you need to change settings on your cards, you’ll want to look at the device modification section:
-pm, --persistence-mode= Set persistence mode: 0/DISABLED, 1/ENABLED
-e, --ecc-config= Toggle ECC support: 0/DISABLED, 1/ENABLED
-p, --reset-ecc-errors= Reset ECC error counts: 0/VOLATILE, 1/AGGREGATE
-c, --compute-mode= Set MODE for compute applications:
0/DEFAULT, 1/EXCLUSIVE_THREAD,
2/PROHIBITED, 3/EXCLUSIVE_PROCESS
--gom= Set GPU Operation Mode:
0/ALL_ON, 1/COMPUTE, 2/LOW_DP
-r --gpu-reset Trigger reset of the GPU.
Can be used to reset the GPU HW state in situations
that would otherwise require a machine reboot.
Typically useful if a double bit ECC error has
occurred.
Reset operations are not guarenteed to work in
all cases and should be used with caution.
--id= switch is mandatory for this switch
-ac --applications-clocks= Specifies <memory,graphics> clocks as a
pair (e.g. 2000,800) that defines GPU's
speed in MHz while running applications on a GPU.
-rac --reset-applications-clocks
Resets the applications clocks to the default values.
-acp --applications-clocks-permission=
Toggles permission requirements for -ac and -rac commands:
0/UNRESTRICTED, 1/RESTRICTED
-pl --power-limit= Specifies maximum power management limit in watts.
-am --accounting-mode= Enable or disable Accounting Mode: 0/DISABLED, 1/ENABLED
-caa --clear-accounted-apps
Clears all the accounted PIDs in the buffer.
--auto-boost-default= Set the default auto boost policy to 0/DISABLED
or 1/ENABLED, enforcing the change only after the
last boost client has exited.
--auto-boost-permission=
Allow non-admin/root control over auto boost mode:
0/UNRESTRICTED, 1/RESTRICTED
With this tool, checking the status and health of NVIDIA GPUs is simple. If you’re looking to monitor the cards over time, then nvidia-smi might be more resource-intensive than you’d like. For that, have a look at NVIDIA’s GPU Management Library (NVML), which offers C, Perl and Python bindings. Commonly-used cluster tools, such as Ganglia, use these bindings to query GPU status.
This post was last updated on 2015-07-07
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