It would be great to know that rendering (and of which type) simply prevented the computer from shutting it down, and under what circumstances. System auto monitor shut down. Monitor power down with monitor power button. Sleep. Screen Saver. Hibernation. System Unattended Shutdown. On my system there are some shut-downs which are stopping rendering. Others aren’t.
There’s also the challenge of determining whether rendering has in fact been suspended during whatever shut down has just happened.
[There’s a whole other side of this topic which results from the plethora of differently-named Windows 10 shut down settings; none of which had any effect on auto-shutdown behaviour until my system’s registry was edited (from factory-default) to reveal yet another setting (System Unattended) which finally stopped it from shutting down after every 2 minutes of dormancy. Assuming one knows what sort of shut-down stops rendering, there’s the challenge of determining what sort of shut-down is occurring (which is why recognizing it is happening from interpreting Rhino’s activity is important); my experience leaves me without faith in the relationship between shut-down behaviour and shutdown settings in Windows 10. Just because it’s set to shut-down in a certain way doesn’t mean that it is doing that. To make this even more unpredictable, the settings don’t stay as set; the every-2-minutes shutdown has been coming and going for months without any setting being changed, and the registry never being edited until now.]
Unless this is solidly resolved, it will be impossible to leave a computer for many hours of necessary render and know it’ll actually take place. (Turning off all shut-down activity altogether - assuming even that was relaible - and burning an image into the monitor would be an unwelcome resolution…)
Thanks AIW. Of course this only would work if the inconsistent auto-shut-down is truly deactivated in the OS, and/or if Rhino rendering activity signalled to the computer that it isn’t dormant.
I have experimented with monitor shut down. Mine’s a laptop with a second monitor; the machine went to sleep when I shut down the separate monitor with the power button and the laptop monitor by closing the sreen (maybe that shuts down the laptop and there’s a way to deactivate the laptop screen without deactivating the laptop.) The permutations become mind-boggling when the settings are unreliable.
Even with the lid not shut on the laptop with the monitor turned off, the machine still shuts down after about 30 minutes most of the time.
Thanks, but it still goes to sleep. It’s a thing w windows 10 that that setting doesn’t always work unless the registry is edited to bring up yet another setting. I can send a link to that if you like. But no matter, because in my case even that setting fails to stop it going to sleep. I told an IT support guy I was having trouble stopping my pc from going to sleep. He just shook his head and said “good luck.”
Edit: here’s the link to 4 methods required to adjust sleep period in WIndows 10, culminayting in the RegEdit. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-goes-sleep-early Even after all that my Lenovo laptop (new In November) still shuts down anyway after about 30 minutes into a render most of the time if I turn the monitor off. I haven’t tried leaving it on for hours and hours, which I can’t do because the light disturbs people overnight (and it wears the screen out.)
As it is, unless I attend to the computer every half hour during a render, I’m not sure if a long rendering period will succeed. WIth Rhino Render taking up to 8 hours sometimes, this is a big problem.
I wish there was some way Rhino could make Windows recognize rendering as processing activity and thus prevent shut down.
All the instructions there tell you to put in some number for the sleep timer. If you don’t want your machine to do that during a render you should choose Never instead of any of the minute counts.
That’s certainly the way it should be, Nathan. And if I do all that in every location*, if I then turn off my main monitor with the laptop monitor still on, the computer still goes to sleep after about 30 minutes. I haven’t yet tried leaving the monitor on unattended overnight, but it seems that may be the only way to accomplish a long render.
(*Except the ‘System Unattended’ sleep setting - it will only accept a number of minutes - I have set it to 480.)
If a screensaver goes on, the computer goes to sleep. Maybe finally since the regedit it won’t. The problem has become that I am so far behind with trying to figure all this out that I’ve exhausted any margin of time for experimentation, but I’ll have to try that as well. Who would think to look for a regedit when Sleep Time is already set via three pathways to 4 separate settings? It’s kind of amazing.
I could try a piece of cardboard if it doesn’t lead to overheating and I don’t mind burning my monitor out faster, but the whole situation is screwy.
OTOH, maybe the blank monitor on the laptop with the main monitor shut off IS only a screen saver and it doesn’t represent a system shut down. I guess yet more time and experimentaiton will tell.
But it sure would be great if rendering registered as processing activity…
That’s certainly a surprise solution m, thankyou. Kind of hilarious too, for it to be required because windows won’t stop shutting down and programmes can’t indicate to the OS that they’re running! A possible solution before I get to the point of strapping the mouse to an active animal. Maybe an actual mouse.
I guess the ideal situation is where the screens can in fact be saved (with a screen saver or by being turned off) and the render continue to completion.
