Wot tha?????.....CRASH!!!

[[1ponders]]

Ok this one is out there in the gaps in the great unknown of my computer knowledge.

Twice this week my laptop has shutdown. And I don't mean wound down and turned off, I mean, one second I'm working and the next the screen is black and the machine has stopped. No BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) just nadda, nothing, zip.

The first time I just restarted and np, it booted up and kept going it's merry way. This time it started up, loaded everything in windows that normally loads up and then came up with a fatal exception message and required to be shut down. This time it goes through the file check process at the start. Of course this all happens while I'm trying to autoguide through a shot :scared:.

The only thing I can put it down to is my GPUSB adapter. It locked up the other night (after making sure it had engaged the dec correction first and left the correction running) and this error seemed to indicate a USB problem.

I've been running the GPUSB through a hub along with my Webcam usb connection. Has anyone else had this issue or should I just run the GPUSB straight through a USB port on my laptop.

Or am I right off the rails and it's probably something else? BTW I'm running XP (service pack 2)

[Gama]

If the USB port is drawing to much current, it will think theres a short and shut the computer OFF. My sony VAIO did it, so i ran an external powered hub.

Theo

[netwolf]

Is the system overheating? Could be dust in the fan or exhaust. IS the fan running full time?

Try pressing F8 before windows starts and use the "Last known good configuratio" option. If that also BSOD's then try F8 and Safe mode and go back to a restore point.

Regards
Fahim

[[1ponders]]

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

Theo, the hub I was connected to is externally powered so current draw shouldn't be a problem.

Fahim, the fan does runn fairly often, but it's about 6 deg atm so I'm thinking it should be cool enough, mind you the fan's been getting pretty noisey over the past few months.

[acropolite]

Paul, I had a laptop doing exactly the same, turned out to be a dry joint in the charger socket, sometimes the power led was lit, others it was out, might be worth checking to make sure the plugpack is charging. Another fault I've seen is the plugpack wiring goes s/c inside the insulation, quite common where the connecting cable is wound around the plugpack repeatedly for storage or transport.

[[1ponders]]

I dont think its the charger Phil. My battery only lasts for about 20 min at the best of times and there is no indiator in the task bar showing the battery is running down. Mind you the AC cable is pretty kinky :P. While it's not been wrapped around my elbow, you know what an extension lead looks like after a while of doing that. That is what my ac lead looks like.

[netwolf]

Paul,

Shutdown as you have described would not be OS initiated, more likely a hardware fault causing it. The OS would shutdown quickly but with some amount of grace. The ungraceful sudden shutdown you indicate is more like a system detecting a fault condition. This can lead to key OS files becoming corrupted and then you get the BSOD. Some BSOD's are fixable some are not. Either way usually you can retrive your data by placeing the disk in another system via a USB enclosure and relevant adapters.

Last week i had the similar situation with a user, reporting fan always on and over heating. After opening it up we discovered dust blocking the air passage between fan and exhaust. This was keeping the heat inside and hence making the System board keep the fan on more often. Until eventual overheating causes shutdown. The abnormal shutdowns eventually caused registry corruptions such that the system became unstable and so we reloaded it, post cleaning and replacing CPU and System board (just incase the heat had damaged these).

What make model is your system?

If your battery last 20mins then even if external power failed you would continue on battery so sounds like something internal to your laptop.

Regards
Fahim

[[1ponders]]

Its about a 2-3 yo Acer Aspire 3000. Its generally been pretty good up until now. As I said the fan has been a bit noisy lately and it has had a pretty good caning during its life, it's my outside imaging control laptop. Plenty of dew and dust in this baby, plus when I'm outside I have a towel on the table where the laptop sits so it isn't getting very good air circulation underneath it.

I suppose I should really retire it this year. It's been a dedicated hard worker, especially the way I thump it about with Photoshop :P

[netwolf]

Paul, if its got warranty its worth getting it checked out if not open it up yourself and take a peak.

Regards

[Jeff]

Might want to be careful placing the laptop on a towel while it is running. I had a several month old Dell laptop recently die on me after placing it on the carpet overnight (with the lid shut, but still running). Turned out that the air intake is underneath and placing on a bed or carpet causes major overheating with the Dells (lots of Goggle hits of similar things hapenning to many people).

Fix for the Dell was to replace the motherboard and memory (got this done under warranty ... luckily). Suspect yours could be shutting down due to heat issues (inbuilt protection in the BIOS). Might we worth installing a "monitor" program from the manf site or Download.com to see what's hapenning with fan speeds and CPU temperature.

Good Luck,
Jeff

[[1ponders]]

It's well out of warranty Fahim so I will open it up and have a look. Any suggestions on how to de-dust it?

