I've been having very weird issues with Poser and I wanted to know if anyone else had had this problem or had a clue what was going on. I will be going along, doing my thing and suddenly my computer will turn off. Just off. Dead. Like someone pulled the plug... only it's a lap top with a battery in it so that wouldn't work. It is not the cord or the battery. I am pretty sure it has something to do with Poser for several reasons: 1) It only happens when I have been using Poser. It does not always happen when I am actualy doing something IN poser, but always when I have poser open or have had it open. If I don't use Poser for long stretches of time (say, durring school when I don't have time to play) it doesn't happen. 2) It only started doing this after I installed the Michel and Victoria models from DAZ. Before that Poser would crash itself ocasionally, but my computer never turned itself off! Given that, I think perhaps I should write DAZ's tech support and see if they have any idea what's wrong. But I thought I'd see if anyone else here had had any similar issues first. It's driving me batty:p Relevent info: the computer is a Dell Insprion. The opperating system is Windows ME The poser program is Poser 4. The models I bought from DAZ are Micheal 2, Vicktoria 2 and the tunic back. I instaled them all at about the same time, and the problem started shortly thereafter.

I used to get this problem a lot with Windows 98 but not with Poser. It would be consistent with a certain application till I scan disked & defragged my machine. Then it would be fine for ages till it started happening with another application. At one point it was occuring whenever I shut down another PC on my small network. Quite weird to shut down one machine and have another one turn itself off as well. Later, the hard disk on that machine became totally corrupted and I had to buy a new one. So it could be the problem is caused by hard disk failures. So scan disk & defrag, then wait to see which application gets it next. Oh- and backup your machine, soon!

Doesn't happen with desktop, rarely happened with laptop and always was a program that used max cpu. Poser is one such program that uses max cpu time. Try turning off all your power saver settings. On laptops, the operating system tends to default to power saver issues. Keep this in mind... 1. if you check your OS version number you'll find its different from desktop numbers. 2. You'll probably find that the manufacturer of your laptop has some hybernation or failsafe built in that shuts down when overloaded. Poser at max cpu can do that. 3. Most laptops are ram deficient and you should make sure you have a large swap file or page file. I've never been convinced that laptops function anywhere near the capability of a desktop. I don't use my laptop for anything other than surfing or text. No graphics. Yeah, I have P4 and Bryce 5 and PS loaded for road trips but I'm almost always disappointed and

and... get a decent desktop. Best wishes to you.

It is not necessarily poser that is the problem. It may be that poser is the only package you use that uses a lot of memory? The DAZ characters are much more detailed than the standard poser chars. You did not say how much RAM you have or how big your hard disk is? If you have the hard disk space increase your virtual memory.

I don't know if it's the cause here, but I once had a pc that started behaving somewhat like that. That was back in the Win3.11 days, so it is obviously a LONG time ago. Still, back then, it turned out that the problems were caused by a faulty fan, the cpu fan had simply stopped working, causing the CPU to overheat and then shut down. As Poser uses a LOT of CPU power it COULD be the reason. Not necessarily a DEAD fan but overheating in some sort. Just guessing though...

the overheating, and possibly bad ram were the first thing that popped into my caffeine deficient brain this morning... Poser uses every bit of cpu power and ram that you can throw at it, so other apps may not give your components the workout that poser does.

Too hot is the problem like Dave-So says, had this many times here in summer. You need a better CPU fan Mungo

That doesn't explain why my PC stopped doing it when I got a new hard disk.

Actually it does.. I bet you had the PC plucked more or less to pieces when you put in the new HD. And before, one of the cables MAY have covered up either the fan or something else, thereby preventing proper air circultaion inside the computer. Then you may have bettered that situation. Or perhaps the new HD had round cables (better for circulation) and the old one had normal flat ones? Again... guessing, but....

I'm not entirely sure Sarakat's issue is fan related, unless it has stopped working all together. Even still, if it IS overheating, replacing the fan in a laptop is going to be a huge pain in the butt. It sounds power related to me...I'd check your power save settings, etc. and jiggle your cords and make sure you don't have a bad connection somewhere... Or if you're convinced its poser, try and overload the system...load up tast manager, and watch your system resources while you load up poser, then insert as many hi-res vickys and mikes as you can , textures etc, render at high resolution...see if you can tell by task mgr, when your comp. quits.... dunno. Its a laptop, so its not my arena... (plus harder to fix/get fixed) I'd suggest calling Dell's tech-support, but you're probably better off getting a slurpy and a slim jim. ;) Evo

Is your new hard disk faster and bigger ? If it is, then you have a heat problem - try to get a utility which measures cpu temp. In some motherboards you can look at it in the setup and there is also the switch off temp listed. Mungo

Nice try ernyoka1, but that doesn't explain why defragging the machine fixed it as well or why the problem would switch to a different application later. Sarakat, before you spend money on a new fan and start pulling apart your laptop, try scandisk and see if it fixes any errors and defrag your machine. Then see if the problem goes away. If it does, it's almost definately hard disk related- if not, then it may be overheating.

Sarakat: That does sound like a heat issue. However, before you start tearing into your notebook, be advised that nigh onto =all= of them have no fans in them. Fans are high maintenance items, they consume vital space, they create even more heat, and there frankly isn't enough room in any notebook for any fan that could be mounted in them to actually get an airflow going. They use passive cooling methods; the backplate is one huge heat spreader, there is convective cooling or both. The best way to check is to prop your notebook up by the corners, so that the bottom is at least an inch above any surface. Then place a fan so that it blows air parallel to the screen, and beneath the body. Load Poser and strain the bugger. If it handles it, then you have your answer. All you would need to do then is make sure that either there is something that dissipates heat to set the notebook on, or keep the envrionment a few degrees cooler. For that matter, it would be simple to build a small stand and baby fan arrangement (say one of those clip on types. Definitely enough CFM for this job)to prevent the issue. And actually, smiller1, it does. Assuming that the drive in question is an IDE drive, and one of the ones with a decent spindle speed, a seriously fragmented application can cause almost continuous accessing of the drive. That will drive up the heat, and if the controller electronics on the drive are dicey to begin with, you get thermal errors. As there is no pattern to what files get fragmented, save what other programs are doing, and the order in which you are running them, then its easy to see how the problem jumps from app to app. One instance it might be Poser that fragmented enough to push the spindle heat up to where the controller chip started barfing at you. Let it cool, defrag, and it might be Photoshop that gets scatters all over creation the next go around. One of the points that keeps getting missed in any talk about thermal issues is that modern IDE devices have their own controller and I/O electronics on the actual drive. And irregardless of their cable configuration, they almost inevitably wind up in an area where the air doesn't move, or in the case of the really cheapo baby towers, in a mounting frame directly under the power supply. And the problem is a royal bitch to isolate because it is dependant on a transient thermal condition.

Well I'm convinced mine was not a heating problem because it could occur shortly after switching a machine on. I hear what you are all saying, all I'm saying is there is more than one cause for this symptom.

Heh. More causes than you could shake Posette at, actually... ;)

:0)

I had the exact same problem about a year ago. Poser 4 ran fine on my laptop computer and then all of a sudden while working on a very intense project the computer would restart for no reason. I did some experimenting and found that after upgrading my BIOS (via software patch), the problem went away and never happened again.

No doubt the new BIOS was cooler than the previous version. :0)