Fusion 360 crashes GPU driver when left on IDLE

[smitjeanpierre]

Hi Guys,

The last few days Fusion 360 keeps crashing my GPU driver, which is a major disruption. Fusion 360 starts as expected, I can work without any issues, but the moment I leave my machine for a while and come back to continue work, the GPU driver has crashed. As a result, Fusion also then goes into an unrecoverable non-responsive state.

• If I forcefully close Fusion via task manager I later get a Windows BSoD with error code: VIDEO_DXGKRNL_FATAL_ERROR.
• If I disable and re-enable my GPU driver in Windows device manager I can restart Fusion 360 and continue work until it happens again.

I use other CAD software but only having issues with Fusion 360.

What I have done without any success:

• Completely reinstalled Windows 10 as I thought my OS was corrupt.
• Updated GPU driver to the latest (516.59)
• Rolled back GPU driver to the version automatically installed by Dell (512.36)
• Re-installed Fusion 360 a few times.
• Unplugged my secondary screen.
• Disabled my PCI Express Linked State Power Management feature in Windows advanced power management settings, as I thought it could be disconnecting the GPU as a power saving mechanism when idling for a while. 
• Dedicated the GPU to Fusion 360 in the Nvidia control panel under: Manage 3D Settings->Program Settings.
• Confirmed that my machine is not resource limited in any way.
• Performed functional and stress testing on the GPU, all PASS.

I am out of ideas and really hope you can help me. My setup is as follows:

• Dell Precision 3520 Mobile Workstation
• CPU: i7-7820HQ
• RAM: 24Gb
• GPU: Nvidia Quadro M620
• OS: Windows 10 Pro (21H2)
• Secondary screen connected via HDMI
• Ethernet connected with 20Mbps fiber line

Attached is the Windows Event Viewer error message and Fusion 360 diagnostic logs.

Thanks

[Phil.E]

Thanks. I logged a ticket with the graphics team. 

Thanks for the logs and detailed steps, sorry for any inconveniences while we investigate this.

(ref: FUS-109276)

[jhackney1972]

While you are waiting for Autodesk to solve your issue, I suggest two quick tests to see if you can eliminate your issue yourself.  I am using a very similar system and I did both of these to improve my graphics performance awhile back. 

1. Go your the Help icon and find the Graphics Diagnostic entry.  When you click it make sure Fusion 360 is using your Nvidia card and not your on board graphic chip.  If it is not, use the Nvidia Control Panel to set it up for Fusion 360.

2. Go to your Fusion 360 Preferences and set the Graphic Driver to use OpenGL.  This setting really helped my system and since your graphics card is very close to mine, I think it will be a better choice.

[smitjeanpierre]

@jhackney1972I can confirm that my Nvidia graphics card is selected. I also switched from "Auto-select" to "OpenGL Core Profile" but still having the same problem. 

Thanks for the effort though.

[jhackney1972]

I forgot to mention, after changing the Fusion 360 Preferences to OpenGL, you have to definitely restart Fusion 360 to make it take effect.  Sorry I forgot that detail but these obvious steps I often forget.

[smitjeanpierre]

Still no luck. For what its worth - the time it takes to crash the driver is anywhere from 3 to 20min (starting from the moment I step away from the machine).

[jhackney1972]

Do you have an older Nvidia graphic card driver lying around you can reinstall?  I am very particular about maintaining my installed graphic card driver as I found my current one to be rock solid.  As you can see it is pretty old.

[smitjeanpierre]

Thanks for the tip, I installed the oldest driver I could find from Nvidia, which is 461.72 dated 2021/02/23, but still observing the same behavior. 

As a test, I also disabled the integrated Intel GPU driver in the hopes that Windows would prevent the Nvidia GPU from going into idle, but it still crashes.

[smitjeanpierre]

I received an update this morning (V2.0.13618), but the GPU driver is still crashing.

[smitjeanpierre]

v2.0.13619 - crashing

[Phil.E]

Thanks for letting us know. At this time there is no progress on this issue, we are still gathering information to try to reproduce it in a debug environment.

[lance.carocci]

Hi @smitjeanpierre,

Let's try bypassing Nvidia's OpenGL implementation in favor of Direct3D or software rendering.

1. Right-click on My Computer/This PC on the Desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Properties”
2. In the left column of the System window that appears, select “Advanced System Settings”
3. Within the System Properties window that appears, click “Environment Variables” in the bottom right
4. Within Environment Variables, click “New…” under either the System or User Variables section
5. For Variable Name, enter QT_OPENGL
6. For Variable Value, enter angle
   • An alternate option to try for Variable Value is software - edit the aforementioned variable rather than creating a new entry
7. Click OK to save the new variable
8. Launch Fusion 360

Undoing this change is as simple as selecting the variable you've created from the table, and clicking Delete.

If neither value above work, you can delete the variable, and we can try some other approaches.

[smitjeanpierre]

Hi @lance.carocci,

Thanks for assisting. I tried both “angle” and “software” variables as instructed, but unfortunately it did not work.

[lance.carocci]

Do you have the issue running any other graphically accelerated applications? What does Event Viewer say when the driver crashes with Angle or Software settings?

[smitjeanpierre]

I have other graphics intensive software that I use without any issues, and have now confirmed it with FreeCad as well. It is only when I have Fusion 360 opened that the GPU driver crashes when the machine is left in an idle state for a few minutes (GPU at 0% load, no input from mouse or keyboard).

The Event Viewer only shows that the GPU cannot be found, as seen below. The latest two entries are with "angle" and "software" settings:

[ariedekam]

I'm experiencing the same issue. When I try to restart Fusion, I get the error that the software driver is used and not powerful enough, it then failed to create the openGL context.

[lance.carocci]

@smitjeanpierre and @ariedekam do you have a dual-GPU system? Is this an Nvidia Optimus setup where there is also Intel integrated graphics inline with the Quadro?

I'm wondering if Fusion is somehow loading on the wrong GPU, if so.

[smitjeanpierre]

@ariedekam 

I get the same error when I try to restart Fusion after closing it via task manager, then later a BSoD.

@lance.carocci 

The specs of my Dell precision 3520 does not mention Optimus technology so I am not sure, but it is a laptop with an integrated Intel HD 630 GPU and a Nvidia Quadro M620 built into the motherboard. The Nvidia sits on a PCIe bus.

[ariedekam]

@lance.carocci  Yes, I also have the dual-GPU setup.
I've seen no mention of Optimus on my system, but I guess it's implied in these configurations (see the Auto-select option) .

In the windows graphics settings I have configured that the NVIDIA GPU is used for both the fusion launcher and fusion360.exe

In the mean time I've changed these settings:

in the NVIDIA control panel, I'll keep you posted if this improves things.

[lance.carocci]

@ariedekam and @smitjeanpierre, those are likely Optimus configruations - I suppose it is meant to be a seamless user experience, so it isn't explicitly called out. Occasionally, we have seen the GPU switching logic to fail in specific configurations, and need to configure the GPU driver and Windows both to force use of the dedicated GPU.

In addition to changing the Nvidia option, please try forcing Windows to use the high performance GPU for the Fusion 360 application, too. Instructions for both here.