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I think my computer is toast!


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My show computer (Windows XP) has, I think, lost its mind.

 

Although the Hardware Utility, Show Editor, Schedule, etc... all work fine, when I launch the Sequence editor and try to do anything (open an existing sequence, start a new one, musical or animation) it REBOOTS THE COMPUTER.

 

Yikes.

 

A new machine is not in the budget this year. I'm wondering if anyone else has seen something like this and may have some insight.

 

Also: this computer was my sequencing computer in years past and always worked well, but has never controlled lights before. My show computer failed over the summer, so I moved this one into its place.

 

Cheers,

Charlie

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Could it be a heat issue?  I had a laptop doing that whenever I tried to open something that made it work, I took it apart, cleaned the fan well, and it worked.  Even if the fan is clean and running it doesn't mean it is running full speed.  Other than that it never hurts to run malwarebytes the free version.  Just be careful and do not add a bunch of other stuff on with it like the site advisor etc.  Also unseating and reseating your ram sticks never hurts.   They  just pop right.  Sorry if you already know all of this. 

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Delete all cookies in the Internet Options panel, located in the control panel. The antivirus the whole machine and tell it to delete anything it finds that's got an issue. Uninstall LOR completely and anything else that doens't look familiar such as toolbars and etc...get rid of the junk stuff. Reboot, then use it on a few programs and see if it does its own forced reboot. Oh yes, clean those fans/filters and so on. Its also possible the CPU thermal transfer paste/grease has dried out and failed but unless you have more and know about static precautions with the CPU, do not attempt this. Be sure to blow out the power supply too.

 

If it all looks good, then reinstall LOR and use LOR's driver for the RS485. Do not allow Windows Update to replace that driver with a newer Microsoft version of the driver.

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Does it only reboot with the sequence editor or does it reboot with other apps as well?

 

If it reboots after a certain amount of time it could be the CPU overheating and it is throttling itself to avoid damage.

 

If it reboots on graphically intensive apps it could be the graphics chipset overheating too. About 5 years ago there was a bumpcrack issue with NVIDIA GPUs in notebooks.

 

What kind of computer are you running?

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Thank you all for the replies. The only program that borks is the sequence editor. No matter what temp, cold or warm.

The computer was built 7 or 8 years ago. It has a 1ghz AMD processor with 1.5GB ram and an Asus MB running Windows XP pro.

 

Here's a video of the issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxfZ-dWh_4o

 

Cheers!

Charlie

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Check under Computer (or might be System) properties, might be the advanced tab, and see if you have any kind of Crash Dump enabled. I believe your system is Bluescreening (BSOD, Blue Screen of Death) but because you don't have a crash dump enabled it skips that and just reboots.

 

Check your System Eventlog (Start | Run | type Eventvwr) and you will also probably see an entry related to the crash and even what module (program) is causing the problem.

 

I'd run chkdsk to find/fix any disk errors. If there's still problems I'd try uninstalling and re-installing LOR. If something got corrupted on disk and the SE is trying to read/write to an invalid memory location it will bluescreen.

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After losing half a day I went with the nuclear option: Formatted drive, clean install of Windows XP sp3, fresh LOR... and all is well again! Not the greatest answer, but it was time to cut bait and move on to deploying my show. Cheers, everyone.

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I would still check your eventlog for disk errors. If your disk drive has issues it will just corrupt something again eventually.

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  • 3 weeks later...

That's why I have the miniDirector just in case I have an issue with the computer that I use for the show. Which was a good thing, When I got the new software my old computer would not run it as I was using a 20 year old computer running ME. (remember that one?)

 

I also use the miniDirector to run my Halloween show... Just slap your sequences on a SD card and your up and running....

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For what it's worth..... Microsoft did a huge security update within the last couple of weeks or so, AND, right after that, my DELL had MANY problems, to the point that I had to dump and reinstall... on a second (spare hard drive) the original drive works fine as a 2nd drive in the new build, so it's definitely from the updates and NOT the drive itself.

 

It appears that they are wanting everyone to move to at least windows 7, and doing what they did right before x-mas is, to me.... a scam in itself.

 

I will NEVER purchase another windows version again, Mac machine, or Linux OS for the old desktop.....

 

Greg

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