DAZ Studio causing power supply fan to spin?

ec21davis_e7f4b03c52

I have an older HP Z420 workstation, Xeon E5 2670 processor (8 core Sandy Bridge), running Windows 10 Pro, 32 GB Ram and a Quadro M4000 video card which I switched out to from a Quadro M2000.   I swapped the card out AFTER I began having problems, by the way.   

 

I’ve used this computer for years and I frequently use DAZ Studio Pro to do 3D renderings, some of them taking many hours.    The computer has handled this like a champ without any issues until recently.

 

It began at first at the end of a 10 hour render, when I could hear a rapidly spinning fan that was out of the usual.    Normally, there would be some mild fan activity, but this time it was spinning frantically and I assumed that the GPU or CPU was getting too hot and I ended the render.   The fan cycled down to normal and for a while all was well, even when I had other, equally intense renders.

I regularly clean the inside of my system – at least twice a year, and the case is kept off the floor in a clean environment.

A month later or so, in the middle of a render, the same thing happened, but this time the spinning died down only to ramp up briefly – for a few seconds, off and on— when I opened other programs.   Task Manager showed that DAZ Studio was indeed closed, but in the Power usage tab, under Waterfox (the web browser) it would flash Very high and then go back down to Very low, only to go back up when I’d try to click on something in the browser.   Clicking completely out of Waterfox would restore the fans to normal speed.  

Over the course of a week, I kept monitoring this and thought that perhaps my GPU was getting old, so I replaced the M2000 with an M4000.   One time when running a DAZ Studio rendering, the fan spun fast with High power usage, so I restarted the computer, but upon the restart, it still would spin when certain things were clicked on, not just Waterfox or DAZ Studio.   The fan sound (which I am assuming is the power supply fan, though it is positioned right next to the CPU fan in the case) would ramp up to full speed, run that way for a few seconds, then cycle back down until I tried doing something else, then it would jump back up again.   Each time the fan ramped up, the power usage of a few of the running apps would go up to Very High and then go back down when it quite spinning so fast.

I shut the computer off and let it set overnight, then opened the case and using compressed air and a shop vac with a small attachment, cleaned it out.   It was not very dusty, however, after checking some on-line sites, I was led to use a flashlight and look closely at the CPU fan.   Due to the grill covering, I’d not been able to get an attachment into it to suck out dust and I honestly didn’t think there was any there, but when I used compressed air, I blew out a lot.   I thoroughly cleaned out everything using compressed air and vacuuming up the released dust, downloaded the most current stable driver for the Quadro cards and downloaded and used Speccy so I could monitor the temperatures of the CPU, hard drives, GPU and memory.

For a while the computer ran like it had before the problem – about a week or so, and I even tested it by running some intense renders.   It ran fine and the temperatures in Speccy were all in normal range.   

But then the fan issue returned and now when running any DAZ Studio rendering – and even once when I was just running the program but NOT rendering – the fan starts running.   During renderings, it takes a while, then goes into high level until I stop the rendering, then it just goes up and down, especially if I run something like Waterfox or close and reopen DAZ Studio.   Other programs such as Photoshop or word processing stuff doesn’t seem to bother it.   If I turn it off and a while later restart it and don’t start DAZ Studio, it does not seem to get the fan going.   Even Waterfox, if opened without DAZ Studio having ran a rendering first, will run okay.  

When I am running a rendering, I’ve monitored the temperatures – they all go up, of course, but all are consistent and within normal range and when I stop the rendering, they go back down to normal, even though the fan is doing its up and down thing.

Power usage is Very High during renderings and sometimes under Waterfox as well, but the funky fan issue only occurs after DAZ Studio has done a rendering (and one time the fan issue began without a rendering having run, though the program was open at the time, just not rendering anything).

So I’m trying to figure out my next move here.    I’ve ran DAZ Studio since 2014 and on several different computers and never has this been a problem.    If I had to hazard a guess, I’d think the power supply is worn out and needs replaced.   It is a 600 watt power supply for a Workstation and until recently I kept the computer on constantly without any issues.   As I mentioned above, this problem began when I had the M2000 installed, and it is a lower watt video card that doesn’t need any power plugs other than the motherboard.    The M4000 is an 8 GB card that draws 120 watts of power, so it has the 6 pin power supply attached.   Both cards when installed had the same issue.   I know the spinning fan is not the GPU fan and the temperature level of the M4000 never runs high.

I’ve read that there could be a temperature sensor in the Z420s’ case, near the power button, that, when malfunctioning, could fool the motherboard into thinking the computer was running too hot.   But I’ve also read that older versions of DAZ Studio from 2015 or so would sometimes cause the CPU fan to spin fast.    However, I use the most current version of DAZ Studio and have had none of the same issues on an HP Z440 that is about 5 years newer than the Z420.   Plus, when the fan is going at full tilt and I shut off DAZ Studio, even after DAZ Studio is closed and I’ve verified that it has shut down in Task Manager, the fan will still ramp up and ramp down when Waterfox is opened up.

Since the temperatures don’t seem to be out of the normal range and as I know for sure the case is completely free of dust and yet the power usage level hits very high during these times, I’m suspecting it is a faulty power supply.   Replacements for the Z420 are not expensive – roughly 30 dollars for a used one—but I’d like the opinions of others to read what they think.

I ran the exact same rendering on the Z420 and Z440 yesterday.   The Z420 had the fan start spinning at full force after about an hour into the rendering and I stopped it and shut it down (though aside from the fan, it seemed to be running okay).

The Z440 (a newer Xeon 14 core processor, 128 GB of DDR 4 RAM and the old Quadro M2000 taken out of the Z420) ran the rendering for 8 hours so quietly that I actually forgot I left it on.   The Z440, by the way, has a smaller power supply as the newer processor is more efficient, it has a 450 watt power supply with no cables for powered GPU cards, yet it seemed unbothered by the rendering.   

Both machines were running identical editions of DAZ Studio Pro (4.21.0.5) and the exact same scene on the same settings.

So could my issue with the Z420 be the power supply, is it something funky with DAZ Studio that only affects one machine, or am I overlooking something?

Thanks, and sorry for the long post,

Ed Davis

 

background

I had a problem with my system some time ago where fan noise would suddenly increase and then drop back to normal, this got worse as time went on. It turned out the bearings on one fan were worn.

ec21davis_e7f4b03c52

background said:

I had a problem with my system some time ago where fan noise would suddenly increase and then drop back to normal, this got worse as time went on. It turned out the bearings on one fan were worn.

Yeah, that's the direction I'm leaning with this problem; leaving it on all the time probably didn't help and now I've stopped doing that, but the Z420 was used when I bought it, so worn fan bearings would be logical.

takezo_3001

People need to take that part more seriously as it's the single-most important component in your PC, as a PSU failure can, and WILL take your motherboard, and everything attactched to it, out! I had my 850W EVGA PSU for 5 years before upgrading for my 3090 with no fan issue, as well-built PSUs have no fan issues... AND I have my PC on constantly!