Computer Problems

[HarryZ]

Interesting to note that the system got the BSOD even when booting into Safe Mode.  Have to check that out further after I get back from holidays in Arizona. Leaving today and returning Feb 14.

Harry

[blueskydriver]

Hey Harry,

I was changing a video card on a computer last week and guess what? I got your very same error! I changed a PCI card for another PCI card in the box, but I went into the BIOS to check things, and I changed the settings from AGP slot from being detected first. Not sure why it was set to be first, but changing it to PCI first caused it. On cold start it happened, but on warm reboot it did not. So, I switched it back to AGP first and no more error...Still, I didn't remove the old driver before installing the new one, so that could have caused it as well. I fixed that by uninstalling the old one and then installing the new one.

I really believe now yours is to do with BIOS settings or the video drivers...

John

[HarryZ]

Hey Harry,

I was changing a video card on a computer last week and guess what? I got your very same error! I changed a PCI card for another PCI card in the box, but I went into the BIOS to check things, and I changed the settings from AGP slot from being detected first. Not sure why it was set to be first, but changing it to PCI first caused it. On cold start it happened, but on warm reboot it did not. So, I switched it back to AGP first and no more error...Still, I didn't remove the old driver before installing the new one, so that could have caused it as well. I fixed that by uninstalling the old one and then installing the new one.

I really believe now yours is to do with BIOS settings or the video drivers...

John

Hi John,

Gee, that sounds quite logical.  I'll give it a shot when I get back from Phoenix.  Have a lot of sun to soak up between now and Feb 14 :-))

Harry

[HarryZ]

John,

I followed up on your suggestion but my computer does not have an AGP slot in it and the BIOS doesn't include any settings for it.  So back to the drawing board I went after I got back on Feb 14.

I noticed that when I booted the system, went immediately to the BIOS set-up and played around in there for a bit,  the computer did not crash when I exited the BIOS and continued the boot.  So, when I booted the next day, there is a line during the process after the BIOS loads that says "Press any key to continue".  I hit the pause key, waited for about 15 seconds and then continued the boot process.  Voila, no crash in 3 days now!!  Go figure!  Something in delaying the boot process is allowing the problem to get by-passed.  Will see where this leads.

Harry

[blueskydriver]

In that case, have you done a BIOS firmware update? If so, then that could be the issue and if not...well, that too could be the problem. Could be your BIOS is not updated to accept the newer video card.

In the end, your problem is to do with the BIOS settings and not Windows; especially, with your recent discovery that would be my best guess.

John

[HarryZ]

In that case, have you done a BIOS firmware update? If so, then that could be the issue and if not...well, that too could be the problem. Could be your BIOS is not updated to accept the newer video card.

In the end, your problem is to do with the BIOS settings and not Windows; especially, with your recent discovery that would be my best guess.

John

Hi John,

I checked and I have the latest firmware update for the BIOS.  Believe I did that about a year ago.

Think you are right about a BIOS setting problem. I'll see what happens today when I boot after I made a BIOS change last night.

At least it appears I can control the problem now.

Harry

[Boeing Skunk Works]

I had an older laptop running Vista, Win8, and then back to Vista that did that with a couple of programs I downloaded. One was Ultimate Defrag. It also did it to my main FS server. After I deleted the program from both machines, no more problems.

I did what I should have to begin with and put a crowbar in my wallet and ponied up for O&O Defrag for three machines.

There are other programs that caused this same problem. A free download from Adobe while they were giving away their older software caused this on the FS server. It was an image program, but not PS. Hard to believe it wasn't compatible with XP Pro.

Some programs just don't play nice with the OS on some machines.

[HarryZ]

Hi Michael,

The strange thing about this problem is that existed 2 video cards ago, then went away with the Nvidia 570 card and now has re-appeared with the Nividia 660. I can only assume at this point that it has something to do with the hardware/driver scenario but of course have not been able to prove it.

The latest tweak of the BIOS didn't stop the BOD but as long as I delay the boot sequence when I see "press any key to continue", I don't get the crash. Damn computers!!

Harry

[HarryZ]

Well, I no longer have the BSOD on my initial boot up.  I know what fixed it but I don't know how it did the fix.

A few days ago I obtained a hardware/software package called Crucial Adrenaline.  This consists of a 50GB SSD drive and special software that turns this drive into a 50 GB cache for your normal HD. Talk about giving your system steroids!!

I'm still evaluating the program because the cache function takes time to determine which files your system uses most often. Ever since I installed this into my computer, the BSOD has gone!  Go figure.

I'm going to start a separate thread on Crucial Adrenaline when I gather more info on it.  But one example of improvement:  it used to take about 3 mins for FS X to completely load. That now takes only 1 minute.  And my Windows 7 boots in half the time it used to.

Over time the huge increase in cache that's handled on the SSD is supposed to improve the performance of FS X as well.  Stay tuned.

Harry

[Maurice]

I'm going to start a separate thread on Crucial Adrenaline when I gather more info on it.  But one example of improvement:  it used to take about 3 mins for FS X to completely load. That now takes only 1 minute.  And my Windows 7 boots in half the time it used to.

Over time the huge increase in cache that's handled on the SSD is supposed to improve the performance of FS X as well.  Stay tuned.

Harry

I assume that this may be useful only if you do not already use SSD drives. All my drives are SSD and although the loading time of programs was much faster with SSD, I can't say that there was any difference in the FSX performance as I still get stutters from time to time.

To be fair, I did not make an actual comparison between SSD and SATA drives but I think that loading big scenery files is not the main cause of stutters in FSX so I don't think that SSDs are the magic bullet to help FSX performance; at least, it wasn't in my case.

Maurice

[HarryZ]

I assume that this may be useful only if you do not already use SSD drives. All my drives are SSD and although the loading time of programs was much faster with SSD, I can't say that there was any difference in the FSX performance as I still get stutters from time to time.

To be fair, I did not make an actual comparison between SSD and SATA drives but I think that loading big scenery files is not the main cause of stutters in FSX so I don't think that SSDs are the magic bullet to help FSX performance; at least, it wasn't in my case.

Maurice

I presume that if you already have SSD drive(s) on your system, Crucial won't be of any value to you but I'll check it out.

As for helping FS X performance....I'll let you know after I have evaluated it more.  A friend of mine who went this route found that the scenery loading, especially with auto-gen, improved a great deal. He also found less stuttering. 

So far, I've been quite impressed with my overall system performance improvement...especially in boot times. And of course, the BSOD on boot up has disappeared!

Harry