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I was reluctant to mention this before in case the problem was caused by my machine.

I just had my sixth BSOD, each time they occurred exactly when maxwell is launched, either from c4d, or by starting mxed, or by starting maxwell studio. The crash occurs instantly before my finger has left the button so to speak. The first time this happened I was using maxwell 3.0.1. I am running xp64 sp2, nvidia gtx 670 driver 310.90.

I have never had any BSOD from any other software.

Maxwell can be very RAM/CPU intensive and I experienced BSODs when I had hardware problems (overclocking).

Doubt very much its Maxwell per se that is causing BSOD in that my experience is that its either hardware or bios issues.

It could be that maxwell is hitting the problem (hardware/bios) hence why you are connecting it to the issue , my thoughts though are that the issue is already there and any other piece of software making the same calls would do the same thing.

Try and reset bios ? check hardware connections ( reseat ram) , run some hardware tests (cinebench,fprime) . Update video drivers !

eric nixon wrote:I was reluctant to mention this before in case the problem was caused by my machine.

I just had my sixth BSOD, each time they occurred exactly when maxwell is launched, either from c4d, or by starting mxed, or by starting maxwell studio. The crash occurs instantly before my finger has left the button so to speak. The first time this happened I was using maxwell 3.0.1. I am running xp64 sp2, nvidia gtx 670 driver 310.90.

I have never had any BSOD from any other software.

i'm sure, you know and have already been googling about the codes that usually are being provided when a bsod appears. just wanted to make sure, since you did not mention any.
often those codes lead to specific hardwaredrivers and such...

Yes its unusual for a BSOD to be caused by software, but in this case it seems to be just that. Its very occasional, only happening 6 times in the last month. I suspect the nvidia drivers, but thats just a hunch.

Its not ram related, just opening mxed on its own (with nothing else running) can cause it. At first I suspected the pagefile on the SSD but after disabling that it still happens.

Hardware is rock solid, and yes it is OC'd.

eric nixon wrote: Hardware is rock solid, and yes it is OC'd.

V3 is more demanding than V2. I also had to adjust the settings of some machines to get them stable again.

So which code is showing up on the blue screen? (windows event viewer)
What CPU do you have?

Software can cause it , but its not the root of the issue .

What I mean is that its often the result of drivers , bad overclock or solid overclock becoming unstable for whatever reason (this happened to me before).
I used to use benchwell as part of my overclock test , if it could survive it without bsod I knew I was on the right track.So yes I' ve had maxwell bsod my machine
but that was due to my bad OC not the program.As I could run a non OC profile with no issues , so it had to be that causing the issue. So really you are looking
for a repeatable way of BSOD to test what the issue is.


What BSOD codes are you getting ? ( anything with a timeout in it usually points to the OC either to much/ to little voltage ) .

Are you using "Fast Multilight Preview"? Try disabling it...

Its not multilight, unless mxed uses that?
I've updated the gfx drivers to 344.48 If I get another bsod, I'll post here some grumblings.

solid overclock becoming unstable for whatever reason

lol, thats not solid then is it? thats just the moment you learnt it was OC'd too far.

eric nixon wrote:Its not multilight, unless mxed uses that?
I've updated the gfx drivers to 344.48 If I get another bsod, I'll post here some grumblings.

solid overclock becoming unstable for whatever reason

lol, thats not solid then is it? thats just the moment you learnt it was OC'd too far.

No it was the moment the power supply wasn't working as well as it had in its first year of service.You know I posted on here to try and help you .

7th time is free

Let us know when you hit bingo

Hey Eric,
I second photomg1's notion that it may be your PSU. I do a lot of home based IT work for people and I've seen just in the past 6 months, 4 name brand power supplies fail in less than a year (not pointing fingers but one was Corsair and one was EVGA, I can't remember what the other 2 were). One instance in particular was very similar to what your describing. Instant BSOD that "appeared" to be tied to launching various applications (for them it was just Internet Explorer). It was hit or miss, which was the troubling part. The other thing that was happening was it would lock up sometimes right before the crash, but that also was hit or miss. There were no obvious signs that the PSU was going either. It sounded great, didn't appear to overheat, and didn't show signs of failing capacitors. However, once replaced, the system has and still is running great.

If you haven't updated your BIOS, there's no evidence of bulging capacitors on your motherboard, and your running the pretty stable version of Maxwell (3.0.1), then the chances it's your PSU are actually pretty high. For a component that doesn't do any real processing, your PSU is actually really complex. Any little fluctuation in it's performance can have unpredictable results. You may even find signs of bulged capacitors in the PSU itself.

The good thing is that in terms of hardware, it's one of the cheapest things you can fix, unless you need some insane, 1500 watt PSU. They make inexpensive voltage testers for PSU's that are designed for the various forms of ATX connectotions, but that won't tell you what you really need to know. A true PSU load testing device is outrageously expensive and can only really be affordable to manufacturers. If you don't have an extra PSU laying around, you could get one from a store that sells components, test the system, and then return it if it doesn't solve the issue. Just double check the return policy prior to making the purchase.

This is just my 2 cents. Good luck man!

Looks like if you title a thread 'bsod' everyone starts reaching for there screwdrivers, despite the obvious cause being this beta software thingy, seeing as it only occurs at the exact moment that beta software thingy gets activated... btw mxed just did the bsod thingy. (I was running nvidia driver 344.48, now reverted to 327.23 and will report if it happens again)

Tom, I checked fast preview, it was turned off.

eric nixon wrote:Looks like if you title a thread 'bsod' everyone starts reaching for there screwdrivers, despite the obvious cause being this beta software thingy, .

I'm using the same beta software and have not had a bsod . Perhaps that was why you were receiving differing opinions/advice to what you perceive as obvious.

I've got a gtx 970 with driver 344.75 I've had no occurence of BSOD using any version of maxwell v 3 including the beta and I've regularly updated my gfx drivers so multiple driver versions tested since 970 was released.Also got an older 580 on a second machine same drivers no issues.

So initially it did make me wonder what thingy is causing it .

Here's an avatar you can use, so that we might more easily skip past these pointless anonymous posts;



And I'll repeat myself, to help your reading comprehension; The bsods are very specific but very rare, you have to use maxwell a lot for it to happen, maybe 1 time out of 100 or 200, and also I'm running Xp64 sp2 which may have something to do with it.

I'm not here asking for help to debug my system, I am reporting this problem in a beta testing sub-forum, because it would be irresponsible not to report it.