Author Topic: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago (Read 27592 times)

zridling · « **on:** March 31, 2009, 03:29 PM »

I'm thinking Windows is more stable than its reputation? I asked my friend and she said only twice with Vista-SP1, but that both times were when she was using IE. Last time was last week, after IE8 was installed, and then uninstalled for her.

When was your last BSOD?

MrCrispy · « **Reply #1 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:41 PM »

Last night! To be fair it was while trying to install Windows (Windows home server, based on Server 2003) on a new pc I built, and it was due to missing SATA drivers, but it still counts. And I wish Windows had a better bootloader than the prehistoric ntldr that only understands how to load drivers from a floppy that my pc doesn't have, and I didn't have to try and build a slipstream dvd now.

Ok end of rant

And I've never had a BSOD in more than a year of running Vista, and now Windows 7, on my dekstop and laptop.

Darwin · « **Reply #2 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:43 PM »

What’s a BSOD?

tomos · « **Reply #3 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:46 PM »

When was your last BSOD?
-zridling (March 31, 2009, 03:29 PM)

about two weeks ago (and reasonably regularly too unfortunately) - problem is with the drivers for graphics or for sound - cant figure which

But with my last computer (with 5 years more or less daily use - sound & graphics were onboard) I cant remember any BSODs - there may have been one or two but not more

(both with XP)

Eóin · « **Reply #4 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:46 PM »

So long ago I couldn't give you a time frame...

I think it's actually a testament to the stability of Windows recently that the much parodied 'classic' BSOD dates back to 9x versions.

app103 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:49 PM »

BSOD's are quite rare for me, even on my old WinME machine.

The last one I had was on that WinME machine, about 2 years ago, when I attempted to reboot while still connected to the internet on dialup. I would say that was a modem issue and not a Windows issue, so I don't feel it says anything negative about Windows, itself. That particular modem will always cause a BSOD if you do not disconnect before attempting to reboot or shut down.

I used to get them quite frequently on my P3 (ran WinME, too), and it was related to the ATI graphics drivers. Again, not the fault of Windows.

Almost all cases of BSOD's that I have seen can be traced to bad hardware drivers, an antivirus malfunction (McAfee & Norton, most commonly), or a failing hard drive that is causing data corruption. I have never actually seen one caused by Windows, itself, except once...

Back in the Win98 days, there was some sort of IE vulnerability that could be exploited in AOL chat rooms by typing a certain string of text, that would cause a BSOD and disconnection of everyone in the chat room that was running Win98. That wasn't fun, but Microsoft did patch that about a month later, although some people are slow to update their systems (some things never change) and the problem persisted for a lot of people, for many months.

Darwin · « **Reply #6 on:** March 31, 2009, 03:51 PM »

I think it's actually a testament to the stability of Windows recently that the much parodied 'classic' BSOD dates back to 9x versions.
-Eóin (March 31, 2009, 03:46 PM)

Well, overall I’d say you’re right. I *did* manage to get XP to Blue Screen on a number of occasions over my four year relationship with it but cannot say that I remember having had a BSOD on Vista (32 bit or 64 bit). Very stable.

40hz · « **Reply #7 on:** March 31, 2009, 04:28 PM »

Not since Windows95/98, except for one time with Win2k about 3 months after it came out.

Never experienced it under XP - or on any of the server (NT,2k,2k3,2k8) releases.

(And I hope I don't regret saying that now that I have.

)

tranglos · « **Reply #8 on:** March 31, 2009, 04:31 PM »

When was your last BSOD?
-zridling (March 31, 2009, 03:29 PM)

I wouldn't remember when I last saw it, if it weren't for one program which causes it unnervingly often - True Crypt. Every so often when browsing files on an encrypted volume (a regular file, not a partition) I do get the BSOD with a message indicating a fault in fastfat.sys. Creating a new encrypted volume and moving files to it doesn't seem to have helped. Thankfully, the files on the volume are unaffected.

Other than that, I guess the last BSOD I saw on XP was from some FPS game, years ago. XP is good to me.

fenixproductions · « **Reply #9 on:** March 31, 2009, 06:31 PM »

I am not sure but there are two possibilities for my machine:
- last reinstall - so two years ago (but I doubt it; Kaspersky broke my Windows to the state there was no BSOD; black screen instead);
- more than four years ago with Win98 and broken CD-ROM (BSODs with too much scratched CDs);

rgdot · « **Reply #10 on:** March 31, 2009, 06:44 PM »

Not since Win98, mind you I skipped ME straight to the mighty XP (watch it take its revenge now that I have called it mighty

)

mrainey · « **Reply #11 on:** March 31, 2009, 07:31 PM »

Using XP, I only get them when I install a new version of the Java runtime and forget to disable auto update and quick starter. Once that's done, never a BSOD.

Gothi[c] · « **Reply #12 on:** March 31, 2009, 09:30 PM »

I'm a *nix user, so I barely ever use Windows. However, my last bsod happens to be the last time i booted windows

MSVC compiler somehow crashed, bsod followed. So, no, for me the reputation is still valid

4wd · « **Reply #13 on:** March 31, 2009, 10:54 PM »

Yesterday, XP Pro + SP3.

Didn't take much notice of how it occurred, running one program then went run another and bang!

Programs ran fine together after a reboot, so just some transient alignment of the planets - the usual thing that causes XP to BSOD.

Shades · « **Reply #14 on:** March 31, 2009, 11:11 PM »

On my own system? At least 5 years ago, around the time I really started to use my nlite'd installation cd.

