Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-07 Thread Joachim Fürst
 

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 6. november 2008 17:59
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

 Deal All,
 I know tried to replace the V atom with a C instead. After many CG 
 steps, the same problem in the SCF run suddenly occured. Can it be an 
 issue of compilation?

 -Joachim

Dear Joachim,
let's be systematic:

1) can you please confirm that the problem is not due to what I suggested to 
check several days ago - the maximal spin set up by default on ALL atoms?

-Yes, that is not the case

2) does the electronic structure (either with V, or without) - position of 
carbon 2s and 2p bands, charges - remains reasonable until the same problem in 
the SCF run suddenly occured? Or are you having weird results all the way 
through and only notice it when they start to diverge? Sorry...

-No, I have normal charges and forces before it goes wrong. 

3) what happens afer many CG steps it terms of structure; in which respect 
does the crashed structure differ from the good one?
You may have the .ANI file stored,
or just .XV files from the beginning and from immediately before the crash. If 
it happens suddenly then some crazy forces calculated on atoms might be 
responsible, whatever the reason for this.

-I don't see anything unusual with the CG move of the structure. The crazy 
forces are only, of course, a result of the non-converged SCF. For the prior, 
well-converging CG runs, the forces are fine. 

Thank you for your time. 

Best, 
Joachim


Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-06 Thread Joachim Fürst
Deal All, 
I know tried to replace the V atom with a C instead. After many CG steps, the 
same problem in the SCF run suddenly occured. Can it be an issue of compilation?

-Joachim 

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joachim Fürst
Sent: 5. november 2008 11:06
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

Dear All, 

The V3p are included in the PS I used (it should be anyway!!). So, yes, I 
agree, it is best to have it in there. I also agree that the SCF shouldn't 
behave like that with it being in there or not.

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 5. november 2008 10:48
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

 Quoting Joachim Fürst [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Dear all,
 I followed the discussion about the vanadium deposited on a graphene 
 sheet.
 My experience with vanadium is that it is necessary to insert 
 semi-core states the 3p with the atom program.

Yes I fully agree -
V3p are important in order to obtain accurate results, but I don't think their 
absence was responsible for the crazy SCF behaviour, if (even not so good) V 
potential was working in other systems.

 By the way is it scheduled in SIESTA to include soon or later 
 ultrasoft pseudo?

Note that in Siesta the softness of the pseudopotential does not matter to such 
extent as it does in planewave codes (where this becomes expensive in terms of 
basis size).
In Siesta, even deep pseudos can be (with a bit of luck) treated with 
appropriate basis sets. Hard cases which demand high mesh cutoffs are not a 
priori those where the pseudo is hard.

Andrei Postnikov


Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-06 Thread apostnik
 Deal All,
 I know tried to replace the V atom with a C instead. After many CG steps,
 the same problem in the SCF run suddenly occured. Can it be an issue of
 compilation?

 -Joachim

Dear Joachim,
let's be systematic:

1) can you please confirm that the problem is not due to what I suggested
to check several days ago - the maximal spin set up by default on ALL
atoms?

2) does the electronic structure (either with V, or without) -
position of carbon 2s and 2p bands, charges - remains reasonable
until the same problem in the SCF run suddenly occured? Or are you
having weird results all the way through and only notice it when
they start to diverge? Sorry...

3) what happens afer many CG steps it terms of structure;
in which respect does the crashed structure differ from the good one?
You may have the .ANI file stored,
or just .XV files from the beginning and from immediately before
the crash. If it happens suddenly then some crazy forces calculated
on atoms might be responsible, whatever the reason for this.

Good luck

Andrei


Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-05 Thread apostnik
 Quoting Joachim Fürst [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Dear all,
 I followed the discussion about the vanadium deposited on a graphene
 sheet.
 My experience with vanadium is that it is necessary to insert semi-core
 states
 the 3p with the atom program.

Yes I fully agree -
V3p are important in order to obtain accurate results,
but I don't think their absence was responsible
for the crazy SCF behaviour,
if (even not so good) V potential was working in other systems.

 By the way is it scheduled in SIESTA to include soon or later
 ultrasoft pseudo?

Note that in Siesta the softness of the pseudopotential does not matter
to such extent as it does in planewave codes (where this becomes
expensive in terms of basis size).
In Siesta, even deep pseudos can be (with a bit of luck)
treated with appropriate basis sets. Hard cases which demand
high mesh cutoffs are not a priori those where the pseudo is hard.

