15th Feb 2024: Astro Pixel Processor 2.0.0-beta29 released - macOS native File Chooser, macOS CMD-Q fixed, read-only Fits on network fixed and other bug fixes
7th December 2023: added payment option Alipay to purchase Astro Pixel Processor from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and other countries where Alipay is used.
Hi there,
I'm making this topic because I'm at my wit's end. Since 2 months I have not been able to use Astro Pixel Processor at all. During any integration, no matter if it's a large set of images, a small one, new data or previously integrated data, at some point my Windows just completely freezes. I did a couple dozen of attempts without any luck. 9/10 times it freezes during integration, and in rare occasions the software randomly shuts down during one of the earlier steps without any error.
I'm currently running version 1.083.4 (also tried the 2.0.0 beta but no difference) on windows 11, with 32GB of DDR4 memory, a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 and an i7-9700K 8 core. To rule out any windows or hard drive issues I installed a clean copy of windows 10 on a new ssd, only installed APP which failed with the same result on my first try. I then started to think it might be any of my other hardware, but after extensive stress testing my RAM, CPU and GPU both separately and all at the same time, I wasn't able to run into any issues. I tried stacking both with openGL4 and on CPU. I tried giving APP more and less cores to work with as well as giving it more and less RAM to work with. Nothing seems to make a difference.
After this long of troubleshooting and not being able to work on images it's starting to get really frustrating. Since my issue only occurs with APP and the rest of my software and apps seem to work flawlessly I was hoping you guys could help me troubleshoot.
Thanks in advance and kind regards,
Jake
Hi Jake, that is very unfortunate indeed. We've of course done a lot of stress testing as well, as well as many customers. So a complete system freeze would indeed point to a systems issue. That said, you tested a lot already, did you also do a ram test to check for any faults in the modules themselves (I believe there is software to do a full sweep of the memory)? Is your system in any way overclocked? Do you have an option to try APP on a different system?
Hi Jake @jakehofmeester,
Do I understand correctly that the entire system freezes using both 1.083.4 and one of the 2.0.0 beta's ? It is not just the APP application, but the entire OS freezes?
That must be a problem with your hardware somehow, since I never have that issue on multiple systems with these different APP versions.
Like VIncent indicates, can you test on another computer? Or is this the only system available to you?
Any overclocking done in the computer's bios?
Have you verified that all hardware drivers are up-to-date and that you use the correct drivers? For instance, don't use microsoft drivers but use the drivers from the hardware manufacturerer (happens a lot these days and the microsoft drivers simply said are not very good and cause many issues especially with onboard intel graphics).
Mabula
Hi Jake, that is very unfortunate indeed. We've of course done a lot of stress testing as well, as well as many customers. So a complete system freeze would indeed point to a systems issue. That said, you tested a lot already, did you also do a ram test to check for any faults in the modules themselves (I believe there is software to do a full sweep of the memory)? Is your system in any way overclocked? Do you have an option to try APP on a different system?
Hi Vincent,
Thanks for getting back to me. I did run the windows memory diagnostics which didn't return any errors. On top of that I also ran stress testing software giving my RAM hell for half an hour, but found 0 issues. My system isn't overclocked. I do have a 10 year old macbook pro laying around I could try and run APP from if it's able to handle it. I would like to eventually run it from a dedicated workstation though (it takes long enough 🙃). I'll let you know the results when I have some time later this week.
Hi Jake @jakehofmeester,
Do I understand correctly that the entire system freezes using both 1.083.4 and one of the 2.0.0 beta's ? It is not just the APP application, but the entire OS freezes?
That must be a problem with your hardware somehow, since I never have that issue on multiple systems with these different APP versions.
Like VIncent indicates, can you test on another computer? Or is this the only system available to you?
Any overclocking done in the computer's bios?
Have you verified that all hardware drivers are up-to-date and that you use the correct drivers? For instance, don't use microsoft drivers but use the drivers from the hardware manufacturerer (happens a lot these days and the microsoft drivers simply said are not very good and cause many issues especially with onboard intel graphics).
Mabula
Hi Mabula,
That is correct, the entire OS froze using both 1.083.4 and one of the 2.0.0 beta. Occasionally just the app crashes out of nowhere while the OS is fine, but most of the time the entire OS freezes and I have to give it a hard reset to get it back to life again. Like mentioned above I can try an old macbook, but that's all I have to try on. No overclocking done. I checked drivers multiple times and am using manufacturers drivers, which I had the opportunity to update several times over the past 2 months.
I'm quite certain these might be hardware issues indeed, but I am not sure what else I can try to locate the issue. I expected if something was broken extensive stress testing the individual components would point out which part was malfunctioning, but it never did. I also don't experience any issues when running a heavy game, render a 3D animation or do particle simulations, all quite heavy to run for a longer period of time. It's only when integrating I experience these problems.
Do you have any advice on further troubleshooting? I appreciate both of you getting back to me.
Thanks and kind regards,
Jake
Hi Vincent, Mabula,
So I waited 2 months before reaching out for help here and a day later I manage to solve the issue. It was a hardware issue indeed. With different monitoring software I found my CPU was throttling during integration because of high temperatures. Apparently the coolant in an AIO closed system liquid cooler evaporates over time. I didn't know they lasted only for about 5 years and mine is a little over 4 years old. I replaced it with a new one today and it solved my issues.
Thanks for your help and sorry for wasting your time.
Clear skies!
Jake
Hi Jake @jakehofmeester,
Ah no problem, excellent, I am glad you have solved the problem 😉 ! Thank you for the feedback.
Clear Skies,
Mabula
