PC Freezing Issues

[N99hockey]

It didn't post the image, this is what it says...

VRAY_OPENCL_PLATFORMS_x64
{AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing,CPU,1};{AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing,GPU,1};

[Morbid Angel]

Yeah you probably have a special case with your amd cpu. I would then try two things: disable 1 core for sketchup, so leave 7 rendering. One core should be enough to keep windows processes operational. If that works, try assign all cores and then go and set priority level to lowest possible. Either one should give you a result and if so, perhaps running on 7 cores is better then on 3

I've done a quick google on amd hyper transport, though I'm not 100% sure its exactly like intel HT, but perhaps try disable it and see what you get.

http://www.techspot.com/community/to...ansport.35838/

[N99hockey]

Welp....I don't know what is happening.

I changed the CPU to 7 and it froze, 6,5,4 and it still froze. So I went and tried it at 3 since it worked last time, and guess what? IT FROZE!!!

I...I....I don't even know anymore.
I watched the CPU on the task manager, at 4 cores it was holding at 57% (SketchUp at 50% and other tasks going up and down adding to a max of 7% extra). At 3 cores SketchUp was holding at 32% and others made it go to 37% total.

Is my CPU bad?

[Morbid Angel]

that cpu has all sorts of features like turbo boost etc. I would try disabling them to see if there is any change in performance.

Also, do try running cpu mark, or cinebench to stress test the cpu. If it freezes that would indicate a hardware problem, its rare but possible.

[N99hockey]

Those are all in BIOS I assume?

I originally took it to Geek Squad to check out due to freezing and the PC just shutting down on occasion. The freezing we thought was just the bad RAM (which was replaced) and the shutting down was due to the CPU overheating, I since removed the PC side door and it no longer overheats when Vray is running. Long story short, they did run stress tests on it with CPU Mark and said it passed everything, however would shut down with the case door on. So now I just run the PC without the side cover on it to help with heat distribution so there is no random shut downs anymore.

[Morbid Angel]

I see, in this case it could just be that the cpu is not cooled properly. Do you have a stock cooler on it? perhaps its worth looking into upgrading it. Also its possible for it to run with case open, however over time and under load that won't make much difference since the hardware components need to be cooled in close proximity i.e. cooler over the heatsync with direct contact to cpu.

Also, whatever tests they ran are not relevant since the problem clearly priests, so I suggest testing it thoroughly yourself.

[N99hockey]

Just have the original fan that sits a top the CPU. The case has a fan directly above it and on the back side of the case, there is also a fan at the front by the HDDs. I don't feel much if any heating radiating off the CPU, if that helps.

I downloaded and ran Cinebench R15
The CPU scored 608cb
The GPU ran at 80.63 fps

[Morbid Angel]

Its worth getting some thermal grease and reseating that heatsinc, it could be possible that there is an issue there who knows....

[N99hockey]

Thank you for the suggestion Dmitry.

I will give this a try and if the thermal paste does not fix this, I can try a new CPU Cooler/Fan.

If not, then a new CPU!?

[N99hockey]

I will update you with what happens after thermal paste gets re-applied.

[Morbid Angel]

Its really hard to say if its the cpu...Do you have the ability to measure its temperature during rendering or when idle? you can tell a lot by the temp.

[N99hockey]

Using a program called Core Temp, it shows my CPU Idle between 32C/34C
Loading the files it goes between 48C/50C then settles down
During rendering it goes up to 86C before it freezes

This is with all the cores selected, and normal priority

[Morbid Angel]

86 is pretty high, at I'm not familiar with amd, but intel shuts off at about 100C, so it could be that who knows. Generally stock cpu with stock oc, should not go above 60C during load.

[N99hockey]

Ran the rendering again at 3 Cores, rather than all of them, this time it DID finish. It went up to 81C and slowly came down and settled around 67C/70C average.

AMD Chips I found shut off at 90C, which is also the max set temp on the CPU program I installed.
After some searching, there is no official max temp for this chip on the AMD site, I have found varying good operating temps, some say 60C, others say 65C.

As I type this, the CPU temp is sitting at 28C.

[Morbid Angel]

so if we say its 90C as a cutoff point, then from 86C during rendering is not far. Its quite possible that this is the issue.