#HELP! 3DS hates me now..
24 messages in this thread
OK, here's the story. It might be a bit long winded, but please bear
with me. A couple weeks ago, I got a PAR unit, and also got a bigger case to
make room for the drive (went from a full tower to a server case w/ 300 watt
PS). I started getting random lockups after installing everything, so I pulled
my sound card and scanner card to see if the par was conflicting with one of
those. When I opened the case I noticed that the bottom of the PAR card was
EXTREMELY hot, too hot to touch, and so was the whole area around the drives.
This wasn't too hard to figure out because the case has a front panel which I
had kept closed, and I realized that the only air vents on the case were behind
that closed door, so even with two fans, I was probably not getting any air
ciculation in there. I figured the lockups were caused by the CPU overheating
(lockups were completely random, and would happen at the dos prompt as well as
programs). I pulled the sound and scanner card for safe measure and left the
front panel open after letting the unit cool down, and all was fine for several
days. Note that I periodically checked the temp of the system and PAR and they
stayed at a reasonable temp, warm, not hot.
Fast forward a week, during which I rendered several tests and did a
few overnight renderings without a hitch. The other night I tried to rerender a
portion of a previously rendered file, and when the render info hit 'rendering
in progress' the system would either freeze or reboot. I loaded several
versions of that file and they all froze on rendering, but others did not. I
pulled the par thinking that a conflict had somehow decided to wait until now
to show itself, and everything rendered fine for a day and a half, then things
started locking again!
My system is now stripped (not completely, but smaller than it was when
it was working fine) and I put the old power supply back in and checked all
conections, cards, simms, cpu, etc. I ran diagnostic tests on all aspects of
the system and everything passed. Also cheked for viruses. After reinstalling
3ds lastnight, some renderings would kick me out of 3ds with the error
"abnormal prog. termination. page fault CS:EIP 000fh: …." instead of locking
up. This sounds like a mem conflict, but why am I suddenly seeing this when my
system is set up the same as its been for ages, with no problems? I can find no
correlation with what renderings quit, sometimes a file will render fine,
sometimes not, sometimes a sequence of frames will start fine but quit in the
middle and reboot, but the only time I have a problem is when the rendering is
"in progress". I've got plenty of ram (no swapping) and plenty of disk space.
So… what normally causes problems like this, and why did it suddenly
pop up now? I should say that I'm having Gateway send me another motherboard
(if I can ever get through to their tech support!) because of a problem I've
had since getting this one. I've gone through 3 clock batteries in the past 3
months and the system clock will not run when the power is turned off. If that
is a motherboard problem, I'm hoping the rendering problem is related. we'll
see.
Any of you PAR poeple out there, could you see how hot the bottom of
the board is getting, because when mine is in , its getting too hot to touch
again, and I don't think it should be, even though it seems to be running fine.
I keep referring to heat because a theory of mine is that theres a short or
something somewhere on the MB which is preventing the battery from charging and
operating properly, and is causing the system to overheat, and fail on
intensive processing tasks (rendering).
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
David
Sounds like you fried something there. Make sure you send all the memory back
along with the motherboard so they replace both memory and mother board.
This sounds like a memory problem (memory gone bad). It could be RAM or it
could be your cache memory. Just take the "bad clock" opportunity and replace
the whole shebang.
Gus,
I've got my fingers crossed that a new MB will be the solution. I don't
know if they'll replace all 40 megs of ram or not, I can't even remember if I
got all of it from them, I'll have to check my reciepts.
Unfortunately, I'll be retired long before I actually get through to gateway
tech support.
Thanks,
David
>> Any thoughts?
No, but good luck. Hardware can be a bitch.
Good grief! What a nightmare… It sounds like Gus has some ideas about it.
Yeesh.
Mucho luck in getting the problem resolved… pronto!
– G
Do what Gus says, and change out that motherboard, David. Chances are that
during your "hot periods", you coulda' really baked something in there. Also, I
had an instance once where, upon repeatedly losing CMOS power, a machine
defaulted to incorrect BIOS settings and thereafter was a memory-conflict
nightmare! A quick call to (the MB's) tech support to reset the advanced BIOS
settings set it straight…
-Alan
Alan,
I just got through to gateway, and they've got a MB and memory
replacements comming, and they gave me a jumper setting to try in the meantime.
You've got a PAR, right? how hot does it get after having power a while? I'm
not really sure if mine is overheated or if it's normal for the thing to run
that hot.
David
You mean the PAR board itself? Hmmm, I *did* touch it once during a user group
meeting as I was showing it as it sat in the slot, but I don't remember any
undue heat at the time. There is very little clearance between it and the
TBCIV, so I wouldn't be suprised to see a little heat there.