Andrei Postnikov


Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-05 Thread Joachim Fürst
Dear All, 

The V3p are included in the PS I used (it should be anyway!!). So, yes, I 
agree, it is best to have it in there. I also agree that the SCF shouldn't 
behave like that with it being in there or not.

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 5. november 2008 10:48
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

 Quoting Joachim Fürst [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Dear all,
 I followed the discussion about the vanadium deposited on a graphene 
 sheet.
 My experience with vanadium is that it is necessary to insert 
 semi-core states the 3p with the atom program.

Yes I fully agree -
V3p are important in order to obtain accurate results, but I don't think their 
absence was responsible for the crazy SCF behaviour, if (even not so good) V 
potential was working in other systems.

 By the way is it scheduled in SIESTA to include soon or later 
 ultrasoft pseudo?

Note that in Siesta the softness of the pseudopotential does not matter to such 
extent as it does in planewave codes (where this becomes expensive in terms of 
basis size).
In Siesta, even deep pseudos can be (with a bit of luck) treated with 
appropriate basis sets. Hard cases which demand high mesh cutoffs are not a 
priori those where the pseudo is hard.

Andrei Postnikov


Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-04 Thread Marcos Verissimo Alves
631 atoms? whew...

Thee could be a few things that might help. One thing is to set an
electronic temperature higher than the default (about 25 meV). Even though
you say you have raised the temperature (which I assume to be the
electronic temperature), how high have you raised? Maybe you'll have to
set it to a really high value for your calculation to converge initially,
after which you'll be able to lower it gradually, in steps of about 10 meV
and re-relaxing everything again.

Another thing that helps convergence is that V atoms are in a good initial
position. My personal experience is that when the initial positions of the
atoms are way off the equilibrium ones, scf can be problematic, especially
if you have d electrons (in my case I have Ni slabs). Supposing that V
atoms would be adsorbed over the graphene surface, you could try doing an
initial relaxation with the Harris functional - which would overcome scf
convergence problems in a first step. It will most probably not give very
reliable results, but it could help in determining an initial set of
positions which could be not too off from equilibrium. Make a test with a
V atom over a 32-atom graphene sheet to compare the outcomes of full scf
relaxation and a Harris functional calculation; if it gives decent
results, you could try doing this to your larger sheet.

Finally, I would use a larger MeshCutoff. It might help to improve SCF
convergence. Try at least 220-250 Ry.

Best of luck,

Marcos



Vous avez écrit / You have written / Lei ha scritto / Você escreveu...
Joachim Fürst
 Dear all,

 I am doing a relaxation with vanadium on graphene, and the scf loop goes
 crazy:


 siesta: iscfEharris(eV)   E_KS(eV)FreeEng(eV) dDmax
 Ef(eV)
 siesta:1   -97094.38150   -99070.91635   -99070.91635  39.07032
 -4.23154
 timer: Routine,Calls,Time,% = IterSCF1 882.442  95.03
 elaps: Routine,Calls,Wall,% = IterSCF1 223.031  94.74
 siesta:2   -97140.17446   -99051.35598   -99051.50902  34.72834
 -4.20753
 siesta:3   -97226.76276   -98965.36619   -98965.50463  35.42815
 -4.12217
 siesta:4   -94936.08243   -99371.74467   -99371.89250  35.10492
 -4.22078
 siesta:5   -90678.74567   -99715.25553   -99715.47141  24.75070
 -4.07217
 siesta:6   -86315.83616  -100050.89144  -100051.12562  36.83745
 -3.67364
 siesta:7   -97702.64129   -98510.48955   -98510.724571051.40098
 -3.89029



 -And it only gets worse after more iterations.

 I have tried almost all thinkable combinations of Pulay mixing, mixing
 rate etc, but without success. I have also increased temperature, disabled
 spin, changed energyshift, tried different basis sets for all
 elementsNo luck at all!  Sometimes I can get it to converge, but then
 after a CG step or two it goes nuts again.
 If I leave out vanadium, the problem disappears. I have used this vanadium
 PS many times in different calculations, but have never come across this
 issue until now.

 Have you got any ideas? I have listed my .fdf file below (the long list of
 coordinates is left out).
 Hope you have some good advice. Thanks!



