PC crashes on Rhino startup - only Safe Mode works

Hello folks,

I’m using a bit oldish Dual-Xeon workstation at the moment, aside from the newer Notebook I also use.
Everytime I try to start Rhino, the PC does restart itself immediately. The same happens with Rhino 6 and Rhino 8 WIP.
Only starting in Safe Mode prevents the crashing.
Other Apps that also use OpenGL (Cinema 4D, Blender…) are working without any problem. I can even do day-long animation renders using Redshift GPU renderer without problems.

The SystemInfo tells the following:

Rhino 7 SR9 2021-7-26 (Rhino 7, 7.9.21207.13001, Git hash:master @ ac97aa17036c84be4754eb24c230288a169a27bb)
License type: Kommerziell, build 2021-07-26
License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 10.0.19043 SR0.0 or greater (Physical RAM: 32Gb)

Computer platform: DESKTOP 

Standard graphics configuration.
  Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (NVidia) Memory: 3GB, Driver date: 7-12-2021 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: (null)
    > Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
        - Windows Main Display attached to adapter port #0

Secondary graphics devices.
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (NVidia) Memory: 3GB, Driver date: 7-12-2021 (M-D-Y).
    > Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
        - Secondary monitor attached to adapter port #0

OpenGL Settings
  Safe mode: On
  Use accelerated hardware modes: On
  Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
  Graphics level being used: OpenGL (null) (primary GPU's maximum)
  
  Anti-alias mode: 4x
  Mip Map Filtering: Linear
  Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High
  
  Vendor Name: Unknown
  Render version: (null)
  Shading Language: (null)
  Driver Date: 7-12-2021
  Driver Version: 30.0.14.7141
  Maximum Texture size: n/a
  Z-Buffer depth: n/a
  Maximum Viewport size: n/a
  Total Video Memory: 3 GB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp	"Commands"	7.9.21207.13001
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp	"Renderer Development Kit"	
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp	"Toolbars"	7.9.21207.13001

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :slightly_smiling_face:

Hi -

Typically, a system-wide crash points in the direction of some hardware failure. That other programs don’t lead to this doesn’t necessarily mean much.

As a first step, could you check to make sure there isn’t a build-up of dust inside the computer and that all the fans are unobstructed and working?

The second thing you could do is a “clean installation” of the GPU drivers.
For doing that, you can follow the recipe that was posted here:

Make sure to include step 4 of the uninstalling process!
-wim

Hello Wim, thanks for your quick response.

I did the uninstalling process as described. While the graphics card showed as “Microsoft Basic Display Adapter” with 1024x768 everything worked fine.
After installing the latest driver 471.41 from Nvidia, my PC crashed again on Rhino startup.
Did the uninstallation process again and installed a random older driver version (460.89) that now works as it should.

Thanks for your help!

1 Like

Hi Stefan -

Not that we can do much about those drivers but thanks for the heads-up!
-wim

When you downloaded the latest driver did you go through the entire Nvidia selection filter process where you tell them your OS and video card, etc? I ask because perhaps the latest driver version no longer supports your cards(s). I believe there’s also a list under the details for each driver that says which cards it supports.

Yes I did. The latest 471.41 driver from Nvidia was meant to still support my old cards:

grafik

when you see this^^ your video card driver is hosed.

when you install your driver, use the custom/ advanced option and check the “clean install” check box, finish the install and then restart your machine and rhino.

run systeminfo again and see if you get the correct graphics driver info now. If not, something is still hosed with your drivers.

Hi Kyle, thanks for the additional info.
Meanwhile, the driver setup that worked yesterday, now causes the same crash as before :roll_eyes:

Rhino gives back the following SystemInfo:

Rhino 7 SR9 2021-7-26 (Rhino 7, 7.9.21207.13001, Git hash:master @ ac97aa17036c84be4754eb24c230288a169a27bb)
License type: Kommerziell, build 2021-07-26
License details: Cloud Zoo

Windows 10.0.19043 SR0.0 or greater (Physical RAM: 32Gb)

Computer platform: DESKTOP 

Standard graphics configuration.
  Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (NVidia) Memory: 3GB, Driver date: 12-11-2020 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: (null)
    > Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
        - Windows Main Display attached to adapter port #0

Secondary graphics devices.
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 (NVidia) Memory: 3GB, Driver date: 12-11-2020 (M-D-Y).
    > Accelerated graphics device with 4 adapter port(s)
        - Secondary monitor attached to adapter port #0

OpenGL Settings
  Safe mode: On
  Use accelerated hardware modes: On
  Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On
  Graphics level being used: OpenGL (null) (primary GPU's maximum)
  
  Anti-alias mode: 4x
  Mip Map Filtering: Linear
  Anisotropic Filtering Mode: High
  
  Vendor Name: Unknown
  Render version: (null)
  Shading Language: (null)
  Driver Date: 12-11-2020
  Driver Version: 27.21.14.6089
  Maximum Texture size: n/a
  Z-Buffer depth: n/a
  Maximum Viewport size: n/a
  Total Video Memory: 3 GB

Rhino plugins that do not ship with Rhino

Rhino plugins that ship with Rhino
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp	"Commands"	7.9.21207.13001
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp	"Renderer Development Kit"
  C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp	"Toolbars"	7.9.21207.13001

Is there anything I could try next?

your driver is still screwed… as reported above. The Null means rhino is not seeing your card and that is 100% causing the problem you are seeing.

any chance one of your cards has failed? can you try unplugging one of your monitors and see if that helps? if not reverse and unplug the other

Hi Stefan -

Rhino doesn’t do anything with the GPU drivers - can you think of anything that has changed on your system between yesterday and today?
-wim

Hi Kyle, I tried unplugging the monitors alternating, but that doesn’t change anything.
Strange thing is, other apps don’t have any problem. Cinema 4D and Blender work fine. I’m able to render on both cards, so the cards should not have failed basically. When checking OpenGL capabilities in C4D it shows me this:

I used the machine to render some hundred frames of an animation over night on C4D+Redshift. Otherwise I didn’t do anything.
I’ll try to find a spare graphics card to replace my current 780 setup and see if that changes the behaviour.

Another option for getting a bit more use out of old GPUs, is to reduce the OpenGL specification that Rhino is asking the card to use.
The slider control is in Options > View > OpenGL.

until we get rhino to report the correct info in your system info we have a problem and rhino will keep crashing.

give us a call and let us remote in and peek at your system.
something weird is going on.

Technical support (206) 545-6877