Iray Preview PC Reboot?
marble
Posts: 7,500
Just throwing this out there - has anyone else had the occasional reboot (Windows 10 PC) while using IRay in Viewport Preview mode? I specify that because I have only had the reboots when I have been in that mode. It usually happens a couple of times a week but has happened twice today already. I looked up random rebooting in Google and a common factor seems to be drivers - particularly GPU drivers. I did update them when it first statred happening a few weeks ago but that made no difference.
MY PC details:
Intel Core i7 6700 @ 3.40GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
NVidia GPU Driver 456.38 (September 2020)
32 GB System RAM
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Since posting the above, I have updated the NVidia drivers (456.71) and it didn't help. A few minutes ago, while I was in the viewport in IRay preview mode, my PC suddenly powered off and rebooted.
Drivers - checked
Overheating?
Nah, I run temperature monitors and have MSI Afterburner for fan control. I can leave an IRay render running for an hour and the temperature is nowhere near the cut-off point. This reboot doesn't happen with renders, it only seems to happen while using the Iray Preview and it can happen a few seconds in or after several minutes. It seems to be the changing of the scene (movement or changing shaders, etc.) that triggers the reboot.
I wish that the Filament preview was more representative of what the IRay render will look like but, unfortunately, it is far from it so I use the old OpenGL mainly and hop into IRay preview when I need to play with surfaces and lighting.
As though to confirm my comments above, I just loaded a scene and clicked on IRay Preview and it instantly rebooted the PC. This is not the case every time - sometimes I can work for hours without it happening. But the more I experience it, the more I am convinced that IRay preview is the culprit. One thing that I have noticed: there's an audible click from within my PC case when it switches off. There is no shutdown delay - it is instantly off like a power cut. Then it reboots automatically - I don't have to press the power-on button.
That sounds very much like hardware or driver issue to me. Or even a faulty power supply.
Note that the DrawStyle is controlled by the Draw Settings pane while the render is controlled by Render Settings - it may be a difference there that is triggering the issue.
Yes, I'm afraid it may be hardware (it has happened through 3 GPU driver updates). It doesn't appear to be a problem with CPU only so I'm down to the GPU or the PSU. I do intend to upgrade my PC but that depends on NVidia and whether they release a 3070 with more VRAM. The rumours keeps changing. I might have to change the PSU as well which is an expense I didn't expect as the one I have is supposed to be high quality (Coolermaster G750M).
Any clues as to what I might need to change?
Ok - so it seems to be consistent now. The reboot happens whenever I go into IRay preview mode - usually within seconds if not immediately. That suggests hardware to me - faults that harden usually point to hardware. I'll have to try to get away with withe Filament ot IRay spot render because it is not yet crashing while using IRay in render mode.
[EDIT] I seem to be able to get away with using the IRay Spot Render tool so there's a workaround so long at the fault doesn't migrate away from the IRay preview mode. I've set the Max Samples low (200) so that I don't have to wait too long.
Is this a blank scene or a saved scene?
I recently had with beta DS 4.12.2.60 saved scene that reboot when I turned it to filament. The filename was longer in length than I nromally use. Pulled up a previous save with a long name, but not as long and it did not have that issue.
It is any scene. It happens when I start IRay Preview Draw Style. If I remain in OpenGL Viewport Draw Style, I don't have a problem. It has not rebooted during an IRay render either. I don't use Filament other than a few tests so I can't say for certain that it doesn't happen in Filament but it hasn't during my tests. IRay Preview Draw Style is pretty consistently rebooting now though.
A while back I had some issues where Daz would crash or re-boot my PC. It turned out that my overclocked RAM running at 3200 was the issue. I set it to the standard system speed and that solved the issue.
As far as I know I don't have any overclocking active. I've looked at the BIOS and set it to defaults which I assume is not overclocked. I have an Asus motherboard with UEFI Bios.
The symptoms are pointing towards, high temperature, lack of/fluctuations of power and/or faulty memory. May not be related to DS upgrade at all.
Clean up the insides with compressed air and check the seating of memory modules and the GTX1070
This is sounding like power or memory. I had similar symptoms on my previous laptop that turned out to be a failing memory stick. IIRC, I ran memtest to find out.
Definitely your psu, it has to be. Iray Preview revs up your GPU and then the PC powers down. The common signs of faulty/failing psus is black screens/monitors turning off while gaming or powering down while under heavy load.
Marble has been pretty clear this issue is not triggered when not in Iray preview mode. It only happens with Iray preview and talks about using DS in other modes without issue. So not sure how it can be a generic hardware issue. Iray Render is also very hard on memory and sudden ramp up of power use. This works fine for him. When I did have problems it was usually adding an Iray render on top of Iray preview that caused PC failure.
Probably totally unrelated. But I found a product, Dreamlights Instant Grass, that triggers an automatic reboot when I switch to filament preview style. Ticket is filed for that. Point is my hardware is fine, but it hits some kind of exception and just shuts off. Instant grass is supposedly just textured geometry and no instances.
Marble you may want to consider going through the draw style options? and tweaking them to see if there is a diff?
I'm running memtest at the moment. Just started second pass ... all tests selected. No errors so far.