 NumberOfSpecies: 3
 NumberOfAtoms: 631

 LatticeConstant 1.0 Ang
 %block LatticeVectors
 55. 0. 0.
   0.   8. 0
   0.0.  36.84
 %endblock LatticeVectors

 %block ChemicalSpeciesLabel
 1 6  C_pbe
 2 1 H
 3 23 V
 %endblock ChemicalSpeciesLabel


 AtomicCoordinatesFormat Ang
 %block AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies
 40.470458 0.00 0.000196 1
 39.049818 0.00 0.000213 1
 36.210059 -0.01 0.000237 1
 0.709653 0.00 0.000252 1
 .

 .
  %endblock AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies


 %block kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack
 1   0   0 0.0
 0   1   0  0.0
 0   0   1  0.0
 %endblock kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack

 DM.UseSaveDM  T
 #SaveTotalPotential T
 #SaveRho T
 #SaveElectrostaticPotential T
 #MD.UseSaveXV T

 SolutionMethod Diagon


 %block PAO.BasisSizes
 C_pbe DZ
 H DZ
 %endblock PAO.BasisSizes

 %block PAO.Basis
 V   4# Species label, number of l-shells
  n=4   0   2 P 1  # n, l, Nzeta, Polarization, NzetaPol

7.497  6.783

1.000  1.000

  n=3   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

3.048  1.943

   1.000  1.000

  n=4   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

9.870  8.285

1.000  1.000

  n=3   2   2 # n, l, Nzeta

4.901  2.758

1.000  1.000

 %endblock PAO.Basis


 XC.functional GGA
 LongOutput .true.
 XC.authors PBE
 SystemLabel bulk



 DM.MixSCF1   T
 MaxSCFIterations  600   # Maximum number of SCF iter
 DM.MixingWeight   0.01 # New DM amount for next SCF cycle
 DM.Tolerance  1.d-4 # Tolerance in maximum difference
 DM.UseSaveDM  true  # to use continuation files
 DM.NumberPulay 4

 SpinPolarized  true

 WriteMullikenPop 1

 MeshCutoff 175 Ry



 MD.TypeOfRun   CG
 MD.NumCGSteps  190
 MD.UseSaveCG  true
 

Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-04 Thread Joachim Fürst
Hi, 
Thank you for your advices. 
I have also cut the system down to only a 100 atoms or so, without any 
improvement. I have a pretty good idea about V position, what is less known to 
me is the distortion of the sheet. I have done runs with 220 Ry mesh, but no 
change. I will try very high temperature as a final try.
Thansk again. 

Joachim 

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcos Verissimo Alves
Sent: 4. november 2008 17:42
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

631 atoms? whew...

Thee could be a few things that might help. One thing is to set an electronic 
temperature higher than the default (about 25 meV). Even though you say you 
have raised the temperature (which I assume to be the electronic temperature), 
how high have you raised? Maybe you'll have to set it to a really high value 
for your calculation to converge initially, after which you'll be able to lower 
it gradually, in steps of about 10 meV and re-relaxing everything again.

Another thing that helps convergence is that V atoms are in a good initial 
position. My personal experience is that when the initial positions of the 
atoms are way off the equilibrium ones, scf can be problematic, especially if 
you have d electrons (in my case I have Ni slabs). Supposing that V atoms would 
be adsorbed over the graphene surface, you could try doing an initial 
relaxation with the Harris functional - which would overcome scf convergence 
problems in a first step. It will most probably not give very reliable results, 
but it could help in determining an initial set of positions which could be not 
too off from equilibrium. Make a test with a V atom over a 32-atom graphene 
sheet to compare the outcomes of full scf relaxation and a Harris functional 
calculation; if it gives decent results, you could try doing this to your 
larger sheet.

Finally, I would use a larger MeshCutoff. It might help to improve SCF 
convergence. Try at least 220-250 Ry.

