[kami]

Hi everybody

I recently bought a new workstation (2 X Intel Xeon E5-2690, 2.9 GHz, 64 GB RAM, Gainward GTX680 Phantom 4 GB GDDR5, win7x64) - all in all a pretty fast machine!
But I have a problem with it, I did not have with any other computer before:

When there is a rendering running in maxwell, I almost can't use the machine anymore. Windows gets extremely slow, the mouse starts lagging, even surfing the web ist slow.
I did put it on low priority, but this does not change anything. Also not if I use less threads (30 of 32).
Beeing that slow, it is not possible to work on the machine while rendering.

What can cause such a behavior? And what can I do against it?
I've never had any similar problems before. My old machine (a mac pro dual xeon, running windows) feels much faster, when a rendering is running.
I almost don't notice the difference when modelling in rhino, oder while photoshopping.

thanks for any advice or help
kami

[polynurb]

i experienced a similar thing when i switched to dual x5650s.
must be something with thread management in win7 when many cores are present.
when the rendering is running for a while though secondary application speed improves, and resources are shared better.

alternatively you can go to task-manager:

right click on the task, like "maxwell render" choose "go to process"
then, r-click on process > set affinity

there you can withdraw one or more cores completely from the rendering process, which should help in your case.

[kami]

is it so bad that you cannot work normal anymore for you? I have the impression, that it's not getting much better after a while.
And taking 2 cores away (4 threads) doesn't bring much improvement, only if I render on half of the cores it feels good. (with a drastic speed disadvantage)

[tom]

I experienced something similar with Logitech Anywhere Mouse MX (a wireless mouse) and changing the USB port of its receiver helped. Magic...

[kami]

Sadly it is not only the mouse but also the programs not responding for several seconds.
I experienced around a little more. And with cinema render running at 100% there are absolutely no issues. So it could be somehow Maxwell related?
I'm still trying to narrow it down a little more. Fire (running from rhino) does work fine as well. So I assumed that the disc access would slow the machine down.
But disabling the access in mxcl did not change much, so this can't be the reason.

@polynurb: could you double check for me, if you have the same behavior?

[polynurb]

hi kami,

i am afraid my observations won't help much..

i did also experience trouble with running fire in rhino, basically rhino being very slow.. again as you said taking away threads did not help much. but somehow i don't have that issue anymore, or it is not as significant.
when running renders in the background, i do sometimes still get a lag, but it goes away after while when i switch to rhino/photoshop etc.

now i have been tweaking & oc'ing my machine for a while, and updated my bios to the latest version. also i changed the windows power plan from balanced to performance (this controls the turbo mode of your cpu, this is especially important for the new E-series of xeons)

also make sure you have all windows updates installed.

[tom]

So, you're not using a wireless mouse?

[kami]

No, I'm using a corded one, but will switch it to another port now. But it don't think its a problem of the mouse since it's noticeable in all programs, also in word when typing, or while scrolling a web page.

I tried another benchmarks and this one works fine as well. Also I noticed when running rhino+fire, that my cpu usage never gets above 50% (I assigned the maximum amount of threads for it). Don't know why, but that should explain why it's working fine then.
My Power Options are on 'High Performance'.

I'll be calling my manufacturer to see if it they have any idea. The machine is brand new and they have the newest drivers and firmware installed.

[kami]

To follow up on the subject, I (or better said my computer facturer) fixed the problem.
So a big thanks goes to www.brentford.com for their great support!

They made the following steps:
- all drivers and software was up to date
- checked all components again with a stress test with various benchmark softwares. they all worked fine except for maxwell render, where it was not possible to work while rendering due to random lag spikes.
- changed all RAM modules to a different kind (as being told by nextlimit to be the main source for problems like this) -> no changement
- changed the grafics card and the mainboard (so basically a new computer ) -> works fine now!!!
they switched a geforce gtx680 for a ati fire pro v7900 and replaced the supermicro x9dai (a pretty new mainboard) with an asus z9pe-d8 ws.
my assumption is, that the mainboard driver in combination with maxwell render caused the problem. I would have expected a bit more effort from nextlimit, since the only software having problems was maxwell render.
if other users have a similar problem with that mainboard, I hope nextlimit or a driver update will be able to fix this.

cheers,
kami

[feynman]

The GeForce GTX 680 is a nice OC card for 4-Way-SLI gamers, no?