It isn't heat. I can run a render as long as I like. The temperature is well within the safe zone. But I start IRay preview and it reboots before the viewport can load the IRay image.
My suspicion is power but I don't know why only that IRay mode is causing the rebooting.
Relied on mem-test once. It lied to me saying it was good. Replaced the memory and my issue then was fixed.
Stress test your PC with a newer demanding vid-game, especially full of fire effects. If it shuts off, you know you have faulty hardware somewhere.
Your experience is interesting. I wish I could say that a certain product is in the scene every time but I can't. I did look at the draw style options and tried changing a few but I have no clue about what most of them do. From what I could see, most of the preview settings match those in the IRay render settings. It might be one of them but I have used IRay for years and this has only started happening in recent weeks. I updated to 4.14 today but it made no difference. It was happening in 4.12 (the last beta) but not before that.
At one point with heavy scenes (>32GB ram usage) I did have power-offs too. But it was almost always Iray Render whilst Iray preview was already active. Especially after longer DS sessions.
What made that problem go away is changing the Eco-power managements settings in Windows (under advanced where you can access PCIe) and I think found a setting in nvidia too. Been a long time that I did that. Made a world of diff for me. It was as if the sudden power ramp up caught my PC system by surprise, and it did not know what to do. Eco power saving software is disabled for both CPU and GPU now.
And in case someone figures my PC has issues too, can play DOS2, Shadows of Tomb Raider, and many other demanding games at ultra settings without ever a crash.
The temperature issue can not be checked with any software, as it may be borne somewhere not monitored by any sensor, but covered and insulated by dust - Blowing the insides of the PSU, GPU, CPU cooling and the case in general with compressed air would get rid of most of it and eliminate random temperature problems.
Basic troubleshooting procedures, eliminate the easy and obvious ones first
ohh look someone else shutting down. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/449906/i-ve-just-installed-the-new-version-4-14-pro-and-my-system-crash#latest
Point being: Reboots can totally be odd conflicts.
What I find hard to accept about this temperature theory is that the fault is not random. If it were a matter of some un-monitored components overheating I would expect random shutdowns. I would expect that anything which raised the power demands would trigger the fault. What is obvious is that this reboot is predictable and happens during the operation of one particular feature of DAZ Studio: the IRay Preview mode. It has never happened outside of that. Not even when I am pushing the system with a heavy scene render in IRay.
By the way, I ran memtest overnight (it's morning now here in NZ): four passes of every test and not a single error.
I'm not a gamer. I have no games. The problem is that I don't have a bucket full of cash to go out and buy new memory and a new PSU and a new GPU - or maybe it's the CPU or motherboard?
Seriously recommend testing disabling the Eco_power saving in OS & GPU as a test. May work or not. My experience shows the sudden power ramp up may cause a conflict. And with Iray Preview and Iray Render working slightly differently, they may also handle ramp-up differently.
Do you have anyone you can borrow a PSU from for a day? Just swap it out. (lol just make sure you take camera pics before showing which cables went where. There's quite a few and it's easier with digphotos to keep everything straight).
There also is free benchmarking software that stresses machines. It's not as long as a game session, but if it fails there, you will also have an idea.
I checked my Windows System Power settings and I can't see any Eco_Power Saving option. At least I don't have one set. I have three plans: Balanced, High Performance and Power Saver. Mine is set to High Performance.
I live alone. My son has a PC but his PSU is a low Wattage model and he uses his PC for working from home.
I'll look for a benchmark application but I've been looking again at what triggers the reboot. I loaded a big scene (Colllective3D neighbourhood) which has a lot of objects and takes up all of my VRAM. I switched into IRay Preview mode and it was fine. Was able to turn surfaces on and off, zoom in and out, change materials - no reboot. Then I tried a G8F base figure - added hair and clothes - didn't crash. Next I tried a G8 character (not the default base), added hair and bang - reboot. Tried again with a G3M character - fully clothed but bald - no reboot. Added hair - reboot.
Transmaps? Hair seems to be one of the triggers. I've had it happen with clothing with alpha maps too.
For Mobo/CPU, When you are at HighPerformance, click change Plan Settings (thats for Win7 - so hopefully u are same or similar on Win10)
Then see this image below where you access advanced settings. In there you will for PCIe and think it was for CPU.
Also image for Nvidia GPU power setting.
Oh hey that is helpful. Hair is very demanding and transparency display is likely coded a ceratin way. Sounds like you are narrowing it down!
Oh I really thought you had the answer there for a few minutes. I loaded a scene that had previously crashed immediately and I was able to run it with IRay Preview on, pose the character and delete/reload the clothes and hair. However, I loaded another scene, tried the same things and it tripped out on hair load again. Anyway, it was worth a try and thanks for pointing the way to the power settings.
When you loaded the next scene did you close out DS first, and start a new session? I find that a new scene/new session gives me the most stable results. Otherwise you may be stacking issues while troubleshooting.
You might also be amused to hear. I was running 2 sessions concurrently. 1 Latest Beta and a 4.12.0.86. Happened to just finish an Iray render, and both were running Iray preview at same time. LOL, my PC shut off. Timewise it was probably as Iray Renber completed on other session in 4.14 beta and swicthed back to preview. Did not like. Shut down.