MS WindowsXP users, when the "blue screen of death" pops up...,

[Up2Late]

..., is it necessary to let the memory dump play out, or is it O.K. to just hit the reset button and not wait?

[FranzFerdinand]

1. blue screen? hmpf...

well, i would certainly suggest re-booting the machine to get your machien up and running without any more problems. however, every time your XP dumps out (possibly a memory error or a hardware issue), it will write a error even to the system log. check here:

Control Panel->Adminstrative Tools->Event Viewer->System

take a look at the recent error log and post here as to what it says...

[Tab]

2. Memory dump doesn't get you anywhere.

It's interesting to note how things have evolved over the versions..

Originally it was GPF (General Protection Fault). Then, as everyone complained about GPF's it was simple "A Fatal Error Has Occurred", but people called it the Blue Screen of Death.

Now in XP it's not even that, but this whole "dump" thing that gets you nowhere. Dump just makes a track record if you're doing diagnostics, or if you feel like sending it to Microsoft.

Obfuscate it they might, but Windows still crashes, and crashes, and crashes.

- t

Programming computers since 1976

[MuseRider]

14. Just an interesting little aside

about the crashes. My XP Pro has been almost without crashes since I took off all the extraneous stuff that I did not need, loaded up Mozilla and got rid of IE. I am a computer idiot and the XP Home I had before and the other Windows OS I have had were nothing but trouble. This has been pretty good for me.

[mntleo2]

3. Hit Reset

the memory will "dump" when it reboots anyway. That's what I would do. IMO.

Cat in Seattle <---IT person and geek wannabe

[Tab]

5. Dump means to write a log

not to unload.

I will correct myself to say that if your machine consistently bites the dust then a dump might help someone trace it back to a hardware problem.

Other than that, it's just leaving a record of what it was doing and when.

For the occasional crash, I wouldn't bother. If it crashed nearly every time it was booted, then it would be of help, yes.

[FranzFerdinand]

7. can't hurt to look at the logs...

most people never look at their logs, it's always good to show someone where they are, they might stumble upon certain things they had no idea.

for example, that silly XP "TCP/IP has reached the security limit..." crap.

Franz - playing video games since 1979

[Tab]

8. Most people can't interpret their logs

Most people (and I don't blame them, it's not their career) are lucky to boot the machine and get what they need done.

But the point was that "dump" means to write out the log, not "unload" the memory as seemed to be the interpretation.

-t

Watching TV since 1962, or was it 1965?

[FranzFerdinand]

9. you right

yeah, i think that person was just using the word "dump" as in, reboot to a clean system.

Franz - celebrating Jer-Bear since 1989

[Halliburton]

4. are u using Norton Internet Security?

disable it! I had the same problem. Are u using XP service pack 1? Download service pack 2, it seems to have stopped the problem altogether even if Norton is running.

[Up2Late]

17. Yes. I have Norton Internet Security, and it is the problem, but...

...NIS is almost imposable to totally get rid of, at least I've had little luck in over a year of trying.

Here's the problem. I do Video editing with Avid XpressDV, and one thing they forgot to tell me (and everyone else) was that the "Digital Audio Scrub" is very hard on a Hard drive. So, after it crashed my 120GB Hard drive, I moved it to my system HD (40GB) which it crashed too, but not completely. I was able to get most of my data off my system drive, but it left me with all kinds of software bugs. NIS being one of the worst off.

After about 9 months of trouble shooting, I finally had fixed most of the bugs, but then the NIS subscription ran out, and recreated some of the bugs I thought I had fixed. And since it NIS2003 was no longer supported, I figured maybe NIS 2005 might fix the problem, which it did, but it popped up more bugs.

Now, my T.V. feature on my Ati 9600XT All-in Wonder card doesn't work, and every time I try to remove or replace the driver, it crashes the system.

What a pain.

[Halliburton]

22. do you have service pack 2

if not download it. it usually fixes these types of problems.

[Up2Late]

29. Yes, it fixed a lot of the problems, but created different ones

Mostly cost me money because it "broke" several of my programs. Had to buy the upgrades to fix them.

[Poiuyt]

6. Throw it out the window and get a Mac

:)

A computer without Windows is like a dog running around without bricks tied around its neck

[Chan790]

11. I can agree...

up to a point with the anti-M$ opinion as a devout linux user.

However, it has been my assertion since at least 1987 that mac is a fancy way of saying "crap designed for and by people who prefer to be difficult and trendy rather than own a working computer." They're awful; inferior technology made cute.

As a graphic artist, I love the superior design tools but having to put up with the rest of owning a mac (bad code translation from PC versions of software, bad OS, badly designed) just isn't worth it. I'd rather stab myself with a fork in the chest.

[Poiuyt]

12. I guess you and I have different experiences

I do video editing and everything works great for me

[Chan790]

20. Oh...me too.

what sort? I used to do webstreaming for a university. Lectures and the such. It's part of where my Mac-hate comes from.

I was required to do all my editing on a PC because the encoder unit from the camera was only PC-compatible and as soon as I got it looking right, streaming and the such, half the time someone would tell me that the feed wasn't coming through right on their Mac and I'd have to set-up a second dedicated feed on the fly for the Mac audience. We never did figure out why it only happened some of the time, It always seemed to be the worst possible times too.

