From: "Chris Zwar" <chris@chriszwar.com>
To: "After Effects Mail List" <AE-List@media-motion.tv>
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Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 22:47:32 +0000
Subject: Mac kernel panics (continued)
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Just picking up an older thread...

Basically I'm working in a studio that has a load of identically specc'd =
Macs, presumably all purchased at the same time.  They all have nVidia Qu=
adro FX cards in them and they all kernel panic regularly.

Software / OS and Cuda drivers are up to date.  The problem seems to lie =
with the nVidia cards.  The only noticable thing is that they very rarely=
 panic during the day, but mostly overnight when rendering on the farm.  =
This suggests it may be a heat issue, as the air conditioning goes off at=
 6pm and it's pretty warm in the office by 9am.  However the problem also=
 seems to lie with GPU enabled software, including optical flares and sap=
phire (and even the screen saver) so it might not be heat after all.  As =
noted in my original post (way down below) simply applying the optical fl=
ares effect to a solid can prompt a kernel panic.

The fact the problem affects so many Macs (about 10) suggests it isn't an=
 individual case of faulty ram or even a dodgy graphics card.  Software u=
pdates haven't helped.

Any other suggestions?


-Chris


Thanks for both your help.

I've downloaded the latest CUDA driver (which I didn't have) and am looki=
ng forward to seeing if it makes a difference.

I do always uncheck the GPU option for optical flares (and any other plug=
in that gives the option) however there's always the crossed fingers and =
silent prayer the first time that OF is applied to a layer and then seein=
g how quickly you can tick the box! It's annoying that it's such a gorgeo=
us and popular effect, it's not uncommon for it to have been applied hund=
reds of times in a single large project, and if the project is causing ke=
rnel panics then then you have to go through and find the solitary instan=
ce that still has the GPU option enabled... (the PT effect search script =
is pure gold...)

Judging from the number of machines effected it does seem like an issue w=
ith nVidia drivers somewhere...


-Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Curtis [mailto:jpcurtis@me.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 1, 2011 03:11 PM
To: 'After Effects Mail List'
Subject: Re: [AE] Mac Kernel panics

I swear by Disk Warrior, which I run immediately after every Kernel Panic=
. It seems to vanquish them for a long while. Then for good measure, I ru=
n Applejack AUTO before commencing work again. 

I've only had about four KPs on my MacPro3,1 since buying it in 2008. The=
y seem to have been more related to a RAID controller than GPU, but I onl=
y say that because the KPs mostly have occurred within a few days of eith=
er installing new PCI cards or drivers.

BTW, Optical Flares (latest rev) will crash AE 100% of the time with my n=
ewish Quadro 4000 when the "use GPU" box is checked. It works fine as lon=
g as that box is unchecked. Perhaps you could try unchecking the box to s=
ee if that helps things.


On Nov 30, 2011, at 6:25 PM, Chris Zwar wrote:

> I'm working on a Mac Pro with an nVidia 4500 Quadro FX card. I probably=
 get about 1 kernel panic a day, which seems to be caused by open GL or G=
PU accelleration. The crash reports all point to After Effects as the cau=
se of the panic, but it's only GPU plugins that cause a panic. There's a =
bunch of macs here with similar specs and they all seem to suffer from th=
e same problem- if it was just mine I'd suspect faulty hardware. It's not=
 uncommon to arrive in the morning and find half the machines on the rend=
er farm have kernel panicked.
> 
> I originally thought it was just the 'optical flares' plugin (we have t=
he latest version), but it seems that any plugin that utilises the graphi=
cs card has a chance of bringing the machine down, possibly including sap=
phire.
> 
> I have open GL turned off in AE, have all the latest software updates, =
and I avoid open GL / GPU acceleration where I can. But are there any oth=
er suggestions to fix this?
> 
> -Chris
> 
> 
> 
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