Just got my first BSOD in Win Xp
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Thanks for the info, Daniel. :) Out of curiosity, could a memory shortage *ever* cause a BSOD? Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Out of curiosity, could a memory shortage *ever* cause a BSOD?
Low memory conditions can *theoretically* cause a BSOD, but, this is more a Win9x thing... What's more probable is that you're overheating your processor, or that increased memory use can be increasing the probability of using a bad memory section, but it's very hard to say without a minidump. As a suggestion, I'd run MemTest86[^]. Just burn the ISO into a CD and boot with it, it'll stress test your memory chips and list anything that is bad. My experience with it is that 50% of the BSODs are simply bad memory chips or mis-configured BIOSes. Sometimes, simply lowering the memory speed can make them work safely. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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And I suspect the culprit is one of the half dozen Ff extensions I installed today. I even rebooted after installing them, so my suspicions are strengthened. The machine suddenly started acting weird, blocks on the screen went black, and when I tried closing some apps, meaning to reboot, bam! :| What a pity - the extensions I installed were quite nice and useful. :( Cheers, Vikram.
"When I read in books about a "base class", I figured this was the class that was at the bottom of the inheritence tree. It's the "base", right? Like the base of a pyramid." - Marc Clifton.
I've just spent a month putting up with random BSODs. I discovered that if I ran the PC with the case open (it's a hinged case) then it was fine. If I closed the case it wouldn't boot. Eventually I discovered that the CD audio cable was touching against the edge of the DIMMs and that it was a bad contact between DIMM and socket. Removing and reseating them sorted it out. A couple of days after I did this I got a reply from Dell support. 4 days! Don't think I'll be buying a Dell again. Thankfully I avoided calling their 4p/minute support line :omg:
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Thanks for the info, Daniel. :) Out of curiosity, could a memory shortage *ever* cause a BSOD? Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
Shortage of RAM or virtual memory or address space? The first shouldn't cause problems, the OS will always find a memory page to resolve a page fault, although it would probably result in severe thrashing. As for the second, I'm not sure. The OS can run out of virtual memory when it tries to load some additional data, in which case it will probably crash. Out of address space is very rare, IMO. The OS has 2 GB of address space by default and I'm pretty sure the core OS code manages to run pretty well within that. Of course, malicious drivers can do that, so I guess yes, the OS can potentially crash. Regards Senthil _____________________________ My Blog | My Articles | WinMacro
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And I suspect the culprit is one of the half dozen Ff extensions I installed today. I even rebooted after installing them, so my suspicions are strengthened. The machine suddenly started acting weird, blocks on the screen went black, and when I tried closing some apps, meaning to reboot, bam! :| What a pity - the extensions I installed were quite nice and useful. :( Cheers, Vikram.
"When I read in books about a "base class", I figured this was the class that was at the bottom of the inheritence tree. It's the "base", right? Like the base of a pyramid." - Marc Clifton.
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A FireFox extension caused a BSOD on your machine? Are you sure? Look, I have had FF itself crash many times because of misbehaving extensions but an extension has never interfered with the rest of my system. What hardcore extension do you have installed that can bring down XP? (BTW you can use ListZilla[^] to easily list all your FF extensions.) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Colib and ilikecameras. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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Firefox does crash occasionally - I recommend session saver 0.2[^]. When you reload FF, everything is back exactly where you left it! Clever stuff..... -- modified at 9:08 Monday 14th November, 2005
Was that reply meant for me? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Colib and ilikecameras. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Out of curiosity, could a memory shortage *ever* cause a BSOD?
Low memory conditions can *theoretically* cause a BSOD, but, this is more a Win9x thing... What's more probable is that you're overheating your processor, or that increased memory use can be increasing the probability of using a bad memory section, but it's very hard to say without a minidump. As a suggestion, I'd run MemTest86[^]. Just burn the ISO into a CD and boot with it, it'll stress test your memory chips and list anything that is bad. My experience with it is that 50% of the BSODs are simply bad memory chips or mis-configured BIOSes. Sometimes, simply lowering the memory speed can make them work safely. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
Daniel Turini wrote: MemTest86 Can't. :( The PC in question is my office PC and it doesn't even have a CD Drive. Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote:
Out of curiosity, could a memory shortage *ever* cause a BSOD?
Low memory conditions can *theoretically* cause a BSOD, but, this is more a Win9x thing... What's more probable is that you're overheating your processor, or that increased memory use can be increasing the probability of using a bad memory section, but it's very hard to say without a minidump. As a suggestion, I'd run MemTest86[^]. Just burn the ISO into a CD and boot with it, it'll stress test your memory chips and list anything that is bad. My experience with it is that 50% of the BSODs are simply bad memory chips or mis-configured BIOSes. Sometimes, simply lowering the memory speed can make them work safely. I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
Daniel Turini wrote: MemTest86 Can't. :( The PC in question is my office PC and it doesn't even have a CD Drive. Cheers, Vikram.
