Hi,

I’m a student of Campus Ubisoft and I have this big scene to render, but every time I try to render it my computer gives me a blue screen of death after few minutes. So I was wondering if anyone knows why it gives me that bsod? or if there is a way to kind of pause the render to let my CPU cool or something with mental ray? In my scene I use post effects so I would like to be able to apply it to the whole scene even if I render only segments by segments of the image.

my config:

AMD Phenom X4 9750
4gig corsair twinx 800MHZ 4-4-4-12
XFX geforce 8800GT 512Mb
M3A78-T
windows vista x86

I also want to say rhat I play hardcore games like crysis without this issue, it’s happening only when I try to render in Max.

Thank you for your answers

----------------------------
http://www.yvgrafix.com

AMD Phenom II X4 965
4gig Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
nVidia GeForce 470 GTX
Asus m3a78-t
Windows 7 x64
Velociraptor
2x 250gig - Raid 1

Have you ran memtest86+ before on your RAM to make sure you don’t have a bad stick? Crysis is a killer but it doesn’t stress the RAM usage like 3DS Max can. If you have a problem in 3DS but not Crysis I’m going to say your issue is in the RAM or Northbridge. Are you overclocked at all? First step would be to run memtest86+ and then check back in here and let us know how it goes :)

Intel Q6600 Quad Core CPU @ 3.8gHz
8GB Mushkin DDR2 RAM @ 960mHz
2 X 150GB WD Raptor Hard Drives in RAID0
ATi HD4870 1GB Video Card
DFI LanParty LT X48 T2R
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit

Hello again,

I tried as you ask and I ran memtest86+. I let it run 2 full passes and I got no error at all. So I guess the problem doesn’t come from my memory. What is the next step you recommend?

thank you.

----------------------------
http://www.yvgrafix.com

AMD Phenom II X4 965
4gig Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
nVidia GeForce 470 GTX
Asus m3a78-t
Windows 7 x64
Velociraptor
2x 250gig - Raid 1

Check the event log and try to pull up the error code either from there or from the BSOD screen. it would be the first step in helping you determine the problem.
My second suggestion would be to install original ATI drivers IF you have any 3rd party gfx drivers installed, i know they caused me to bsod way back when, because the drivers were optimized for gaming.

watch your task manager and see check out the ram as it starts to render.  Perhaps your ram is being maxed out.  It is certainly not a CPU overheating, those things know how to deal with workloads without overheating.  You should have no problem maxing your CPU for hrs to get a render finished, this is very normal.  Well if your frame is going for hrs you may want to figure out why it takes so long, but the CPU should handle anything you throw at it, it just will go slower if there is too much going on.  If its a ram thing, you may find some luck optimizing your scene, lowering texture maps, deleting geo that is not in camera, and collapsing any stacks/history you may have.

http://www.justin-lloyd.com

One more thing to try out is loosen you RAM timings a bit. Try running it at 5-5-5-15 and see if it helps at all. I know that my computer is Prime 95 stable for 24 hours and passes memtest86+ for 5 straight runs but when I play the game X3 Terran Conflict I’ll get BSOD’s if my RAM is at 4-4-4-12 or less since I normally run it at 4-4-3-10. Anyway it could just be a fluke with 3DS Max acting like that game and not liking tighter RAM timings.....just a hunch. Also check your temps, if a CPU is going to overheat it will, they don’t stop themselves.....if they did overclocking would be a walk in the park rather then the huge pain in the butt that in can be ;)

Intel Q6600 Quad Core CPU @ 3.8gHz
8GB Mushkin DDR2 RAM @ 960mHz
2 X 150GB WD Raptor Hard Drives in RAID0
ATi HD4870 1GB Video Card
DFI LanParty LT X48 T2R
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit

Hi,
thanks for all your replies.
first, my scene is already quite optimized with tiling textures of 128x128 with masks and not that much polys, 75 000 including a character.
the ligthning setup is a bit demanding because I use volume light with mental ray but it’s not so bad. The thing is that the render takes a long time because I render it in a high resolution for printing…

anyway, I tried lowering my memory timings but it didn’t help, also tried to install a clean vista x64 but still crashing…
you mentionned to check the log file for the bsod, but I don’t know how to do that can you tell me?

thanks

----------------------------
http://www.yvgrafix.com

AMD Phenom II X4 965
4gig Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
nVidia GeForce 470 GTX
Asus m3a78-t
Windows 7 x64
Velociraptor
2x 250gig - Raid 1

Sure, lets start by getting more info on the BSOD
Go to control panel>System>Advanced system settings (toolbar on left)>Under “Startup and Recovery” click on Settings>Uncheck “Automatically Restart”
Now every time you get a BSOD it will not restart the pc, instead it will stay frozen on the BSOD screen till you restart manually, this will give you the perfect chance to capture the entire BSOD STOP error code.  (eg.  ***STOP: 0x000000## (0x000000## 0x000000## 0x000000##)

So now we need to get max to BSOD again so you can write down the code and we can continue from there.

Finally I think that was my CPU over heating… I opened my case and put a big fan in front of it! my CPU was going up to 74C even with the fan… :S

anyway… I could finish my render! here’s what it looks like: Phoenix

----------------------------
http://www.yvgrafix.com

AMD Phenom II X4 965
4gig Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
nVidia GeForce 470 GTX
Asus m3a78-t
Windows 7 x64
Velociraptor
2x 250gig - Raid 1

Looks great, glad it all worked out. Holy crap 74C! heatsink on the right way?

I tried to flip it the other way but still about the same readings. I have the retail AMD heatsink, maybe I should get a better one… any suggestions?

----------------------------
http://www.yvgrafix.com

AMD Phenom II X4 965
4gig Corsair 800Mhz 4-4-4-12
nVidia GeForce 470 GTX
Asus m3a78-t
Windows 7 x64
Velociraptor
2x 250gig - Raid 1