Blue Screens : FARR? just wondering...

[Armando]

Hi people.

I've been experiencing Blue Screens since I got my new computer (Dell inspiron 6400, 9 months ago). "Memory Parity" errors, to be more specific. Now, I've tried pretty much everything I know to resolve my problem (changing RAM modules, removing drivers, changing the page file size, reinstalling windows...). But these damn Blue screens still appear once in a while. Recently, I noticed they always seemed to appear while using FARR. It could really well be mere coincidence. But, in my exasperation, I'm wondering if any of you experienced freezes or similar Blue Screens which could be related to... FARR. I'm hoping not, but at the same time, I so much to resolve that problem -- I've waisted so much time and lost data. i'm fed up.

many many thanks for any advice.

A.

[jgpaiva]

Welll... From my experience.. No.
I've been running farr for more than an year, and never had any blue screens

(sorry to disappoint you )

[Armando]

On the contrary... I've become  so dependent on FARR. 
I never had any problems with my previous laptop.
I was thinking that *maybe* my problem is hard Drive related and that FARR (maybe -- only mouser knows...) has a special way to search the file system and, in some ways, exposes that problem. Just speculating.

A.

[jgpaiva]

I already had a computer that gave me blue screens, and i was so interested in finding out what causing it that i didn't care for any of my programs anymore

Well.. If you suspect of your HD, you should run the SMART check on it. IIRC, speedfan can do that check.

You also should run memcheck (any linux distro has that check included in the boot disk, i think), to make sure it isn't related to your memory.

If you have enough time, you could also reinstall windows, to check if it's related to drivers or not.

[Armando]

Thanks jgpaiva

I already had a computer that gave me blue screens, and i was so interested in finding out what causing it that i didn't care for any of my programs anymore

-jgpaiva (March 25, 2007, 05:20 AM)

Yep, that's me.

I've tried everything you suggested : memtest for 12 hours  : nothing. Reinstalling : nada. Changing my RAM modules : niet. Etc. (I might eventually run 2 instances of prime95, and see, but not this week). After all that I've come to the conclusion that it could be related to my hard drive or my motherboard, but I can't be sure... Anyway, I'm now running the HD in "quiet mode" (a bios setting), and I haven't got a BSOD in ... Three days. (that's not enough days to conclude about anything). I first did that to reduce the temperature, but it didn't.
As long as I don't get more BOSDs, I'll be happy.

Thanks

[Armando]

OK. I've had so much work to do in the last month that I've decided to close my eyes on BSODs (memory parity errors only). After all, I haven't lost any files... Yet.

But the problem is still there. I've actually had no BSODs for 10 days (Wow), using my computer for multiple tasks, multimedia and office, then : 2 BSODs yesterday one after the other. Both happened while searching with FARR, after installing OpenOffice.org (to compare it to MS Office). I'd be surprised that it's related to OO.org, but it's worth to mention.

Tested everything again (RAM, etc.). My computer seems stable, except for these occurrences while using FARR. Weird. More so with the alphas of v.2.

Of course, I'm not implying it's FARR's fault, something wrong with the program. I Use that software so much  . It's really hard to imagine going back to the era where I didn't use it.

But I'm trying to *understand* how could FARR trigger these BSODs. After all, FARR is mainly searching, isn't it ? Or is it ?

Any suggestions ? 

[Armando]

OpenOffice is Gone. But...

Again : BSOD using FARR.
What could do that ???? Why would it only happen when I use FARR ??
Any ideas ?

Should I just send my laptop back to DELL while it's still under warranty ? 

[mouser]

hmmm...
the only thing i can think of is that somehow the kind of disk access is crashing your computer for some reason, and so that file searching is triggering bsods.  do the bsods happen while it is actively searching? or on triggering?  have you run some other benchkmarking tools to try to stress test your computer/memory/disk.  maybe try conducting searches using another tool and see if you cant trigger it.

after many years of farr ive never once had it cause me a bsod even when it has really misbehaved, so i am fairly certain that it's not a case of FARR causing a bsod by doing something bad, but it could be that there is something happening on your pc where disk access of some type could trigger a bsod, which would make farr the thing that is leading to it.

[Armando]

Thanks for your answer mouser.

after many years of farr ive never once had it cause me a bsod even when it has really misbehaved, so i am fairly certain that it's not a case of FARR causing a bsod by doing something bad

Yes, I don't think that FARR is the source of the problem. I've used FARR on another computer without any problems ever. So, it's with this computer that there's a problem. I'm just trying to find out where's the conflict.

the only thing i can think of is that somehow the kind of disk access is crashing your computer for some reason, and so that file searching is triggering bsods.  do the bsods happen while it is actively searching? or on triggering?

It happens at the begining of a search -- not just triggering.

Is there a specific kind of disk access that FARR uses so that I could try to mimic it with some other search program ?
I was going to run something like prime95 to check my laptop's stability... But I don't know if that would be adequate.
Any suggestions ?