Maya Crashing after 4090 upgrade

[sean_brown]

Hello,

I've been using Maya 2022 and 2023 for a few years and when i owned a EVGA FTW 3090, Maya and Vray were very stable. Ever since I upgraded my video card to an Asus ROG 4090 (non OC), I have experienced multiple crashes and complete reboots of my PC which shows up as Kernel-Power event in the Windows Event Viewer. But only in Maya. It passes every cpu, memory and gpu stress test for hours. It never crashes in games. Now I am noticing it does not crash when Vray is not installed and I use Arnold instead. So here I am.

I have swapped out power supplies, originally using a Corsair 1200 for a Asus 1200. I have tried the 4 cable power connector and the Corsair 2 cable power connector. I have tried a Nvidia 3050 video card and still crashes. I have replaced my memory sticks to ensure matching silicon. I never overclock anything. Ive reinstalled windows. tried 5 different Nvidia drivers using DDU, updated my Bios, alternated between Vray 6 and 7. Happens more in 7.

The one thing i notice is the 3090 was on Autodesks hardware certification list while the 4090 and 3050 are not. But again, its stable with Arnold and not Vray.

Could my older CPU and Motherboard be causing a conflict with the new video card and Vray is triggering something? The current CPU is a Ryzen 5950x and the motherboard is an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero Chipset AMD X570. Would a newer motherboard and cpu improve stability with the vray and 4090 combo? Have i missed anything else? Ive been at this for weeks so any help would be greatly appreciated.


Muhammed_Hamed

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Hi sean_brown

Sorry to hear about the instability issues, it is quite frustrating.
On my side I have the exact same hardware, the ROG Strix 4090(OC version) Ryzen 9 5950X and Asus X570 ROG Crosshair Dar Hero. This has been the main workstation for me since 2021, running 3x 4090s at the meantime and before that it was usually 2x 4090s. I don't have any stability issues at the moment, and I know a lot about this platform.

I have replaced my memory sticks to ensure matching silicon

I need more information, how many sticks of memory are you running and which kit is it?

The one thing i notice is the 3090 was on Autodesks hardware certification list while the 4090 and 3050 are not. But again, its stable with Arnold and not Vray.

The list is just not updated to include the 3050 or the 4090, Arnold GPU being more stable than V-Ray GPU is interesting. Arnold GPU uses Optix only, while V-Ray GPU uses CUDA or Optix(RTX), CUDA is able to push the GPU power draw higher than Optix so it could potentially lead to more crashes. Anyway, this should not cause your system to restart or to crash to BSOD, unless it is a driver issue. If you have any of our recommended driver this should never happen unless there is a hardware issue.

On another note, it is possible for the system to pass CPU and GPU stress testing but crashes with GPU rendering. Different compute loads can push the CPU/GPU in different ways which could lead to crashing, stress testing is usually very complicated because of that.

Please list your system specs and Windows version. I will ask you to try a few things. This instability is most of the time system memory related.. rarely it could the power supply or the CPU itself being faulty.

Best,
Muhammed

[sean_brown]

Hi Muhammed_Hamed ,

My memory kit is this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085WQXKM2
I have tried 2 and 4 sticks. It runs at 2133 M/Ts in auto mode in the Bios

My Windows version is:
Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 24H2
OS build 26100.2605
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.36.0

I delayed Windows Feature updates for 365 days using the Group Policy Editor as fully updated didn't help either.

When I render with Vray GPU, its exclusively in RTX mode. It also crashes in the view port and I have tried 3 different View port 2.0 settings. OpenGL compatibility, Legacy and DirectX11. This doesnt happen when Arnold is the only renderer loaded.

One odd thing I can actually replicate a PC crash in Revit 2025 by just drawing a square wall and rotating it in 3D view within 1-3 attempts every single time. Its fine in Revit 2024 so maybe a separate issue.