Jeff, I've been thinking for a while about this exact issue but I wasn't expecting it to just shut down. Guess I'd better put a smooth surface underneath it then. Its just the smooth surfaces collect so much dew. :(

[acropolite]

Paul, there should be a power indicator to show power is being supplied by the plugpack. Kinks in the low voltage side of the power supply could be the problem, overheating as the others have said and dust. Dust often has an affinity for moisture (particularly if plaster or cement are involved) and can become conductive. I'd be dismantling :scared: the beast and cleaning any dust out. Don't try and pull it apart without a manual, they can usually be downloaded from the manufacturers site, once you have the technical manual and the associated instructions pulling apart should present no real problem.

[[1ponders]]

I think I will give it a bit of a clean out. What do you suggest for removing the dust from around the fan housing?

[GTB_an_Owl]

soft brush and any sort of blower like a balloon pump or even hair dryer Paul

i use compressed air in my workshop - but i have made sure it is well filtered

you can buy a platform that has fans in it - runs off a usb port on the laptop to put the laptop on

or you can use something like a metal cake airer/cooler - flatten two of the metal legs to give it a bit of angle - lets the air circulate under the lappy

geoff

[rally]

I would seriously doubt its dust causing this particular problem, but maybe worth a clean if you have eliminated everything else.

Try not to blow the dust into the circuit board if you can help it - vacuum the dust off and then maybe a final blow off with high pressure air.
Its not recommended but I have done it many, many times in one particu;ar dirty environment and have never had even a little problem - but I was using high pressure air from a compressor through an air gun.

You probably run more risk damaging things by disassembling than if you left it - dust and all.

Sounds to me like its power related - somehow the power is being interrupted, either through a bad connection, dry joint as was suggested or maybe the power supply is cutting out or has a problem.

Could be heat related in that a crack or bad joint opens up due to a temperature change and breaks contact. ?

Check all the contact connections, joints and wires and the battery pack thoroughly before pulling it apart completely.

[[1ponders]]

ARRRGGGGH!!!! It did it again. And its definitely a USB problem. I'd been using the self guider on my SBIG all night, it started to play up for some reason so I switched over to the GPUSB adapter and within 10 min ...Crash. Same story as last time, no warning just shut off. I rebooted, the computer did a files che ck, windows started up, got autoguiding again ...crash, but this time there was a screen that came up saying that it was a usb problem. The only thing that had been added from what had already been there all night was the Shoestring Adapter.

Is there anything I can do?

[Zuts]

Hi,

If it is the USB port, maybe you can bypass the one on the motherboard and get a PCMCIA one and then run this to a powered USB hub. PCMCIA usb cards are cheap and can be got for around 20 AUD.

Paul

[[1ponders]]

Hi Paul, I have a spare usb port on my laptop so I'll try using this and bypassing the hub, just means another longer cable from the spaghetti tree.

The only problem with using a USB PCMCIA card is that that slot is currently occupied with a wireless network PCMCIA card. If I get rid of that how will I keep in touch with ISS when I'm out in the middle of the paddock? ;)

[netwolf]

Could there be a ground loop? I am assuming you are using a powered usb hub.

[[1ponders]]

I guess it is possible Fahim, but it only happens with the GPUSB plugged in. My electrical setup has me running all AC connections through Clipsal 4 outlet RCD (the heavy duty orange ones) except for the laptop and AC adapter for the hub. Those two run off a 4 plug board plugged into the RCD. For that board I have:

Laptop>powered USB hub via USB cable> PCFC focusing (Shoestring), guide camera, GPUSB (Shoestring). The GPUSB then goes to my handcontroller port in the Digital Drive.

USB adapter> USB hub

The digital drive is powered by a 2 amp regulated ac>dc tranformer that is plugged into a different point in the RCD to the laptop and usb hub. I also have dew heaters running from other ac>dc transformers but again are using seperate points in the RCD.

The only thing I'm sceptical about the ground loop theory is that the blue screen info that came up the second time definitely said it was a USB driver issue. I can't remember the whole lot but it filled the screen and it was different to the usual blue screen of death.

[Screwdriverone]

Hi Paul,

With respect to the cooling problem, I had the same sort of heat issue with my laptop when using it to watch DVD's in bed and the fan intake was on the doona.

I bought a Dick Smith cooling pad for about $30 bucks, similar to this one (http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/4835147200757aaa2741c0a87f9c0707/Product/View/XH0479).

It plugs into the USB port to run the fans in it and keeps the base of the laptop cool and therefore the rest of it cool also. It has a USB hub in it also and 3 fan speeds.

I no longer require this one so if you are interested, let me know via PM and I am sure I can let you have it for a reasonable price. ;) I have included a picture below.

Cheers

Chris

[[1ponders]]

Thanks for the offer Chris, I'll see how I go. On the night that I've not used the GPUSB I haven't had any problems, plus I've been putting the laptop on a small "table" to keep it off the towels. Its also been only 3 deg outside at night as well :lol: so heating up aint been a problem :lol:

[Tandum]

Sounds like ram to me. Download a copy of memtest 86 from memtest86.com. It's a bootable ISO download so burn the disk and boot from it. Let it run all night and see if it detects any ram errors.

