Image prop causes system shutdown

[SeanOSkea]

I just purchased an HP z800 workstation.

Xeon X5570 2.93 48 RAM 64-bit Windows 10 Pro

It came with an FirePro V5800 GPU that wasn't playing well with Sketchup and a few other things. I've ordered a Quadro K2200, and in the meantime the retailer loaned me a Quadro 3800.

I thought the problem was the GPU but the same issue has occurred on both cards.

When I try to make an image prop or a texture with any kind of mask, clicking on any option on "Create Source for Mask" i.e. "grey scale" or "transparent Color" shuts down the computer. Not a freeze or a crash, a power outage. The first time it happened I thought the power had gone out. It also did the same crash once outside of VW while uploading a large file to Google Drive.

But without fail, every time I click "transparent color" while making a mask--boom instant power outage. Does anybody have any idea what is going on?

--Sean

[zoomer]

Is the power supply unit strong enough, or maybe just damaged ?

I had both in the past shutting the PC down.

With or without smoke/smell or any visual hints.

Don't know the max. energy consumption of those cards, but some

really need 2 power inputs.

As it happens with transparency only I think a driver issue is also very likely.

Maybe that causes a high power consumption.

If the GPU is mainly used for VW I would prefer a standard gaming card over

a workstation card. The hardware normally is the same, they just offer more

or additional driver options for certain Apps that support these.

I have more confidence in the mainstream gamer drivers.

Most professional 3D Apps like C4D or Modo seem to work fine wth standard

GPU's and drivers, if not better.

[SeanOSkea]

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I never answered. Yeah I never figured out what caused it. It must have been a faulty power supply as it started happening outside of VW. Even doing low impact stuff. It did it instantly when loading a transparency map.

I ended up sending the computer back. It was a disaster in many ways.

I've put the Quadro into my old Dell XPS and everything is fine. Even with just the 4 cores it renders almost as fast as the HP without all the other headaches. Renderworks is really the only time when I look at the clock. Everything 2D, wireframe, even Open GL is instantaneous with the old XPS. It's only when I add a few displacement maps and a couple of lights that I dream about a faster processor while watching the teapot clock.

Thanks

Sean

[zoomer]

You render a lot and use C4D too.

It is no wrong to look for a new workstation with dual xeons, can't have enough cores

with highest GHz. I just think that consumer/gamer GPU are more reliable and have less

problems than those Pro GPU's that sound Pro, better at the end even in Pro Software.

In 98% those Dell/HP/... workstations work very well and are reasonably priced.

If you have bad luck your hard disk may fail after 3 month.