Major Crash :: Driver Conflict?

I use a MOTU Pro Audio interface on my Dell Workstation (XP Pro).
Everytime NOD32 updates and I am playing some kind of sound the sound gets garbled or cuts out completely for a second.

It always scared me. Well, today it finally happened... Blue screen came up inmediately after the NOD32 update and the driver lock-up. The MOTU driver was among the error message which I copied and now I can find the piece of paper where I wrote it.

Computer reboots and as Windows begins to load the Welcome screen, AMON blue screens the computer again. I freaked out. I had a busy day ahead of me and I could not afford a problem like this.

I had to remove NOD32 because AMON just crashes EVERY TIME. Safe mode loggin worked and thats how I took NOD32 off.

What the heck happened and why!?
I am really worried about this causing another crash and possibly causing more damage. How do I go about preventing this in the future?

Thank you!

 

To retrieve the blue screen error message, go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Event Viewer. Look at the System Log for errors around the time of the crash. Double-click it and write down the error message, which probably says something like "STOP 0x?? (..., ..., ..., ...) .........".

Also tell us the general system specs of your computer (or the Dell model, if nothing else), so we can get a rough idea of your computer.

In my opinion, you did the right thing by removing NOD32 in Safe Mode. After all, you did have work to do.

 

There is no log of the first crash caused by MOTU driver.

The closest reference to all this happening is a Save Dump log from one of the times when I rebooted the machine...

"The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000007e (0xc0000005, 0xb3ca3a48, 0xba50f328, 0xba50f024). A full dump was not saved."

Where else could this "dumps" be stored?

 

A STOP 0x0000007e message stands for SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. The 0xc0000005 stands for STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION. Put together, these mean that some piece of Windows system code tried to access a piece of memory it wasn't supposed to, causing the computer to crash. These errors can be caused by bad programs, bad drivers, or bad hardware (for example, bad memory).

If the problem is a driver or hardware, you may be able to use the second number in parentheses (0xb3ca3a48 ) to track it down. Go to the Device Manager --> View --> Resources by Type. In the Memory section, look for a range that would contain 0xb3ca3a48.

While you are in the Device Manager, I would also go to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers --> Primary IDE Controller --> Advanced Settings. Make sure that the Transfer Modes are set to "DMA if available", and that the Current Transfer Modes are some type of DMA. Having the hard drives running in PIO mode can slow them down and add greatly to the CPU usage, sometimes causing sound errors like the ones you described. Do the same thing for the Secondary IDE Controller.

I would also look for any new drivers related to your sound, MUTO devices, etc.

There is a folder named C:\Windows\Minidump that contains crash dumps. If need be, they can be run through a debugger to gain more information about the crash states.

 

Thank you for the informative reply. I will do some looking into this. I can almost assure you is the drivers written for this Audio interface. Great product. Shitty Drivers.

Thank you!

 

Hey I checked for the 0xb3ca3a48 device # and there is nothing that matches even closely.

My Primary and Secondary controllers are set to DMA (various).

I just had another crash, this time with a totally different situation and a different error:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: System Error
Event Category: (102)
Event ID: 1003
Date: 12/18/2006
Time: 8:55:24 PM
User: N/A
Computer: DELL670
Description:
Error code 100000ea, parameter1 8800b6e8, parameter2 8a4c3670, parameter3 ba4f3cbc, parameter4 00000001.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 45 System E
0008: 72 72 6f 72 20 20 45 72 rror Er
0010: 72 6f 72 20 63 6f 64 65 ror code
0018: 20 31 30 30 30 30 30 65 100000e
0020: 61 20 20 50 61 72 61 6d a Param
0028: 65 74 65 72 73 20 38 38 eters 88
0030: 30 30 62 36 65 38 2c 20 00b6e8,
0038: 38 61 34 63 33 36 37 30 8a4c3670
0040: 2c 20 62 61 34 66 33 63 , ba4f3c
0048: 62 63 2c 20 30 30 30 30 bc, 0000
0050: 30 30 30 31 0001

I have a serious feeling that it has to do with the Nvidia drivers. It happens pretty often too. I was watching a streaming video from a safe website and tried to drag the video to the side of the screen and everything stopped. Hitting Ctr+Alt+Del only made the screen go dark. Never came back up.

poop.

 

Hello,

Have you verified you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers installed for your Dell workstation, and the latest device drivers for your video card and the MOTU Pro Audio interface?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

I have the latest Bios. I just tried to update the driver on the video card through Windows wizard on the properties page of the Nvidia hardware profile and guess what? Windows did have an update!

But the bad part is that the update was just an older, less feature rich version of the nVidia driver. So I am going to use it and see if I get more crashes.

As far as Motu goes I am hearing a lot of bad stuff about their driver support and the fact that they don't update their drivers very often. I am out of luck with them.

I don't know much about CHIPSET drivers though. Are those like BIOS updates?

 

Hello,

nVidia usually has newer device drivers available on their web site than what is available through the Windows Update service. They also come with whatever standard programs nVidia provides for manipulating the video card.

On a motherboard, the chipset (or chip set), is the group of integrated circuits responsible for interfacing the various components on the motherboard with each other, such as the PCI expansion slots, memory and processor. A chipset also may contain controllers for hardware such as USB ports, disk drives, serial and parallel expansion ports and so forth. While very basic support for the various devices connected to a computer is often built into a computer's BIOS and accessed by the operating system through it, newer devices, or advanced features of a device often require a specialized program called a device driver, in order to allow the operating system to make full use of the device's capabilities. For example, a video card might be able to display more colors and higher resolutions on a screen with the correct device drivers, or a computer might transfer data from a hard disk drive more with the right device drivers.

Just like other hardware, a motherboard's chipset often requires device drivers to work best with an operating system, and manufacturer's often update them to improve compatibility and performance as well as to fix bugs.

If you visit Dell's support web site and enter the service tag for your computer, they should be able to provide you with a list of all of the device drivers available for download from their web site for your computer, included updated chipset device drivers.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

Thank you for the information. You guys rock.

I wanted to let you know that the video driver update that Windows used to update my computer is actually FROM nvidia but it is a very old version. I guess that as nVidia started to add bells and wistles to the driver and software set it became less liked by windows?

I lost a few features with the new driver but if it means a gain in stability I guess I will keep them. I am planning on testing for a few days more before I decide to go to nVidia and download all new updates.

I will go to Dell and scope out the chipset situation, I hope they have some up to date software and that it won't be TOO hard to install. This is my work machine and the last thing I need is down time.

Thank you for the advice!