No fluff...no BSOD's

ewemoa · « **Reply #15 on:** April 01, 2009, 12:05 AM »

On my notebook, after installing TrueCrypt to try it out recently (in the last month or two), I got a BSOD. Quite surprised actually -- I don't think I ever had a BSOD on my notebook before.

Another PC I look after on and off initially had a lot of BSODs -- it seems that it was partly due to faulty RAM as after that was replaced, didn't have BSODs for quite some time. Sadly, recently have been experiencing BSODs on this machine more often, perhaps once a month? (I expect it has to do with the relatively non-PC savvy users that are its primary users.)

f0dder · « **Reply #16 on:** April 01, 2009, 12:38 AM »

MSVC compiler somehow crashed, bsod followed. So, no, for me the reputation is still valid
-Gothi[c] (March 31, 2009, 09:30 PM)

That sounds plain weird - a crashing usermode program causing a BSOD? Never had that happen O_o

I've had a few BSODs over the last years, but most have been from my own driver code - that's hardly the fault of Windows. The other crashes have been because of nvidia drivers, and have been limited to boot-time BSODs - ie., because nvidia fscked up a driver release and somehow made it incompatible with my gf8800... can't remember the last time I've had a BSOD while my system was running.

a_lunatic · « **Reply #17 on:** April 01, 2009, 01:30 AM »

When eset stuffed up an update & released Nod32 V4 was the last BSOD I got which was all most 2 weeks a go

mouser · « **Reply #18 on:** April 01, 2009, 01:39 AM »

That sounds plain weird - a crashing usermode program causing a BSOD? Never had that happen O_o

jalbum, the excellent java based image gallery tool can reliably blue screen and reboot my pc. never figured out why or how.

J-Mac · « **Reply #19 on:** April 01, 2009, 01:42 AM »

Grrrrr....

A long time? Surely you jest, Z-Man!! I have a BSOD-making machine here! My box - a custom-built lemon by Falcon Northwest - has an Asus/Nvidia motherboard that has never gotten along with Nvidia's display drivers. I used to have BSOD's at the rate of literally 8 or 10 a week. Less now since I have changed out graphics cards twice. Also, Falcon installed a Hauppauge TV Tuner card that also seems to have conflicts with just about any other audio codecs in use on the box. Then there is the fact that Nvidia arrogantly has their display drivers grab interrupts based on written code, whether or not something else is already using it, and it refuses to allow XP to manage the sharing as XP normally does. This seems to only be a problem with Creative sound cards. Someone here at DC advised me of this: Whenever a new graphics driver is available from Nvidia, I must first uninstall the Creative X-Fi xtreme Music card, install the new Nvidia driver, and then reinstall the Creative card! Creative - not particularly known for the best drivers themselves - at least survey the interrupts and changes its choices based on what's using what, unlike Nvidia's selfish crap.

OK, enough on my box. Now let's talk about the new Dell i530 I got for my wife! Her ATI graphics card crashed at least twice a week for almost a year. Aarrgghhh - graphics card driver hell! I'm in it!!

Actually I just found yet another solution for this a few days ago and she is now on the longest straight run without a BSOD since I bought the darned thing. Dell is clueless, as usual. Lots of Dell users of their HD2400 monitor are experiencing this evidenced by the forum posts at the Dell Community, but Dell has not offered any solution thus far. I just tried a new release of ATI's control center software and driver but only after a long and thorough cleaning out of ALL registry keys related to ATI - and man oh man are there a few of them. Supposedly this has worked for a lot of folks.

Long time ago?? $&&%*(%%!!

Jim

f0dder · « **Reply #20 on:** April 01, 2009, 01:44 AM »

That sounds plain weird - a crashing usermode program causing a BSOD? Never had that happen O_o
jalbum, the excellent java based image gallery tool can reliably blue screen and reboot my pc. never figured out why or how.
-mouser (April 01, 2009, 01:39 AM)

Interesting - I didn't think the JVM used any driver components, so it really shouldn't be able to do that

The only usermode crashes I've seen since Win9x have been exploits (and the only one I can remember was something that exploited a GDI "stuff mapped in usermode that really shouldn't be but we did it this way for performance" kinda thing).

mouser · « **Reply #21 on:** April 01, 2009, 01:51 AM »

i should say the windows xp, both 32 and 64, has been extreeeeeeemely stable and well behaved for me.
(which is why the jalbum bsod is all the more unsual).

iphigenie · « **Reply #22 on:** April 01, 2009, 04:19 AM »

I have had a BSOD a few months ago, and it was - as it nearly always is - linked to a hardware/driver issue. Easily fixed

Your average windows is just as stable as your average linux, the one thing that makes it unstable is that there are a lot more crazy apps people can install and over-install until it gets unstable.

And when it comes to servers - if you know what you are doing there is no disadvantage to windows. If I consider the uptime for servers in my last, say, 8 years, BSD and windows actually win over linux

rjbull · « **Reply #23 on:** April 01, 2009, 04:39 AM »

A few weeks ago, trying to run EmEditor portable from a USB, saved a simple macro, clicked EmEditor's macro button and <<POW>>. XP said a hardware problem; could be, I don't know.

f0dder · « **Reply #24 on:** April 01, 2009, 04:43 AM »

A few weeks ago, trying to run EmEditor portable from a USB, saved a simple macro, clicked EmEditor's macro button and <<POW>>. XP said a hardware problem; could be, I don't know.
-rjbull (April 01, 2009, 04:39 AM)

Was it a BSOD, though, or a critical error messagebox about delay-write error? There's a big difference between the two.