Best of luck,

Marcos



Vous avez écrit / You have written / Lei ha scritto / Você escreveu...
Joachim Fürst
 Dear all,

 I am doing a relaxation with vanadium on graphene, and the scf loop 
 goes
 crazy:


 siesta: iscfEharris(eV)   E_KS(eV)FreeEng(eV) dDmax
 Ef(eV)
 siesta:1   -97094.38150   -99070.91635   -99070.91635  39.07032
 -4.23154
 timer: Routine,Calls,Time,% = IterSCF1 882.442  95.03
 elaps: Routine,Calls,Wall,% = IterSCF1 223.031  94.74
 siesta:2   -97140.17446   -99051.35598   -99051.50902  34.72834
 -4.20753
 siesta:3   -97226.76276   -98965.36619   -98965.50463  35.42815
 -4.12217
 siesta:4   -94936.08243   -99371.74467   -99371.89250  35.10492
 -4.22078
 siesta:5   -90678.74567   -99715.25553   -99715.47141  24.75070
 -4.07217
 siesta:6   -86315.83616  -100050.89144  -100051.12562  36.83745
 -3.67364
 siesta:7   -97702.64129   -98510.48955   -98510.724571051.40098
 -3.89029



 -And it only gets worse after more iterations.

 I have tried almost all thinkable combinations of Pulay mixing, mixing 
 rate etc, but without success. I have also increased temperature, 
 disabled spin, changed energyshift, tried different basis sets for all 
 elementsNo luck at all!  Sometimes I can get it to converge, but 
 then after a CG step or two it goes nuts again.
 If I leave out vanadium, the problem disappears. I have used this 
 vanadium PS many times in different calculations, but have never come 
 across this issue until now.

 Have you got any ideas? I have listed my .fdf file below (the long 
 list of coordinates is left out).
 Hope you have some good advice. Thanks!



 NumberOfSpecies: 3
 NumberOfAtoms: 631

 LatticeConstant 1.0 Ang
 %block LatticeVectors
 55. 0. 0.
   0.   8. 0
   0.0.  36.84
 %endblock LatticeVectors

 %block ChemicalSpeciesLabel
 1 6  C_pbe
 2 1 H
 3 23 V
 %endblock ChemicalSpeciesLabel


 AtomicCoordinatesFormat Ang
 %block AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies
 40.470458 0.00 0.000196 1
 39.049818 0.00 0.000213 1
 36.210059 -0.01 0.000237 1
 0.709653 0.00 0.000252 1
 .

 .
  %endblock AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies


 %block kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack
 1   0   0 0.0
 0   1   0  0.0
 0   0   1  0.0
 %endblock kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack

 DM.UseSaveDM  T
 #SaveTotalPotential T
 #SaveRho T
 #SaveElectrostaticPotential T
 #MD.UseSaveXV T

 SolutionMethod Diagon


 %block PAO.BasisSizes
 C_pbe DZ
 H DZ
 %endblock PAO.BasisSizes

 %block PAO.Basis
 V   4# Species label, number of l-shells
  n=4   0   2 P 1  # n, l, Nzeta, Polarization, NzetaPol

7.497  6.783

1.000  1.000

  n=3   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

3.048  1.943

   1.000  1.000

  n=4   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

9.870  8.285

1.000

Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-04 Thread Eduardo Anglada

Could you please post your V pseudo?
The mesh cutoff doesn't vary the scf, it only controls the rippling of  
energy/forces.
This rippling is due to the FFT aliasing of those magnitudes  
(orbs^2,neutral atom potential, core
charge for non linear core corrections) which are projected into the  
grid. As the
aliasing is constant (ie during the scf the atoms don't move with  
respect to

the grid) the mesh cutoff shouldn't play any role.

Best regards,
Eduardo

On 04/11/2008, at 18:05, Joachim Fürst wrote:


Hi,
Thank you for your advices.
I have also cut the system down to only a 100 atoms or so, without  
any improvement. I have a pretty good idea about V position, what is  
less known to me is the distortion of the sheet. I have done runs  
with 220 Ry mesh, but no change. I will try very high temperature as  
a final try.

Thansk again.

Joachim

-Original Message-
From: Siesta, Self-Consistent DFT LCAO program, http://www.uam.es/siesta 
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcos Verissimo Alves

Sent: 4. november 2008 17:42
To: SIESTA-L@listserv.uam.es
Subject: Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

631 atoms? whew...

Thee could be a few things that might help. One thing is to set an  
electronic temperature higher than the default (about 25 meV). Even  
though you say you have raised the temperature (which I assume to be  
the electronic temperature), how high have you raised? Maybe you'll  
have to set it to a really high value for your calculation to  
converge initially, after which you'll be able to lower it  
gradually, in steps of about 10 meV and re-relaxing everything again.


