Until about 2 weeks ago, I have been crunching GPU tasks from various projects on my NVIDIA Quadro P5000 without any problem, mostly GPUGRID whenever tasks were available. The driver version was 537.99.
Then, all of a sudden when trying to download further GPUGRID tasks, the BOINC event log told me to update the GPU driver. So, first I restarted BOINC and noticed in the event log that the driver was shown as version 516.94 (!!!). No idea how come - maybe this was the driver version at time of installation the GPU years ago. And of course, when trying to download GPUGRID tasks, again I was requested to update the driver. So, obviously this driver version is too old for GPUGRID (although PrimeGrid and MooWrapper GPU tasks worked well).
Okay, next I downloaded the newest driver from the NVIDIA site, version 572.83, and installed it after having removed the former driver (537.99) via DDU. Everything worked well, and the NVIDIA Inspector, GPU-Z as well as the NVIDIA Control Panel now showed version 572.83.
Then I started BOINC, and annoying enough, at the startup phase the event log still complains about the outdated driver version 516.94, and hence would not let me download GPUGRID tasks (regardless whether there are any available or not).
So I have no idea at this point what I can do in order to make BOINC (version is 8.0.2) recognize the driver 572.83.

I don't know what has gone wrong with you system, but I am running the same versions as you without problems. I don't do GPUGRID though (I run Einstein) so that is different. Here's first lines from my event log:

14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Starting BOINC client version 8.0.2 for windows_x86_64
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task, cpu_sched, sched_op_debug
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Libraries: libcurl/8.7.0-DEV Schannel zlib/1.3.1
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Running under account xxxxx
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (driver version 572.83, CUDA version 12.8, compute capability 8.9, 16376MB, 16376MB available, 45112 GFLOPS peak)
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER (driver version 572.83, device version OpenCL 3.0 CUDA, 16376MB, 16376MB available, 45112 GFLOPS peak)
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics (driver version 3617.0 (PAL,LC), device version OpenCL 2.0 AMD-APP (3617.0), 24565MB, 24565MB available, 563 GFLOPS peak)
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Windows processor group 0: 32 processors
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Host name: XXXXX
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Processor: 32 AuthenticAMD AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-Core Processor [Family 25 Model 97 Stepping 2]
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 htt pni pclmulqdq ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movebe popcnt aes f16c rdrandsyscall nx lm avx avx2 avx512f avx512dq adx avx512ifma avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl avx512vbmi avx512_vbmi2 gfni vaes vpclmulqdq avx512_vnni avx512_bitalg avx512_vpopcntdq svm sse4a osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topx page1gb rdtscp fsgsbase bmi1 smep bmi2
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] OS: Microsoft Windows 11: Professional x64 Edition, (10.00.26100.00)
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Memory: 63.14 GB physical, 70.89 GB virtual
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Disk: 1.82 TB total, 1.63 TB free
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] Local time is UTC +3 hours
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] No WSL found.
14-Apr-2025 21:05:28 [---] VirtualBox version: 7.1.6

My driver is 572.83 studio version.

My advice is to run Display Driver Uninstaller from https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/ in Windows Safe Mode and after cleaning everything and rebooting, to reinstall the newest drivers and try again.

It's possible that an older CUDA/OpenCL file is stuck somewhere on the PC and throwing spanners in the works.

In reply to Jord's message of 15 Apr 2025:

My advice is to run Display Driver Uninstaller from https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/ in Windows Safe Mode and after cleaning everything and rebooting, to reinstall the newest drivers and try again.

It's possible that an older CUDA/OpenCL file is stuck somewhere on the PC and throwing spanners in the works.

as said in my posting - i did run DDU (forgot to mention that I followed the recommendation to run it in safe mode) before installing the latest driver.

the very strange thing is, as mentioned: until about 2 weeks ago, everything worked fine. An from one moment to the other (I did not make any changes either to hardware or to software) BOINC showed driver 516.94. Too bad that GPUGRID, one of my favorite projects, does not run with this alleged old driver. Other projects do.

In reply to Erich56's message of 15 Apr 2025:

In reply to Jord's message of 15 Apr 2025:

My advice is to run Display Driver Uninstaller from https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/ in Windows Safe Mode and after cleaning everything and rebooting, to reinstall the newest drivers and try again.

It's possible that an older CUDA/OpenCL file is stuck somewhere on the PC and throwing spanners in the works.

as said in my posting - i did run DDU (forgot to mention that I followed the recommendation to run it in safe mode) before installing the latest driver.

the very strange thing is, as mentioned: until about 2 weeks ago, everything worked fine. An from one moment to the other (I did not make any changes either to hardware or to software) BOINC showed driver 516.94. Too bad that GPUGRID, one of my favorite projects, does not run with this alleged old driver. Other projects do.

there's definitely something stuck somewhere that somehow DDU wasnt able to remove. BOINC can't just detect a random driver version from nowhere. when you ran DDU, did you go into the settings to prevent Windows from downloading drivers automatically through Windows Updates?

if DDU isnt removing it for some reason. I would try installing the OS fresh without a network connection, then installing the latest drivers from nvidia before plugging the network cable back in, to be sure windows doesnt try to sneak it in on you

---

In reply to Ian&Steve C.'s message of 15 Apr 2025:

when you ran DDU, did you go into the settings to prevent Windows from downloading drivers automatically through Windows Updates?

during applying DDU and installing the latest driver afterwards, the network cable was unplugged.

if DDU isnt removing it for some reason. I would try installing the OS fresh

I was afraid that this would be the only solution, after nothing else helps :-(

You haven't previously set any BOINC configuration files to read only to stop them from changing? (something i had to do some time back due to issues with the video driver (an Intel OpenCL entry in the registry broke the support for NVidia OpenCL & CUDA. No OpenCL, but 2 CUDA devices for just one video card...)).