"When I read in books about a "base class", I figured this was the class that was at the bottom of the inheritence tree. It's the "base", right? Like the base of a pyramid." - Marc Clifton.
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Daniel Turini wrote: MemTest86 Can't. :( The PC in question is my office PC and it doesn't even have a CD Drive. Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
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Sorry, but a Firefox extension could *NEVER* cause a BSOD by itself. It's just user-mode code, and can't corrupt kernel memory or do something else that could cause a BSOD...
*never* is a pretty strong word, I would venture to say it is possible to write software that as a side effect causes a BSOD.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
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*never* is a pretty strong word, I would venture to say it is possible to write software that as a side effect causes a BSOD.
"Hello, hello, what's all this shouting, we'll have no trouble here! This is a Local Shop for Local People, there's nothing for you here!" -Edward Tattsyrup
Could you please point me how to code something in userland that causes a BSOD? Besides bugs in privileged code or hardware problems, it's not possible for user code to induce a BSOD.
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Was that reply meant for me? regards, Paul Watson Ireland Colib and ilikecameras. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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Could you please point me how to code something in userland that causes a BSOD? Besides bugs in privileged code or hardware problems, it's not possible for user code to induce a BSOD.
I was going to mention the bug that was sent around a few years ago that involved the using
printfwith control characters (backspaces) that caused Windows to crash. And this was a simple few-liner C/C++ application. However, the "besides bugs" caveat is quite wide - it covers pretty much all possible scenarios... One could easily argue that all crashes are due to bugs in privileged code. :) Peace! -=- James
If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Tip for new SUV drivers: Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
DeleteFXPFiles & CheckFavorites (Please rate this post!) -
It was, purely because you mentioned Firefox and crashing in the same sentence - that SessionSaver plugin has saved me a load of grief in the past from FF crashes, so I thought I'd mention it. Cheers, Paul
Indeed, it is a brilliant extension :) regards, Paul Watson Ireland Colib and ilikecameras. K(arl) wrote: oh, and BTW, CHRISTIAN ISN'T A PARADOX, HE IS A TASMANIAN!
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I was going to mention the bug that was sent around a few years ago that involved the using
printfwith control characters (backspaces) that caused Windows to crash. And this was a simple few-liner C/C++ application. However, the "besides bugs" caveat is quite wide - it covers pretty much all possible scenarios... One could easily argue that all crashes are due to bugs in privileged code. :) Peace! -=- James
If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Tip for new SUV drivers: Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
DeleteFXPFiles & CheckFavorites (Please rate this post!)James R. Twine wrote: I was going to mention the bug that was sent around a few years ago that involved the using printf with control characters (backspaces) that caused Windows to crash. And this was a simple few-liner C/C++ application. Any idea where I can get the code? :) Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
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James R. Twine wrote: I was going to mention the bug that was sent around a few years ago that involved the using printf with control characters (backspaces) that caused Windows to crash. And this was a simple few-liner C/C++ application. Any idea where I can get the code? :) Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
Google up "CSRSS Backspace bug" for more info. An example that would crash NT4 and (some?) Win2K systems is/was:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int iArgC, char *pArgV[] )
{
while( true )
{
for( int iLoop = 0; iLoop < 5; iLoop++ )
{
printf( "\t\t\b\b\b" );
}
}
return( 0 );
}Peace! -=- James
If you think it costs a lot to do it right, just wait until you find out how much it costs to do it wrong!
Tip for new SUV drivers: Professional Driver on Closed Course does not mean your Dumb Ass on a Public Road!
DeleteFXPFiles & CheckFavorites (Please rate this post!) -
Sorry, but a Firefox extension could *NEVER* cause a BSOD by itself. It's just user-mode code, and can't corrupt kernel memory or do something else that could cause a BSOD...
No, but this could BSOD on Windows 2000: printf("CrashMe\t\t\b\b\b\b\b\b");
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James R. Twine wrote: I was going to mention the bug that was sent around a few years ago that involved the using printf with control characters (backspaces) that caused Windows to crash. And this was a simple few-liner C/C++ application. Any idea where I can get the code? :) Cheers, Vikram.
http://www.geocities.com/vpunathambekar
Google talk: binarybandit
After all is said and done, much is said and little is done.
printf("CrashMe\t\t\b\b\b\b\b\b");
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Could you please point me how to code something in userland that causes a BSOD? Besides bugs in privileged code or hardware problems, it's not possible for user code to induce a BSOD.