-Alan
Alan,
Maybe I'm just reading too much into the heat thing, but the pars got
nothing under it and it ran extremely hot when I first installed it, and once I
got the air moving it ran at a more reasonable temp for several days and quite
suddenly decided to heat up again. It's the inconsistancy that makes me wonder.
Regardless, I won't put it back in until I get the new MB.
David
Sounds like a good plan…
-Alan
First about the PAR. I noticed the Al plate was quite warm to the touch during
normal running. When I got it I ran the first animation for 72 hours non stop
to beat it some to see if the heat would build and performance would suffer. It
did not! I still think I will add another fan to this case though because my
electronics background tells me that heat over 120 degrees ambient is not good
over the long haul.
As far as your symptoms it sounds to me if you got something too hot to handle
for a while you might have shorted something out through the board circuits
causing it to heat up. This could have fried some of the stuff like memory and
chipsets causing conflicts. At the cost of MB's today I would replace that
first and then buy a simm and swap them one at a time until the problem goes
away. I doubt whether the CPU is bad but you never know. At its cost I'd
replace that last. Another problem could be power supply. Sometimes these can
be poor, breaking down in the regulation of the +5,-5 supply, but this is rare.
I have suggested the old half way check procedure for you targeting the MB
first based on your overheating observation and the ability to replace half the
stuff with the least expense. If you're under warrantee then I'd send the
whole thing back but make sure the problem still exists with what you send
back!
Don,
Luckily the system is under a year old and therefore still under
warranty. I finally got through to them tonight and I'm getting a new
motherboard, cache ram, CPU, and full ram free of charge (glad I got all my
memory from gateway!). It'll be a week or so until I get the stuff, and until
then, my pessimistic little mind will be constantly be telling me "it still
won't work…it still won't work…"
BTW, the gateway tech guy said that according to my battery/clock
problem, it sounded as though the system bios ,for some reason, is running off
battery power even when the system is on. If 3ds, while rendering, is making
any bios calls and hits a slight slur in battery power (its probably almost
drained), could pharlap choke? Gary or Gus?
Another symtom I noticed while trying to track this down was that sometimes
when rendering a gif or flic, the 256 color converting process after each frame
would slow too a crawl, one flic was 25 sec per frame just to convert to 256.
When it would start doing this, a crash would shortly follow. I think I'll
pick up a new battery just to check this (it would explain why this whole
problem just now decided to appear, if the battery is just now starting to run
low).
David
Yeeesh. This is _way_ beyond my scope of hardware understanding.
– G
Gary,
>>This is _way_ beyond my scope of hardware understanding.
Yea, mine too. I'm just glad it's all under warranty, and hope that the
replacment fixes it.
David
Checking this battery problem should be easy. Just measure the current in ma.
by putting a milliammeter in series with one of the battery leads. If
unusually high while the machine is on you definitly have a problem.
Don,
>>Just measure the current in ma. by putting a milliammeter…
I don't think I know what a milliammeter is, but I do know I don't have
one. I'm not going worry about it, I'll just replace everything and hope the
silicon gods don't require a sacrifice.
David
I agree with you. meters are fine but swapping out is a faster fix!.
Don:
>Checking this battery problem should be easy. Just measure the current in
>ma. by putting a milliammeter in series with one of the battery leads. If
>unusually high while the machine is on you definitly have a problem.
That should be a neat trick, considering most computer batteries are now
soldered in. <g>
Evan
>>That should be a neat trick, considering most computer batteries are now
soldered in.
So?? Haven't you ever heard of a desoldering tool? I don't mean to be a wise
ass but if working at the component level in electronics makes one nervous one
should not be messing around at this level. One must always use his own
judgement. I know one guy here that has no business even taking the cover off
his computer but another who swaps surface mounted ram on simms!. There are
all levels of ability and knowhow in this industry.
Don:
Yep, I've heard of a desoldering tool. I've got one. And I can use it too.
But, FWIW, I would hardly recommend desoldering the battery on a computer which
is still under warranty.
I'm not sure what the normal current draw is on a CMOS clock calendar, but it
is low enough that the battery's internal leakage current is a significant
factor. I don't know if a standard multimeter goes that low. (Maybe it does,
but I don't know.)
Evan
>>But, FWIW, I would hardly recommend desoldering the battery on a computer
which is still under warranty.
How do these manufacturers expect the average user to change the
battery? Send the whole thing in to a shop? (thats kinda stupid) Or are the
newer batteries supposed to outlast the computer? Just wondering.
David
Both. The battery should last for at least 4 years (My original 386/20 still
runs with the same batteries it came with since 88). In case you do get a dead
battery, even though the main battery is soldered in the motherboard, there is
a socket to plug an external battery. Now, how many times did I say "battery"?
It's definitely getting late…
Gus,
>> Now, how many times did I say "battery"?
Five. Six including the question. What do I win?
David
>> Five. Six including the question. What do I win?
How about an Energizer bunny served with a light white wine sauce and fresh
basil?