M6400 Covet crashing in Maya

I watched the issue for a while and found out that the "invalid hash on tcpip.sys" error always comes immediately before the nvidia drivers crashing.

I don't know what to make of the tcpip.sys problem but I suspect that if I can make that go away, it might stabilize the display drivers.

Anyone here a Microsoft programmer?

 

Progress!

Although I feel like the only one here using Maya....

I found a command for disabling code integrity checks and so far I've been going at my project for hours on end without a crash. The messages about tcpip.sys having an invalid code integrity check are gone, and so are the driver restarts.

Looks like a windows reinstall might be in my future to eliminate whatever Dell software replaced tcpip.sys. (Why would you ever replace that?)


The only other thing that has changed between now and the crashes is that I am now working at home. So the school could have bad power in that room, and it's possible the other 20 desktop workstations and 5 student laptops in that same location are not effected. (well, remotely possible.)

 

try taking a surge protector to work.

they protect you from undervoltages as well as surges

 

Are you talking about a UPS? There aren't any of those available in labs at school... A standard surge protector doesn't have any energy storage capacity so it can't protect against undervoltages.

Some UPS don't even do that, the last "consumer" one I had a few years back was an on-or-off kind of box. Would flip on when the undervoltage went under a certain level.

Interesting though... Now that you got me thinking about it, I remember a brownout a few years back at my old apartments, where I measured the line voltage at 75v AC (supposed to be 110!) Funny part was my big workstation would actually boot up and run for 10 minutes, without a UPS! It would give up after that, but somehow the 75v was putting enough juice in the PSU capacitors that it was able to maintain all the voltage rails. Just couldn't keep up with the amperage for long. This was a situation where light bulbs were on half-brightness and everything.


I think I traced my problems to some Dell utility breaking code integrity checks on tcpip.sys. I still want to voltmeter that lab though.

 

Doesn't the AC adapter also give the added benifit of acting like a surge suppressor?

 

It does, to a degree. It has capacitance and voltage regulation and, like a standard power supply in a desktop, will provide some protection against short spikes (whether over-volt spikes or under-volt spikes.) If the power in the room frequently undervolts or undervolts for a period of time, though, the energy in the capacitors will drain quickly. (Maybe a few seconds, depending on how far down it goes.)

Anyway, there are large numbers of power supply failures in the workstations in that room relative to the other rooms, so the power in there could be shoddy. But I doubt that is what's causing my problem, given the tcpip.sys code integrity check problem having a 100% coincidence with the driver reboots, and since I haven't crashed yet since disabling code integrity checks. (Has only been maybe 6 hours of work though, so still "in progress" on it.)

 

Back at school, and the crashes are back.

I can't tell whether it has anything to do with the location, because I was working at home last night and had a crash. It was late so I just gave up.

Things I noticed:
* I continued getting the code integrity failures on tcpip.sys even though I had disabled them
* tcpip.sys is identical to the one on the factory image I copied before even turning on the computer for the first time
* Power profile was set to "power saving" for some reason, thought I had it on high performance though.
* After doing four different things to disable code integrity checks, I finally got a crash in Maya that was not accompanied by a code integrity check failure on tcpip.sys. Looks like they might not be as related as I thought.

I think I need a program to graph voltages on my gpu.

I'm going to "stress test" it in Bioshock tonight to let off some steam... Will report any success, just in case someone else lands on this thread in the future.

One thing's for sure, it is much harder to work in this lab for whatever reason. The crashes come after two minutes in Maya. At home I worked for hours.

EDIT UPDATE (4 hours later):

I was getting crashes 2 to 4 minutes into Maya, reliably. I turned the Power Saving mode from "Power Saver" to "High Performance", and was able to work for a long time without issues.

I looked into power settings and this is the main difference that relates to the graphics card, while plugged in:

Code:

[ ]  PCI Express
   [ ]  Link State Power Management
       On Battery:  (setting)
       Plugged In:   (setting)

Setting options are Off, Moderate Power Savings, and Maximum Power Savings.

On the Power Saver profile, both are set to Max Power Savings. On High Performance, they are both set to Off. There weren't any other settings that were different between the two and looked relevant.

Is anyone else following this to see what happens? Do your 3700 cards work in 3D when set to Power Saving?

 

Just had a crash while set to High Performance power profile. But it took longer.

This one also coincided with the tcpip.sys code integrity check problem.

Maybe there are two causes?

Going to try specviewperf tonight.

 

Whats the status on the crashes? Getting my Covet tomorrow or Tues, this thread is makin me nervous.

 

I actually need a second person to help troubleshoot... I'm apparently the only one running maya on this forum right now.

So far, the crashes always happen within a few minutes, if the Vista-64 power saving profile has PCI-e Link State Power Management set to anything but Off. This might be bad for battery life, and Dell doesn't have extra capacity batteries. It's a major blow to the M6400 if it's not just my system.

The crashes seem to be related to how intensely I am working, i.e. they tend to come back if I am "in the zone" and working solid for a few hours without looking at the web every 20 minutes. With that setting set to Off, I can work for a longer time without a crash and I just make sure to save very frequently. But, if I was running one of my other projects whose scene file is 600MB, the kind of scene I bought this laptop to work on, that would NOT be an option. Saving that scene is one of those things where I fire it off and take a break, get something to drink, and come back.

If you get yours and do not have problems in Maya with the power saving profile set to max savings, then I know I have a hardware problem and need a replacement.

Dell has been almost completely unhelpful on this laptop BTW. Their tech team is clueless and just tells me to go ask Autodesk. They only have one video driver available. Their solution to the glossy screen problem has been to offer me a whopping 10% discount on a screen, which is downright insulting.

I am |---| <-- THIS far from returning this laptop. This whole Dell deal has completely screwed me for the holiday season and for my next class starting 12/04, because this laptop isn't working and no other manufacturer will be able to ship by then. At this point I have had to disable UAC and code integrity checks, and uninstall Dell ControlPoint connection manager, which controls what functions get affected by the wifi switch. i.e. if I have a bluetooth mouse, without Connection Manager I cannot force bluetooth to stay on when I disable wifi internet.

OTOH, the system runs Bioshock really well.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention, I tried running Morrowind for an extended period of time, in a busy location and set to Vanity Mode which continuously circles the camera. It lasted for two hours and didn't crash. I also showed a friend Bioshock for half an hour and didn't crash. But those programs use DirectX and do not activate some of the Quadro OpenGL features. I need another program that uses OpenGL that I can run overnight to test with. Maybe it's just Maya. I just can't tell.