Another thing that helps convergence is that V atoms are in a good  
initial position. My personal experience is that when the initial  
positions of the atoms are way off the equilibrium ones, scf can be  
problematic, especially if you have d electrons (in my case I have  
Ni slabs). Supposing that V atoms would be adsorbed over the  
graphene surface, you could try doing an initial relaxation with the  
Harris functional - which would overcome scf convergence problems in  
a first step. It will most probably not give very reliable results,  
but it could help in determining an initial set of positions which  
could be not too off from equilibrium. Make a test with a V atom  
over a 32-atom graphene sheet to compare the outcomes of full scf  
relaxation and a Harris functional calculation; if it gives decent  
results, you could try doing this to your larger sheet.


Finally, I would use a larger MeshCutoff. It might help to improve  
SCF convergence. Try at least 220-250 Ry.


Best of luck,

Marcos



Vous avez écrit / You have written / Lei ha scritto / Você escreveu...
Joachim Fürst

Dear all,

I am doing a relaxation with vanadium on graphene, and the scf loop
goes
crazy:


siesta: iscfEharris(eV)   E_KS(eV)FreeEng(eV) dDmax
Ef(eV)
siesta:1   -97094.38150   -99070.91635   -99070.91635  39.07032
-4.23154
timer: Routine,Calls,Time,% = IterSCF1 882.442  95.03
elaps: Routine,Calls,Wall,% = IterSCF1 223.031  94.74
siesta:2   -97140.17446   -99051.35598   -99051.50902  34.72834
-4.20753
siesta:3   -97226.76276   -98965.36619   -98965.50463  35.42815
-4.12217
siesta:4   -94936.08243   -99371.74467   -99371.89250  35.10492
-4.22078
siesta:5   -90678.74567   -99715.25553   -99715.47141  24.75070
-4.07217
siesta:6   -86315.83616  -100050.89144  -100051.12562  36.83745
-3.67364
siesta:7   -97702.64129   -98510.48955   -98510.724571051.40098
-3.89029



-And it only gets worse after more iterations.

I have tried almost all thinkable combinations of Pulay mixing,  
mixing

rate etc, but without success. I have also increased temperature,
disabled spin, changed energyshift, tried different basis sets for  
all

elementsNo luck at all!  Sometimes I can get it to converge, but
then after a CG step or two it goes nuts again.
If I leave out vanadium, the problem disappears. I have used this
vanadium PS many times in different calculations, but have never come
across this issue until now.

Have you got any ideas? I have listed my .fdf file below (the long
list of coordinates is left out).
Hope you have some good advice. Thanks!



NumberOfSpecies: 3
NumberOfAtoms: 631

LatticeConstant 1.0 Ang
%block LatticeVectors
55. 0. 0.
 0.   8. 0
 0.0.  36.84
%endblock LatticeVectors

%block ChemicalSpeciesLabel
1 6  C_pbe
2 1 H
3 23 V
%endblock ChemicalSpeciesLabel


AtomicCoordinatesFormat Ang
%block AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies
40.470458 0.00 0.000196 1
39.049818 0.00 0.000213 1
36.210059 -0.01 0.000237 1
0.709653 0.00 0.000252 1
.

.
%endblock AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies


%block kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack
1   0   0 0.0
0   1   0  0.0
0   0   1  0.0
%endblock kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack

DM.UseSaveDM  T
#SaveTotalPotential T
#SaveRho T
#SaveElectrostaticPotential T
#MD.UseSaveXV T

Re: [SIESTA-L] Crazy SCF with vanadium

2008-11-04 Thread apostnik
Hallo,
some questions: in those cases when as youy say you got it converged,
does everything else look reasonable? (vanadium is magnetic,
graphene not, bands in due place, no crazy charge transfers etc.)

My wild guess is that, as you set spin polarization on,
by default (unless you have InitSpin block whick I don't see
in your fragment) SIESTA sets MAXIMAL spins on ALL atoms,
including all your graphene, that is a very bad starting point.
And if you switch spin out, your deposited vanadium is forced
to be non-magnetic, which is probably not very stable either.

Not that you have
DM.UseSaveDM  true
in your example, which you would need to set to F in order to reset
the spins.

Once this is settled (if it is indeed the case, and you still
have problems) take small mixing (much smaller than you have now),
temperature of 300 - 600 K, to begin with. Then you must be able
to force the system into convergence.

