<div> Carsten and Thomas, thank you for that info. That looks like what I need, although it's going to take some doing for someone as green as I am. I took a look at it, and I like how it uses the value of the difference as the factor. It seems efficient. I'll be checking it out soon.</div>
<div><br></div> Tim, thank goodness I don't live in a house with pets or smokers. I'm lucky that way. As I have already written, my fan (there is only one in this laptop) is working (ie: spinning freely), and when I am running Cycles, it is flushing a lot of heat, just not enough (because my computer is basically overclocking for 4-6+ hours). Thank you all for your suggestions. I will be looking into those as soon as I can.<div>
<br><div> However, I did not intend this thread to become about an overheating computer. I guess that's my fault. This should be about Cycles and a possible render pause feature. I have plenty of suggestions for improving my computer's hardware (again, thank you), so I am going to correct my mistake and ask that this thread focus on pause rendering and, like Carsten and Thomas have suggested, possible node workarounds for combining several lower sample images into one higher sample image.</div>
<div><br></div><div> Thank you all for being prompt and helpful!</div><div><br></div><div> God Bless,</div><div><br></div><div> Gavin Howard</div><div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Tim Copeland <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tim@criteriondigital.net" target="_blank">tim@criteriondigital.net</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
I usually blow out machines with a shop vac with the hose on the blow side. I have even used lawn<br>
and leaf blowers as well, just be careful with that method because of just how much air it creates.<br>
<br>
Quite often large amounts of dust can build up inside heat sinks and fans causing thermal issues,<br>
especially if there are pets in the house. This can be very bad if there are any smokers in the house.<br>
I hate it when people bring me machines that have been in a smoke environment. The smoke glues<br>
the dust to every thing inside the machine like a sticky paste. In such cases the entire machine must<br>
be disassembled and cleaned with alcohol and cotton swabs. For heat syncs that can be removed, glass<br>
cleaner and HOT water work very well, but make sure they are dry before trying to reassemble.<br>
<br>
IMPORTANT:<br>
Make sure all the fans inside the computer are clean and spin freely. Including the one inside the power supply.<br>
Some times the bearings will seize up, and the fans will no longer spin. Over the years I have worked on a technique<br>
for disassembling, cleaning, and greasing the bearing in fans. This is a very delicate procedure, so replacing the fans<br>
is usually recommended. However, if you are good with your hands, and have plenty of tools for working on tiny<br>
things, you can restore fans to working condition. Works great for quieting noisy fans that tend to growl as well.<div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Sun, 2012-06-03 at 21:54 +1000, Luke Frisken wrote:<br>
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Clean out the dust around heat sink area with an air compressor? Apply some new thermal paste between the processor and the heat sink? It doesn't cost much to buy. Not saying these improvements to cycles would be bad, but hopefully your hardware can be fixed too, as overheating is something that should not occur in normal circumstances (without overclocking, or not 40 degree day).
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On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 1:32 PM, ZonedCode Media <<a href="mailto:zonedcodemedia@gmail.com" target="_blank">zonedcodemedia@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
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All,
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New user of Blender and especially Cycles. I have a problem. My computer isn't very good. In fact, whenever I am rendering, it overheats and shuts off, even when I am blowing cool air into the room. I can get about 300 samples before it shuts down, but for some things I am doing, I need as many as 5000. However, if I can pause the rendering, my computer should have the chance to cool down.
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I know that Cycles can pause rendering in the rendered view on the 3D Viewport. However, I have not been able to find out if it can be paused in the final rendering. My question: can it be paused, and if so, what is the python command (I am going to write a script that pauses rendering every 200 samples and waiting 10-15 minutes for the computer to cool down).
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If not, is it on the todo list? I might be willing to dive into the code and put it there if needed.
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Sorry, it's a really random question, but it can apply other places too.
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God Bless,
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<br>
<br>
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Gavin Howard
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<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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-- <br>
From Luke<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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<pre>_______________________________________________
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div></div></div>
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