Rhino 6 Educational crashing often

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

Hi all,
I’ve started my second year of my undergraduate architecture program and just recently I’ve had issues with my Rhino 6 crashing several times a day. It will almost exclusively occur when I am zoomed in and using the Rotate View tool that not only will Rhino crash, but my PC will restart. Immediately the screen will go black and my case and CPU fans will cut off, then it will turn itself back on within a couple seconds as if I had manually restarted my PC. Is this a hardware issue or something I can correct within Rhino? I have some information below that my help the community understand my situation.
PC Specs:

  • Intel i5-4570
  • Nvidia GTX 970 4GB
  • ASRock Z87E-ITX
  • 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP RAM
  • Power Supply: XFX TS 550w

Additionally, the file I am working on is ~15 MB, I am most often working in the (rendered) perspective viewport, and my graphics settings in Rhino are set to 8x Antialiasing and GPU tessellation is enabled.

Thanks!
Trevin

2

These kind of restarts can be caused by a weak power supply but more likely it is a video driver issue.
First step in diagnosis is always to run _SystemInfo in Rhino and post back the result here.

3

Hi Gijs,
According to Geforce Experience, I have the latest driver, so I don’t think that is the case here. Let me know though, I’ve pasted the system info results below.

Rhino 6 SR29 2020-8-25 (Rhino 6, 6.29.20238.11501, Git hash:master @ 06b936ae4e8c289ecccfd6b5ee9bacccc60eded1)
License type: Educational, build 2020-08-25
License details: Cloud Zoo. In use by: Trevin N Thompson ()

Windows 10.0 SR0.0 or greater (Physical RAM: 16Gb)
Machine name: DESKTOP-66RBSS9

Non-hybrid graphics.
Primary display and OpenGL: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (NVidia) Memory: 4GB, Driver date: 9-24-2020 (M-D-Y). OpenGL Ver: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 456.55

OpenGL Settings
Safe mode: Off
Use accelerated hardware modes: On
Redraw scene when viewports are exposed: On

Anti-alias mode: 8x
Mip Map Filtering: Linear
Anisotropic Filtering Mode: Height

Vendor Name: NVIDIA Corporation
Render version: 4.6
Shading Language: 4.60 NVIDIA
Driver Date: 9-24-2020
Driver Version: 27.21.14.5655
Maximum Texture size: 16384 x 16384
Z-Buffer depth: 24 bits
Maximum Viewport size: 16384 x 16384
Total Video Memory: 4 GB

Rhino plugins
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Commands.rhp “Commands” 6.29.20238.11501
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk.rhp “Renderer Development Kit”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoRender.rhp “Rhino Render”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_etoui.rhp “RDK_EtoUI” 6.29.20238.11501
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\rdk_ui.rhp “Renderer Development Kit UI”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\NamedSnapshots.rhp “Snapshots”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\RhinoCycles.rhp “RhinoCycles” 6.29.20238.11501
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Toolbars\Toolbars.rhp “Toolbars” 6.29.20238.11501
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\3dxrhino.rhp “3Dconnexion 3D Mouse”
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Displacement.rhp “Displacement”

4

It’s possible there is a hardware problem with the video card, you might want to download a diagnostic tool such as GPU-Z and look at temperatures, memory, etc.

While the Rhino application might indeed crash, it’s extremely unlikely that anything it could do could cause a full system crash/reboot, so the problem isn’t likely in Rhino, simply that it’s doing something (probably video related) that is hitting a major problem with your system or hardware.

5

As a general principle for problem diagnosis, if something starts behaving differently it is worth investigating what changed on your PC that triggered the problems. Look particularly for Windows Updates installed at that time, new drivers, antivirus software updates, Rhino updates, new software installs.

For hardware issues, was the PC moved or knocked? Check that boards and memory are properly seated in their sockets. Check fans run properly and your PC isn’t full of dust causing it to overheat under load (particularly in your circumstances the graphics card).

Check the Windows system logs for errors starting to appear at the same time.

Fault-finding can be difficult and time-consuming, but you gradually eliminate possibilities.

Good luck!
Jeremy

6

550W should overall be more than enough to power your components. Though on searching for your particular model, I quickly found some negative user reviews about it. Some said it died quickly. A complete reboot does point towards a power supply issue. Your model is very cheap and it is likely that it worked for some time but is now failing.

Like @jeremy5 suggested, check your hardware. Are all the power connectors still plugged in thoroughly? Especially the PCI-E-power cable to your graphics card?