:eek: Win2K crashes...

PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Now there's something you don't see every day :)
(at least I don't :))



Anyways, ever since I bought my new computer, it tends to crash when the load gets a little bit heavier. And with that, I don't mean running 20 SETI sessions combined with calculating Pi in 1 million digits (which is useless since Shadowfax already uploaded those results :D), I mean just running ReVolt or playing MP3's. And there are no weird things running in the background, in fact, less than on my old P133 (which didn't crash)

It always starts with the sound becoming noisy (in fact: you can't hear anything else) or going silent, and within 10 seconds I get a BSOD with the message KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED.

Since it does not do that with normal usage (normal as in without MP3, just MSN/OE/IE) my guess is that there's something with my memory. Maybe a settings in the BIOS or the memory is damaged, I don't know, as far as I know most things are set to 'automatic'....



Anyone got a suggestion? Do I have to go back and get a new memory stick? Should I post the BIOS settings?



Specs:

ASUS P4B266 mainboard, on-board sound
Intel P4 1.8 (not overclocked btw)
Dane-Elec 256 MB DDR PC2100
...and all the usual stuff which shouldn't really matter
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Does it only happen if you are playing MP3's? (ReVolt uses MP3s for its music, so it would count)
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Mhhhh...... now that I think about it........ I played Half-Life for 3 hours without a crash, but the longest ReVolt session only lasted an hour or so (without a break that is)...

So yeah, it could be the MP3, I'll stress-test my comp using other ways to make sure that the MP3 is the problem, but if so: what could cause it? Soundcard drivers? The sound is on-board and I installed the drivers which came on the cd-rom with the mainboard...
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Very good question. I don't think the sound card would be at fault unless WAV files kill it too.

Try to make your load test include some WAV files.

If you don't have any long wav files, you can convert MP3's to 44khz 16 bit stereo (huge) WAV files in Winamp:

Preferences\Plugins\Output - Disk Writer (doubleclick it and choose a directory to write the WAV files to - make sure you put it on a big drive if you have more than one drive, cause WAV files are huge - 30-50 megs each)

Make sure you don't have Repeat set to on, and grab a playlist of a few MP3 files, and play through them (you won't hear any sound, because it will be writing the WAV files to the disk)

After you have a few songs converted, use those WAV files in your stress test. If the WAV files crash your computer as well as the MP3s do, then there may be something wrong with your sound card or sound card drivers... but then again, you did play Half-life without a problem

Anyways... good luck

Edit: Forgot to mention, after converting a few mp3 files to WAV, set your output plugin back to Wave output or directsound in Winamp
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Hey! Wait a minute! What am I saying, I don't have in-game music with Revolt, it's not even there (got a not-incredibly-legal-version :lurk: )


Ah well, I'll just run SETI for a while and see if it still crashes...


(oh, btw, the sound effects in Revolt are PCM WAVs, not MP3 :))
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Damn, you really are a post whore ;)



Anyways, I know the Disk Writer plugin and how it works... I'll test that too. Does CD Audio count too? That works fine (although that is directly linked to the motherboard instead of software playback)...
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Wow, OK so the MP3 theory didn't work out too well.

You should try CD Audio... It may actually be a problem with your sound card which can be tested with playing a CD. If it plays fine, that doesn't necessarily verify that your sound card is fine, but if the computer crashes while playing CD Audio, you know there's something wrong with it.

BTW, are you on a SETI team? cause...well... xibase has a seti team :D
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Yes, I'm already in a team, but no, I don't have SETI running that much, I tend to actually use my computer's full power when it's on :p


[edit]
Current estimate for WU-time: ranging from 2.8 to 3.4 hours :D


So far so good, no crashes, memory usage relatively high when comparing to running MP3/ReVolt...

I can actually hear my CPU fan right now for the first time :D
[/edit]
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Your cpu fan temperature-controlled or something?

I run Genome 24/7 and still play games on my computer... it's fun, and a nice stability test too :D
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Smart Fan Control

Enable this function and system will auto-adjust FAN speed according to current CPU temperature and predefined treshold.
Click to expand...


That's a yes :)



Cool, Asus PC Probe just started beeping like crazy :D. My CPU temperature got above 55 degrees celcius :).

Anyways, shut down SETI, CPU is back to 40 degrees celcius (104 degrees fahrenheit), I guess it's not a memory problem, so I'll let winamp play the wav files for a while now, then play the MP3's again...
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Damn, after 45 minutes of MP3, it stopped. It did not give the BSOD though, but another strange thing which happened once or twice before:

The music stopped, WinAmp stopped. If I hit the play button again it just stays at the current position. WinAmp still responds nicely, I can drag the slider and stuff, but it just won't play. All other sounds are gone too, but even more bizar: I get a 'Wingate server not found error' directly afterwards, this thing shut down my whole network!

('whole network': two pc's connected trough crossover cable, have to get a HUB and UTP card for the third pc, which is still connected to the other pc trough coax :))



So I'm about 95% sure that the problem is with the sound driver. I went to ASUS and could only find a slightly older version of the driver, it's worth a try...
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, that sounds like some driver fuckups. :(

Let us know how it works out, if at all...
 
PostCode

PostCode

Perverted Penguin
Staff member
After a exaustive analysis of the problems associated with the Microsoft Installer Technology using the pipelined burst write through cache drivers provided by the hardware vendor, along with the possible low level driver conflict with the I/O port associated with the common game port hardware device that many people use to amuse themselves, and with a complete analysis of the hardware abstraction layer the provides a layer of functionality betweeen the systems hardware and the operating systems and the applications associated with the operating system, and taking into account the kernel mode operation that may be accuring between the Hardware Event Notication and the PnP manager which works through the WDM Manager to interface with the ACPI, PC Card, USB and/or PCI device interface, as well as taking into account the possible conflicts being introduced into the system by installing new hardware three months ago and the possible new developements between that hardware finally being seen and the operating system finally responding, I recommend using Linux instead.
 
Gonzo

Gonzo

Infinitesimally Outrageous
Staff member
Look here, look there. Is it this, or that? So much work when the simplest & most viable answer is. it's

WINDOZE
 
PsychoMark

PsychoMark

^ bored.
Never got my sound/network to work with Linux either :rolleyes:

I will not switch, I love Windows 2000, I hate Linux/Unix/[enter other OS name here] (for desktop use, running a server is another thing). Don't try to convince me, I will not listen :).



Anyways, the good news is: it stopped crashing after installing the other drivers. The bad news is: it didn't produce any sound either :)

Right now I'm disabling EAX support and switching back to 2 speakers. Otherwise I'll try disabling the whole sound driver and plug in a Sound Blaster Live from another computer (which I was planning on buying anyways before I found out the onboard card had 4-point surround too)...
 
fury

fury

Administrator
Staff member
Nice one, Postal. How long did it take you to write that? Took me about 5 minutes to read it :lol:
 
PostCode

PostCode

Perverted Penguin
Staff member
Not that long really, just reversed things. Everything actually works through the HAL instead of of the WDM, which is the last part really. hehe
 
PostCode

PostCode

Perverted Penguin
Staff member
Work on computers for five years and this is the kinda crap you pick up.....:shivers:
 
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