[SOLVED] Rendering on PC trips the circuit-breaker ?

[Gargie]

Hello everyone,

I just started college, moved into a dorm. I'm doing 3d animation as part of my studies and the problem is that my Threadripper system blows trips the circuit breaker in my dorm when I render. The PC is the only thing I have plugged in and when it blows it's a pain to get it reset, I have to get a hold of maintenance which can take hours. Just wondering how to handle this.

 

[R_1]

at the very least you need a beefy UPS so you can safely shut down the system when the circuit trips. short of adding a larger breaker in the main or running an extension to a larger circuit that is the best I can think of.

 

[Gargie]

at the very least you need a beefy UPS so you can safely shut down the system when the circuit trips. short of adding a larger breaker in the main or running an extension to a larger circuit that is the best I can think of.

Thanks for the reply. They have a "no extension cords" rule here for some reason. I wonder if I can talk them into adding a larger breaker because I was planning to live here for 4 years and there's no way I can do my work like this. But I may not have the same room next year either so I might go through this all over again.

Is there a way to make my cpu & gpus (dual 3090s) use less power but still give me decent performance? Right now I'm trying to render an animation that would take 4 days at full power but I can't even get two hours into the render.

 

[rcald2000]

Hi Gargie. I'm not a licensed electrician. The ideal solution would be switching dorm rooms to somewhere with a higher AMP circuit or more than one circuit in the dorm room or the school upgrading the electrical or individual breaker. For example, an electrician here in New York City where I live told me that the wiring I had in my apartment is rated for 20 amps but only had a 15 amp breaker on it. Therefore he upgraded the breaker to 20 amps, and then increased me from one to three circuits. So my total capacity went from 15 to 60 amps.

Anyway, back in 2015 I built a computer with an Intel core i7-5820K and two 980 Ti's in SLI. I recall my system pulling up to 680 watts. This was my first high wattage rig, therefore I purchased a P3 P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor from Amazon for $19.13, and also picked up a short heavy gauge extension cable, as most wattage meters cover multiple electrical outlets on the wall. The meter that I just located on Amazon includes a short extension cable as a courtesy, which would make it easier to read the meter. Also many of these meters only display data when plugged in, and not after you remove them from the outlet.

Poniie PN2000 Plug-in Kilowatt Electricity Usage Monitor Electrical Power Consumption Watt Meter Tester w/ Extension Cord
$31.60
https://www.amazon.com/Poniie-PN2000-Electricity-Electrical-Consumption/dp/B0777H8MS8

What I would do: Purchase a wattage meter such as the one above. Then I would plug it into several of the appliances and electrical items around the dorm room, and add up all the wattages. For example, I use to blow my breaker when I would run my window A/C while also printing on my laser printer.

Questions: (1) Do you share this dorm room with anyone else? (2) Is your breaker only for your dorm room alone, or does your electrical circuit have other dorm rooms on it? If that's the case then you're probably screwed. (3) what are the full specs of your computer? I'm especially interested in knowing the CPU / PSU mfg & model # / GPU.

 

[Gargie]

Hi Gargie.
Questions: (1) Do you share this dorm room with anyone else? (2) Is your breaker only for your dorm room alone, or does your electrical circuit have other dorm rooms on it? If that's the case then you're probably screwed. (3) what are the full specs of your computer? I'm especially interested in knowing the CPU / PSU mfg & model # / GPU.

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. Will order one of those meters just so I know what I'm dealing with. I do have a roommate but the PC is the only thing plugged into this outlet. When the breaker tripped, the room next to mine lost power too.

I'm on a Threadripper 3970X with dual RTX 3090 FE cards. Power supply is an EVGA Supernova 2000G+. I also have dual 32" 4K monitors (but they are plugged into another outlet and stayed on when the breaker tripped - I tried swapping outlets and I tripped the other breaker too).

