Athlon and Pentiums

[j.galang]

Hi. I know that this subject has had so many discussions already, but i'm not asking what's better of the two just a query on your experiences. I've been handing both atlon (duals) and pentium III (duals) for rendering for about 8 months now. Lately (past 2 months) the athlons have been really buggy. Things like crashes and fast exits happen more often in the athlons than in the pentiums.

I was wondering if any have had similar experiences regarding this. It is often that I have to render the Imaps for animations using the slower pentiums because the athlons crash in the middle of rendering. This is the excat same file that they render, the athlon crashes while the pentiums don't. This also happened to more than one project prompting me to write this post.

Any insights would be much appreciated.


JG

[marina]

I'm usung dual athlon for some months and it's stable for me. I only had crashes in rendering when vray crashes, but with every new version of vray, problems are solving. I had to say that never had problems with DR, while other people suffer crashes with it, so it's very dependent of your configuration, your OS and other parts of your PC.

PS: sorry for my english

[Geertvdp]

Athlons produce a lot more heat then Intel CPU's.
The symptoms of crashing in the middle of a rendering are probably indication of inadequate cooling. During rendering, cpu's work under full load for a (very) long period and produce a lot more heat then what would normally occur with other business applications.
It is there for VERY important to have above average cooling.

I would advice against using any standard cooling device that comes with an athlon. Use cooling devices with a copper base or even an all copper heat sink.
Artic Silver paste between the cpu and the cooling element is another requirement. Most standard heat sinks come with heat transfer pads or silicon based pastes, both are notorious for their poor/average heat transfer performance...

If your systems did perform well in the past, but now starts to fail more often, make sure you clean your fans and sinks from the accumulated dust…(I clean my fan/heatsink about every 2 months)

[Long John]

im using dual athlons since the first dual tyan board and for me they work very well.

like Geertvdp wrote, check you fans and make sure the temperature is not to high.

[Syclone1]

And on top of the heat issue which it could very likely be you mite also want to download and run memtest86 on your boxes but make sure to run it on 1 stick at a time and turn off the ECC test I've had issues in the past where if I was rendering small projects it was not a problem but if I tried to render large scenes then I got a guaranteed crash which ended up to be a bad stick of ram...

-dave

On a side note if there is even 1 error then return the stick for another one from where you bought it. Most ram nowdays cary a lifetime warantee.

[adrian_dav]

Re: Athlon and Pentiums

i have the same issue. identical scene file. the P4s and P3s don't have a problem, but both of the AMD machines crash. it's not a heat issue - i had both AMD machines running under full load with the scanline renderer for hours without a hitch.

i would be great to hear more about this issue. it would influence my purchase decision for the next machines.

a

[j.galang]

hey adrian, quick question. did you start crashing starting around a few months ago? (around Arpil or May) because its strange that before (Jan, Feb, late last year) the athlons were rock solid. is it because of the newer versions of Vray? I do believe that with the earlier builds i felt that Vray was more stable with the athlons. i realized this cause vlado asked me that question in a recent post, just wanted to know your thoughts.


JG

[adrian_dav]

hey adrian, quick question. did you start crashing starting around a few months ago? (around Arpil or May) because its strange that before (Jan, Feb, late last year) the athlons were rock solid. is it because of the newer versions of Vray? I do believe that with the earlier builds i felt that Vray was more stable with the athlons. i realized this cause vlado asked me that question in a recent post, just wanted to know your thoughts.


JG

your assumption is correct. i never had issues with older versions. i think even 2U was doing fine.

[j.galang]

i think 1.09.02g was the last stable build for my athlons, or was it 1.09.01c. (i am really getting lost with these version numbers)

JG

[bpanasit]

I have a dual AMD system that after several months of reliable use began to crash during rendering. After cleaning the dust-clogged heatsinks and cranking up the fan speed the problem went away. I imagine I should replace those standard heat sinks - thanks Geertvdp!

Heat is an issue with the AMD reliability.

BP

[adrian_dav]

I have a dual AMD system that after several months of reliable use began to crash during rendering. After cleaning the dust-clogged heatsinks and cranking up the fan speed the problem went away. I imagine I should replace those standard heat sinks - thanks Geertvdp!

Heat is an issue with the AMD reliability.

BP

heat is an issue no doubt.

but in our particular case it is possible to have the machine run at 100% under scanline and other tasks without a problem. i think heat can be eliminated as a source of trouble.

a

[ljaffe]

Assuming you are using some professional OS (win 2k, XP..):

1. If an application crashes and OS stays alive then it is more likely that the problem is on the application side. In this case you should consider sending logs and/or scenes to Vray support.

2. If machine reboots or turns off then it may be heat or other hardware (including CPU) problem. VRay can not kill OS, can it?
In this case you should check your hardware.

Regards,
LJ