Learning Forum

[SRIDHARAN PADMANABHAN]

Hello,

I am an academic researcher and I design electronic PCBs using Altium and export to Ansys Maxwell 3D for simulation.  Very recently we purchased a 32-core AMD threadripper powered-desktop computer with 128 GB of RAM and A2000 graphics card. A typical maxwell simulation of a PCB design only uses 4 cores of the 64-logical cores, which means The AMD processor seems to be just 2-3% utilized.

To speed up the simulation, and to utilize all the cores I did the following;

1) Set cores = 64 in the General options window (Tools--> Options --> General --> Desktop performance --> Maxwell 3D --> no. of processors = 64).

2) Set cores = 64 in the HPC and Analysis window (Tools --> Options --> HPC and Analysis--> Configurations --> Edit --> Machines Tab --> Cores = 64)

3) Set RAM limit = 90% in the HPC and Analysis window (Tools --> Options --> HPC and Analysis--> Edit --> Machines Tab --> RAM = 90%)

4) Enabled GPU acceleration (Tools --> Options --> HPC and Analysis--> Options tab --> Enable GPU = True)

Even after these settings, only 4 out of 64 logical processors are only utilized. This I can see from the Resource monitor window from the Task manager. Occassionally all cores are loaded for a few seconds but they eventually go back to 0%.

An eddy current simulation of a 40x40mm PCB takes around 2 hours with a coarse/rough mesh setting.

I came to know that Ansys version (R2023) of my University supports HPC license.

Please let me know if I am missing something. Is it something should I enable HPC licensing anywhere else in the license manager setting?

Your suggestions would be highly helpful in this moment.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Sridharan

[George Karnos]

Hello Sridharan,

When setting the #Cores in step 2 above, was the Design Type set to Maxwell 3D

Click edit and change cores to 64:

Does this allow more than 4 cores?

Also, try setting Enable GPU to false and check how many cores are being used.

[randyk]

Additional suggestions:

Tools--> Options --> General --> Desktop performance --> Maxwell 3D --> no. of processors  is for pre/post performance - it does not affect solvers.

The A2000 will not be utililized as a compute GPU for Maxwell as it only offers single precision, please uncheck "GPU"
If considering GPU compute capabilities, please see our Platform page: https://www.ansys.com/it-solutions/platform-support
However, I would tend to discourage compute GPU as very project dependant.

Consider "Auto" mode when available. 
When selecting "Manual" mode, make sure you are enabling the correct Distribution types.

Is the project small? Perhaps the project does not require the extensive resources you are expecting.

[SRIDHARAN PADMANABHAN]

Hi George,
Thanks for the suggestions and yes, it accepts 64 cores as you have shown in the images. 

Hi Randy,
Okay, I will disable the GPU in the settings.

I have various designs of PCB projects to simulate and analyze. So I will try simulating them with various mesh sizes per your suggestion.

Thank you,
Sridharan