The maintenance guy said my computer must be broken and to stop using it. But it works fine at home. It's good to know that it might be the wiring in this place, but I still need to figure out a way to solve it if I'm going to live here the next 4 years. Thanks again for your reply, I really appreciate the help.

 

[rcald2000]

With you possessing the EVGA Supernova 2000G+, it occurs to me that you may live in the EU, as I don't believe that PSU is compatible with US electrical circuits. If so, you'll need to make sure that any wattage tester you purchase is compatible with your electrical system as well.

One possible work-around, although it'll be ugly: You could run an additional power supply to the second RTX 3090. I've never done it, but I could imagine that you could mount the second PSU outside your case, snake the three 8 pin PCIe cables through a couple of slots behind the case. Then run an extension cable all the way to the room (or outlet) that does not lose power when the break trips. That way the second GPU is only using 75 watts from the motherboard slot, and the additional 275 watts from the second PSU. I'm not certain but my guess is that you could put the tester 12 pin on the second PSU, and leave the power switch on the back of the unit in the "on" position. I might be short a detail or two, but I'm all but certain that others have done this in the past. It seems to me that the only tricky part is turning the second PSU on, to power the second GPU. This could be a possible solution if you want your render to proceed at full tilt.

If you could put up with lower rendering performance, then you could under-volt the GPU (I'm not experienced with this) or render on a single GPU in the meantime. Lowering the consumption of your cards may be a much more elegant solution than running a second PSU. I also suspect that there is an appliance on the same circuit that you're not suspecting, such as a mini-refrigerator, TV cable box, etc. I still strongly encourage you to get the wattage meter.

I also tried to look up detailed reviews of your Supernova 2000G+, but I only located announcements and not reviews. I was curious to find out the efficiency curve. With an approximate system consumption of 1,000 watts, you'd think that you'd be in the middle of the efficiency curve on this gold PSU. But I don't know this unit at all. I've never seen it in person, don't have any friends that own it, and honestly you're the first owner I've seen in any message forum. After you have a wattage reading, then you may conclude that it's possible that a titanium efficiency 1,600 watt PSU might resolve your problem, if you're "on the line" of pulling too much wattage. The EVGA T2 1600 and Corsair AX1600i come to mind. Personally, I'm an EVGA guy, having purchased 15+ of their PSUs and GPUs over the past six years, but would have no hesitation with buying a top tier Corsair unit just the same. But please take your time on committing to this last step, as those units are expensive, and may or may not resolve your issue. What you gain in higher efficiency, might be lost with being on a worse part of the efficiency curve. No way to determine without knowing what your system is pulling at the wall.

3970X (288 watts)
dual RTX 3090 (350 watts ea.)
TR4 motherboard (? watts)

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the reply. They have a "no extension cords" rule here for some reason.

Because some idiot will try to run a 3 system server farm off a cheesy 3 hole lampcord extension. And start a fire.

I wonder if I can talk them into adding a larger breaker

Highly unlikely.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Not an electrician, but I would suspect they can't JUST replace the breaker without upgrading the wiring to handle more current too, but this would depend on how it's setup currently.

Try to turn off or unplug any unnecessary devices on the same circuit while using the PC.

 

[jonnyguru]

Thank you so much for the detailed reply. Will order one of those meters just so I know what I'm dealing with. I do have a roommate but the PC is the only thing plugged into this outlet. When the breaker tripped, the room next to mine lost power too.

The maintenance guy said my computer must be broken and to stop using it.

LOL! The maintenance guy is an idiot.

The problem isn't your computer. Or even other stuff in your dorm room. It's the fact that the college has multiple dorm rooms on the same breaker. It's obviously not a big enough breaker for everything everyone has plugged in, which could be anything from computers, mini-fridges, fans, etc.

 

[jonnyguru]

Try to turn off or unplug any unnecessary devices on the same circuit while using the PC.

He can't ask his next door neighbors on the same circuit to do the same, though. ;-)

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Sure they can, but just the devices in their room