Screen Tearing, Screeching, and Crashing in Mudbox

jgarland

The past few weeks, my computer has been acting strangely, and I'm beginning to think it's on it's last leg. Most recently, Mudbox has been crashing, causing screen tearing, an error log, and loud screeching noises. It's very hard to finish any work, given the frequency of the crashes.

I suspect it either has something to do with my fans being clogged, or the motherboard may be giving out.

I was hoping I could post a screenshot here, in case anyone else has encountered a similar problem. Any help is appreciated.

rybeck

If my memory serves me correct, Mudbox really demanding the latest driver for vid card. Try get one installed and see if it would fix that, unless you have done it.

jgarland

Updating my drivers probably should have been my first course of action. After updating them, everything in Mudbox actually seems smoother, although I may just be imagining it.

Thanks for the help, Rybeck. If it happens again, I'll edit this post.

adamlewis

It sounds like either your cpu or video card is getting too hot. I would check to see what your temperatures are during full load and compare that to what they should be normally (you could google that information fairly easily).

As you pointed out, if you are having temperature problems it's probably due to a clogged fan. I usually have to clean out my computer every few months or so, because dust accumulates on the heatsinks and dramatically reduces their cooling efficiency over time leading to high temperatures and crashing.

jgarland

I took a look under the fan, and, just as was suspected, the heatsink was clogged to hell.

I ran SpeedFan before and after cleaning them out, and my initial temp was in the high 60s, low 80s. After cleaning out the fan, it dropped to about 48. Not bad.

Thanks for the help, guys. Everything seems to be running stably now.