Hi - I am finding that Poser 5 Reboots my machine inermittantly when I go to render. It even happens with 640 X 480 images and two default lights. Spec: P4 300 + 2GB ram + Gforce 5900FX and 120GB free disc space. Any ideas guys? Thanks Tony

Do you have it patched to at least SR2 (SR3 is available and includes the earlier ones)? Reason I ask was that this was a known problem prior to P5 SR2 on certain machines (exact spec never determined) in which the P5 Renderer would fail, and the Interlok copy protection would force a reboot. I'll spare you the details on how/why. From SR2 the Interlock code is unlinked from P5, so if P5 fails it's not likely to trigger a reboot.

It is already fully patched Version: 5.0.2.281. So I think there is still a problem. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Tony

P4 300 ???

Pentium 4 3GHz (Sorry Typo - I had a senior moment).

LOL... Just wanted to make sure. :)

Maybe it's getting to hot? I had this problem this summer when I tried to render. The CPU temperature was over 73 - so opened the case and placed a huge fan next to it, that helped. In my new PC I have 7 fans and no problems anymore.

I wish it were that simple Puntomaus. I have a 'Thermaltake' case packed with fans and the max temperature is around 34 degrees (there's a readout on the front of the case). - good suggestion though :) I really think that this is a software problem rather than hardware.

Is your power supply strong enough to handle the CPU, the gfx card and the fans? A Pentium 4 CPU can take as much as 80W under full load (e.g. when rendering in Poser), and if the power supply is not able to deal with that reliably, the system can become unstable.

Thanks Stewer, I am using a UPS (uninteruptable power supply) which monitors power drain, usage and qualitity of power. It indicates that the machine is not pulling that much load (50% in fact)The power supply is of the heavy duty type, capable of powering many more devices than I have fitted. If the CPU was pulling too much power the LCD monitor on the Thermaltake case would show an increase in heat - in fact it hardly ever changes by + or - 1 degree.

What OS are you on, btw? XP I hope?

BTW Even if it were either a heat or power supply problem, it seems rather coincidental that on the occasions that it does reboot, I happen to have hit the render button.

XP Pro.

"I have a 'Thermaltake' case packed with fans and the max temperature is around 34 degrees (there's a readout on the front of the case)" Hey, same here :D. Have you looked at the Perfomance settings in the Bios (under Advanced). There is something you can adjust from Optimal to Normal (Load Performance Settings) - maybe this helps.

BTW Even if it were either a heat or power supply problem, it seems rather coincidental that on the occasions that it does reboot, I happen to have hit the render button.

Not necessarily. I experienced a similar problem shortly after assembling my first Athlon rig. It appeared to run fine, except whenever I tried to use Poser. Seconds after clicking the render button, the stress that Poser places on the CPU would push it into the red, and my mainboard's thermal sensor would immediately power down the system to prevent a China Syndrome.

Turned out I'd improperly mounted the heatsink. Only Poser (and a couple of CPU torture-test apps I tried later) was able to heat the chip beyond safety parameters.

And I couldn't really check the temperature readings to confirm that it was a cooling problem, because it always happened so fast. Thankfully, my neighbor was more knowledgeable about such matters.

Download the Prime95 utility and run it on your system in torture-test mode. If it also triggers a shutdown or reboot, it's almost certainly a CPU cooling problem.

I'll second Little Dragon on the heat function that comes with Poser. While working on silencing the fans on my PC, I noted that just loading and having Poser 5 as the foreground task I could raise the temperature of the CPU by a recorded degree F (i.e. ~0.5 degree change). If that seems improbably then check the CPU utilization of an idle Poser 5, then move your mouse over it's user interface ;-) Rendering injects a minimum of 2 degrees F into my well-cooled CPU - as it's pegged hard at 100% usage.