07-27-2026, 04:20 PM
Yesterday, I came back into the office to check on a render in progress, and I could smell the CPU burning. One of the cooling fans died, and in spite of my best emergency response efforts, that system is now D-E-D dead. It lost fan for just a minute or so, and literally burned itself up. No open flames, thankfully. But on these high end processors, cooling is NO JOKE.
I have ordered a new one, and will work on repairing the old one (presuming that I can get the necessary parts, and the ROI is sane). The name of the game now is to get back to production capable ASAP, and try to have a backup in having two production systems at the end of all this.
I have selected and ordered a new production system. The new system should be significantly more powerful and faster than the old system. It's not the Threadripper based system that I was aiming for, but we'll get there eventually. This one should give me around 15-20% increase in processing speed, which will be a significant improvement, given that a lot of these programs require 8+ hours just to render the audio, and recording can be just as long or significantly longer.
This time, I ordered a desktop workstation instead of a laptop workstation, which will be much better for cooling and keeping dust and the damned cat hair out of. It will be much easier to monition for fan health, dust and cat hair, and keep clean. Portability will have to take a back seat for a while.
It turned out, during autopsy on the dead computer, that my cat's undercoat had clogged the CPU fans and was responsible for killing the fan. I would never have suspected, given the lengths I went to to keep the area around the computer clean. I pulled enough of his damned undercoat out of the fans to make a new cat! It's amazing that they lasted as long as they did.
However, until the new system comes in and has been set up and backups restored, I am dead in the water for production work. I will be unable to do anything more than forum responses. I expect the new system to arrive in a few days.
I had just finished Directional Reflection Shield 6.5G and was rendering another program when this happened. I am pretty sure I have DRS backed up, since I make it a habit to do a backup after every build. But the work on the other program will be lost.
In any case, that's what's happening at the moment. Please bear with us while we get the new system sorted. And... thank you for being an IML customer. If you all didn't support us with your subscriptions and purchases, we could not do what we are doing. You are greatly appreciated.
I have ordered a new one, and will work on repairing the old one (presuming that I can get the necessary parts, and the ROI is sane). The name of the game now is to get back to production capable ASAP, and try to have a backup in having two production systems at the end of all this.
I have selected and ordered a new production system. The new system should be significantly more powerful and faster than the old system. It's not the Threadripper based system that I was aiming for, but we'll get there eventually. This one should give me around 15-20% increase in processing speed, which will be a significant improvement, given that a lot of these programs require 8+ hours just to render the audio, and recording can be just as long or significantly longer.
This time, I ordered a desktop workstation instead of a laptop workstation, which will be much better for cooling and keeping dust and the damned cat hair out of. It will be much easier to monition for fan health, dust and cat hair, and keep clean. Portability will have to take a back seat for a while.
It turned out, during autopsy on the dead computer, that my cat's undercoat had clogged the CPU fans and was responsible for killing the fan. I would never have suspected, given the lengths I went to to keep the area around the computer clean. I pulled enough of his damned undercoat out of the fans to make a new cat! It's amazing that they lasted as long as they did.
However, until the new system comes in and has been set up and backups restored, I am dead in the water for production work. I will be unable to do anything more than forum responses. I expect the new system to arrive in a few days.
I had just finished Directional Reflection Shield 6.5G and was rendering another program when this happened. I am pretty sure I have DRS backed up, since I make it a habit to do a backup after every build. But the work on the other program will be lost.
In any case, that's what's happening at the moment. Please bear with us while we get the new system sorted. And... thank you for being an IML customer. If you all didn't support us with your subscriptions and purchases, we could not do what we are doing. You are greatly appreciated.
Subliminal Audio Specialist & Administrator
The scientist has a question to find an answer for. The pseudo-scientist has an answer to find a question for. ~ "Failure is the path of least persistence." - Chinese Fortune Cookie ~ Logic left. Emotion right. But thinking, straight ahead. ~ Sperate supra omnia in valorem. (The value of trust is above all else.) ~ Meowsomeness!
The scientist has a question to find an answer for. The pseudo-scientist has an answer to find a question for. ~ "Failure is the path of least persistence." - Chinese Fortune Cookie ~ Logic left. Emotion right. But thinking, straight ahead. ~ Sperate supra omnia in valorem. (The value of trust is above all else.) ~ Meowsomeness!