[Poiuyt]

24. Mostly industrial videos

Marketing and training videos, that sort of thing. I use DVCAM and Final Cut Pro. Photoshop for the titles and graphics. The hardware and the software just seem to mesh well together.

I'm confused about your encoder unit from the camera. What kind of camera are you using that has a built in encoder? Can't you just go into your computer via firewire?

[Chan790]

27. Equipment

We had a series of secondhand cameras (from manufacturers that I'd never heard of, most of which looked like they'd been bought off the back of a truck) and had to use an out-of-date Osprey stand-alone unit for input-capture in-line between the camera and the PC. I caught more crap for things being ugly, miscolored or fuzzy when they wouldn't buy me the equipment to do the job right.

Did I mention my employer was cheap?

[IDemo]

10. "crashes and crashes", bullshit

I've been running Windows at home and on numerous test systems at work for several years; 98, 98SE, NT, 2000, and XP. Never once since my W95 days has any of these machines blue-screened.

I run dual-boot Win/Linux machines at home and at work, but rarely boot the Linux partition on either. I had considered purchasing an iMac G5 months ago until numerous complaints on Apple's own message board about smoked motherboards and noisy fans convinced me not to.

[Poiuyt]

13. There were some problems with that 1st generation G5 iMac

They've been corrected from what I've heard

[IDemo]

15. I understand that the manufacturing issues with the iMac were corrected

But what I read on Apple's forum and elsewhere from G5 buyers indicated a wide variance in customer service responses, ranging from making the customer the defacto service tech (by having to replace defective components) or outright denial of the problem. Also, the concept of having to transport your unit to the local "Genius Bar" (sheesh!) for service by certified Apple technicians leaves me less than impressed.

[emulatorloo]

21. Don't you find that forums tend to attract melodramatic complainers?

Apple keeps winning customer support awards though.

for example PC magazine:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1851295,00.asp

<snip>

Once again, Apple achieves scores that are far and away the highest for all vendors in our survey, earning Readers' Choices in both desktops and notebooks. For Apple, in both the desktop and notebook sections of the survey, every single score is significantly better than the industry average for Windows machines. No exceptions. Apple's overall score for desktops is 9.2, and the closest competing score, Alienware's, is 8.8. Apple's overall score for notebooks, 9.2, is just as high, and the rest are even further behind: IBM and Fujitsu are the closest, at 8.4.


The company's scores are so high there's some concern that they can't be completely trusted: that Apple users are so passionate—almost fanatic—about the company and its products, they're not quite as objective as other computer owners.

Still, there's solid evidence that Apple computers may actually be worthy of devotion. There's little doubt, for instance, that the company builds unusually reliable products. On the desktop side, readers say that Apple systems needed repairs only 11 percent of the time, an astonishing number when you consider that the closest competing score is Sony's at 16 percent. Just 17 percent of Apple notebooks needed repair—second to Averatec's 14 percent—but this is still amazingly low considering that no one else is under 20 percent.

<snip>

[IDemo]

26. I look at the topic, the complainer, and the forum

No doubt Apple has a large number of devotees; Linux likewise has followers believing Linus Torvalds walks on water (or has a cron job scheduled to do it for him).

But when a large number of iMac owners post over a period of months on Apple's message board about the same specific hardware problem, and of Apple's widely varying customer support responses to the issue, absolutely that weighs on my purchasing decision.

And, back on the "Genius Bar" thing. Apparently Apple considers the maintenance/upgrade functions to rightfully belong only to 'Apple Certified' technicians, in the same manner that Toyota would prefer you leave anything under the hood to your Toyota dealer. I built the machine I'm typing this on and will likely build the next. If one is not comfortable with this model, I would certainly recommend an Apple, or a WinTel manufacturer with a good warranty.

[emulatorloo]

28. kinda depends on the machine. . .

some Apple machines are designed for user upgrades w/o violating warranty (towers, powerbooks, ibooks), others designed to be more like an appliance. . .mac mini, imac . . .and even so some things are user upgradable in those machines w/o warranty violation (ram, for example)

Makes sense -- don't you have to bring your toaster or Sony tv into the "genius bar" for warranty service?

anyway -- i like to build machines too -- my xp machine, and one of my Mac g4s from parts as well

Have a great nite!

[DanCa]

16. Do you have aol?

I had this problem awhile back. The problem was stupid me had more than one copy of aol installed in the machine. It was causing a huge memory dump.

[MrSlayer]

18. I have never seen the BSOD with XP.

I used to get it with Win98 a lot but in the 2 and a half years or so of having XP I've never gotten it.

But to answer your question just go right ahead and reset it.

[Arkana]

19. The memory dump is just a log of locations and things.

You can hit the reset button. It's not necessary to wait--at least I've never had any problems in my experience.

[emulatorloo]

23. Just hit the reset button or power down/power up again. . .

So far, knock on wood, no harm done on my Win XP system.

[area51]

25. "... when the "blue screen of death" pops up..."

format c:\

install Unix or Linux.


:evilgrin: I'm such a d(a)emon.