Support

[fixeighted]

How quick is this new corporate support being?

It now looks like every other massive company's generic help page and I have an urgent issue that I'm now wondering whether it will take weeks to even get a reply to.
Naturally I have an urgent job to get out for Monday and the pit of despair looms

Is it like a call centre thing and it literally takes as long as it takes?

[fixeighted]

I'm happy to report that on replacing the cpu for an upgraded version it has solved the problems entirely, without having to spend a fortune.
Thanks to those that responded with suggestions etc..

What a stressful entire week that was!

[glorybound]

You will probably have to rely on user support.

[fixeighted]

That's a shame, and worrying. Plus of course right away we are greeted on their support page with the now obligatory 'Due to the high volume of etc, etc.....'.

Unfortunately I can't post minidumps and hope that any users can investigate those, so I guess I'm potentially screwed.

[yavor.rubenov]

Hello,

If you have a crash and minidumps - post them and I'll check them.

Best regards,
Yavor

[fixeighted]

Oh ok, thank you Yavor, that was unexpected. Here it is.

I should mention that I have Max 22 and 23 also and the same thing happens. It could be that it's not Vray related at all but rather some hardware issue. I have no clue where to start, other than
to notice that it's only Max that seems to be crashing.

[yavor.rubenov]

Hmm something goes wrong while evaluating some two sided material but I can't see more in the dump..
Do you get the crash only on that specific machine and is it scene specific ?

If you could send the scene to our support (https://support.chaos.com/hc/en-us/requests/new) and mention this thread my colleagues will forward the scene to me.

[fixeighted]

I just did a test with a random scene but using Arnold, which I hadn't thought to try. It crashed again, so I assume the problem must be something else and not Vray related.

By any chance do you know if there'd be any log or dump elsewhere that might show what's causing this? Something Windows related maybe?
The odd thing is that no other software is crashing so I'm at a loss to know where to look tbh

[yavor.rubenov]

You can check the Windows Event Viewer (start + type Event Viewer) -> Windows Logs -> System for anything suspicious.
Also - you can try V-Ray Benchmark - it has an endless mode that will stress the hardware.

What is your CPU ?

[fixeighted]

AMD 3950x is the cpu.

I'll see if I can see anything in the viewer, though I have zero idea what I'd be looking for.

[fixeighted]

In the hope that someone can suggest something, here's what I've done.

Uninstalled all Max versions, all Vray, all Chaos stuff.
I had someone come and dismantle, clean and reassemble the machine, check all the hardware, the bios stuff and everything else they could think of.

I installed Max 25 and Vray and still everything crashes, also when using Arnold.
They all generate a flavour of error as in the attached, with the 'Crashed Module Name' part differing each time; one time it's this, another it'll be blendmtl or another random Vray thing, another it'll be related to Arnold.
The remainder of the error stays the same.

No other software is affected.

Short of a complete Windows reinstall, does anyone have a clue perhaps?

[fixeighted]

To update; I reinstalled Windows and installed only Max and Vray and the same thing happens. I am utterly at a loss to know what to do, or if there is anything that can be done, as it seems so anomalous.
With a deadline tomorrow I am truly screwed

Can anyone suggest the absolute cheapest UK available pc that I can buy as a stand-in until I possibly get this solved please?
It can be parts and I'll get someone to build it...it's just not something I'm great at doing so any help is appreciated
I guess it could also be a laptop that's not a total slow piece of crap...just enough to actually work on.

[Joelaff]

Have you tried disabling XMP/EXPO in the bios and running the memory at a safe speed like 3600? Might be worth a shot. Or run a RAM test.

[fixeighted]

I ran a test and it returned no problems and the speed shows as 3200. The friend who came to check all this knows his stuff re. hardware and so checked all the bios for possible reasons, updated it and did
every possible thing to try to identify the problem, to no avail.

The baffling thing is why just Max? Given that even with a fresh system and just Max it continues, logically it points to some hardware issue, though no component shows any error, no driver change makes any difference.
It sort of defies rationale.

[fixeighted]

I just randomly found Prime95 and had it run a 'Torture test'.
Whilst it was running I got a bsod, though I just happened to notice that the test got far enough to show one 'worker' failed, so could that identify that the cpu is the issue maybe?

[Joelaff]

Those failures could be any hardware component, but RAM is most typical. Could also try swapping the power supply if you have a spare. Maybe try turning that RAM down to ~2600 to get you through your project. I forgot this was a previous generation processor with DDR 4 ram. 3200 may be too high.