Sudden Slowdown In Performance

[aaronk]

I have a weird problem. I worked on a scene for a few days, and yesterday I saved it, when the rendering was at about 3,5 minutes per frame. Today I open the same scene and it takes up to 9 minutes to render. I don't know what happened, nothing changed. Also when I try to render it on a different coputer it's ok, so nothing changed in the scene - I;m just not sure if it's something with maya or with my computer. I mean did my computer broke down - like a processor slow down or something - or is it some setting in maya that I could accidentally change (I tried restoring all settings to default in maya and it didnt work). My system is P4 3,6, 2GB Ram, win xp, maya 8. I'm running out of ideas so any help would be appreciated

[fortner_mike]

I don't think it's maya, maybe you've got something running that you didn't have the other day, maybe you've got some spyware, hmm.... maybe its hot like hell and your processor just can't get cool?

[aaronk]

QUOTE(thirt33n @ 08/12/07, 09:28 PM) [snapback]271393[/snapback]
I don't think it's maya, maybe you've got something running that you didn't have the other day, maybe you've got some spyware, hmm.... maybe its hot like hell and your processor just can't get cool?

I didnt have anything else running, so I don't know what exatcly the problem was. I lost the whole day today trying to figure it out and finally the problem fixed itself. I just tried to reduce antialiasing sample levels and it kinda worked, but it was pretty strange. First I pulled it down to -2 to 0 and the scene rendered in 1 minute, than pulled it up to 0 to 1 and it rendered in 5 minutes, and than back to 0 to 2 and it rendered in 3,5 minutes (the time that I got yesterday) so it just came back to normal, without changing anything just playing around with stuff and reverting to normal.

I guess maya just likes to mess with people around from time to time

[aaronk]

sory for double posting but my problem is back and this time it doesnt want to go away. It's the same as before - the renders takes approximately twice as long as it should normally. I did tests by renedering the same scene on different computers which are even slower and they did it almost twice as fast. Ive been fighting with it for 2 days now. I scanned my computer searching for all kinds of viruses, spyware etc, and its completely clean. I even reinstalled maya. Nothing works. After reinstalling the scene rendered quick just as it should, but couple minutes later it went back to being slow.
And to be clear - its the same for any scene I open, and for both mental ray and maya renderer - all the renders take about twice as long. My computer is P4 3,6 with 2GB ram, and it seems that all the hardware is fine. Maya, and other software works correctly - the problem is only when rendering. The only thing that comes to my mind is some kind of a setting within maya.

I used maya on this comupter for months and never had such problems until few days ago (read above) but it somehow repaired itself, and now it is back. Please help.

[joojaa]

Sounds like your choking your bus somehow, how did you check that your hardware is okay?

ne of the coolest flaws i once saw was dying of the 3d accelerator that was WIERD, But i was told that someone once managed to burn one of his processors arithmetic unit, now thwt must have been wierd indeed.

Anyway what kind of setup do you have.

Id tip its the memory thats the object of your problems

[aaronk]

Im just assuming that hardware is ok, because other applications like After effects (also memory consuming) work fine.
ALso when I go to bios or dxdiag it says that I still have 2gig of ram and everything seems fine - but on the other hand I dont even now if it proves anything.
Is there any way to check if my hardware works properly?

Here are my specs (it's a notebook):
Pentium IV HT 3.6GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM (2x1GB) 533MHz
GeForce Go 6800
Win XP Pro
Maya 8.0

Do you need any other info?
Thanx for all the help in advance

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Droo @ 08/26/07, 12:06 PM) [snapback]272278[/snapback]
Im just assuming that hardware is ok, because other applications like After effects (also memory consuming) work fine.

You cant assume that a single broken bank an cause so weird effects you dont believe. some apps might be toatly100% okay beacuse they never use those registers but othes might die. I mean i had a fiend that has a broken memory bank and windows worked fine but linux didnt unless he grounded the frame of the computer wich fixed that eroor also

Get some goo diagnostic programs.

[aaronk]

I'll try altough I dont know any diagnostic programs.

ANyways the weird thing is that yesterday for some time it worked correctly again and than the problem came back.
So from time to time it works and than it doesnt...

[joojaa]

for starters run memtest will take a few hours (run a full check). Then thats atleast settled.

[aaronk]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 08/28/07, 01:06 PM) [snapback]272381[/snapback]
for starters run memtest will take a few hours (run a full check). Then thats atleast settled.

dont realy have time do do that for now, but recently the problem is gone so Im using the opportuinity to work as mych as possible until it comes back again. Than Ill worry again and consider runing this memtest. Thanks for all the help though