Please help! Freezing while rendering - trying to identify problematic hardware!

It seems like you're reasonably proficient to test out the memory as you have done, and you are making theories as to why this is happening. The problem you are stating seems to be being caused by one specific application doing one specific task - that makes it much harder to pin down exactly the cause of the problem because it could (possibly) be anything in the CPU-GPU-driver area.

As far as specific suggestions go, the first thing I would try is an alternate renderer. I appreciate this software isn't exactly cheap so, maybe a free trial of something like Maya with your imported scene. If you can render overnight with that, then its a 3DS Max issue. Even though its unlikely, that should be your first step, before you think about buying new hardware (as it sounds like this driver issue is the probable cause).

what happens if you bypass the external ( pull drive and hook up via sata (internal)/...........?

My concern is how much of the rendering load has been offloaded onto the GPU via some kind of hardware acceleration. Is there the option in 3DS Max to disable this? If there is the option, you disable it, you render and experience no problems, then you will have found the cause of this.

The problem is if that isn't the problem. Replacing the CPU is unrealistic; especially if its working besides this one task. (CPUs are devices that don't tend to soft-fail; they either work or they don't)

When you are rendering are you using files that are being accessed via your external hard drive?

Its possible, but esata external drives don't draw that much power... to test, I'd disconnect everything but your main hard drive, your graphics card and try again. Give the PSU as much headroom as possible.

If you find you don't have issues, then you've found your problem but to be honest - if it is the PSU not delivering enough power it is something you need to rectify sharpish.

Well with the eSATA etc drives not connected, that means your computer drew slightly less power - meaning it still shouldn't have erred if it was a power supply issue.

I have rarely come across an issue with specific pieces of hardware for whatever reason being incompatible (I'm thinking GPU and motherboard) but none so recently as to seriously believe that is what is happening to you. I think from this point forward, to help you we should make a list of the possible causes and ascertain ways for you to test out each of them independently.

1. CPU fault
2. Memory fault
3. North/Southbridge fault
4. GPU Fault
5. Hard disk access fault
6. External device fault (solved)
7. PSU fault
8. Driver fault
9. Operating system fault
10. Expansion bus fault
11. BIOS configuration fault

(if anyone else reads this thread, and can suggest additional possible causes lets add them to the list and get marfin's problem sorted)

Ways to test:

1. Short of swapping out another CPU in the same computer, this is unlikely to be confirmed conclusively. I'm guessing you don't have a spare CPU of the same slot you could just drop in and test.

2. You've already done a memtest, but that is not the only potential problem with the memory. It's possible that its' timings are set up incorrectly in the BIOS (RAS to CAS etc) and that may be causing information errors. Again, unlikely.

3. This may be down to drivers for the specific motherboard, some motherboards are freakin' picky when it comes to the driver revision used to drive their components, others are less finnicky. Something else to try.

4. Similar to CPU, you'll need another GPU to drop in to test to see whether this is the cause. Reinstalling drivers will only get you so far if we are talking about a slightly damaged capacitor that only causes errors after x amount of time of intensive use. Same goes for your motherboard.

5. Swapping out the hard drive will only get you so far here, there's nothing to say that the controller/southbridge hasn't soft-failed. Again, one of the only ways you'll know conclusively if this is the cause is to swap out the motherboard.

6. At least you've eliminated this.

7. Given you've used your PC drawing less power, I'm less convinced as to the likelihood of this now, but its worth testing out with the GPU and one hard drive being the only devices connected.

8. It sounds like you have the majority of these already covered, but it may well be worth scouring the internet and making a list of every single device driver for your current setup and doing searches to see whether other people have experienced issues similar to yourself with each specific driver.

9. One of the easiest solutions to do, its potentially feasible that windows is somehow mismanaging the pagefile and that is what is causing your problem, or it could be an obscure windows service running in the background. Reinstalling should eliminate the likelihood of this being the cause.

10. You would be able to eliminate this if you only have a GPU connected to the slots. if you have a soundcard or anything else, remove and try again.

11. There may be an obscure setting hidden somewhere in your BIOS that might affect this. Stranger things have happened to me.

This list is intented to be an exhaustive list of possible causes, not probable. Its important to make that distinction. Again, I invite others to expand the list and make suggestions as to alternate causes.

Do I think it could feasibly be an issue with the CPU? It's possible, but task hand-off is accomplished automatically within the bounds of the CPU itself. That means that to the operating system it appears as a 12 core CPU - and any issues to do with the threading are going to be down to the CPU mismanaging (which simply doesn't happen unless its failed somehow). So kind of a moot point.

I would be really interested to see if you could load up prime95 or some other kind of testing program that would tax all 12 cores for say, 12 hours and see if it continues to provide errors.

Thats great, I hope this sorts it out. Let me know how the testing goes, if it ends up being chipset drivers then its obvious your northbridge is the issue and you'll need to stick with those specific drivers for as long as you have the computer.