---

Grant
Darwin NT.

Did you run DDU only for Nvidia drivers?
If you did, try rerunning it and choose AMD and Intel as well.

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 16 Apr 2025:

You haven't previously set any BOINC configuration files to read only to stop them from changing? (something i had to do some time back due to issues with the video driver (an Intel OpenCL entry in the registry broke the support for NVidia OpenCL & CUDA. No OpenCL, but 2 CUDA devices for just one video card...)).

Not that I can remember

In reply to Jord's message of 16 Apr 2025:

Did you run DDU only for Nvidia drivers?
If you did, try rerunning it and choose AMD and Intel as well.

yes, I ran DDU for Nvidia only. So thanks for the hint, I will run DDU again choosing NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.

Still it is a conondrum to me what happened totally out of the blue. Without having done anything from my side, BOINC all of a sudden decided to no longer recognize the at that time current driver 537.99, but insists on driver 516.94. While all other tools like the NVIDIA Inspector, GPU-Z, and the NVIDIA System Control showed 537.99. I also started Folding@Home - and even there 537.99 was shown. And all the before said is true after having had installed the latest driver 572.53 - this version is shown everywhere, except in BOINC. So in my opinion the problem clearly is with BOINC, right?

In reply to Erich56's message of 17 Apr 2025:

So in my opinion the problem clearly is with BOINC, right?

All BOINC does is recognize the driver according to drivers on your system. If the driver part in the designated place is wrong, then it can only recognize it wrong.

AMD and Intel use their own OpenCL drivers, but OpenCL being an open standard, the file can essentially run on all hardware that can run OpenCL, and so your Nvidia GPU can recognize AMD's and Intel's OpenCL driver as its own. Hence my request to delete for them as well. Even the OpenCL driver for an Intel CPU can throw a spanner.

I now downloaded the latest version of DDU - 18.1.1.0 (before I used 18.1.0.0) and ran the tool three times - for AMD, Intel and NVIDIA. In save mode, of course, and network cable unplugged.
Then, before re-installing the NVIDIA driver 572.83, I started BOINC, opened the event log, and again the driver 516.94 was shown - for CUDA as well as for OpenCL.
And: one line above it says: Failed to delete old coproc-info.xml. error code - 110.
So I went on to install driver 572.83, and - as expected - the BOINC event log again shows driver 516.94.
Then I opened the BOINC folder and the coproc-info.xml (dated some time in 2022). On various places, the driver was shown as 51694 or 516.94. So I changed these entries to read 57283 or 572.83, saved the file and restarted BOINC.
And, indeed, now the event log shows 572.83, and when I tried to download a GPUGRID task (however, there wasn't any available), I no longer got the request to update the GPU driver.
Unbelievable, how simply the problem finally got solved :-)

Failed to delete old coproc-info.xml. error code - 110.

That is what happens if you make the file read only, as per my question earlier in the thread.

Unbelievable, how simply the problem finally got solved :-)

Not so much solved, as worked around.

Unless you actually fix what is going on- ie why isn't the file being deleted, so the new one can be written, then the next time you upgrade your video driver the same issue will re-occur. BOINC will not recognise the new video driver (well it will find it, but unless it can save those changes, it can't recognise it).

---

Grant
Darwin NT.

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 20 Apr 2025:

Failed to delete old coproc-info.xml. error code - 110.

That is what happens if you make the file read only, as per my question earlier in the thread.

Unbelievable, how simply the problem finally got solved :-)

Not so much solved, as worked around.

Unless you actually fix what is going on- ie why isn't the file being deleted, so the new one can be written, then the next time you upgrade your video driver the same issue will re-occur. BOINC will not recognise the new video driver (well it will find it, but unless it can save those changes, it can't recognise it).

well, I remember your posting: "You haven't previously set any BOINC configuration files to read only to stop them from changing?" - in fact, I had never set any BOINC configuration files to "read only".

The issue did not occur after having updated the video driver. I hadn't done anything, as I explained anyway. The problem came up out of the blue, without any changes from my side.
But I am not worried too much now, because I am sure with the latest driver now, for long time GPUGRID (and other projects) will be able to function. And even if I upgrade the driver one day, there will not be a problem as long as the driver shown in the coproc-info.xml works with the given task. Plus, I now know anyway how to solve the problem, should one ever come up :-)
BTW: the host just happened to get a GPUGRID task, and it runs well (although it may fail after some time with the "energy is NAN" error like so many GPUGRID tasks in the past - but this will then have nothing to do with my recent driver problem).

And even if I upgrade the driver one day, there will not be a problem as long as the driver shown in the coproc-info.xml works with the given task. Plus, I now know anyway how to solve the problem, should one ever come up :-)

As long as you remember then what you did this time around...

---

Grant
Darwin NT.

you can also just delete the coproc_info.xml at any time, and BOINC will recreate it at next startup.

you might want to just do that anyway. some projects do restrict based on other things in that file, not just the driver version. there are things in there like your CUDA version (not the same thing as driver version) and other GPU specific info. and if you change the GPU if the file is still locked from editing, it wont reflect the new GPU.

---