Autodesk certified hardware was updated last month to include Maya 2026: https://www.autodesk.com/support/tec...Hgd2e8JUK.html

I have always used Chaos recommended drivers. Especially 551.86 as it was the driver of choice for a long time. As of now, I am using Autodesks recommended driver but I can change it back if needed.

attached is my AIDA64 Hardware Report as a PDF. Or you can view the HTML version below which has a navigation menu to go through the sections easier. I dont have a SSL certificate on my domain at the moment so you will get a warning about that.
http://seanbrown.com/HardwareReport.htm

[oglu]

Just something to think about. I had similar issues with a 2080.
We replaced the card with the exact same one and all troubles where gone.

[Muhammed_Hamed]

My memory kit is this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085WQXKM2
I have tried 2 and 4 sticks. It runs at 2133 M/Ts in auto mode in the Bios

Did you test any other memory kits?
This Corsair LPX is not on the QVL list support for the motherboard. In general this specific memory kit CMK128GX4M4E3200C16 is tuned for Intel platforms, more than AMD(even if the Corsair website says otherwise)
If the memory is not on the QVL list it still might work fine. But you need to consider that memory kits come tuned for either AMD or Intel platforms. You need a memory kit that is specifically designed for AMD
My suggestion is getting something like the TridentZ Neo to test with first. Most likely this will fix your instability

Did you run the 3090 on the exact same machine without issues?
Did you try the 3050 on the same machine? was it unstable?

Another suggestion, before you buy a new memory kit. Install MSI afterburner and perform an undervolt on your GPU
You need 2600 mhz at 900mv, see if this makes your system stable. I have a video on using MSI afterburner for undervolting here

Let me know how this goes.

Best,
Muhammed

[Muhammed_Hamed]

Autodesk certified hardware was updated last month to include Maya 2026: https://www.autodesk.com/support/tec...Hgd2e8JUK.html

It doesn't include any Geforce Ada or Blackwell GPUs. It includes their Quadro counterparts that use the same chip, meaning the RTX Pro 6000 which uses the same chip as the RTX 5090
And the RTX 6000 Ada generation which uses the same chip or close to the RTX 4090
We don't have such a list, rather we support an entire generation in our system requirements

Best,
Muhammed

[sean_brown]

Did you test any other memory kits?
This Corsair LPX is not on the QVL list support for the motherboard. In general this specific memory kit CMK128GX4M4E3200C16 is tuned for Intel platforms, more than AMD(even if the Corsair website says otherwise)
If the memory is not on the QVL list it still might work fine. But you need to consider that memory kits come tuned for either AMD or Intel platforms. You need a memory kit that is specifically designed for AMD
My suggestion is getting something like the TridentZ Neo to test with first. Most likely this will fix your instability

Did you run the 3090 on the exact same machine without issues?
Did you try the 3050 on the same machine? was it unstable?

Another suggestion, before you buy a new memory kit. Install MSI afterburner and perform an undervolt on your GPU
You need 2600 mhz at 900mv, see if this makes your system stable. I have a video on using MSI afterburner for undervolting here

Let me know how this goes.

Best,
Muhammed

I tested a 2 DIMM kit of the same memory. But the 2 DIMM kit and 4DIMM kit both had the same issues. Attached is a screenshot showing that memory is on Asus's QVL list for this board.

I have ordered some G.Skill Trident Z Neo DIMMS and it will arrive tomorrow. They are not listed on Asus's QVL page but G.Skill does list my mobo on their QVL page. We'll see how it goes. I was worried about the module height as i have a Noctua D15 cooler but I think I have an extra smaller fan I can use on that side. This seems okay? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WTSMHSY

I ran my 3090 on the same system without issues. I ran the 3050 and it was unstable. This was why i was referring to Autodesks hardware list as they did certify the 3090 but not 4090 or 3050 and could be related. One thing to note, my system restarted today when installing Photoshop through the Adobe Creative Cloud app. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My only other theory is somewhere along the lines Asus released a Bios that made it less compatible with non-AMD optimized RAM as they still release quite a few Bios updates for this board.

Edit: my computer just restarted when adding the attachment and resizing it. Seems worse today and the new thing i did yesterday was that i installed Maya 2026, which adds the new helper programs called Flow that runs in the background at system startup and I cant get ride of it.

Ill try the under volt suggestion and get back to you.