[[1ponders]]

It could be ram. The laptop has been an absolute pain the last few weeks. About as fast as molasses in winter. :(

[leinad]

Did you ever solve this problem Paul?
I experienced this 3 times last night, and Im not sure what caused it, though I suspect its very likely powered USB problem and GPUSB.

I had the DMK, GPUSB, DSUSB all plugged into the Powered USB Hub which was connected to the laptop via USB M-F cable.

Free USB ports on Laptop were for Canon350D, and Usb-To Serial adaptor.( I only have 3 usb ports on lappie).
I had the long end for USB extension cable from Laptop to Hub.

Often PHD Guiding would crash, and Id need to disconnect the Cam usb cable and reconnect. On occasion when taking subs with the Canon and PHD guiding, The laptop would BSOD with an 'kb.sys' error and reboot??

I have a feeling that the powered hub is not so good for the GPUSB and DMK/GPUSB. I can only think that there is a conflict occuring through the USB cable that the GPUSB and DMK share that is causing the BSOD crash?

[leinad]

From above, I found this mention of USB controllers sharing devices and crashing under high stress.

Windows XP will BSOD with a STOP 0x0000001E in Usbhub.sys when the USB bandwidth consumption exceeds 100 percent? 17-Sep-02

If you connect a USB (javascript:void(0)) device to the same USB host controller (javascript:void(0)) that you are using to stream video or audio (javascript:void(0)), the USB devices are re-enumerated on the bus, causing bandwidth consumption to exceed 100 percent. This high stress causes the driver to fail.

To workaround this behavior, use any one of the following methods:
- Connect the new USB device (javascript:void(0)) to a different USB host controller than the one you are using for streaming (javascript:void(0)) video or audio.
- Stop the stream , connect the device, and start the stream.
- Connect the new USB device before you start streaming USB video or audio.

Link:
http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=5733



Then also noticed that PHD FAQ says this...

Q) Last nite my entire system crashed with the dreaded Blue Screen appearing. I rebooted and every thing was fine, however i did turn off the enable server, just in case that was causing some kind of conflict.
A) BSODs BTW, can only really be caused by something operating at a low-level, like a system / kernel level driver. PHD itself operates in the user space and so can’t directly cause a BSOD. PHD can call a camera driver that can cause a BSOD, however.



Seems this may be the cause of the BSOD,... Im going to try using both cameras connected individually to the laptop.


Which then leaves me to 1 last Usb port connected to usb hub (GPUSB, DSUSB, usb-to-serial adaptor? )

[[1ponders]]

No I didn't resolve the issue. I decided to only run the GPUSB directly from a USB2 port on the laptop. Since doing that I haven't had any problems. You should be able to run the 350D from the hub with np so that would free up one of your ports. You may also be able to run your USB - Serial from the hub as well. Well... mine does.

[wasyoungonce]

Most problems like this are driver and software issues.

Sometimes when you get a problem windows shuts down and re-boots and you do not see a BSOD.

If you want you can stop the auto shutdown/re-boot computer action so it shows you a proper BSOD screen. From this you can track the error on the internet by googling the error. Follow this MS article to turn of auto re-start on fail. *Note the link for MS I gave below harps on about other problems but the auto re-start procedure is still valid:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/russel_02may13.mspx



You can also try these little test applications to test your Lappy.

Memtest, for testing ram. Download the ISO image and burn to CD. Boot from that CD to auto run the memtest application. This should find RAM errors...although I once had a stick that passsed but it definately had issues, that's an exception:

http://www.memtest86.com/


Super PI 1.5, for heat testing CPU, Mboard and etc. Super Pi 1.5 is actually a computer overclocking test program that stresses the CPU making it run hot. Run it along with the core temp program to monitor your CPU temps. Obviously if you get rediclous temps (70degrees C+) or the system BSOD's thats you problem area:

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/366/
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

[leinad]

Yeah Ill try that out Paul. I think possibly the new powered USB hub is useless. I'll need to try the other one I have.

Do all usb hubs provide the same power output?

When I plugged in the Canon to the Hub it wasnt recognised. So I had to connect it directy to laptop via another 5m usb cable I had.

I am running a 5m USB cable from laptop to the hub, so possible distance/voltage is a problem.
NB: Im also using the supplied mini-usb to usb cable supplied with Canon camera.

So all in all, I had the DMK, DSUSB, GPUSB connected to the hub via 5m usn cable to laptop. I think these devices were all competing through the hub down the same USB cable.. and in aa compete for resources, clashed and crashed the laptop.

From memory, after I'd done 10 seq. 2min exposures, and then went to hit capture button for 5min exp 'bang'.. bsod and crash.

So I'm now wondering whether I need to; plug the hub to laptop first, then buy more 5m usb cables for each device(hub to device so that).

Any alternatives to this? The above should work I think?