Computer "whine" when rendering

Speedster · February 19, 2017, 03:55:52 PM

Hi all;

I know there are some serious computer guys and gals on our forum, and I hope you may have a clue as to something that just started.

I'm rendering a rather gnarly image on my BOXX 32 core liquid cooled computer, and it starts to make a very high pitched "whine", or "scream in pain", for want of a better description. This has never happened before. A Task Manager screenshot is below.

It does not whine when working in realtime, only when I start a full render. The poly count is quite low.

The image has a lot of translucent materials and metals with textures, as well as crystal. My normal run-of-the-mill renders are usually in the minutes. But this critter is rendering out (at 2000 wide) in about seven hours! I know that's a result of the materials.

Any clues? I'm going to call BOXX support tomorrow, but it's rather spooky!

Thanks!!

Bill G

Chad Holton · February 19, 2017, 04:08:15 PM

Hi Bill, My first guess is you may have a cooling fan going out and the bearing is screaming for mercy. Do you have anything that monitors the different component temperatures? I use a program called speedfan.

Chad

DriesV · February 20, 2017, 12:01:42 AM

Hi Bill,

Can you pinpoint where the noise is coming from? "Whine" or "scream in pain" (funny!) could indicate "coil whine" from the motherboard (or another component).
Are your fans connected to the motherboard? Maybe as they rev up during offline rendering they draw more power from the motherboard and cause that noise.
Just an idea.

Dries

mattjgerard · February 20, 2017, 05:48:23 AM

+1 for the fan bearing. I've had this happen before too. try vacuuming out the fans, if there is an appreciable amount of cruft coating the blades, it can throw them off balance and cause the bushings/bearings to fail.

Matt

Speedster · February 20, 2017, 09:37:59 AM

Quote+1 for the fan bearing. I've had this happen before too. try vacuuming out the fans

Well, this morning I vacuumed the two large fans in the front and the two small ones in the back, the filters, and also used canned air to clean things up inside. Oddly, it was not too dusty. Anyway, I did a test on the same model I was having trouble with, and no yowling!

Thanks for the advice!

Bill G

DMerz III · February 20, 2017, 02:25:24 PM

We have several boxx workstations and have experienced this a couple of times. It is an awful noise. Turns out it was a water-cooler failure (if you put your hand next to the air outlet, it will feel warm, and this is NOT GOOD.

Immediately download a program that will tell you your CPU temps (there are some free applications if you google). Boxx will want to see proof your machine is overheating. They make it kind of a hassle, but for us, they had to ship out a new cooler unit, and we quickly replaced it ourselves, which was a lot faster than shipping the whole machine back for them to do it. Best of luck!

Will Gibbons · February 21, 2017, 08:04:25 AM

I haven't run into this myself, but as a Boxx owner, it's good to hear others' experiences.

Speedster · February 21, 2017, 10:47:05 AM

So... This morning I unplugged everything and took my BOXX out to the shop for a thorough and VERY CAREFUL cleaning. Used canned air, no vacuum. You would not believe the dust and stuff that blew out of the fins on the two radiators! Looked like my old Model A Ford pickup after a trip to the desert back in the 1960's!

All up and running, and oddly enough it's quiet again, like when new. BOXX computers are well known for their low noise level, well loved by recording studios!

But I really appreciate all of you advice, and I'm certainly going to monitor for any odd noises!

For any that are interested, this is what BOXX guts look like.
Bill G

DMerz III · February 21, 2017, 02:35:33 PM

Glad to hear, you're not hearing anything anymore!

Also glad it's not a water cooler failure!

mattjgerard · February 22, 2017, 05:45:50 AM

Off topic slightly, but its interesting that they are still propping these things with the K series video cards, or was that your own choice? Coming from C4D and Octane, are the K series worth the extra expense from the GTX series? Octane never benefitted from them, and for the price one could outfit with several GTX cards with a ton of CUDA cores vs having that double precision math magic of the K series.

Speedster · February 22, 2017, 06:42:12 AM

Not off-topic at all. All builds are a compromise. My BOXX 8920 was built for me in back in the dark ages of 2013. It's 16 core (running 30 for KeyShot) with Dual XEON ES-2687W, 3.1 GHz. When I discussed my needs with Michael Wahl at BOXX, he suggested this build to best meet my needs and budget. I had wanted 32 cores (hyperthreaded to 64), but it was a real budget buster. This build came in at $13,000 US, which was my limit. FYI- it allowed me to take on ad agency work that I could not do before on my 4-core machines, and payback in efficiency and speed was like six months!

But the real issue behind the K is that my primary apps are SolidWorks (on one core), MathLab, KeyShot and Photoshop. But I also do FEA and simulation, hence a math heavy card. Or something like that!

I have to say, my BOXX decision was my best ever!

Bill G

Will Gibbons · February 22, 2017, 08:55:01 AM

Quote from: mattjgerard on February 22, 2017, 05:45:50 AM
Off topic slightly, but its interesting that they are still propping these things with the K series video cards, or was that your own choice? Coming from C4D and Octane, are the K series worth the extra expense from the GTX series? Octane never benefitted from them, and for the price one could outfit with several GTX cards with a ton of CUDA cores vs having that double precision math magic of the K series.

On this subject... as I've read up on it a lot lately. The Quadro cards are 'enterprise-level' solutions. They're the only ones actually officially supported by SolidWorks (and a few other CAD programs). As far as I understand, the main difference between Quadro and Geforce cards are that Quadros are optimized for accuracy (math to a greater number of decimal points) versus the Geforce which are optimized purely for parallel compute speed. The extra cost associated with the Quadros comes from the fact that there's absolutely zero competition. Anyone using SolidWorks professionally at a company is going to be on a machine with a Quadro as that's what's officially supported by SolidWorks' drivers. This accounts for a huge user base, which Nvidia has capitalized on. They charge what they charge because they can. This of course causes an interesting problem for those who want a CAD-optimized machine, but run other GPU-intensive programs as you can't typically have the best of both worlds and it gets terribly expensive even if you try.

So, those in the business of Gas and Oil, Medical Design, Civil Engineering, Architecture, Product Design, Automotive (the big money makers) are running software that only officially supports Quadro cards, and Nvidia knows these companies are willing to shell out for the recommended hardware, whereas Geforce cards are marketed towards gamers and entertainment industries. I'm not claiming there's not a lot of money in the industries that rely on Geforce cards, but I'd venture to say not quite as much... and not as willing to spend more money on the hardware.

That's my unofficial guess/observations. Your hardware choice is in large a response to your software's needs.