Hi Richard,
I use renderpal here, same deal with the free render nodes.
Typical things you might need to check,
Running the server from a machine that also acts as a render node can sometimes cause conflicts, make sure you are outputting some kind of error checking feedback from the manager to help debug the render.
Make sure that shares are set up correctly, and that paths to files are network paths / not local, otherwise the server may not locate them.
Failing that, I'd recommend both renderpal or royal render which are both very easy to use and set up, and give good feedback on errors.
Hope that helps
Chris
