Greg Hess

Computer Problem? Need Help? Check Here First!
Try to give us as much information about your system and configuration as possible. This shows both a willingness to work through your problem, and a courtesy to those ready to help you. (It keeps us from spending 40 posts trying to rip the data outta you).

Here's a list of sample questions that are useful when diagnosing a system.

Please provide:

- full description of problem
- THINGS I'VE TRIED SO FAR and to what effect
- full text of any error messages
- any other odd behavior in The Application or OS?
- when did this problem start?
- does it repeat with any Application files?

Is this a new system or new installation?

If not, provide:
- list of recent software installations
- list of recent software upgrades
- list of recent hardware changes

Pre1: Application Questions
a) What version of the application are you using?
b) What revision of the application are you using? (Ex Max4.2.6 or Maya5 )
c) What Cdilla driver revision are you using? (For Max users)
d) Are you using...Direct3D, Heidi, Maxextreme, or OpenGL?
e) Have you recently upgraded a piece of hardware, installed the application on a second machine, or transferred a license?
f) Have you tried running software heidi by executing max with the 3dsmax.exe -h command line? Does the problem reoccur if you use software heidi?
g) Which 3rd party plugins are installed?
h) Do other programs other then the 3d application lockup/crash/explode/implode in similar fashions?
i) Are you overclocking the...Ram, FSB, CPU, PCI/AGP, or Video card(s) in
any manner, shape, form, or dimension?

1) Operating system plus any service packs installed.
a) Direct X version.
b) Any 3rd party overclocking utilities or video card utilities
[Ex. Windows 2000 Service Pack 2, Latest Via 4 in 1 drivers, AGP patch, Direct x 8.1, ]

2) Ram configuration and Ram Speed (# of dimms, where the dimms are, what speed, how big, branding of the memory)
[Ex. 4 Dimms of Cas 2, Registered, ECC, 512 Meg, Mushkin PC2100 DDR]

3) Motherboard, chipset information, processor speed, board revision
(Ex. Asus A7M266-D revision 1.0, AMD760MP, Dual 2000+ MP's)

4a) Processor cooling, case cooling
4b) Current CPU Temp, Current System Temp (Found in bios, Press DEL upon bootup)
[Ex. Dual Alpha 8045's, 38C Cpu temp, 27C System Temp, 1 intake fan, 2
exhaust fans]

5) Video card, drivers being used with the videocard, modifications done
[Ex. Geforce 4 (NV25), Nvidia 21.83, reference drivers, Rivatuner, Powerstrip]

6) Bios settings, AGP4x, AGP driving value.
[Ex. Default bios settings, AGP4X disabled, AGP driving value EA, Ram timings etc...]

7) Type of periphals in the computer (Soundcard, Scsi card)
[Ex. Hercules XP gaming theater, 3com 905B Nic]

8) Wattage of power supply
[Ex. 550 Watt Entermax Whisper Power supply]
[/b]

There is also a troubleshooting faq at 3dluvr.com

http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/105

If your too lazy to go. Here's a quick synopsis.

1) Run Memtest (www.memtest86.com)

a) 2-3 passes

One error indicates a possible ram timing/speed setting wrong. Multiple errors tend to indicate bad ram. Replace ASAP.

2) Use utilities like Sisoft sandra, 3dmark 2001 SE, and specviewperf to diagnose certain areas.

http://www.sisoftware.net/

http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark2001/

http://www.specbench.org/gpc/opc.static/opcview70.html

3) Check all the cables in the system. Check them again. Check them a third time. Inspect for nicks/cuts/scrapes of electrical cords, especially IDE/SCSI/SATA cords. A .1 mm nick can render drive errors. Make sure all cables are SEATED properly.

4) Check that all cards are seated properly.

5) Check the ram seating. Are you using dimm's 0/1 first? Or did you put the ram in reverse order?

6) Make sure the processor heatsinks are firmly attached, and that there are no air gaps between the sink and the core of the cpu. Make sure that thermal paste/grease/tape was used between the two mediums. (I recommend artic silver 5)

http://www.arcticsilver.com/

7) Clean out dust. All fans, vents, pcb's, heatsinks. Removing dust not only increases thermal efficency, but quiets down the system as well.

