OK, to start off, I have a computer that is not exactly made for 3D rendering. Here are the specs:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00 Ghz x2
RAM: 3.8 GiB
Graphics: N/A (Integrated, so no GPU rendering)
OS: Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit
What I want to know is if there is a way to basically tell my computer, “Don’t render so hard, take your time, don’t overheat yourself.” The reason for this is because whenever I use Cycles, the fan whirs pretty loudly, and if I check the CPU usage, it’s at 100%. I need to render some animations at some point, but I don’t want it to be at 100% struggling to keep the temperature down the whole time. I would be perfectly willing to render at half or even a quarter of the speed if it would keep the computer quiet(er) and not risk frying the CPU. So, can I do this without underclocking the whole computer through the BIOS? I’ve read up on that, but I’m on a shared computer, and I use it for lots of other things as well, so I want it to process slower for Blender only, or really just for Cycles.
Maybe you can set in the render tab the Threads to lets say half of the automatic setting? I dont know if that helps but then it only uses half the power of the CPU I guess.
usually there isn’t a risk. Modern computers (anything made in the 21st century) have heat sensors built-in and they will first attempt to cool the computer by speeding up the fan, if that doesn’t work, they shut it down before the motherboard becomes silicon toast.
I guess that setting the threads is your best bet.
I have a 5 year old Dell laptop with an intel quad core that overheats (shuts off) while rendering with all 8 threads, so it is possible to overheat. More recently I have an Asus laptop with an intel i7 and discrete graphics card overheat and repeatedly trip the auto shutoff switch. I found dust restricting airflow to be the problem in this one. Both have very loud fans at 100% since day one, so loud fans are part of the design of a lot of laptops. Either way, I wouldn’t discount the possibility of toasting components.
Thanks for the replies. I’ve tried using just one thread, and it’s the same fan noise. Basically, I just don’t want to risk overheating at all, even if it doesn’t end up frying anything. I want it to do whatever it has to do to stay at a manageable temperature, and when I render for a long time, the temperature starts to get kinda high.
I think this may be the solution. Ubuntu doesn’t seem to have anything like that in the settings, but I’ll look online and see if there’s a way.
Ah, yes, I saw that. The thing is, my Ubuntu (Which is just the plain-old Ubuntu 12.04, not a different branch or anything) seems to not have all those directories. It has /sys/devices/system/cpu/ but it stops there. I guess this may need to become a question on the Ubuntu forums.
Actually, I just got an idea. Perhaps I could create a virtual machine, and give it a slower CPU, so that even though the virtual machine would run at 100%, the actual physical CPU wouldn’t. I dunno, I’m just thinking out loud.
