(Mandelbulb 3D) Fractal related.. sort of.

[DonTen]

Here's what I mean by fractal related.

I've been having a few problems with MB3D which I believe are more likely to be hardware related than software related, hence the post here rather than elsewhere.

What kind of problems?

Example 1: Occasionally rendering with MB3D will cause my PC shutdown\crash without warning.
Example 2: Rendering a sequence of keyframes will cause the PC to shutdown\crash, usually around the 400+ frames area.

I suspect these two problems are actually the same problem, i.e. CPU temperature related, (the renders that crash are of the type that should take upward of 30 minutes and rendering the keyframes is also a 'long haul' task).
I plan to strip down my mainboard and rebuild from scratch to ensure that heatsinks, ram etc are all seated properly. Before I do this though I was wondering if there is anything else likely to cause these problems, if there are any other things I should be checking out or if others have experienced anything similar.

Thanks in advance for any advice.


Spec:
Athlon II X4 630 Processor.
4 GB Ram.
Vista SP2.
ATI Radeon HD 4250 onboard graphics.

[bib]

Try to check the CPU temperature with a dedicated freeware. I had the same problem with my laptop: it was automatically shutting down when the CPU temperature went over 98°C. To avoid this, remove dust from the fan or buy a stronger fan or reduce the number of CPUs in the Calculation tab.

[DonTen]

Thanks bib,

Your suggestion regarding checking CPU temperature was very helpful.

I tried the temperature test while running one of the 'problem' renders on all cores. Up to 93c. (Very hot!)
Stripped, cleaned and reassembled the CPU fan assembly, and applied a new layer of thermal paste and now the same render is running at approx 50c on all cores.

Hopefully that's the problem nailed

Thanks again.

[Don Whitaker]

I had a similar problem recently, DonTen. I'd been keeping my system's innards clean, or so I thought. Forgot about the fins on my giant heatsink. They got gunked up in-betweem and caused some serious overheating.  Poor CPUs. Sometimes I think mine acts up just so it can take a break.