Good luck

Andrei Postnikov



 Dear all,

 I am doing a relaxation with vanadium on graphene, and the scf loop goes
 crazy:


 siesta: iscfEharris(eV)   E_KS(eV)FreeEng(eV) dDmax
 Ef(eV)
 siesta:1   -97094.38150   -99070.91635   -99070.91635  39.07032
 -4.23154
 timer: Routine,Calls,Time,% = IterSCF1 882.442  95.03
 elaps: Routine,Calls,Wall,% = IterSCF1 223.031  94.74
 siesta:2   -97140.17446   -99051.35598   -99051.50902  34.72834
 -4.20753
 siesta:3   -97226.76276   -98965.36619   -98965.50463  35.42815
 -4.12217
 siesta:4   -94936.08243   -99371.74467   -99371.89250  35.10492
 -4.22078
 siesta:5   -90678.74567   -99715.25553   -99715.47141  24.75070
 -4.07217
 siesta:6   -86315.83616  -100050.89144  -100051.12562  36.83745
 -3.67364
 siesta:7   -97702.64129   -98510.48955   -98510.724571051.40098
 -3.89029



 -And it only gets worse after more iterations.

 I have tried almost all thinkable combinations of Pulay mixing, mixing
 rate etc, but without success. I have also increased temperature, disabled
 spin, changed energyshift, tried different basis sets for all
 elementsNo luck at all!  Sometimes I can get it to converge, but then
 after a CG step or two it goes nuts again.
 If I leave out vanadium, the problem disappears. I have used this vanadium
 PS many times in different calculations, but have never come across this
 issue until now.

 Have you got any ideas? I have listed my .fdf file below (the long list of
 coordinates is left out).
 Hope you have some good advice. Thanks!



 NumberOfSpecies: 3
 NumberOfAtoms: 631

 LatticeConstant 1.0 Ang
 %block LatticeVectors
 55. 0. 0.
   0.   8. 0
   0.0.  36.84
 %endblock LatticeVectors

 %block ChemicalSpeciesLabel
 1 6  C_pbe
 2 1 H
 3 23 V
 %endblock ChemicalSpeciesLabel


 AtomicCoordinatesFormat Ang
 %block AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies
 40.470458 0.00 0.000196 1
 39.049818 0.00 0.000213 1
 36.210059 -0.01 0.000237 1
 0.709653 0.00 0.000252 1
 .

 .
  %endblock AtomicCoordinatesAndAtomicSpecies


 %block kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack
 1   0   0 0.0
 0   1   0  0.0
 0   0   1  0.0
 %endblock kgrid_Monkhorst_Pack

 DM.UseSaveDM  T
 #SaveTotalPotential T
 #SaveRho T
 #SaveElectrostaticPotential T
 #MD.UseSaveXV T

 SolutionMethod Diagon


 %block PAO.BasisSizes
 C_pbe DZ
 H DZ
 %endblock PAO.BasisSizes

 %block PAO.Basis
 V   4# Species label, number of l-shells
  n=4   0   2 P 1  # n, l, Nzeta, Polarization, NzetaPol

7.497  6.783

1.000  1.000

  n=3   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

3.048  1.943

   1.000  1.000

  n=4   1   2 # n, l, Nzeta

9.870  8.285

1.000  1.000

  n=3   2   2 # n, l, Nzeta

4.901  2.758

1.000  1.000

 %endblock PAO.Basis


 XC.functional GGA
 LongOutput .true.
 XC.authors PBE
 SystemLabel bulk



 DM.MixSCF1   T
 MaxSCFIterations  600   # Maximum number of SCF iter
 DM.MixingWeight   0.01 # New DM amount for next SCF cycle
 DM.Tolerance  1.d-4 # Tolerance in maximum difference
 DM.UseSaveDM  true  # to use continuation files
 DM.NumberPulay 4

 SpinPolarized  true

 WriteMullikenPop 1

 MeshCutoff 175 Ry



 MD.TypeOfRun   CG
 MD.NumCGSteps  190
 MD.UseSaveCG  true
 MD.UseSaveXV  true
 MD.MaxCGDispl  0.02 Ang
 MD.MaxForceTol 0.05 eV/Ang
 WriteCoorXmol   true
 WriteMDXmol true
 WriteMDhistory  true