8) If you have spare parts available, try them. A spare psu and video card can shave hours off of troubleshooting time.

9) Use the godfather of troubleshooting.

http://www.google.com

10) Actually use the microsoft knowledge database.

http://support.microsoft.com

Remember, for us to help you, you've gotta help us. Otherwise simple problems can take days to solve.

If anyone else has any troubleshooting suggestions, please post them here.

[ February 13, 2004, 05:55 AM: Message edited by: Greg Hess ]

Greg Hess

I realized I was being a crappy moderator...so now I'm doing some moderator like stuff . As soon as I figure out how to use the damn sticky button, I'll do so.

Here are the sites I visit to keep myself up to date in the computer hardware industry. These sites are in a randomized order, and don't reflect which one I like over another. Though if I had to pick, aceshardware, tech-report, 2cpu's (forums), anandtech, and overclockers are my primary sites.

www.anandtech.com
www.overclockers.com
www.hardocp.com
www.aceshardware.com
www.tech-report.com
www.2cpu.com
www.ars-technica.com
www.extremetech.com
www.xbitlabs.com
www.frostytech.com (heatsinks)

And a truely unique site...

http://www.3dgameman.com/

This fella actually does video reviews of products. Although this might not sound like much, this lets you see how a case opens, a heatsink installs, how loud a video card is, etc etc. Great information to have!

garethace

Couple of quiet pc ones, needed too... what is it called.... silent pc review or something?

www.aceshardware.com/forum

don't leave home....

Janzer v1.0

I have a question for you....I'm looking to overclock my video card and maybe software mod it if I can. Not to sure where to begin though. Do you know anything about these procedures? The last thing I want to do i screw up my card, but I want it to process faster. Here's what I have:

AMD Athlon 64 processor 3000
K8T800 Motherboard
2GB RAM DDR 400 PC32000
SATA HDD 120GB
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR
350 watt power supply

I'm not sure of the settings I can bump it to(clock rates). I dont want to fry my card or bring on any unstability caused by the overclocking or heating/cooling problems.

I just loaded ATI Tool and it is saying my core is currently 381.00 and my memory at 337.50 How High can I go?

I've heard of a program called Radlinker to tweak ATI cards. I also dont want any questionable changes made to my registry. What's the deal with flashing BIOS too? I'm somewhat clueless when it comes to overclocking and flashing etc. so any help would be cool.

airtalk

I'm using Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2. I've a problem with my Canon PIXMA iP1000. When i'm trying to print, an error appeared on my screen. It's show "USB Device Not Recognized". It tell me to check Driver Manager at USB Host Controllers but it's show me 'Unknown Device". I've trying to reinstall the printer driver and USB 2.0 but it doesn't work. i'm glad that you'll help me to solve this problem.

My computer spesification :
1.Pentium 4 Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
2. Motherboard - Gigabyte.
3. RAM - DDR333 512 MB.
4. Graphic Card - ATI Radeon 9250 128 MB

If you have any solution, please send to my e-mail : rizuan04@yahoo.com
Pleade. I'm gonna drive up the wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anand.awate

Hi friendes
i m doing architecturel walkthroughs
i using vray render for render but it dosen't work on 64 bit machin
my machine config is
SERVER Cabinet PST-9500,CPU 5335* 2 XEON,MB.S5000XVN SATA,HDD 80 GB SATA, RAM 1 GB*4 FB DIMM
can u help out of this

subha_world

What is the best configuration of computer for 3D Modelling?

SandmanNinja

good motherboard
nice, stable operating system
good cpu
the more ram the better (but more than 8 gigs is overboard (currently))
good video card

That's the order for me.
If you put a great cpu and ram in a cheap motherboard, you will have poor performance.

If you have a good bunch of hardware but a crappy operating system, what's the point?

If you have a poor/slow cpu, it will render slowly

if you have cheap ram and not much of it, it will give you weird errors when rendering and will force your computer to use virtual memory (which is slow).

A fancy video card is great for games, but you it won't help you render.
On the other hand, having a nice video card will keep your scene nice and speedy when you are working with the model.

===

With the generics out of the way, I think the minimum now-a-days is a quad core, 8 gigs of ram, nVidea 8800GT/GTS, and Windows XP64.

__________________
-SandmanNinja
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