Updated 26th June 2003
When first switched on, the RD3000, RD3500 and
RD5000 take about 2 minutes to boot. Once the red
light goes out they are ready to render.
If the red light does not go out, the unit has
not booted - see 'The red
light on the front of the RenderDrive remains illuminated'
below.
If the red light goes out the unit is working and
ready render. To check the unit is responding, use
a command called 'ping'. On Windows open an MS-DOS
command prompt and type a command:
ping -t
ip_address
where ip_address is replaced by the IP address
you have configured the RenderDrive to use. On Linux
or Irix use the same command but omit the '-t'.
If the red light goes out but the unit does not
respond to ping:
Some RenderDrives need to be rebooted more than
once before they respond to the network. This
is most common when booted using the power switch
or when network settings have been changed. Reboot
the unit by switching it off, waiting for it to
go silent and then switching it back on. Try this
two or three times until you get a response.
Check the network settings in the complete file
are correctly typed.
Make sure the complete file is called 'complete'
and does not have an extension. If it is called
complete.txt, complete.dat or complete.anything
it will be ignored. Remember that Windows hides
extensions by default.
Look at the bootlog file on the floppy disk using
WordPad. The settings listed in the 'rdenv' section
of bootlog show the settings that RenderDrive
is using. If they do not match what is in your
complete file, there is a problem with your complete
file. It may have the wrong name or may contain
an invalid character. Try recreating it from scratch
using Notepad, renaming it to remove the extension
when saved.
Set gateway to be nothing with the following
line in the complete file:
GATEWAY=
It is rare that the gateway needs to be set.
Setting the gateway to an invalid address can
cause the RenderDrive not to respond.
There are three possible causes of this problem:
The software has been mis-installed, see 'RenderDrive
does not work after updating RenderDrive software'
below. If the RenderDrive is brand new and you have
not changed the software, this will not be the cause
of the problem.
A connection has come loose. Open the RenderDrive
and check the connections. In particular, check
that the long PCI card is firmly seated and all
its connections are in place. The red and black
cable that goes from the lower middle of the PCI
card is particularly important. It connects to the
reset jumper on the motherboard, below the front
of the PCI card. Make sure that both ends of this
cable are firmly in place. Also check that no pins
on the motherboard have been bent so they touch.
(The red lacquer on the screws is to stop them shaking
loose, not to detect or prevent maintenance!)
There is some other hardware failure, so contact
your local support office.
If after updating the RenderDrive software the
RenderDrive responds to ping but will not render
or give a web queue, then reinstall the software.
Delete all the files currently installed on the
RenderDrive in the upgrade directory. Replace them
with the new set of five files. Be very careful
to follow the instructions. If you are using an
RD2000 you will need to reboot manually with the
reset button after doing this reinstall.
The most common cause of this problem is to have
missed out the 'bin' command before doing the 5
'put' commands, which causes the files to be transferred
in ascii mode and thus corrupted. (If you list the
contents of the upgrade directory using the 'dir'
command in ftp, the sizes should match the original
files before they were transferred. Forgetting to
swap to binary mode will cause the files to be a
few bytes smaller.)
There are two common cause of this problem:
Mis-installing the RenderDrive software, most-commonly
missing out the 'bin' command before doing the
'put' commands. See 'RenderDrive
does not work after updating RenderDrive software'
above.
The IP address is not for a RenderDrive or there
are two devices on the network with the same IP
address. Disconnect the RenderDrive from the network
and see if ping still gets a response. If there
is a response to ping then you know it is not
from that RenderDrive. If there is no response
to ping then the problem is almost certainly mis-installed
software, see above.
New 26th June 2003
When you start rendering RenderPipe
should connect to the RenderDrive quickly.
In RenderPipe MAX and RenderPipe
for Maya the progress panel will report 'Waiting
for rendering device' for a very short time. It
will then will report 'Sending geometry' (in MAX)
or 'Scanning geometry" (in Maya), followed
by other messages.
If RenderPipe reports 'Waiting
for rendering device' for more than a few seconds
there are various possible causes:
